Abortion: Supporting It is the Only Way to End It

A Brief History of an Ancient Issue

Abortions are nothing new. Not by a long shot. To give you some idea of how long we've been going round and round on this issue, Aristotle wrote in 325 BCE that "[T]he line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive."--a debate we're still having today about when human life begins.

Early, if not ancient, methods of aborting a fetus included physical activities like strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving. Additional methods included irritant leaves, fasting, bloodletting, pouring hot water onto the abdomen, sitting over a pot of steaming water, and lying on a heated coconut shell. Other physical means of inducing an abortion such as battery, exercise, and tightening of the girdle were still often used as late as the Early Modern Period among English women. After a wave of miscarriages in England were attributed to lead poisoning from the metal pipes carrying the water supply, women began using diachylon, a substance with a high concentration of lead, to intentionally cause a miscarriage. This substance was used up until WWI. Perhaps the more gruesome methods are recorded during the 19th century in the U.S. when relatively safe procedures actually existed, but were outlawed (more on this in a minute). During this time, the use of candles and other objects, such as glass rods, penholders, curling irons, spoons, sticks, knives, and catheters were used by women to abort their own pregnancies. 

In the early days of the United States, abortions were only mildly regulated. A post-quickening (feeling fetal movement) abortion was considered a misdemeanor, but very difficult to enforce due to the mother being the only one able to determine whether there was fetal movement. During the 19th century, surgery, anesthesia, and sanitation used in terminating a pregnancy improved significantly, however at the same time the laws prohibiting abortions became more harsh. In 1837 abortion became illegal completely in the U.S., and in 1861 simply obtaining poisons or instruments with the intent to have an abortion became a crime. Despite these laws, abortion services were still available in New York, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cleveland, Chicago, and Indianapolis; with estimates of one abortion for every 4 live births. 

In 1873, a guy named Anthony Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that same year, Comstock successfully influenced Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made it illegal to deliver by U.S. mail, or by other modes of transportation, "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material, including any methods of production or publication of information pertaining to the procurement of an abortion, prevention conception, or the prevention of venereal disease, even to medical students. These laws continued into the early 20th century and by 1909 the penalty for breaking these laws was $5000 and 5 years in prison. Writer George Bernard Shaw remarked at the time that "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all."

Meanwhile, in the early part of the 19th century in France, abortion was becoming more accepted as a last resort for pregnant unwed women. The ethos gradually evolved to see the modern medical procedure of abortion as a viable alternative to ineffectual contraception methods with regard to family planning. The thinking in France changed in large part because both medical and non-medical providers of abortions agreed upon the relative safety of the procedure. 

Abortion in the Modern Era

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th a movement began in support of birth control, which some would deem the beginning of the debate concerning a woman's body and her right to make choices concerning her body. A movement against contraceptives and abortion was, of course, launched in response. During this period, abortions were illegal in every U.S. state though some offered exceptions in the case of preserving the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. Despite its unlawfulness, licensed physicians in the 1930s performed an estimated 800,000 abortions per year.

It wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that the reproductive rights issue reached boiling point in the U.S. Women who were dying from illegal abortions became the poster-children for women's rights groups, who began learning to provide abortions themselves for women who could not receive them safely elsewhere. In 1965, the Supreme Court struck down one of the remaining contraception Comstock laws. This allowed married couples to begin legally using contraception and a free flow of information about contraception and abortion to the public. Following this decision the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a medical bulletin accepting a recommendation from 6 years earlier which clarified that conception is implantation, not fertilization; and consequently birth control methods that prevented implantation became classified as contraceptives, not abortifacients. The National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1968 to fight for the renewal and continuation of regulations on contraception and abortion. The National Abortion Rights Action League-Pro Choice America began in 1969 and called for extending access for contraception and abortion. In 1972, the Supreme Court extended the freedom of legally using contraception to unmarried couples as well. 

In 1973, the famous Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade occurred. In this decision the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas statute forbidding abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court arrived at its decision by concluding that the issue of abortion and abortion rights falls under the right to privacy (in the sense of the right of a person not to be encroached by the state). In its opinion it listed several landmark cases where the court had previously found a right to privacy implied by the Constitution. The court found that a mother had a right to abortion until viability, a point to be determined by the abortion doctor. After viability a woman can obtain an abortion for health reasons, which the Court defined broadly to include psychological well-being. 

Abortion Today

From 1973 to 2003 no further regulations were placed on abortion. It was in 2003 that Congress passed a bill banning what abortion opponents dubbed "partial-birth abortions." The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The law was challenged though upheld by a narrow margin by the Supreme Court.  

Today, despite a plethora of safe and effective (and legal) contraceptive options for both males and females and sex education being taught starting in elementary school,  half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are still unplanned. Of these, 1 in 3 will be terminated by the mother. This sounds like a large number, but today we actually have the lowest rate of abortions since Roe v Wade made abortion legal in 1973 (which is when the U.S. started recording concrete numbers rather than estimates). From 2008 to 2011 abortion rates dropped 13%, something a Guttmacher Institute study attributes to new long-acting contraceptive methods. In 2011, there were 17 abortions for every 1000 women of child-bearing age, nearly half of what this number was in 1981 when abortion rates were at their highest (30 abortions for very 1000 women of reproductive age). This study also shows a long-term downward trend in abortions.

Why are women having abortions today? Guttmacher did a study in 2004 asking women this very question. These were the results:

• 74% Having a baby would dramatically change my life
• 73% Cannot afford a baby now
• 48% Do not want to be a single mother or having relationship problems
• 38% Have completed my childbearing
• 32% Not ready for another child
• 25% Do not want people to know I had sex or got pregnant
• 22% Do not feel mature enough to raise another child
• 14% Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion
• 13% Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus
• 12% Concerns about my health
• 6% Parents want me to have an abortion
• 1% Was a victim of rape
• less than 0.5% Became pregnant as a result of incest

How old are women/ teens having abortions? Nearly 75% of them are under the age of 30. 

• 18% percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers
• Teens aged 15–17 obtain 6% of all abortions 
• Women aged 18–19 obtain 11% of all abortions 
• Teens younger than 15 obtain 0.4% of all abortions
• Women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions
• Women aged 25–29 obtain 24% of all abortions

At what point in their pregnancies are women having abortions? According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2011 (the most recent data available): 

• 64.5% abortions were performed prior or equal to 8 weeks' gestation 
• 91.4% were performed prior or equal to 13 weeks' gestation
• 7.3% were performed between 14–20 weeks' gestation
• 1.4% were performed at or after 21 weeks' gestation

Why We're Still Talking About This? 

We're still having this debate in the 21st century--a debate that's literally been around since the first abortion laws were recorded in 1075 BCE--because no matter how long we debate it, no one is going to be able to codify when human life begins. It's a matter of opinion. Doctors disagree, theologians disagree, philosophers disagree, and the general public sways its beliefs on the matter from one election cycle to the next. Even the Supreme Court when passing Roe v Wade said, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."  Instead, it chose to point out that historically, under English and American common law unborn fetuses have never been protected as full humans and chose not to change that precedent. 

I agree with the Supreme Court of 1973. We don't need to answer the question of when life begins to address this problem. When an argument has occurred for thousands of years in societies all over the globe and reached no consensus, it's time to start focusing less on the morality and more on problem solving. No one likes the idea of abortion. No one is thrilled to get one. No one walks away from one without experiencing grief around their loss. And, we all want them to become unnecessary. So let's start there. How do we make them unnecessary? 

The answer to this question is: We do exactly what we've been doing, but on a much larger scale. If you're morally repulsed by abortion, you shouldn't be picketing in front of Planned Parenthood, you should be donating to them. They are a large part of the reason that abortions are happening with less frequency than ever before in history. Not only this, but their happening safely and can be regulated and measured. We can collect data and thus we can make informed decisions on who is having abortions and when and why and focus our efforts toward reducing unwanted pregnancies in these populations of people. If we go back to pre-Roe v Wade days, if we de-fund Planned Parenthood, as many republicans are now calling for, we aren't ending abortion, we're increasing it. We're shutting down the people disseminating information about contraception--the people who are educating youth and under-educated populations about how reproduction works and how to avoid ever needing to consider an abortion. Take away these resources and we will face increases in unwanted pregnancies, increases in abortions, and increases in mothers dying due to abortions carried out in unsafe conditions. We know this because it's exactly what was happening for thousands of years before 1973. 

Finally, this is not just an issue of when life begins and the morality surrounding this unanswerable question. Unintended pregnancies are many times unwanted pregnancies and just because a woman doesn't choose to terminate her pregnancy does not mean she intends to take care of the resulting offspring. The Brookings Institute estimates that American taxpayers pay $12 billion a year on publicly financed medical care for women who experience unintended pregnancies and on infants who were conceived unintentionally. They go on to say that though it is difficult to monetize the cost of increases in crime, higher high school drop-out rates, and dependency on public entitlements programs, these all have strong correlations with levels of unwanted pregnancies. Meaning, children being born into the world with parents who don't want them and/ or can't afford them are making us less safe and burdening our economy, not to mention living very difficult lives that often lead a person to a life of depression, addiction, and crime. Those who are given up for adoption may spend their entire childhood bouncing around foster homes before (if they ever) find an adoptive home. 30% of the U.S. homeless population and 25% of our prison population were once foster children. And, 28% of children in foster care will be abused by their foster parents (many believe this number is much higher). Is it not just as morally troubling to consider fates worse than death?  

So, I say, if you're against abortion, support it, because being pro-life means more than being pro-fetus. If you want higher taxes, bigger government, higher crime rates, higher rates of abortion, higher rates of mothers dying due to abortion complications, and children growing up in abusive foster situations, than reverse Roe v Wade and de-fund Planned Parenthood. It's not a black and white issue of when life begins. It's a problem that has an answer that we should all be focused on and supporting. We all want abortions to stop.