INTERNATIONAL: "Abortion: A bit better; A new report on abortion offers glimmers of hope," The Economist, 17 October 2009.

Despite feeling that abortion is a very regrettable thing, I am very pro-choice with reasonable limits on gestation (like most Americans). Because the best way to develop an economy and foster freedom is to empower women--the paycheck being the best birth control method known to humanity.

I noted in PNM: it's mostly legal across the Core (save hard-core Catholic states) to get abortions, and it's mostly illegal across the Gap ("Fully 86% of the women of reproductive age in the poor world outside China and India (which have liberal abortion laws) live in countries that restrict it tightly.").

Turns out, where it's more legal, there are fewer abortions over time, but unwanted pregnancies (and thus abortions) are decreasing all over the world, thanks in part to HIV and more use of condoms and simply more alternatives--to include international adoption (this being one of the primary reasons Vonne and I first decided to adopt from China).

To that end, Obama gets big kudos for ending the so-called Mexico City gag rule almost immediately after his inauguration. That was the rule that forbade family-planning charities from getting US aid if they provided or promoted abortions. I explicitly condemned that logic in PNM, and was delighted to see Obama make that call.