Keeping Abortion Legal Lowers the Number of Abortions?

A friend recently posted the article, “How I Lost Faith in the Pro-life Movement” on Facebook.  It’s an interesting post on a topic that has a tendency to generate more heat than light.  I have tried to carefully look over this article and thought that I would make a few comments in response to the blog post. 

Regarding the premise that “The Pro-Life Movement is anti-contraception.”  Maybe there is something here that I haven’t seen, it’s certainly possible.  This is the position of the Catholic Church I know, however, I have been involved at some level with “pro-life” people for 25 years in my pastoral work.  If a key piece of the pro-life movement is that it is anti-contraception I have completely missed it both in the literature, and anecdotally within the people I have rubbed shoulders with.  Additionally, I think it’s interesting to note two things: First, regarding the pro-life movement being “anti-contraceptive” the article that Libby cited is actually making the point that Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine was chastising the NAE (National Association of Evangelicals) for supporting the use of contraception.  Second, as far as I can research, the National Right to Life organization has no stance at all on contraception.  Beyond that however, of the 62% of people in the USA (according to a recent CNN Poll) who want abortion to be illegal in all cases, or available only in certain cases, I am guessing that the vast majority are in favor of contraception, though I have no facts to back that point up.  Please define “pro-life movement.”  I can’t tell from the article who “they” are to whom Libby is referring.

Obama care has not “reduced abortion by 75%.”  The blog says that Obama care “stands to reduce abortion by 75 %.  There is no basis for this number that I can see.  It is completely predicated upon the idea of providing contraceptives to all women.  Whether or not that should be done is one matter… but would it actually work to reduce abortions by 75%.   I do not believe it would.  The issue of Obama care is vastly complex.  I want to say first, we have a healthcare crisis in our country to be sure.  Second I do not believe President Obama’s plan will work, however, we need something.  According to a Guttmacher Institute report in 2011, 54% of women who had abortions had used contraception in the month they conceived.  To suggest that making contraception available to every woman (whether one supports it or not) would drop abortion by 75% is a made up number.  It is clearly the case that non-use of contraceptives is highest in those in poverty, so perhaps it would make a significant difference, particularly in that group, but again, there is no real way to know whether it would or wouldn’t.  I couldn’t find any research for 2012 that suggests there has been a significant reduction in abortions.  Also interestingly, the number of abortions has already been steadily decreasing since 1991 (thankfully) other than a short uptick in 2006.  It seems to have held steady during the Obama Presidency or seen a slight uptick based on articles I read, but I can’t find exact numbers.  In any case it has not decreased. 

I think the somewhat overlooked piece for me is Libby’s statement:  “I no longer believe that abortion is murder because I no longer hold that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a ‘person.’  I also came to realize that the focus on person-hood ignores the fact that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is growing inside of another person’s body.”  For Libby person-hood relates to birth.  This is where the abortion argument has to hinge in my view because the “moral status of persons” and how we value them impacts both the souls of people and the souls of nations.  Also, if we think that securing the status of a zygote, embryo, or fetus has implications only for pre-birth issues we are being too short sighted.  If a fetus (baby) isn’t a person before birth why not?  And at what point does the fetus (baby) become a person?  A recent medical ethics conversation is suggesting that “after-birth abortion” is fine also on any grounds under which “pre-birth abortion” would be acceptable.  I think the essence of the argument philosophically is that if a baby (fetus) isn’t a person or holding moral status just prior to birth (and even when partially born), what changes the moral status just after, or sometime after, the baby has been born?  The reason this part of the argument is so important, beyond simply valuing and protecting persons, is that it has implications much beyond the abortion debate.  If we do not ascribe moral status to a baby slightly before birth, or sometime after birth, then we are deciding moral status of persons based on functionality.  At what point is a person high enough functioning to be given moral status as a “person?”  This has vast implications to end of life scenarios in my view.  The pragmatist view that “keeping abortion legal lowers the numbers of abortions” doesn’t begin to ask the question of the moral status of person, and who is considered a person.  Even if keeping abortion legal lowers the number of abortions (I don’t really think it’s been shown that it could do it by 75% in any case) it ignores the much larger question, again, at least in my opinion. 

The “Pro-life movement ‘cooking up facts’ such as the harmful side effects.”  I can’t really say what the side effects of abortion are for all women.  I can only tell you of a few instances in which I have had the privilege of sitting with women who have had an abortion.  One in particular, who twenty years after the abortion could not forgive herself or live with herself for having done that.  This wasn’t a particularly religious person, not a person who had been raised in the church or who was part of a church at the time she talked to me.  (I do not make this qualifier of her religious background to claim any moral superiority whatsoever, only to say that I don’t think her feelings 20 years later were predicated upon her having been given some pseudo morality by the church).  I can only say, for that one person the convenience of abortion when she was 18 years old, wasn’t worth it when she was 42 years old.  It was devastating.  I can say it wasn’t a “cooked up fact” that this person’s life was devastated in significant ways, and had been so for years.

I know that this is a highly charged emotional topic on a number of levels.  I mean this reply to be thoughtful and careful.