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Entry: My "Mugger-Loving" Mom Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/gerry_and_the_mooley#20220 Post contents: Great story. But racism didn't get us legal abortion. Quite the opposite. What got us legal abortion was the same incentive giving rise to the predominant and pervasive anti-racism amongst young, fertile women, that kept and keeps abortion legal: it is in each woman's perceived best interest to avoid restrictions on mate choice. Racist or racial, or any ethnically-based policy smacks, to women, of unfairly limiting their opportunity to mate with the best male of their generation available to them. Think Othello. (Think also of all those faerie tales of the girl marrying the more worthy poor young man as opposed to the goof who happens to be the son of some neighborhood Duke magnate chiefton; women have their own rules on who is the best guy and do not want that choice compromised.) Likewise, even your Catholic young women, in significant part, give a pass to abortion. As statistically insignificant as pregnancy resulting from rape is, not being permitted to abort would, in a female's probably correct perspective, exponentially increase the devastation to her future prospects of securing a best-possible mate and raising a happy family. Why? Because, as she probably noticed, and accurately so I would say, men, especially young men, have and act in accordance with, a disincentive to raising bastards. (Ubiquitous and perhaps mandatory DNA testing, however, could mix things up to the extent it has the potential to provide the identity of any rapist, which might lead to a reduction in rape (or at least rape induced pregnancies; I imagine they'll come up with a rape-quality condom).) Pregnancies fall within a range of desirability from the female perspective. At one range, an old girl gets knocked up, perhaps on purpose, by a man who's child she will carry with or without him joining her in wedded matrimony or in any other way --his genes are that good/she's that old, e.g. a certain unnamed celebrity single-mom raising the child of some other celebrity guy, or mothers of sperm-donor kids. At another side, is the young girl at the start of her life/career/search who is impregnated by a guy who's child, either on second-thought or right from the get go, she knows she doesn't want to carry, e.g. rape victims. (Somewhere in the middle is the woman knocked up by some joker. Safe legal abortion is just the icing on the devil's cake there.) The young women want the option; the older ones feel for the position of the younger ones; only tough old women like your mother in that scene rise above that. They vote the option because, though there is small chance of it happening, rape induced pregnancy is so devastating. Having it legal is like having an insurance policy. Abortion is legal not because of democrats or republicans or some philosopher but because women and weak men have the vote. Sent at: 2008 10 12