PBP230H: Objections to Anti-Abortion Legislation

Freakonomics – merge PBA330H: Legalized Abortion and Crime Effects into this seminar

foster care system overrun?

Objection #1: Illegalized abortion = back-alley abortions = MORE dead people (babies still dying, moms dying along with them)

https://www.endthekilling.ca/classroom/legal/

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/05/opinions/supporting-abortion-is-pro-life-opinion-campoamor/index.html

• We don't legalize violence to make violence “safer” e.g. we don't give boxing gloves to abusive husbands
• Equal Rights Institute:
• Alissa Golob's interesting response, something like this: “When pro-choice people say that back-alley abortions will happen, let's think about that. Who would be performing the back-alley abortions? Certainly not pro-life people. It would be pro-choicers, abortion supporters, performing back-alley abortions. So when pro-choicers say 'Keep abortion legal or women will die in back-alleys,' what they're really saying is 'Let us kill babies or we're going to start also killing women.'”

• See Bernard Nathanson, falsified data on illegal abortion rates, etc.
• many illegal abortionists then became legal abortionists…e.g. Morgentaler

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301378?fbclid=IwAR0ccGHfzR6wLd-_sfquRoYvAb6mJ4nlUCCvQrJo9Qngzzit3A-4PjNbk-8

Objection #2 (separate but related): Do [legal] abortion rates actually increase under anti-abortion legislation?

Effects of anti-abortion legislation on lowering abortion rates – need to review these:

• https://lozierinstitute.org/how-the-legal-status-of-abortion-impacts-abortion-rates/
• “P. Levine’s 2004 paper in the Journal of Law and Economics: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/380475
• his 2003 paper in the Journal of Health Economics: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629603000638
• New’s 2011 study in State Politics & Policy Quarterly: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532440010387397
• …all of which show that restrictions on abortion lower abortion rates”
• This article, #8: http://blog.secularprolife.org/2019/02/responding-to-8-common-pro-choice.html?fbclid=IwAR3SKUnuL3eRy1AvsfRZ6F09U-6B50mU5CM6ImhI-Jp4-cDaXlKXbTrrrqk
  • https://www.bustle.com/p/i-got-abortion-in-one-of-the-most-restrictive-states-this-is-what-i-went-through-15870247?fbclid=IwAR18hajyH3QVVf1MX-066LlYrGerrcpbofu8pvm-dSfxG1g3IJjkp5kWm9M
    • Secular Pro-Life comments: “Again, abortion restrictions decrease abortion. This woman isn't saying “if a heartbeat bill was in effect, I would have had to get an illegal abortion.” She's saying “if a heartbeat bill was in effect, I wouldn't have gotten an abortion.” Because when you make an action more difficult to take, fewer people take it.”
• http://blog.secularprolife.org/2018/07/link-collection-evidence-that-pro-life.html?fbclid=IwAR3-nky5IPt8SUbjhWSGDv2dWcUIiOpUxPCvLZj9TWdrAjHkjdtFqYAxKcA&m=1
• http://blog.secularprolife.org/2018/07/more-evidence-that-abortion.html?m=1 and http://blog.secularprolife.org/2018/07/more-evidence-that-abortion.html?m=1
• acknowledging that we also need the educational and pastoral arms in order to drive down the abortion rates – each arm is necessary but not sufficient, because politics is downstream from culture. BUT the law is also a teacher itself

• Statistical response: pro-life legislation =/= high maternal mortality rate
  • E.g. see lower maternal mortality rates of Ireland, Poland, Chile
  • 2 cases
    • South Africa [208-1980, 121-1990, 155-2000, 237-2008]
      • Legalized abortion in 1997: 11 years later highest it’s been. MMR increased after becoming legal!
    • Chile [70-1980, 44-1990, 24-2000, 21-2008]
      • 1989, abortion completely prohibited
      • provides a singular research case of maternal and abortion mortality before and after abortion prohibition
      • Reduction in MMR during last 5 decades correspond with improvements in education, access to clean water, decr. illiteracy rate of pregnant women, incr. maternal health facilities e.g. delivery by skilled attendants
      • In other words, access to legal abortion not necessary to achieve low rates of maternal deaths.

A peer-reviewed study published last week examines 50 years of data and concludes that the trajectory of maternal mortality in [Chile] has consistently declined, decreasing from 293.7 in 1957 to 18.2 in 2007 (per 100,000 live births). That’s a decrease of 93.8%, which constitutes a major success story measured in women’s lives. Yet Chile outlawed abortion in 1989. Chile didn’t just place small restrictions on abortion — it outlawed abortion without exception, including in instances of rape or for the health of the mother. And since many neighbouring countries also restrict abortion, there’s no real reason to believe Chilean women are travelling outside Chile to get abortions. - Andrea Mrozek https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrea-mrozek-if-abortion-saves-lives-whats-happening-in-chile

http://www.imfcanada.org/archive/283/creative-math