Abortion in Context, from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, has been very illuminating, and has challenged many of my preconceptions about abortion.
Yet, while it may seem paradoxical, a country’s abortion rate is not closely correlated with whether abortion is legal there. For example, abortion levels are quite high in Latin American countries, where abortion is highly restricted. (In fact, 20 million of the 46 million abortions performed annually worldwide occur in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws.) At the same time, abortion rates are quite low throughout Western Europe, where the procedure is legal and widely available. Also, Eastern and Western Europe have the world’s highest and lowest abortion rates, respectively, yet abortion is generally legal throughout the Continent.If legality is not the determining factor, what drives the rates at which abortions occur in a given country? Clearly, a key factor is the rate at which women experience unintended pregnancies?itself a function of the interplay between a couple’s family-size (and timing) goals and their contraceptive use.
I have previously assumed that, if abortion were illegal, it would be rare. Apparently this is not the case, and I stand corrected. My apologies for any offense that my misconceptions led me to cause. “Safe, legal, and rare” now sounds less like a rabid pro-choice mantra and more like a realistic best-case scenario (though I suppose “extremely rare” would be better). There is no magic bullet to cure the weakness of the human heart (I am speaking of men and women, not by any means just the women who have abortions), nor the difficulties and unfortunate circumstances of life.
This influences my previous thoughts about the importance of the next President’s ability to appoint Supreme Court justices. Even if Roe V Wade is overturned, it may do nothing to reduce the total number of abortions, and will certainly increase the number of women harmed by illegal abortions. AGI has this to say:
[T]he key variable that accounts for the high U.S. abortion rate is not a permissive law but a high unintended pregnancy rate.
No contraceptive method, though, works for everyone.
However, all contraceptive methods have drawbacks. Some have inherently high failure rates, while others are difficult for women (or their partners) to use on a consistent basis (details).For many couples, effective contraceptive use is complicated by cultural, religious and social factors that affect women’s ability to participate fully in reproductive decision-making (details).
…
Unfortunately, contraceptive availability will never make unplanned pregnancies, and the abortions that inevitably follow them, disappear completely. Contraceptives are not perfect, nor are the people who use them. Ultimately, improved access to effective methods of contraception is a necessary part of any serious effort to reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion?at home or abroad.
It is frustrating to me that legislation cannot solve the problem of abortion. I wish it could; magic bullets are pretty nice, but so rare in this complicated world of ours.
So what should we do about abortion?
- Make contraception, in a variety of forms, universally available.
- Create conditions that lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
- Encourage legislation that will create conditions (such as parental consent requirements) that will make abortion a less-likely choice for mothers in desperate situations.
- Pray.
- Work on matters of the heart.
- Provide a loving home for every unwanted child, regardless of race or disability.
What would you add?
That was an interesting article. I am curious as to their sources. They obviously have an agenda to protect reproductive rights (it is stated in their mission statement). I was looking for where they got their information, but had trouble finding it. If you could share what you found about who did their studies I would like to know. (From my review it seems that they cite themselves for all their information, which of course would cause me to doubt the veracity and reproducibility of their information.) I find it surprising that they were able to find statistics on illegal abortions. I think that information would be very hard to determine.
I would not be suprised if you could find a conservative group who has the opposite statistics. I find it suprising that they were able to find statistics on illegal abortions. That seems to me it would be hard to track down.
Sorry for the repetitive post. I did not do a good job cutting and pasting.
Here is a tough article to digest.
Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent The follow up commentary from the author is a little easier to read. Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent, Author Comments
I have prescribed and still presribe birth control. My wife and I have used it in the past, however this article has made me think long and hard about oral contraceptives. I believe life begins at conception, so knowing that there may be postfertilization affects of routine use of OCP’s is disconcerting. (For those who do not know, OCP’s should stop ovulation so that fertalization cannot occur). I am not recommending people stop contraception, even with birth control pills. But if you take the step of faith to believe that life begins with fertilization this article is something to prayerfully consider.
Yes! Oh, I loved these thoughts! I have struggled with the issue of abortion as an evangelical Christian for a long time.
A major shift in my thinking occurred when I was required to take a Women’s Studies class in college (with the Seahawks’ CB, Marcus Trufant, as the only other guy in the class by the way -lol). I was in a group that was required to look at Kenya’s contraceptive/abortion dilemma, where, from all my research it was clear that the most damaging force in the country was not abortion, it was the religious influence on legislation.
I have come to believe that this is such a matter of the heart and not the law. The saddest thing is the
Justin, here’s what I would add:
1. A required reading of the description of the physical abortion process before a woman can choose abortion. (as I mentioned in the first conversation)
2. Defiantly radical acts of kindness for women about to choose abortion instead of shouting at them or attempting to further burden them with guilt.
* The saddest thing is the thought of a woman being in such an intensely pained state that she would choose to end the life inside of her. * Missing from the above post
What I think would be best would be to make abortion illegal and then make the consequences for performing an abortion an equivalent offense to murder (which it is). Helping a woman get an abortion should be considered viewed as assisting in a murder. If the statistics that you state are true then I think that the problem is not the abortion is illegal but that it is not punished appropriately. If child abuse was more rampant in countries where it was illegal we wouldn’t conclude that it should just be made legal in those countries. We would suggest that laws actually be inforced. The pro-life groups that want abortion illegal also envision enforcement of the laws. I seriously doubt that if abortion was treated as seriously as any other murder that it would be common. 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in abortion. I could conservatively guess that that means that 1 in 8 woman has an abortion. Do you really think that 1 in 8 woman would risk inprisonment to kill their child? I doubt it. I also suspect that it would be harder to find someone to perform the abortion if being an abortion provider was given the same treatment as being a serial killer.
Rose-
I think that’s what Virusdoc was touching on in the Bush post’s comments - that the government would feel compelled to be very invasive in order to enforce an anti-abortion law. It’s very easy to induce abortion, as he described, and it is almost impossible to catch people who don’t want to be caught.
What we’d end up with, I’m afraid, is a situation where the only abortions that occur unsafely are those had by poor people, while the rich could get whatever they want done safely (either under the table in the US, or in another country) because they have the money. Furthermore, people would be more likely to put themselves in danger by taking risks to do illegally what they can’t do legally.
On the other hand, though, I concede that there probably is something to your argument that the dissuading effect that enforcement of abortion laws would have. As long as we were doing everything possible to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and to place every unwanted child, and support every reluctant mother (financially and emotionally), I could stand by the enforcement of such laws. The practicalities of how that would be done are another matter, though.
Does anyone have other stats that verify or refute AGI’s stats about the correlation between the legality and frequency of abortion?
The same is true in our spirituality. Law doesn’t help us attain our goals only grace does. HMM? So God’s ways are tue in everything.
brad
These discussions are interesting, but I find myself getting worked up sometimes. I am ready for the political season to be over so we can go back to learning more about christian compassion, worship, evangelism, and life. Abortion, welfare and politics are great for discussion and lots of posts, but sometimes I think they are hard on the soul.
I agree, willc. I need to go cool down now.
Amen. I want to do some good ecclesiology blogging, but can’t seem to find the time or energy with all the other stuff that’s going on.
I don?t think that frequency of violation necessarily has any relevance to the appropriateness of a law.
Drugs are illegal and frequently abused, but I don?t hear very many Christians arguing for their legalization?at least I?m hoping none of you will, anyway. The emotional effects of drug abuse?legal or illegal?are devastating. The emotional effects of abortion, legal or illegal, can be even more so, and like drug use, more that just the individual(s) in question are affected.
I don?t claim to have all the answers, or even many ideas as to the root causes of either of these problems. Even faith in Jesus won?t eliminate them completely. This being the case, (with all due respect to those who disagree, and all statistics aside) legalization seems an act of either foolishness or resignation.
It seems very difficult to legislate morality, but this doesn?t mean that we should legalize immorality.
Hey Ted, good to hear from you again. I agree that this battle should continue to be fought, but on many fronts rather than just making abortion illegal, since that seems like it will not help in actually reducing abortions that much.
Politics (the affairs between humans) is what G-d’s message is all about, and it’s designed target.
If you can’t stomach enterting the political arena with your faith-values (Islam/Hinduism/Judaism/Christianity) as a compass, then some energy-drinks might be in order. Faith-values are not just about your inner, spiritual conflicts and goals — they are a lot more about conflicts and goals between each of us within humanity.
Get to work.
rob@egoz.org
Justin-
Thanks.
I agree that we need more than laws, and I have to admit that countries that have legalized abortion with low utilization intrigue me. Since these are European stats, I wonder if a higher use of RU-486 is involved in lowering their rates, since use of this drug to induce abortion probably isn?t included with invasive abortion numbers.
I?d still like to think that making it against the law in this country would lower the numbers significantly. Even lowering them by one would be worth it for the many people who could potentially be directly affected.
Hmmm… this is what I’m seeing:
1. Millions of mothers are killing their own children.
2. Making these murders illegal will not stop the killing.
3. To stop the killing, we need to prevent the unwanted pregnancies.
4. Contraception is not full-proof, 100 percent accessible, or 100 percent affordable.
5. In many cases, contraception actually aborts the baby soon after conception.
6. God’s plan for sexual union and child-bearing, marriage, actually works.
7. There is no magic bullet to stop abortions.
8. We have a lot of hard work to do.
What are some practical things we can do?
Here’s one practical thing we can do:
“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Mat 9:38 NIV).
As always, ask a woman.
I shared the AGI study results with my wife, and she said there was no mystery to that. Almost all countries in Europe provide health insurance coverage for contraception - it is free in almost all cases. Contraceptives are not cheap, and especially the poor could not afford it.
America is one of the few developed countries in the world that does not provide health benefits for contraception (private or public).
I believe that it is also true that many of the South American countries, where abortion is highly restricted have similar restrictions on contraception, thus the conception rates are higher.
I remember a similar discussion from my high school days (1969 -1973) where one ignoramous stated his approval of abortion, because, as he said, “I’m a Catholic, we’re not supposed to use contraception.”
I guess he didn’t realize that as a Catholic, he wasn’t supposed to use abortion either. But my guess is that as a neanderthal male, he just figured it wasn’t his problem.
thanks for all your views.my comment is short….
100% of all those who are advorcating for abortions were born!(they were not aborted)i wonder why they dont want others to have the God given right to live and get to be a somebody.(double standards,or what?)God bless you alot!Lets support life and keep praying.
mike gitonga.(africa nazarene university,Kenya)
thanks for all your views.my comment is short….
100% of all those who are advorcating for abortions were born!(they were not aborted)i wonder why they dont want others to have the God given right to live and get to be a somebody.(double standards,or what?)God bless you alot!Lets support life and keep praying.
mike gitonga.(africa nazarene university,Kenya)
Michael-
It’s good to have a non-Western voice here at Radical Congruency. Thanks for your comments!
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