[This is the “non-Catholic version” of the post below this one; it’s the same post, but I’ve taken out the arguments about Catholicism, so that folks who are uninterested in that debate, might read the arguments for why John Kerry would reduce abortion more than George Bush will.]
[This is why being a blogger is so cool. I mean, a real writer would never be able to do unprofessional $#!+@ like this.]
I assume that the primary goal of a sincere pro-lifer is not to punish the guilty, but to reduce abortion as much as possible. So I therefore assume that pro-lifers support pro-life policies – and pro-life politicians like George Bush – because they think pro-life policies will reduce abortion. But there are legitimate reasons to doubt that’s true.
First, how likely is it that abortion will ever be banned in the USA? Reagan couldn’t do it. Bush Sr. couldn’t do it. So far, Bush hasn’t been able to. Face it: the country is divided on abortion. The most pro-lifers could possibly accomplish is throwing abortion to state-by-state restrictions; but some states will never ban abortion, so all that will do is force women to cross state lines.
Even if legal abortion could be entirely banned, it’s unclear that this would actually reduce the real number of abortions by a significant degree. Before the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade ruling, American women had somewhere between 200,000 and 1.2 million abortions a year in the U.S.. Although measuring something as hidden as illegal abortions is always difficult, the best pre-Roe scholarly assessment came to a figure of about a million abortions a year (“…prior to the adoption of more moderate abortion laws in 1967, there were 1 million abortions annually nationwide, of which 8000 were legal….” From Christopher Tietze “Abortion on request: its consequences for population trends and public health,” Seminars in Psychiatry 1970;2:375-381, quoted in JAMA December 9, 1992).
Another option is to look at what happens to birth rates; an significant increase in abortions should lead to a declining birth rate. So if Roe caused a big increase in abortions, the birthrate in the US would have dropped post-Roe. So what actually happened?
Year Births Birthrate
1973 3,136,965 14.9
1974 3,159,958 14.9
1975 3,144,198 14.8
1976 3,167,788 14.8
1977 3,326,632 15.4
1978 3,333,279 15.3
1979 3,494,398 15.9
1980 3,612,258 15.9
Similarly, what happened when Poland banned abortions in the 1990s? If pro-life policies reduce abortion significantly, there would have been a spike in Poland’s birthrate. But Poland’s birth rate remained steady. (See Reproductive Health Matters (Volume 10, Issue 19 , May 2002): “The restrictive abortion law in Poland has not increased the number of births.”)
Pro-life laws may prevent a few abortions; but they don’t prevent enough to be measured statistically, or to have a noticeable effect on birthrates. That may seem counterintuitive, but it actually makes sense. Why? Because most women don’t have abortions lightly. They have abortions because they are feeling very determined, or perhaps very desperate, and the anti-abortion laws don’t seem just to them. When something is desperately wanted by consumers – and when that something is fairly easy to supply – outlawing it won’t make it actually unavailable. Just look at the market for pot; and the proportion of casual pot smokers is far higher than the proportion of casual abortion patients.
Here’s another statistic to consider: Which countries have the least abortion? Belgium has an abortion rate of 6.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The Netherlands, 6.5. Germany, 7.8. Compare that to the USA’s rate of 22. Even better, compare it to countries where abortion is illegal: Egypt, 23; Brazil, 40; Chile, 50; Peru, 56.
According to the World Health Organization:
If pro-life laws are the best way of reducing abortion, then why are the world’s lowest abortion rates found in pro-choice countries like Germany and the Netherlands, while some of the world’s highest abortion rates are in countries that outlaw abortion?
Statistically, there’s no evidence that outlawing abortion lowers abortion rates; and quite a lot of reason to think that it doesn’t.
* * *
There’s no evidence that any pro-life law will reduce abortion by any significant degree in the United States.
What will reduce abortion? If the examples of the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium – countries that have incredibly low abortion rates – are any example, we should consider reducing abortion by reducing the demand, rather than reducing the supply. As Ono Ekeh recently wrote in National Catholic Weekly:
Pro-life moderates and liberals embrace the “demand-side” approach. This approach seeks to reduce the number of abortions by addressing the social issues that compel too many women to contemplate what would normally be unthinkable. If social conditions were changed so that women were empowered, and if we effectively addressed issues such as health care, child care, family leave, wage inequity, domestic violence and other women’s issues, we could reasonably expect a significant reduction in the number of abortions in the United States. For instance, 21 percent of abortions in the United States are a result of inadequate finances. This category of women, though not exhaustive, represents a very fixable opportunity. Consider the following simplified example. If a woman for whom inadequate finances were the primary reason to consider an abortion is confident that there would be assistance to compensate for her lack of finances, the lack of finances then weighs less in her deliberations.
This demand-side approach will take time and does not immediately make abortions rare, but our goal is to change a culture, not just a law. This approach is a steady tide that lifts all boats of human dignity. It seems that this is a reasonable means of attaining the goal of a culture of life even if different from the process laid out by traditional pro-lifers.
Given that traditional pro-lifers cannot, as far as I know, point to a single country in which pro-life policies have resulted in a low abortion rate comparible to the Netherlands, it’s time for those who seriously oppose abortion to consider the demand-side approach to abortion reduction.
* * *
Finally, regarding the current presidential race, the matter of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) should be considered. George Bush chose to defund the UNFPA, removing the $34 million US contribution, due to accusations that the UNFPA supports coerced abortion in China. Many people believe these accusations were not true (both a Bush State Department team, and a British inspection team including a well-known pro-life critic of UNFPA, found that the accusations were not true).
UNFPA does not provide support for abortions or abortion-related activities anywhere in the world. In fact, they prevent abortion, by providing family planning services and birth control in developing countries all over the world. They also help prevent AIDS, provide medical care which makes pregnancy and childbirth safer for mothers and babies, and work to prevent and treat obstetric fistulas. (Follow this link for more posts about UNFPA).
According to UNFPA, “UNFPA estimates that $34 million applied to family planning programmes could prevent some 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths annually worldwide.”
It’s certain that John Kerry, if elected president, would refund UNFPA – which in turn could prevent hundreds of thousands of avoidable abortions.
There’s very little chance that George Bush could succeed in banning abortion. Even if he does, there’s virtually no evidence that Bush’s pro-life policies will reduce abortion. It is, however, certain that having John Kerry in office will prevent thousands of abortions; not in some theoretical far-off time, but immediately, next year.
If you’re sincerely in favor of reducing abortion, as much as possible, as quickly as possible – then you should probably be voting for John Kerry. Objectively, a Kerry presidency will prevent more abortions. Shouldn’t that be the bottom line, if you’re pro-life?.
You might want to consider that the countries you cite with low abortion rates (Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) all have much more restrictive anti-abortion laws than does the U.S.
Also, even assuming the million abortions a year pre-Roe figure is correct, that’s still several hundred thousand fewer abortions that there are currently. So, far from showing that pro-life measures increase abortion, your numbers seem to show the opposite.
Actually, the law in The Netherlands is considerably more liberal than in the US in one hugely important way: the goverment pays for the abortion. I suspect the same is true of Belgium and the Netherlands.
Go look at the chart at the bottom of this page. Netherland’s laws are about as liberal as they could get. Germany and Belgium are slightly less liberal, in that to get an abortion the woman has to sign a piece of paper saying she’s feeling distress – but overall, all three countries basically have abortion on demand. It’s certainly a far, far cry from the near-total abortion ban that pro-life groups want.
The fact is, every country that has banned abortion, has an abortion rate several times higher than The Netherlands. Clearly, banning abortion is less effective at reducing abortion than Netherlands-style social support programs are.
The USA has very liberal abortion law, but we don’t combine that with the demand-side social programs that make it less likely women will want abortions.
So, far from showing that pro-life measures increase abortion, your numbers seem to show the opposite.
Dude, pre-Roe was over 30 years ago; directly comparing the two without accounting for other changes (like population) is meaningless.
The Tietze study I quoted in the post also reported “an abortion ratio of 30 per 100 live births” pre-Roe. In contrast, in 1999 the rate was 26 per 100 live births; the abortion rate has therefore gone down since Roe.
I’m not saying that shows that pro-choice equals less abortion. However, it suggests that pro-choice doesn’t automatically leads to increased abortion.
Finally, if Roe caused an increase in abortion, then why wasn’t there a drop in the birthrate immediately following Roe? And why not a rise following outlawing abortion in Poland? Until you can answer that, I find your case pretty unconvincing.
Josiah:
You might want to consider that the countries you cite with low abortion rates (Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands) all have much more restrictive anti-abortion laws than does the U.S.
This statement is just factually incorrect.
Also, even assuming the million abortions a year pre-Roe figure is correct, that’s still several hundred thousand fewer abortions that there are currently. So, far from showing that pro-life measures increase abortion, your numbers seem to show the opposite.
No, that doesn’t follow. Many factors influence abortion rates. Comparing abortion rates shortly before decriminalization with abortion rates thirty years after decriminalization is not an effective way of evaluating the effect of decriminalization on abortion rates. A far more reliable method would be to compare rates shortly before and shortly after a change in the law. And as ampersand notes, the evidence shows pretty consistently that criminalizing abortion has little effect on abortion rates. The primary effect of making abortion illegal is not to make it significantly less common but to make it much less safe.
See, and yet, the alternative is Bush for another four years….
I mean, yeah, Kerry’s definitely a two-faced PR man who wants to cut government aid to the people who need it most, but, but… Bush for another four years….
I think you’re missing a link there.
Ampersand:
You wrote a compelling post, although I would argue that a tenet of Catholic doctrine is that the end does not justify the means, and that giving in to legalized abortion by conferring acceptability to this practice would do just that. I guess your argument is based on the usual utilitarian vs. principled perspectives.
Anyway, in a comment above you wrote that:
Finally, if Roe caused an increase in abortion, then why wasn’t there a drop in the birthrate immediately following Roe? And why not a rise following outlawing abortion in Poland? Until you can answer that, I find your case pretty unconvincing
I don’t have the time right now to look for susbtantiating data, but is it possible that the live birth rate has been maintained based on annual influx of immigrants?
Even if the population in the U.S. includes both citizens and immigrants (I will leave aside the issue of illegal immigration, which I think represents anyway a small amount compared to legal immigration), it is entirely possible that the frehsly arrived immigrants (they tend to be usually on the procreating than menopausal years) give births in greater number than the original U.S. population, so that the abortion effect on the original population becomes masked by the extra births from newly arrived immigrants.
As for Poland, I suspect that your argument would hold for this country: the criminalization of abortion did not result in preventing abortions (i.e., the same number remains).
Finally a side note: I read somewhere that the 200,000 to 1.2 million abortions performed before Roe was actually a bogus number (I think Dr. Nathelson refuted it on the grounds that he had been the one creating these numbers to justify Roe, when he was head of NARAL at the time) even though it is taken as gospel by the media since then …
“I’m not saying that shows that pro-choice equals less abortion. However, it suggests that pro-choice doesn’t automatically leads to increased abortion.”
If that’s all you’re saying, then your argument clearly fails. If you want to convince someone to legalize murder, you need to do more than argue that legalizing murder won’t necessarily lead to a higher rate of murder. I would think that you would have to prove, and prove to a certainty, that not only does prohibition not reduce the murder rate, but it increases it and increases it significantly. Otherwise you’re just wasting people’s time.
Now, as to the status of abortion in Europe, if you look at these articles:
http://www.germany-info.org/relaunch/info/facts/facts/questions_en/health/healthissues3.html
http://www.ippf.org/regions/europe/choices/v28n2/belgium.htm
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-portugal.html
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-portugal.html
you will see that abortion is illegal in Germany and Belgium after the 12th week, and that before then there are various requirements, such as waiting periods, informed consent, and counseling, that often don’t exist in the U.S. (and that John Kerry certainly doesn’t support). It’s also the case that European Countries that have greater restrictions on abortion have lower abortion rates than countries with more liberal laws.
Finally, as to the 1 million figure pre-Roe, I would point out first that there were less than 750,000 abortion in 1973 and less than 900,000 in 1974. Since it seems implausible that Roe caused the number of abortions to immediately fall by by several hundred thousand, I find the 1 million a year pre-Roe figure unrealistic. Between 1973 and 1978 the number of abortions in America just about doubled, and spent the next 15 years hovering in the 1.4-1.6 range:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/aboramt.html
So any attempt to chalk the rise in abortions to population growth is specious.
I think you’re missing a link there.
There’s not even a dead link in the html for me to post, or I would.
p.s. Great post!
Thanks for this post. I will add abortion as another example in my growing thesis that a major difference in outlook between the Right and Left in America is related to approaching problems from the supply side or the demand side. You also mentioned drugs. I think crime in general applies: They simply want to lock up or kill criminals, we want to reduce conditions that create criminals. It obviously applies ecconomically, where the right believes in helping the rich who finance supply, while the left believes in helping the (poor) masses who consume. It also applies to terrorism: The right simply wants to hit terrorists and potential terrorists, we want to end conditions that create terrorists.
Any counter-examples where the right goes after demand, and the left goes after supply?
Josiah:
you will see that abortion is illegal in Germany and Belgium after the 12th week, and that before then there are various requirements, such as waiting periods, informed consent, and counseling, that often don’t exist in the U.S. (and that John Kerry certainly doesn’t support). It’s also the case that European Countries that have greater restrictions on abortion have lower abortion rates than countries with more liberal laws.
You’re wrong again, as you might have realized if you had bothered to read and follow your own links more carefully.
Abortion laws in western Europe typically impose superficially strong restrictions after the first trimester, but allow exceptions to those restrictions for “health” reasons (including mental health), for “social” reasons, and for “economic” reasons that are in practise interpreted broadly and that effectively allow for abortion on demand even late in pregnancy. In some countries, abortion laws even explicitly grant to the pregnant woman the right to decide whether her situation falls within one of the exceptions. She doesn’t even have to persuade a doctor to agree with her.
Don P. provides absolutely no evidence that anything he says is true. In Belgium, for example, the Planned Parenthood article says that abortion is illegal after the 12th week, and the only exception is when TWO doctors certify that there are “serious risks to the health of the woman or if the fetus is judged to have ‘an extremely serious and incurable disease.'” Nowhere does anyone mention that the woman can get an abortion at any time simply by saying on her own behalf that it is for “social” or “economic” reasons.
The article on Germany, in turn, says that abortion is legal only during the first trimester. The only exceptions are for rape and health. Nowhere does anyone mention that the woman can get an abortion at any time simply by saying on her own behalf that it is for “social” or “economic” reasons.
Indeed, the German supreme court struck down Germany’s former law because it allowed abortions after the first trimester. Imagine that happening in America! You’d have to replace all nine Justices before that could ever happen. Who you’d replace them with, I don’t know, but none of them would strike down a law for allowing too many abortions.
So, Don P., why do you insist against all evidence that everyone’s abortion laws are as loosey-goosey as America’s? The only reason I can think of is that you know Europe obviously isn’t a disaster for women, so therefore you have to pretend that they allow unrestricted abortions at any time.
Well the trouble Joe is that you are assuming that the laws are strictly enforced. My relatives in Europe assure me that the vast majority of abortion providers in Europe play fast, loose, and vague with the rules, and that the law turns a blind eye because it would be too much of a hassle to go after them. According to them, abortions are restricted on paper to keep the annoying religious folk happy, while in practice it’s a better use of time and resources to go after real crimes.
Of course, my relatives aren’t experts, so make whatever you want of that. I trust them from past experience and the fact that abortion clearly registers as a much, much smaller political blip on the European radar than on the U.S. one.
I agree with DRA AND Joe M. I found this thing from 2002 with all abortion laws in Europe http://www.rfsu.se/files/17200-17299/file_17250.pdf and scarily enough it seems like my country has the most liberal abortion laws in all of Europe. On demand, no need for a reason up to week 18 and then with limitations up to week 22. And under the Health care system of course. Performed at a hospital by a licensed med. doctor. And easy to access.
Anyways – tomorrow EU will get a lot of new members where the (any) Church is stronger than in other countries, and even the Pope has said he has high hopes for this since it could mean that Christian values would be written into the EU constitution. And let us hope that doesn’t happen. Let us really hope that the values of Malta (divorce and abortion is against the law) doesn’t affect the EU.
Even if abortion is a non-issue in Sweden it doesn’t mean it’s a non-issue everywhere else.
Joe M:
As always, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“Within the 20 years from 1967 to 1987 a vast majority of Western Europe abandoned strict antiabortion laws through legislative reform… Typically, abortion on economic or social grounds in [Western Europe] will require certification by two physicians or by a physician other than the one who performs the abortion. However, in France and Italy the pregnant woman is permitted to determine for herself whether her situation falls within the statutory exceptions. …. In some countries…the ground (“distress” or “emergency”) is so broad as to offer no meaningful standard… [Harvard Law] Professor [Mary Ann] Glendon tells us that even in most of the countries with restrictive abortion laws, it is relatively easy for a pregnant woman to receive what Glendon describes as a “legal” abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. “For example,” she writes,“legal abortions are relatively easy to obtain in Belgium despite the apparent severity of the law there.” … “[In Canada] the decision of the Supreme Courts of Canada in the Morgentaler case left that nation without any abortion law, effectively making abortion available on request in Canada … [In Japan, abortion law was amended in 1949] to include economic hardship amoung the “health” considerations that would justify legal abortion, effectively making abortions available upon request for Japanese women.”
–Laurence Tribe, Harvard Professor of Constititional Law, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes
“In Britain, under the Abortion Act 1967, abortion is legal if two doctors agree that it would cause less damage to the woman’s physical or mental health than continuing the pregnancy. The woman’s life circumstances may be taken into consideration. Most doctors feel that the distress of having to have an unwanted pregnancy is likely to be harmful and so will refer a woman who does not want a baby for an abortion.”
–Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, describing abortion law in Britain.
A. Nothing you said was about abortions in Belgium after the first trimester. All you said in your cut-and-paste was that abortions are easy to obtain there in the first trimester. Hint: This doesn’t respond to what I said about two doctors having to certify a serious reason after that.
And talking about other countries (Japan or Canada) is just blowing smoke. I didn’t talk about Japan or Canada, and your original post didn’t either.
B. Nothing you said explained the extraordinary situation with the German high court. The pro-choicers here would faint and go apoplectic if the Supreme Court just allowed state legislatures to limit abortion in any way, as was the case for 200 years. They’d probably all have heart attacks if the Supreme Court here actually started striking down laws for being too permissive towards abortion. But as I said, not even Thomas and Scalia would go for that.
I know, I know, you’re going to say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, and then you’re going to say that people get abortions all the time in South Korea or Guatemala, and plus abortion is ten times safer, etc., etc. Anything to avoid talking about the German court decision, and how that would be totally unimaginable here.
That is correct about abortion law in Britain, and most doctors will refer a woman for an abortion on request, for the reasons mentioned. However the decision is still in the hands of the individual doctors, and this can be a problem if you’re unlucky enough to get an anti-choice doctor (they are definitely a small minority, but do exist). It’s my opinion that even pro-life doctors ought to refer women for abortions, because under the law that is what they have to do if continuing the pregnancy is harmful to the woman’s health and she requests an abortion. I don’t know how anyone could believe that being *forced* to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth against your will could NOT be damaging to a woman’s mental health. And the law doesn’t have an exception for doctors who consider the fetus’ survival more important than the woman’s health, it just says that a threat to the woman’s health is legal grounds for abortion.
Of course you can always go to a different doctor, but there are problems with that as well – not everyone, by a long way, can afford to pay for private healthcare, which would allow for more choice. And it might not always be clear to the woman that her doctor is anti-choice, and I’ve certainly heard of cases where delaying tactics were used until the pregnancy had passed the time
Now obviously I don’t want doctors to be forced to recommend or perform procedures they consider to be deeply wrong. But I believe these problems could be prevented if it was obligatory to make clear to patients that a particular doctor, under no circumstances, would support or recommend abortion. And to always offer women the alternative, if they wished, of seeing a different doctor, where these restrictions wouldn’t be applied.
But generally, the abortion law here isn’t a bad one, and seems to work reasonably well. Of course we could always use more support for mothers and pregnant women, better childcare provision etc etc.
THE WHOLE PREMISE OF YOUR ARGUMENT IS INCORRECT. You are wrong in assuming that the goal of the pro-life possition is to “reduce” the number of abortions.
The GOAL of the Pro-Life position is to “PUT AN END TO ALL ABORTIONS. PERIOD!
There is no grey area. . . it’s either wrong to take human life or it is not. ABORTION TAKES A HUMAN LIFE!
Look at it this way. Would you vote for a candidate who was write on all the right “social justice issues” . . . they are. . . you name it for all the things you may want. . . no taxes. . . no poverty. . . NO WAR!. . . Not Big Corporations running the show. . . BUT. . . they are FOR the annialation of ALL . . . say “blue eyed” people. Blue eyed people are not “really human” thus we can have a choice to rip them limb from limb and toss them in a dumpster. Sure they scream about it but so long as it’s done in a soundproof box. . . no body really needs to know about it. . . it’s a choice. People can choose.
Would you vote for this person?
If you would. . . why not expose your swastika arm band now?
You know, I tend to think that someone who compares people who don’t agree with his views to Nazis isn’t really interested in civil disagreement. I’ll give Philippe the benefit of the doubt and respond this time, but Philippe, please keep in mind that I prefer posters here be civil.
First of all, it’s simply not true that all pro-lifers want to eliminate all abortions, period. Very few pro-lifers object to abortion when it’s genuinely necessary to save the mother’s life, for example.
Nit-picking aside, however, I think most pro-lifers recognize that although their goal may be elimination all abortions, that goal will never be achieved in this world. No society in the world, including those that ban abortion, has succeeded in eliminating abortion. Since 100% elimination is not actually possible, the reasonable course of action (from a pro-life point of view) should be to pursue policies that come as close to 100% elimination as possible.
Now, let’s consider your analogy. Suppose that candidate “A” is saying that it should be legal to kill blue-eyed humans, since blue-eyed humans aren’t people. Candidate “B,” on the other hand, says that he’d like to ban killing blue-eyed humans but it’s not politically viable to do so.
If that’s the whole situation, then clearly I should vote for candidate “B.”
BUT – let’s complicate this a little. Suppose that “A” supports a foreign policy which will reduce the killing of blue-eyed people abroad by tens or hundreds of thousands. “B,” on the other hand, supports a foreign policy that increases the killing of blue-eyed people abroad by tens or hundreds of thousands.
So now I have a choice of voting for “A,” whose principles are anti-blue-eyed but whose policies will prevent more needless blue-eyed deaths. Or “B,” who says the right things about blue-eyed human rights, but whose policy leads to thousands of additional blue-eyed death.
The choice is between supporting my abstract principle – “I will never vote for someone who doesn’t vocally support blue-eyed rights” – and voting for someone whose election will actually save more blue-eyed lives. Are you so certain that I should put my abstract principles above saving blue-eyed lives?
Joe M
Well if you think that the decission of the German Federal Constitutional Tribunal (in Germany, unlike in the USA, there is a Federal Supreme Court, which reviews most cases and Federal Constitutional Tribunal, which reviews whether laws are constitutional) would be a bit extreme in American reality, then what will you say about the decission of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal which struck down (in 1997) the abortion statute that allowed abortions in the FIRST trimester for social reasons. The court said in its 12-3 (sic!) decission that the statute violated the constitution only because it says that Poland is a democratic law state and that the state should protect life of its citizens. Now let’s go and find 12 judges in USA that would openly concurr in such judgement.
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