Reducing the U.S. abortion rate

Reducing the abortion rate by
minimizing unwanted pregnancies

Sponsored link.

Past activity by the pro-life and pro-choice movements:

Prior to the 1973 Roe v Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, individual states had conflicting laws governing abortion access: some were highly restrictive; others more permissive. The court's decision made abortions freely available throughout the U.S. during the first trimester -- the first three months of pregnancy. It did allow individual states to place increasing restrictions during the second trimester and additional restrictions during the third trimester. However, it required that women have access to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy if they needed it for "health" reasons. Over time, the health exception became very broadly interpreted.

The court decision galvanized the pro-life movement to try to find a way to restrict abortions; some pro-lifers want to eliminate abortion access entirely, even if was needed to save the life of the woman. Others would allow abortions to save the woman's life. Still others would allow them in a few other situations: e.g. rape, incest, or to prevent very serious health consequences like permanent disability.

Their effort has not been notably successful. Laws have been passed to make abortions more difficult to obtain and to make the transportation of a minor across state lines to have an abortion a criminal act.

The abortion rate has been in a slow decline in recent years. However, this reduction appears to be caused primarily by other factors -- most notably fear of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), increased use of contraception, and adopting less risky alternatives to sexual intercourse. Meanwhile, the pro-choice movement has continued to try to make abortions available to all women.

More recently, debate over D&X pregnancy termination (a.k.a. Partial Birth Abortion, PBA) surfaced. In  rare instances, it is needed to avoid very serious health consequences to women. A federal law and many state laws were passed to severely restrict the practice. The pro-choice movement supported the continued availability of this procedure. However, the D&X procedure is seen as uncomfortably close to infanticide by much of the public. This placed the pro-choice movement in a bad light.

A new trend, promoted mainly by the pro-choice movement:

During his 1996 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton said that he wanted a culture in which abortion was "safe, legal, and rare." This resonated with many American adults who feel uncomfortable with the concept of abortion, yet also feel that women should be able to terminate their pregnancies safely in at least some situations.

In 2005-JAN, on the 32nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Senator Hillary Clinton stunned the pro-choice community with a suggestion that an abortion was a "sad, even tragic choice" for a woman. She further recommended that it was time for pro-choicers to seek "common ground" with the pro-life movement. ₁ Many felt that this suggestion was a bit of a stretch. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers had specialized in distorting each other's activities, goals, and viewpoints for decades. Working with the "enemy" appeared to many to be impossible.

Over the next two years, many Democratic legislators and pro-choice leaders have started to agree with Hillary Clinton's call for cooperation between the two warring factions. Jodi Enda wrote:

"After decades of battling strictly for abortion rights ... pro choice leaders have settled on a new tack: prevention. The best way to reduce the need for abortion, they remind us, is to prevent unintended pregnancies." ₁

Almost half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended and unexpected. Almost half of them end in an abortion.

A potential problem: opposition to the use of contraceptives:

The reason why women seek an abortion is obvious: they do so because they are pregnant and don't want to be. Preventing unwanted pregnancies will reduce the number of abortions. However, this requires either the use of contraception, or the practice of abstinence. The latter has not proven to be particularly effective. Abstinence programs in schools do appear to delay teens' first sexual experience slightly. However, when they do become sexually active -- at about 16 years of age on average -- many lack the the knowledge of how prevent STD transmission and pregnancy. In addition, abstinence has a failure rate in excess of 90% in that almost all young people become sexually active before marriage.

That leaves contraception. To be most effective, a contraceptive-based abortion reduction program would require that:

	Contraceptives be free or easily affordable by everyone.
	Contraceptives be easily obtained by anyone needing them.
	All adolescents be trained in their proper use, starting well before their first sexual experience.
	Parents be supported more financially and with social services.

Some countries in Europe have implemented this type of program. The public in France, Germany, and the Netherlands expect teens to become sexually active and employ safer sex techniques to protect themselves against pregnancy and STD. If the Dutch attitudes on human sexuality were adopted by the U.S., the rate of abortions by American teens might be reduced from 27.5 per 1,000 adolescents per year to something like the Dutch figure of 4.5 -- a reduction of 85%. This would cause a reduction on the order of 200,000 abortions per year!

Contraception has wide acceptance in the U.S.: The National Survey of Family Growth, 2002, reported that among sexually active women aged 15 to 44, the following percentages of women have used modern contraceptive methods, like the birth control pill, condoms, IUD, etc: ₂

However, not everyone is in favor of the use of contraceptives, particularly when it involves adolescents.

Among Roman Catholics: The Roman Catholic hierarchy is unalterably opposed to the use of such contraceptive methods. They teach their concept of natural law in which every act of sexual intercourse must be open to conception and the creation of new human life. However, the Catholic laity appears to have rejected the church's teachings. Among sexually active Roman Catholic women:

97% of those over 18 years of age have used a contraception method banned by the church. The average for all American women is also 97%. 85% have had their partners use condoms. 78% have used the birth control pill. 88% of married women who attend church once a week or more have used a method banned by the church. For those who attend church less often, the number is also 88%. Fewer than 3% use church-approved fertility awareness-based methods as their primary form of family planning. Of those women who try this method, about half abandon it within the first year. 2

Among conservative protestants: Many Christian fundamentalists and other evangelicals: Are keen to preserve the "purity" of their teenage children; i.e. to keep their children sexually inactive until marriage. Consider pre-marital sex to be one a very serious sins. Oppose the use of the Gardasil® vaccine to protect their children against genital human papillomavirus (HPV) -- the primary cause of cervical cancer. Many believe that if young people feel safe from HPV and cervical cancer, they will be more prone to engage in pre-marital sex. Oppose comprehensive sex education in the schools that educate teens in methods of preventing STD and pregnancy, in addition to promoting abstinence.

Their rationale appears to be that if the various risks of sexual activity remain high, then fewer youths will decide to become sexually active.

Sponsored link

The future of joint activity by the pro-lifer and pro-choice movements:

Since any program to drastically reduce the number of abortions by minimizing unwanted pregnancies would have to involve comprehensive education of adolescents starting before they become sexually active, some people in the pro-life movement may be unwilling to participate in any joint programs.

We suspect that finding "common ground" may prove to be very difficult. Many of the leadership in the pro-life movement view any use of contraception to be a major sin, unless it is a church-approved method based on fertility awareness and is used by a married couple. Other pro-lifers are strongly opposed to any program that supplies adolescents with information to avoid pregnancy and STDs.

Indications of resistance to joint effort by the pro-life community:

One indication of the resistance of the pro-life movement to reducing abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies was heard on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) broadcast on 2007-JAN-23 during the 34th Annual March for Life in Washington, DC. Two speakers made a point of mentioning that their goal is not to reduce the number of abortions; it is to eliminate them entirely.

Another was an article in Life Site News attacking the Democrats in Washington for promoting what LifeSite calls a "Plan to promote more contraception and thereby make pro-lifers look like hypocritical extremists." Joseph D'Agustino, of the Population Research Institute writes about the Democratic legislators:

"Now that they have taken control of our national legislature, they must appear to care about reducing abortion while not doing anything that would actually reduce abortion and alienate their fanatically pro-death base, and at the same time isolate truly pro-life Americans in the minds of the so-called 'abortion grays'." 

"These are American voters who have qualms about abortion but do not wish it outlawed, and are thus susceptible to appeals from either side of the abortion divide.  Most abortion grays view as unpleasantly extremist both the NARAL, Barbara Boxer types who embrace even partial-birth abortion and principled anti-abortion activists who believe every single unborn child should be saved however inconvenient he [sic] may be."

"Because of Roe v. Wade and political realities, banning most abortions is not on congressional pro-lifers' agenda for the time being, so pro-abortion forces have found another way to do harm, in more ways than one.  Their approach could not only divide and demonize pro-lifers, but would spread disease among youth, increase their psychic distress, and inflate the number of abortions."

"The Dems’ plan is to promote contraception as a means of reducing abortion and watch pro-lifers, who know contraception increases abortion, squirm as the media portrays any opposition to more federal funding for contraceptive programs as hypocritical extremism on the part of pro-lifers."

References used:

1. Joni Enda, "Prevention drives today's prochoice agenda," Conscience magazine, Winter 2006/2007, Pages 11 & 12.
2. "The facts tell the story: Catholics and Contraception," Catholics for a Free Choice, at: http://www.cath4choice.org/
3. Joseph D'Agustino, "Democrats plans for dividing and demonizing pro-lifers. Plan to promote more contraception and thereby make pro-lifers look like hypocritical extremists," LifeSiteNews.com, 2007-JAN-26, at: http://www.lifesite.net/

Copyright © 2007 to 2012 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally posted: 2007-JAN-22
Latest update: 2012-MAR-14
Author: B.A. Robinson

Go to the previous page, or to the "Reducing the abortion rate" menu, or to the "Human sexuality" menu, or choose:

Web ReligiousTolerance.org

Page Translator: This page translator works on Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari browsers only After translating, click on the "show original" button at the top of this page to restore page to English.