Hardly anyone is asking this question about abortion policy.

Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash

In light of recent abortion policy news, it’s always seemed to me that people were ignoring one of the most important questions about abortion laws. For the sake of argument, set aside important debates regarding the autonomy of the mother and rights of the unborn and narrowly ask, “What laws reduce abortion rates?”

Luckily, we don’t have to make blind guesses about what different policies will do. Other countries have tried everything:

— 26 countries prohibit abortion entirely, no exceptions.
— 39 allow it only to save the mother’s life or physical health.
— 24 allow it to protect the mother’s mental health.
— 13 allow it if certain socioeconomic factors are shown.
— 61 allow abortion without restriction as to reason (though many with restrictions as to trimester, such as the U.S.).

(Sources are linked at the end.)

RESULTS:

Abortions occur as often in the two most-restrictive types of countries (total ban or only to save the woman’s life) as in the least-restrictive (no restriction as to reason) — 37 and 34 per 1,000 women, respectively. Since 2000, 28 countries have changed their abortion laws, most making it more permissible, including 16 countries that previously had a total ban. Generally, the stricter laws did not correlate with lower rates. (Caveat: Obviously, the differing rates between countries are effected by more factors than just the differing laws on the books — but the determinative effect other factors have on the abortion rates compared to the effect laws have is precisely my point.)

Hence, if you vote based on a party’s promise to “overturn Roe v. Wade” and “ban abortion” you may be mistaking an outcome that criminalizes abortion for one that definitively decreases abortion rates in the long run. Nobody is saying the way to prevent abortion is to legalize it; but pretending that prohibition will magically resolve the issue is not realistic.

In contrast, the one policy change that definitively leads to significant, observable declines in abortion rates is helping women prevent unwanted pregnancies (i.e. ACCESS TO BIRTH CONTROL) — leading to the ironic result: the ostensibly “pro-life” policies that defund and result in the shutdown of health clinics generally result in increases in abortion rates. Another ironic result: In my lifetime, the steepest declines in abortion rates in the U.S. have happened under Democratic presidents who have less restrictive abortion policies (coinciding with liberalization of access to birth control and other healthcare). Similarly, since the 1980s, U.S. policies that prevent U.S. foreign aid from going to NGOs that discuss or perform abortions have, counterintuitively, resulted in higher rates of abortion while these policies are in effect, and lower rates when the policies are suspended — directly tracking with the Republican and Democratic administrations that respectively implement and then suspend the policies. In the words of one researcher, “By undercutting the ability to supply modern contraceptives [through these policies] the unintended consequence is that abortion rates increase.” [FN2]

At bottom, we don’t have to resolve the intractable debates about when life begins and when legal personhood attaches to do the obvious thing that both reduces abortion rates and helps women maintain autonomy over their reproductive choices: Vote for expanded access to birth control.

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SOURCES:

1. Abortion Worldwide 2017: Uneven Progress and Unequal Access, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2018, https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-worldwide-2017
2. Crawford, K. (2019, June 28). U.S. policy to restrict abortion funding results in more abortions. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). https://tinyurl.com/y3uwbvk
3. Fox, M. (2018, March 20). Abortion rates go down when countries make it legal: report. NBC News. https://tinyurl.com/yx8wgtaq
4. Levy, G. (2018, March 21). Abortion Rates: Where and Why They’re Falling. U.S. News and World Report. https://tinyurl.com/yygrma58
5. New, M. J. (2018, May 24). How the Legal Status of Abortion Impacts Abortion Rates. Christian Post. https://tinyurl.com/y3k4rv7t
6. Roberts, Y. (2019, March 4). Abortions rise worldwide when US cuts funding to women’s health clinics, study finds. Public Radio International. https://tinyurl.com/y3nx356h
7. Rosenthal, E. (2007, October 12). Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare. New York Times. https://tinyurl.com/y47xxw3b