Nevertheless I am against changing the legal position. This is because I think that there are desperate situations where a foetus must be removed from inside a woman quite late in pregnancy, and I wouldn't want the woman or the doctors to be deprived of this recourse.
I do think late abortion is a dreadful thing. There is one obvious way in which it can be reduced - and that is to make early abortion easier to obtain. Reduce the cost, stigma, waiting period and other barriers, and the proportion of late abortions will reduce.
There are three sure-fire ways to reduce the number of abortions overall. These are, in order of ease of making it happen: 1 - More widespread understanding of reproduction and access to contraception. 2 - Reduce the hardship and stigma associated with motherhood (e.g. among the young, the old, the unmarried etc) 3 - make women more financially and emotionally independent of men (so they are more confident to say no to sex they aren't happy with). In other words - radical feminism.
Some people of traditional views may not like these changes, but if they really feel abortion is as overwhelming a social evil as they say, I don't see how they can oppose them.
