{"id":8729,"date":"2009-09-20T02:53:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T09:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8729"},"modified":"2009-09-20T02:53:56","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T09:53:56","slug":"actually-reducing-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8729","title":{"rendered":"Actually reducing abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton rocks.<\/p>\n

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This seems like a good enough reason to repeat something I said in 2004:<\/p>\n

The vast majority of unsafe abortion deaths take place in countries where pro-life forces have successfully restricted or outlawed abortion. Africa – which has by far the highest rate of unsafe abortion deaths<\/a> – also has overwhelmingly pro-life laws. This is unsurprising; where abortion is illegal, women will seek abortions from people without medical training, and fear (or local laws) may keep them from seeking medical help if the unsafe abortion goes wrong.<\/p>\n

The best cure for unsafe abortion is safe abortion – and that means legal abortion. What kind of a difference can legal abortion make? Here’s what happened in Romania when abortion was outlawed, in 1966 – and when it was legalized again, in 1989.<\/p>\n

\"abortion_romania.GIF\"<\/center><\/p>\n

There’s a very clear relationship between legalized abortion and deaths from unsafe abortion.<\/p>\n

There’s also no evidence that outlawing abortion reduces the number of abortions. From a WHO article on unsafe abortion<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is no serious doubt that pro-life laws lead to increased death and injuries due to unsafe abortions. Furthermore, as the Netherlands show, it’s possible to have the world’s lowest rate of abortion by concentrating on reducing demand, rather than by threatening doctors and mothers with jail time. So if pro-lifers genuinely want to prevent abortion, why aren’t they demanding Netherlands-style programs?<\/p>\n

There’s no reason the US couldn’t have an abortion rate as low as the Netherlands; it would just require the pro-lifers to quit trying to take away women’s freedom, and instead put their enormous energy and funds into reducing how likely women are to want <\/i>abortion. In economic terms, the difference between a pro-lifer and a feminist who opposes abortion is that pro-lifers focus on reducing the supply of abortion by reducing freedom; feminists who oppose abortion would rather reduce the demand for abortion, by expanding women’s options. The feminist method is at least as effective for reducing abortion – and is far less deadly to women’s lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hillary Clinton rocks. This seems like a good enough reason to repeat something I said in 2004: The vast majority of unsafe abortion deaths take place in countries where pro-life forces have successfully restricted or outlawed abortion. Africa – which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}