Thanks Bobert and SRS, must've missed you in the cross-posting.

No, Bobert, I really haven't worked at the 'porjects' level, but I have lived at them. I understand the system, and the anger it breeds, but what I don't understand is the lack of adequate education---prevention instead of a cure, ya know?
I also understand that pragmatic attitude you speak of, I can also say that I've been there (try any time I try to go to the store and have to fight my way down an aisle full of the unsupervised, snot-nosed little petri dishes *g*) The point I was trying to make, and failed miserably at, I guess, was that at the time I went through the clinic training, I was all of 19yrs old and riding the poverty line myself. I was heartily pissed at having to have to work my ass off only to give money away to people who obviously didn't seem to care. I learned later that it wasn't that they didn't 'care', so much as they just didn't know any better than to go with immediate gratification (duh? how did they get into that mess in the first place?)
EDUCATION--and a correct education--is the only way to avoid it. Like I said before, I fully support abortion rights, but it's not like it's 'forty acres and a mule, call the neighbors, we're gonna have a party'. It is an ugly, painful, and sometimes necessary procedure. If it can be avoided by giving a woman other options, I'm all for it (and I don't know of any abortion doctor who would feel bad about losing the money, trust me). I can't tell you how many times I was in counselling with women only to hear them say "But, my boyfriend won't use condoms...I don't know how...etc" I'm perfectly comfortable in showing them how, or in saying "Yeah, but if I show you how to put one on with your mouth, he might feel differently about using them, right?" Then sending them out the door with a lunchsack full of free condoms and never seeing them in the clinic for an abortion again.
Have a good day at work!

   
Hi SRS, sorry to have missed you too. I know about the 'unsavoury' procedures, a lot of them get perfected on animals a long time before they are ever done on humans. I'm also sorry that I confused you--I wasn't trying to downplay the extent of public medicine, just that it seemed to be treated in an awfully mundane way. Public money covers the procedure itself, not education to prevent it, or counselling for the women afterwards--they are missing a huge chunk of the problem by doing so.
I knew about the insurance not paying for birth control, we have a lot of that up here too. However, most women that are the vast majority of repeat procedures are entirely unaware that clinics will give away free or low-cost birth control. We didn't give away Norplant or Depo, but we had cases of sponges, foams, condoms, pills, etc, all for a 'pay what you can' price.
Like I was telling Bobert above, and you touched on it so well, the obscenity for me isn't in the procedure itself, but in the lack of accurate information and education. This is a sort of vicitimization that is entirely preventable, but it requires sifting through aeons of social taboo. (I can't tell you how difficult it was to get a SexEd class for my group of disabled adults--the college actually forbid it! And 4 of the women in the class had children!)
Anyway, I have no doubt the RoeVWade is safe, there is too much positive support (mine included) to overturn it, but I wouldn't be upset in the least if more folks chose to support prevention.

~JE