Conservative orthodoxy has it that they are anti-abortion, and liberals are pro-abortion. Bullshit! No one is pro-abortion. I am sure that the vast majority of women, who have had an abortion, would have preferred not being in a position where they had to make that choice. I hope that the women in my life — and every woman — never have to get an abortion. But should the circumstance arise, proponents of small government ought to be the first to say it is a woman’s choice. But they are not.
Further, Conservatives have only one ‘solution’ to abortion. Ban it. But abortion in pre-Roe America was commonplace — even though it was mostly illegal. A study by the Guttmacher Institute extrapolated data from North Carolina to estimate that 829,000 illegal or self-induced abortions occurred in 1967. So the effect of Roe was not so much to increase the number of abortions but to make them legal — therefore safer.
Get rid of Roe, and it will be 1967 all over again.
So how do you reduce the number of abortions? To start, mandate comprehensive sex ed. And hand-in-hand with knowledge, give sexually active people of all ages access to free and readily available contraception.
Next, ensure that prospective parents have the resources to care for a child — or in 59% of cases another child. Because contrary to the popular right-wing belief that abortion is used as contraception by flibbertigibbets, the majority of women who receive an abortion are mothers who have already given birth at least once.
But that will never happen because these anti-women zealots are not about to spend a dime to achieve their stated aim. The sanctimonious, self-proclaimed “lovers of life” will not put their money where their mouth is. No paid parental leave. No universal pre-K. No Medicaid expansion. No free or reduced-cost higher education. Reductions in SNAP benefits. And no rise in the minimum wage (MW) since 2009.
At the very least, if the MW were tied to inflation, it would now be $9.72 instead of $7.25. If it had kept pace with inflation since 1970, it would now be $11.82. But of course, only the financial elite see anything like that kind of growth.
In contrast, consider the Scandinavian countries, with their extensive social welfare and support for new parents. They all have lower abortion rates than the US. They also have lower maternal fatality rates. That is veritably “pro-life”.
It gets worse. In addition to resisting any expenditure to reduce the rate of abortion, conservatives actively campaign to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies with their ludicrous “abstinence-only” sex ed philosophy. That absurdity is based on the assumption that teenagers and young adults have greater self-control than David Vitter (prostitutes, adultery) Jim Bakker (rape, adultery) Ted Haggard (hypocritical gay sex, adultery) Dennis Hastert (child molesting, adultery) Newt Gingrich (serial adultery) the Catholic Church (child rape) — and all the others.
And what of Justice (there’s an irony) Alito’s argument that the majority was wrong in Roe when they held that any constitutional right to privacy "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." In Dobbs, Alito argued that "any such [substantive due process] right must be deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition . . . [t]he right to an abortion does not fall within this category."
First, abortion was legal in America in 1787. The first anti-abortion legislation was not enacted until the late 1800s. Even religious leaders thought abortion was moral before “the quickening” — fetal movements occurring around 15-20 weeks. I do not know how he can argue therefore that it is not rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. Second, why does a “right” have to have been granted within a certain time frame? Where does the Constitution say that?
But that is what happens when you determine a legal outcome regardless of the law and logic.
To a conservative, their clinching argument is “the sanctity of life”. We have already established that is complete bullshit. And it misstates the reality of pregnancy. There is no guaranteed path from conception to birth. Somewhere between 10% to 20% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage — aka spontaneous abortion. We can never know the exact number because these pregnancies often end before the woman knows she is pregnant. But we do know the number is significant. And if there is a God, this would make him history’s most aggressive abortionist.
