Abortion and Reproductive Rights
While the battle rages between the rights of women vs those of unborn children, a focus on pregnancy prevention rather than termination would defuse the situation substantially.
Author’s note: This post does not pertain to the estimated 1.5% of abortions performed following rape or incest and the small proportion of women who seek abortions for fetal anomalies or health concerns.1 I believe that abortions should be freely available to women who want one due to health concerns, fetal anomalies, or sexual assault. I also believe that aggressive/exhaustive pregnancy prevention strategies should be at least as widely available as abortion.
I do not believe that the federal government should be telling its citizens what to do with their bodies, but we cannot automatically dismiss others’ beliefs that a fetus is also a person who deserves those same protections on its body.
Recent surveys report that 60% of Americans support the availability of abortion in most cases;2 despite this apparent majority, Congress has never passed legislation stating that a woman’s due process over her body supersedes a fetus’s due process over its existence. Congress has (with unabashed cowardice) consistently and unfairly punted the issue to the Supreme Court, whose sole purpose is to determine whether laws passed by others are consistent with the US Constitution. Even if Congress passed such a law prioritizing mother over fetus, a future Congress could rescind the law if opposing viewpoints secured a majority. The best way to settle the issue would be to codify this prioritization with a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds majority of both chambers plus a three-quarters ratification by the states. If you think this is impossible with such a divisive issue, just remember that these thresholds were achieved on the topic of alcohol. TWICE. Ergo, until 75% of Americans side with abortion in most cases, we will continue to be stuck in this rut by asking the pointless question: “Are you pro-life or pro-choice?”
The nearly one million annual abortions of unplanned American pregnancies indicates a complete failure of effort invested in family planning.
Roughly half of all US pregnancies are unplanned.3 Nearly half of those — roughly one million — end in abortion.4 Every year. The majority of these women (60%) are in their 20s and just starting to sort out their adult lives.5
40% of women who have an abortion have had at least one abortion previously.
One in 10 women undergoing an abortion is having her third abortion.
One in 13 women having an abortion is having her fourth (or more) abortion.6
Most physicians would agree: abortion is a terrible form of birth control.
Although 60% of the overall homeless population is male, the picture of homeless families with children is quite different. The population of homeless families tends to be female (60%), black (60%), and in the 18-24 age group (58%).7 Unplanned pregnancies, therefore, can direct young black women away from education and employment and relegate them (and their children) to homelessness.
Family planning and sex education should include all prevention measures, with frank comparative discussions about their failure rates, real-world compliance problems, and side effects. Dismissing abstinence education as ineffective is not helpful; discussing its advantages and disadvantages (zero side effects but mediocre real-world compliance) and comparing them with those of IUDs (spotting and cramping but with excellent compliance), for example, prevents the alienation of the religious-minded and promotes the holistically-informed decision-making of women with their families.
Focusing primarily on the availability of abortion provides a reactive solution to a problem borne of neglected prevention. Furthermore, it does not address the life-changing effects (school absenteeism, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and peripartum mortality) on the other half of women who elect to carry out their unplanned pregnancies to term. The solution, therefore, is to devise creative solutions to maximize the availability of pregnancy planning before unplanned pregnancies arise.
Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2005, 37(3):110–118
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/#americans-views-of-abortion
N Engl J Med 2016; 374:843-852. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1506575
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1363/psrh.12215
Kortsmit K, Mandel MG, Reeves JA, et al. Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2019. MMWR Surveill Summ 2021;70(No. SS-9):1–29. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss7009a1
Kortsmit K, Mandel MG, Reeves JA, et al. Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2019. MMWR Surveill Summ 2021;70(No. SS-9):1–29. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss7009a1
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2022-AHAR-Part-1.pdf