Here’s an idea for the anti-abortion folks: Instead of trying to scare and intimidate women and girls into not having abortions, why not support and encourage them to have their babies. It’s called positive reinforcement — using reward to encourage a desired behavior instead of punishment to discourage unwanted behavior. Psychologists say it’s the best way to achieve desired behaviors. If abortion foes truly care about those babies, they’ll do what’s best for the babies — work to ensure the well-being of the mothers, both physically and emotionally. Promises of pre-natal care, help with expenses, rides to the doctor’s office, a friend at delivery, and help with the newborn or with an adoption, would be more convincing than screaming demonstrators and threats of sermons, ultrasounds, and invasive probes with transvaginal wands. Unless, of course, the goal really is just to bully, intimidate, and punish pregnant women.
Related articles
- Wave of Ultrasound Bills About Humiliating Abortion Seekers (alternet.org)
- Pennsylvania next in line to require transvaginal U/S prior to abortion (scienceblogs.com)
- Rick Santorum opposes insurance-paid screenings for birth defects, saying they’ll lead to abortions (pennlive.com)
- Alabama Senator Rewriting Abortion Law To Allow Women To Choose Ultrasound Method (alan.com)
- Trans-Vaginal ultrasounds required to get abortions – wait, that’s like rape (losthighwaytimes.com)
- Common prenatal tests become campaign issue (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
What a great point. Had never considered this before. Sadly, I feel the loonies on the anti-abortion rickety bandwagon will never get it -sigh-.
Interesting and very cool post!
Thx. I hadn’t thought about it before either. It just came to me the other night when I was reading yet another article about forcing women to have transvaginal ultrasounds.
Hey. Obviously the MEN know best. So sit down, hold that Aspirin between your knees, and be quiet (pull that skirt down…or suffer the consequences). Help women and use positive reinforcement? That’s just so “womanly”…making it easier to raise kids? Easier to just shame and bully them into submission. They are supposed to be submissive. I’ll stop now as this makes me crazy. Great post – hope lots of people read it
It really is all about motive, isn’t it?
I’ve always told my friends that if the pro-lifers had taken all that money they do on fighting abortion and use it in support of women, health care, prenatal care, a roof over their heads, food, etc. for women who would prefer giving up their baby over an abortion, then we’d all be in such a better place. The abortion rate would drop, adoptions would increase, and families grow. Huh… imagine that. Something positive.
Both sides want to reduce the number of abortions. I will never understand why some people prefer to do it through fear and intimidation.