Let us enter into one of the most derisive, confusing and divisive subjects in the western world: abortion.

In 2012, a mind-numbing 46 million women around the planet chose abortion rather than bringing a child into the world. (Source: World Health Organization) They chose abortion through desperation, poverty and lack of birth control. This termination of 46 million fetuses occurs year after year after year. It may be noted that 96 percent of women choose abortion as a secondary form of birth control; in other words, they cannot obtain birth control.

Another 46 million women will choose abortion in 2013 because of the same reasons. What other motives might cause them to choose abortion? They choose abortion because of rape, incest and inability to feed their eight children already depending on them for existence. In America, they choose abortion because they may be too young or too broke to raise a child, don't want to enter into a marriage with the violent father or suffer from being single without a father. Other women abort because they may be too old or lack the means to start a family again.

In the religious world, the Catholic Church, headed by an antediluvian pope and a gob of anachronistic men still thinking in the 15thcentury-remains the biggest obstacle to birth control in the world. The pope watches human starvation, disease and misery in Africa and Latin America brought about by endless human overpopulation-but remains steadfast in his anti-birth control for women around the world. No greater disconnect with reality can be found anywhere else in the world than the "men of the Vatican."

Lawrence E. Harrison, author of Underdevelopment is a State of Mind, chronicles how the Catholic Church encourages endless births that create endless poverty and misery for Catholics around the world-who succumb to the dominance of the Catholic Church. The pope suffers the most debilitating disease of the 21st century: inability to change. Whether Haiti's misery, illiteracy and starvation or that of Africa's horrific AIDS deaths-the pope encourages endless births and deplores birth control. Islam also promotes endless births.

When men of enormous power could advocate for birth control that would obviate the choice of abortion-they choose to withhold. The same holds true within the United States by right wing religious zealots that scream against birth control and family planning that would solve the problem at the front end. But they rage against those women who choose abortion because they couldn't obtain birth control in the first place.

Every human baby is precious and all life is precious - a fantasy

A mind-numbing 10 million children starve to death around the planet annually, year in and year out, decade in and decade out. No one in the Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Buddha, Islam or any other major faiths lifts a finger for those 10 million deaths. Those children could have been spared their short, miserable lives on this planet via birth control. But the very folks that harangue against abortion-undermine birth control. What do they say? "It's against God's wishes," they piously plead. Like God talks to them directly!

In the United States, over 13 million children live below the poverty level. Millions suffer mal-nourishment, lack of housing and being brought up in ghettoes filled with incest, brutality, rape, drugs and murders. A whopping 68 percent of African-American children grow up with a single female parent and no father. Yet, the pious among the anti-abortion crowd rear their righteous morality to squash any discussion about free choice as to abortion.

If given the choice, anti-abortion zealots, virtually all of them men, would mandate human misery on a level heretofore unknown-just to maintain their authority over women.

It's time to change Mr. Pope, Mr. Perfect anti-abortionist male, Mr. Anti-birth- control male, Mr. Male Dominator of women, etc.

In the first place, abortions at the rate of 46 million annually will continue whether you like it or not. It's really none of your business.

It's time to change to the 21st century. While the Earth suffers horrible human overpopulation, humans need birth control provided far and wide across the planet. The human race must come to balance with the carrying capacity of the planet. The old taboos against birth control and abortion cannot and will not provide for food, water, energy and warmth for countless humans. In the 21st century, men can no longer dominate women into submission of having babies they cannot feed, clothe and house.

What can you do? Support birth control to make abortion choices unneeded. But if a woman possesses no other choice, she needs the support and medical help to terminate her 12th child that would come into a world of starvation, misery and early death.

Support: International Family Planning: www.InternationalFamilyPlanning.org

Family Planning USA: www.FamilyPlanning.org

We need to get real in America and around the world. We cannot succumb to the fear, religious righteousness of the past and charades perpetrated on women for centuries.

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Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents - from the Arctic to the South Pole - as well as eight times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. In 2012, he bicycled coast to coast across America. His latest book is: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, copies at 1 888 280 7715/ Motivational program: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World by Frosty Wooldridge, click:

www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com