Pro-life laws seen as factor in drop in abortions

Pro-life laws are part of the reason abortion rates have declined over the past two decades, a study says.

A review of abortion data from 1985 through 2005 provides “solid evidence” that laws restricting but not outlawing abortion “have an impact on the childbearing decisions of women,” Michael J. New wrote in State Politics and Policy Quarterly, a peer-reviewed publication aimed at state policymakers.

Mr. New, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, studied the effects of informed-consent laws, Medicaid funding rules and parental-notification laws for minors — rules that existed, by 2005, in dozens of states.

He found that all three approaches had significant results in certain populations. For instance, parental-notification laws were correlated with a 15 percent decline in in-state abortion rates for minors. Informed-consent laws, which require pregnant women to receive information about such things as their health, fetal development or resources for parenting, were associated with reductions in in-state abortions by 5 percent to 7 percent.

Legal limits on Medicaid funding for abortion also had a significant impact, reducing abortion incidence by about 9 percent in states with such laws.

“A major reason for this decline was that rates of contraceptive use increased significantly from the early 1980s to the early 2000s,” Mr. Finer said.

It's rather ironic that the Guttmacher Institute--a "research" branch of Planned Parenthood which exists for the sole purpose of conferring legitimacy to the abortion business--is pointing to increased contraceptive use as a way to try to discredit the findings of this study. For decades, we've been told that abortion has nothing to do with irresponsible behavior, i.e., women's decision to get pregnant because they know that abortion is easily available. I guess, to those promoting abortion, it's okay to admit that irresponsible behavior does account for most abortions, when trying to make a point.

Informed-consent laws come under fire because they contain medical inaccuracies or violate “core principles of informed consent,” the institute said.

This is another great example of twisted pro-abortion thinking. Somehow, it is "medically inaccurate" to show the stage of fetal development. And how does providing women information violate the principle of informed consent?

Overall, this article does show that these laws, while not restricting access to abortion at all, do have a positive effect.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.