They aren’t. They tend to be more other-directed and to have friendships that are more conversation-based as opposed to activity-based.

I think your circle of friends may be peculiar. My mother, whose social circle was composed of women whose fertility ran out around 1970, had not one friend who admitted to having had an abortion. (My mother was a gregarious women with dozens of friends).

It is sad that an unwanted pregnancy drives some women to desperation, but it doesn’t alter the fact that there is life, a creation of God sent to the world.

You may not know how old I am, but 98% of my acquaintances’ and friends’ abortions were pre-Roe and illegal. Illegal abortion was very common in cities; I don’t know much about rural areas. They came from many many different cities, by the way.

So once again you’re operating on the wrong premises.

What’s more, I did not say that any of those women blamed men. They did not, actually. But I know other people – not well, and/or through work or study – whose boyfriends and/or husbands insisted on abortions and the women didn’t necessarily want them. If you’re not aware of that you’re living in a dreamworld.

Nor does any of this have to do with my own history. I always had a horror of abortion and used birth control quite assiduously. Fortunately I never had an unwanted pregnancy, only a wanted one.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/09/hillary-endorsed-abortion-group-targeting-churches-is-a-front-for-revolutionary-communists/

“… all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.”

I haven’t looked at Alito’s opinion but I’ve not seen any references to either Casey or Dobbs overruling Doe though it maybe that Casey simply superseded it.

The whole topic revolves around how Roe legitimized abortion, and how now they are so common as to be unremarkable (a fact I, and many others, despair). So, half your friends have had an abortion, and a sizeable percentage who wont admit it will have too. They did not specify when, I’d guess, and so it is just as (if not more) likely they had them later in life (as you say, when they have had a family and want no more) and thus probably post freely available prophylactics (and post Roe – a 21 year old then would be 70 now, so unless your peer-group is in its 80’s or 90’s, or they all had underage sex and an abortion, they probably all did so post).

Women are considerably more ‘social animals’ than men and also more risk averse (for good biological and rational reasons) and as such they are both more susceptible to social pressure, and less likely to break the law (even if they disagree vehemently with it). Thus the ‘extremis’ that they must face to overcome both guaranteed stigma, being ostracized, as well as arrest was considerable, yet it did (unfortunately) regularly occur, but it was not common. Also, I can’t think of any memoirs (please cite) where (pre legalization) any woman would admit having, let alone state it (except as gossip/rumor/common knowledge that the ‘lower classes/wrong types’ did so) as common.

Equating behavior post legalization and widespread acceptance (by their peers) as reasonable with “it was always thus” is blatantly wrong. All the data shows this (excepting the fantasies of pro zealots), hospital, doctor, police, courts, adoption, death records, etc., etc., etc.. Unwanted pregnancies, and children, did happen but with stigma et al it was still considerably (massively so) less than any year since.

[I stand in awe of the mental gymnastics required by most women, who blame abortion (and every other ill that they choose to engage in) on men forcing them (which did occur, but as tiny fraction compared to women choosing independently), then admitting most men only know if the woman chooses to inform him, and he has no say even if informed. I’m surprised you all don’t dislocate something.]

But … your blog, your rules, and so I will withdraw.

You misunderstood me and are conflating two things I said.

I said that half the women I know have had an abortion. AN abortion, not many abortions. This involves women I know well and others I don’t know particularly well. It’s not a unitary bunch where all the women are similar, either.

I also said that I have read in non-political memoirs from the early part of the 20th century that many urban woman (not half the population, but many) had abortion after abortion after abortion. This was when birth control was not available to most people.

And although it’s the case that many men would do anything for their loved ones, there are also plenty who won’t and who are only too happy to not have any more children and to encourage women to have abortions. In addition, men don’t necessarily know that these women were pregnant or that they had abortions. It’s something a woman can keep secret if she can manage to get the money for an illegal abortion. Women also sometimes tried to self-abort, without the man knowing it.

Abortion was far more common than you seem to think, I’m afraid.