Whoopi Goldberg, Ron Paul and multiple-abortion statistics

Reason magazine highlights a clip of Ron Paul debating abortion on The View. Whoopi Goldberg points out how she really doesn't like abortion, but it should still be legal. The logic: No one wants to have one, so when they choose to, it's the result of careful consideration.

One way to test this theory is by looking at multiple abortions -- if a woman sees abortion as something to avoid, and then a decision to (ahem) labor over, one wouldn't expect her to have to use it more than once.

But as of 1998, if you picked a random woman walking into an abortion clinic, there was almost a 50-50 shot she'd already had one. The number hasn't changed much. And as I've previously noted, a woman will have an average of .9 abortions before she turns 45, though only 1 in 3 women aborts even a single child by that age. Combine those two facts, and there are almost three abortions for each woman who aborts at all.

If a fetus is not a human life, this presents no problem whatsoever. But this nuanced position -- abortion is bad, and no one wants to have one, but it's only done with careful consideration, so we should keep it legal -- doesn't work with the facts. Too many abortions take place with women who've had at least one chance to learn.