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I’ve been debating abortion over at Ethics Alarms<\/a>. Here’s one of my comments (the person I’m quoting and replying to is “Texxagg04”):<\/p>\n Sure the anti-abortion crowd can oppose [free birth control], because the anti-abortion crowd doesn\u2019t feel the government\u2019s or the people at large ought to pay for other people\u2019s leisure activities and their effects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 1) Let\u2019s be clear: Based on actual evidence, we know that free birth control can reduce abortion by 60%. ((See Preventing Unintended Pregnancies by Pro-lifers say they consider each abortion to be the murder of an innocent human child. So what\u2019s at stake here is a practical method, that has been proven to be effective both in other countries and in US test studies, which will prevent eight million children (in the pro-life view) from being murdered.<\/p>\n Are you honestly arguing that your philosophical preference that the government not pay for birth control, should count for more with pro-lifers than preventing eight million child murders?<\/p>\n If we\u2019re really talking about the murders of eight million innocent children, then you should be willing to accept almost anything to prevent those murders.<\/p>\n When push comes to shove, you would rather have the government coerce the people at large into paying for a sub-set of the people\u2019s leisure activities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This argument doesn\u2019t work, because we don\u2019t have to tax people more in order to provide free birth control. As I wrote earlier, \u201ca $235 million investment in birth control would save taxpayers $1.32 billion.\u201d Taxes are coercive, I agree, but they\u2019re also necessary. But in this case, the program would actually SAVE taxpayers money overall, not cost them money.<\/p>\n That said, yes. If it would prevent eight million child murders, of COURSE I\u2019d rather tax the people at large a relatively minor amount than just sit there and not do what I can to prevent eight million child murders. Without any doubt.<\/p>\n Finally, I don\u2019t think pro-lifers should be freed of all responsibility for their freely chosen positions. And the conclusion that pro-lifers are more interested in using government coercion on women who choose to have sex, then in preventing abortion, is a logical conclusion from the actual positions taken by pro-life groups and politicians.<\/p>\n The very common pro-life position, which you can see in dozens of examples of actual pro-life legislation, that raped women should be free to abort, but other women shouldn\u2019t be, makes no logical sense at all if pro-lifers believe that a fetus is morally an innocent human child. No one would say that it\u2019s okay to kill a five-year-old if her father was a rapist. The rape exemption is absurd if the goal of the pro-life movement is to save innocent fetuses; but the rape exemption makes perfect sense if their goal is to target women who choose to have sex.<\/p>\n Birth control, as we\u2019ve seen in this thread, is another example. Free, high-quality birth control has been proven, in both studies and in real-world examples, to massively reduce abortion. If pro-lifers real goal was to prevent as many abortions as possible, and if they really believe that the 1.2 million abortions every year are 1.2 million child murders, then they should be willing to compromise on their opposition to birth control in order to prevent millions of child murders. To say otherwise is to say that being uncompromising on birth control is more important than preventing child murder.<\/p>\n But in real life, pro-lifers oppose doing all they can to prevent abortion. It is only using government coercion against pregnant women that interests them; they oppose much more effective techniques for abortion reduction, when those techniques don\u2019t include government coercion against pregnant women.<\/p>\n If we really have two groups with the policy goals “reproductive freedom for women” and “preventing abortion,” then a real and effective policy compromise is possible, which will allow both sides to get most of what they want.<\/p>\n However, if what we have is two sides, one of which has the policy goal “reproductive freedom for women,’ the other of which has the policy goal “women shouldn’t ever choose to have sex, but if they do they should be forced to give birth,” then there is no possible compromise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been debating abortion over at Ethics Alarms. Here’s one of my comments (the person I’m quoting and replying to is “Texxagg04”): Sure the anti-abortion crowd can oppose [free birth control], because the anti-abortion crowd doesn\u2019t feel the government\u2019s or … Continue reading
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\nProviding No-Cost Contraception<\/a>.)) In the US, there are about 1.2 million abortions a year. So making free, high-quality birth control universally available can prevent over 700,000 abortions every year. In a decade, that would be around eight million abortions prevented. <\/p>\n
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