Frankly, I wish there was more of a stigma to having a child out of wedlock. I blame Jennifer Anniston.

Bring back the scarlett letter and brand them all on the forehead, I say.

Jay, I'm not sure which Jennifer you're thinking of, but even garner got the wedding ring before the birth.

I was referring to the Friends character.

Bring back the scarlett letter and brand them all on the forehead, I say.

Good suggestion!

And more women used birth control as it lost stigma, too.

So what?

I consider abortion bad and birth control not bad. That's what.

I don't remember abortion being much of a stigma in Great Britain. They're not predominately Catholic. I also remember Alfie coming out in the 1960 s.

Oh, they're not predominantly Catholic. Ok then. WTF?

Haven't abortion rates in the U.S. been more or less going down at the same time though? The actual survey question was whether abortion should be legal up to 24 weeks, with which I think a (slight) majority of folks in the U.S. would still agree, so I am not sure if lack of "stigma" (or an increased lack of stigma) alone can be the cause for the rise in the abortion rate in the U.K. (And looking at the graph, up during Thatcher, down or flat during Major and then up again during Blair - almost a reverse correlation for those matching abortion rates against the economy/poverty.)

I don't think this kind of thing can be taken in isolation. By all sorts of measures British society is becoming less civilized - the Blairites are trying to hold it all together by constructing a police state, but in the end it's probably futile.

Eric:

Guess what -- fundamentalist Muslims hate abortion and have tons of kids (who'll soon be voting), so that bit of "civility" might return sooner than you hope.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

um i feel that u guz r gay

and u guz smell like baby shit