More on Contraception Subsidies at Colleges

In response to RIck's question:  I think that opposition to contraception subsidies for college students because of the message they send has to be based on the argument that they endorse or encourage nonmarital sex (or contraception itself if one argues that it's inherently undesirable).  I don't think one can avoid joining that issue by interpreting subsidies as sending the message that "[i]t is an understandable, and even an appropriate, decision for college students facing unplanned pregnancies to have abortions."

More precisely, defending contraception subsidies as a means of reducing abortions probably sends a version of the first message: that abortion in the context of an unplanned pregnancy is "understandable" in the sense that one can sympathize with college students in that difficult situation and understand why they might feel pressure from circumstances to have an abortion.  But I don't see how it sends the second message: that abortion in such situations is "appropriate."  If that were the case, then no one could ever argue for a program, however morally neutral or admirable in itself, on the ground that it would reduce incentives for people to do immoral things.  One could not defend after-school basketball programs on the ground that "they'll keep kids from hanging out on the streets and getting into crime and drugs," because that would assertedly send the message that it is "appropriate" for kids to get into crime and drugs if such programs don't exist.  Nor could one defend programs of support for pregnant women (child care, crisis pregnancy centers) on the ground that they reduce abortions, because that would assertedly send the message that it's appropriate to have an abortion if such supports don't exist.  In each case the inference of such a message is implausible.  Programs that seek to avoid or change conditions that create incentives for immoral behavior reflect a recognition that we are embodied, world-occupying beings, not abstractly rational ones -- and that, contrary to a hyper-Kantian account in which incentives and empirical conditions must be entirely disregarded in assessing morality (i.e. that only the pure will to do right is morally admirable), empirical factors and incentives will have an affect on whether people will do what is objectively the right thing.

This is a modest point; I'm not arguing for contraception subsidies at colleges.  I'm just saying that the debate over them has to be waged on the more familiar issues: whether contraception in this context is undesirable because it encourages nonmarital sex (or is inherently undesirable), to what extent contraception reduces abortions, and whether the government should respect the moral objections of a percentage of taxpayers by denying subsidies.

Tom