Abortion's Impact Is More Than Morality

Townhall.com ^ | May 21, 2019 | John R. Lott Jr

[Kaslin]

From Alabama’s new law restricting abortion to Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam (D) comments clearly condoning killing infants after birth, abortion is guaranteed to be a central part of next year’s election. The abortion debate usually centers only on the morality of the act (choice versus life). Morality surely is important, but abortion has the much wider impact.

Liberalizing abortion rules from 1969 to 1973 ignited vast long-term social changes in America. This discussion might finally provide a chance to evaluate how Roe v. Wade has changed the U.S.

One often misunderstood fact: Legal abortions didn't start with Roe or even with the five states that liberalized abortion laws in 1969 and 1970. Prior to Roe, women could have had abortions when their lives or health were endangered.

Doctors in some surprising states, such as Kansas, had very liberal interpretations of what constituted danger to health; nevertheless, Roe did substantially increase abortions, more than doubling the rate per live birth in the five years from 1972 to 1977.

But many other changes occurred at the same time:

• A sharp increase in pre-marital sex.

• A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births.

• A drop in the number of children placed for adoption.

• A decline in marriages that occur after the woman is pregnant.

Many of these changes might seem contradictory. Why would both the number of abortions and out-of-wedlock births go up? If there were more illegitimate births, why were fewer children available for adoption?

For the first puzzle, part of the answer lies in attitudes toward premarital sex. With abortion seen as a backup, women as well as men became less careful in using contraceptives as well as more likely to have premarital sex.

There were more unplanned pregnancies. But legal abortion did not mean every unplanned pregnancy led to abortion. After all, just because abortion is legal does not mean that the decision is an easy one.

Academic studies have found that legalized abortion, by encouraging premarital sex, increased the number of unplanned births, even outweighing the reduction in unplanned births due to abortion.

In the United States from the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5 percent of all births from 1965 to 1969 to more than 16 percent two decades later (1985 to 1989).

For blacks, the numbers soared from 35 percent to 62 percent. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion rules, it was a key contributing factor, nevertheless.

With legalization and a woman not forced to go through with an unplanned pregnancy, a man might well expect his partner to have an abortion if a sexual encounter were to result in an unplanned pregnancy.

But what happens if the woman refuses — say, she is morally opposed or, perhaps, she thought she could have an abortion but upon becoming pregnant decides she can't go through with it?

Many men, feeling tricked into unwanted fatherhood, likely will wash their hands of the affair altogether, thinking, "I never wanted a baby. It's her choice, so let her raise the baby herself."

What is expected of men in this position has changed dramatically in the last four decades. Evidence shows that the greater availability of abortion largely ended "shotgun" marriages, where men felt obligated to marrying the women.

What has happened to these babies of reluctant fathers?

The mothers often raise the children on their own. Even as abortion has led to more out-of-wedlock births it has dramatically reduced adoptions of children born in America by two-parent families.

Before Roe, when abortion was much more difficult, women who would have chosen an abortion but were unable to get one turned to adoption as their backup. After Roe, women who turned down an abortion also were the type who wanted to keep the child.

But all these changes — rising out-of-wedlock births, plummeting adoption rates and the end of shotgun marriages — meant one thing: more single-parent families. With work and other demands on their time, single parents, no matter how "wanted" their child may be, tend to devote less attention to their children than do married couples; after all, it's difficult for one person to spend as much time with a child as two people can.

From the beginning of the abortion debate, those favoring abortion have pointed to the social costs of "unwanted" children who simply won't get the attention of "wanted" ones. But there is a trade-off that has long been neglected. Abortion may eliminate "unwanted" children, but it increases out-of-wedlock births and single parenthood. Unfortunately, the social consequences of illegitimacy dominated.

Children born after liberalized abortion rules have suffered a series of problems from difficulties at school to more crime. The saddest fact is that it is the most vulnerable in society, poor blacks, who have suffered the most from these changes.

No matter who wins the election or controls the Supreme Court, abortions are unlikely to be outlawed, just as they were not outlawed before the court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Liberalized abortion undoubtedly has made life easier for many, but like sex itself sometimes, it has had many unintended consequences.

[abclily]

Why can’t we have taxpayer-funded birth control medications and devises?

[tired&retired]

The soul knows that killing is wrong even when the brain and ego do not.

Abortion creates a wound in the soul.

[allendale]

First consider the irreplaceable genetic losses Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia suffered from 1914 thru 1945. Then calculate the effect of widespread abortion and pervasive birth control common in those countries since 1965. Is it any wonder that their cultures are deteriorating and they are overrun by migrants? The future belongs to the fertile.

[ConservativeDude]

it’s a perfect environment for the decay of islam to march into

[all the best]

That’s what I say. Why can’t we have taxpayer funded anything and everything. Nobody should have any say in how their money is to be used. Just take it all.

[abclily]

Taxpayer-funded birth control would save taxpayers lots of money in the long run. Preventive medicine is a money saver.

[Mrs. Don-o]

The Title X Family Planning Program, officially known as Public Law 91-572 or "Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning Programs", was enacted under President Richard Nixon in 1970 as part of the Public Health Service Act.

We've had tax-payer funded birth control drugs and devices since three years BEFORE Roe vs Wade. I doubt there's a single Public Health Department in any county of the United States that does not give out free birth control.

So almost 50 years' experience has shown that free contraception does not stop abortion. In fact, several analyses have shown that the availability of contraception spurs unwanted pregnancies, abortions, AND out-of-wedlock births.

Counter-intuitive, I'll grant you: but them's the facts.

I'd be glad to hazard an explanation if anybody wants to ask.

[abclily]

Thanks for the information. Appreciate it.

[Tell It Right]

Birth control is dirt cheap as it is. Don't tell me it's an issue of "access" to birth control.

For example, the birth rate declined during the Great Depression when people were too poor to feed a bunch of babies. From now on when you hear the term "baby boomers", remember that it wasn't just WW2 that caused a decline in births (while the men were away in war), but also the poverty of the Great Depression before we entered the war. So when the war was over and the men came home, many families had over a decade of baby-making to make up for.

Think about it. That generation was able to refrain from making babies they couldn't raise without much of the things we take for granted today. With a lot less education than today, with a lot less forms of birth control, with little to no welfare to pay for what birth control was available.

But what that generation had that we've haven't had in a while is: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Want to reduce unwanted pregnancy today? Inject personal responsibility. Want there to be less uncared for babies for us to argue what to do about? Inject personal responsibility.

Ban abortions. The #1 reason I hate it is that the one paying the consequences (being aborted) is never the one who chose the actions (baby making) that created the problem. Abortion eschews personal responsibility from the people who engaged in the activity to the one truly innocent. End result: more unwanted pregnancies in the future. (Fun fact: over 60% of abortions are in women who had prior abortions.)

Get rid of welfare. It makes those of us who make wise decisions pay the consequences of those who make dumb decisions. My wife and I raised our kids & put them through college. We've done our part. Don't punish us to pay for other kids' welfare. If you insist on the government being involved in the kids' welfare, fine, take the money from the people who made the kids you're trying to help.

Demand child support of the baby makers if they put their kids up for adoption. All states already have child support laws for divorce and custody disputes outside of marriage. Modify them to make both the biological "father" and biological "mother' pay child support to whatever foster family/orphanage raises the kid. That'll put the consequences of the baby making onto the people doing the baby making. That'll drastically reduce unwanted pregnancies. It's the only thing that will.

[Tax-chick]

What do you think is the explanation for these unexpected (*drink!*) facts?

[Jacquerie]

Exactly. Here in the US, we can thank Scotus for the "rights" to :

Chemical contraception,
Abortion,
Sodomy,
Homo marriage,

which, when taken together mean every generation is encouraged to 'off the next. It is working. It is tyranny.

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Mrs. Don-o]

In short, contraception's impact on sexual attitudes and behavior outstrips its impact on reducing fertility. On a sexual episode-by-isolated-episode basis, it reduces likelihood of conception, but overall by the year, by decade, across society, it significantly increases frequency, number of "partners," and carelessness of sexual contact.

In countries which have tracked the results of making new sorts of contraceptives available to new "acceptors" (e.g. contraceptives becoming newly available, or free, w/o prescription in colleges, then high schools, then middle schools, or becoming newly accepted by sub-populations like the Irish, the Iranians, the Parsis, whomever), contraceptive use, unintended pregnancies, abortions, out-of-wedlock births, and STI/STD's, go up in parallel lines, simultaneously.

Marriage rates go down, then divorce rates go down because nobody's getting married.

Imagine my surprise.

Then the future goes to those who show up. Inshallah.

[Tax-chick]

Excellent and succinct explanation.