Ohio has recently passed a six-week abortion ban, in addition to increasing funding for religious counseling.
While discussing this issue with people I know, a couple of interesting things came up that I want to share. First, a friend of mine shared a story that had been posted by Ohio public radio and said:
At least they framed the issue as “anti-abortion” instead of using the term “pro-life.”
In my opinion, framing pro-life as anti-abortion isn’t much better. This would make me pro-abortion, and I’m not really pro-abortion. I’m anti-religious law. I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-medical care. I think decisions should be left up to women, doctors, and their families instead of legislated by religious zealots. I believe medical care should be available to everyone.
Second, I also had a long conversation with a friend who is on the religious left about the issue. He is against Trump, and he hates the idea of detention camps for migrants. Yet abortion is a real hot-button issue for him. He sees many people on the left as immoral, because he sees us as pro-abortion.
In my discussion with him, I ended up talking about how making abortion illegal doesn’t reduce it, it just drives it underground and makes it less accessible to poor people. We joked about how Trump abortions would still happen because someone like him has the resources to fly overseas or find a qualified doctor who could perform an abortion under the table.
Things got heated but we kept it respectful, and I agreed with him on his goal of ending abortion. Because we have a good relationship, we were able to talk some about what we could do toward ending abortion. To my surprise, there was a lot of agreement and perhaps even more importantly, the conversation changed from antagonistic to trying to solve a problem.
Here’s what I suggested a project to end abortion in America might look like. I’m interested in feedback on whether or not this might be viable, why or why not, and/or how to make it better.
A project to end abortion in America
As a friend of mine who is a nurse once said to me:
If we really want to end abortion, empower women and end poverty.
In order to accomplish this, here’s what I think a project to end abortion would include:
- Science-based sex education
- Free contraception
- A living wage
- Childcare help for families, either in the form of assistance or through tax credits
- Health care for everyone
- Family planning services
- Keeping medical options open
What reduces abortion rates
The region with the highest abortion rates in the world is Latin America, despite having some of the most restrictive laws against abortion. What making the procedure illegal does is make it less safe. According to The Guttmacher Institute, as of 2014, nearly 23,000 women still die each year from complications due to unsafe abortions.
What does reduce abortion rates, then?
Knowledge of and access to contraception. The Contraceptive CHOICE Project found that offering counseling and free contraception to women reduced the abortion rate by 62-78%.
All of these things increase knowledge of and access to contraception:
- Health care
- Family planning services
- Science-based sex education
This is why abortion rates are at historic lows in developed countries. Developed countries tend to provide health care to more people, and have better access to birth control.
But we’ve argued this for years, you say
I can’t disagree. I’m not presenting anything new. What I’m suggesting is that part of the problem is that the way we’ve “argued” this issue is often to argue it.
What I mean by this is that all too often we like to focus on winning an academic argument. In layman’s terms, we care more about being right about the issue than we do about solving it. And by we, I mean everyone, not just folks on either side of the issue.
I like to joke with people who I can joke with that abortion is the perfect conservative issue: You get to tell other people what to do, and it costs nothing. Often even conservatives laugh at this, because it strikes a truthful chord.
Let me give you an example of what something similar looks like from the liberal side. Here’s an article from The Guardian titled: “Want to lower the abortion rate? Support pro-choice policies.”
It’s a good article and it lays out several of the points I’ve made here. I just think it’s missing one thing, and that thing is critical.
The article spends 1% of the time agreeing that it’s a problem worth solving (the opening sentence) and 99% of the time making the case for liberal policies.
If we want allies instead of enemies, we should really be reversing these ratios, and I’m not sure that’s something that journalism does well. It is, however, what good marketing and outreach does. It’s what constructive conversations do.
This is what I envision a project to end abortion in America might do: It would spend a lot more time talking about how we might be able to work together on solving the issue, rather than trying to win an academic argument.
At the very least, it might help show evangelicals that there’s not as much difference in values as the media often portrays.
Thoughts? Has anyone seen anything like this? Is it something politicians could propose?
David Akadjian is the author of The Little Book of Revolution: A Distributive Strategy for Democracy (ebook now available).