PBP230H: Objections to Anti-Abortion Legislation

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

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 remain constant, or even 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

1. Proactive response

2. Explain difference between foster care and newborn adoption https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/foster-care-fallacy/

2a. Percentage of women who actually place children for adoption = very low (citation)