Control, Shift, Delete

A must read feature from the Telegraph:

In all social change, nothing ever turns out quite as predicted. Campaigners tend to believe, Pollyanna-like, that human nature is endlessly perfectable, and all will be solved when new laws are put in place. In truth, human nature is rather better described by Dr Johnson, who observed that: "Whatever is done easily will be done frequently."

And that, I suggest, is the short answer to those who wring their hands asking why Britain's abortion rate climbs annually, despite the wide menu of contraceptive choice. Abortion is relatively inexpensive today: it is easily accessed and the acceptable social attitude is that it is simply a personal choice, with no moral or ethical dimensions. This is not quite how it always works out, but that is broadly the way it is seen.

Easy, cheap and accessible - why wouldn't it increase each year? More than one in 10 women in their late twenties to early thirties has had an abortion, according to a survey earlier this week. Moreover, some women actually prefer abortion to contraception as a means of controlling their fertility. An experienced abortion practitioner once told me: "Some women do not know whether they want to be pregnant until they are. They want to exercise that choice after the pregnancy has occurred, not before.

-- Nora