Abortions and Safety Nets

The reduction in abortions that was reported by the Guttmacher Institute, and Rick's and Eduardo's posts on it, bring me back to the question whether a strengthened social safety net on matters relating to pregnancy, child care and raising, etc., is likely to contribute to reductions in abortions.  John Breen's article, "Modesty and Moralism: Justice, Prudence, and Abortion -- A Reply to Skeel and Stuntz," which was noted here a while back, argues that safety-net measures don't help much.  John's is a really fine article that thoroughly undermines the claims that prohibitions on abortion won't reduce the numbers and rates.  And John supports safety-net measures in themselves, as a matter of justice and solidarity with those in need: but he doubts they will have much effect on abortions.

On the last score, I think that there is a flaw in John's argument.  He bases the argument on the fact that although Western European nations have more developed safety nets than America, abortion ratios -- abortions per 100 pregnancies -- are not much lower in Western Europe (although they are somewhat lower).  But the argument doesn't take into account the fact that belief in the immorality of abortion appears to be significantly less widespread or deep in Western Europe than in America.  In that context it seems to me striking that European abortion ratios are nevertheless lower at all than America's, and that the stronger European safety nets could be having a significant effect.

Using 1996 numbers, John reports that in the U.S., 22.9 of every 1,000 women age 15 to 44 had an abortion, and 25.9 of all pregnancies ended in abortion.  He then adds:

In the same year, [in] Sweden, a country with a much more elaborate social service apparatus, . . . 18.7 of every 1000 women ages 15-44 had an abortion, and 25.2 percent of all known pregnancies were terminated by the procedure. Thus, notwithstanding the greater social resources devoted to supporting families and pregnant women in Sweden, more than a quarter of all pregnancies ended in abortion, just as in the United States. . . .

The same study also reports similar statistics for other economically advanced countries that have in place well-developed social service polices including Australia, Denmark, England and Wales, Norway, France, and Italy.  [The abortion-out-of-pregnancies share was 17.7 percent in France, perhaps "slightly higher," John notes, due to incomplete reporting, and 20.5 percent in England.]  [G]iven that each of these countries has an abortion rate at, above, or approaching 20 percent strongly suggests that the provision of greater financial assistance would not greatly affect the incidence of abortion in the United States.

To begin with, a difference in the ratio between 25.9 and 20.5 percent is not nothing: in 1996, using Guttmacher statistics, that would have meant about 250,000 fewer abortions in the U.S. (about 950,000 versus 1,200,000).  But in addition, John's argument doesn't take into account the fact that, so far as I can tell, a noticeably higher percentage of Americans than Western Europeans view abortion as immoral or hold that view strongly.  For example, according to 1999-2000 figures reported by the Pew Forum (p. 108 of the book America Against the World), 30 percent of Americans thought abortion was never justifiable, but only 14 percent of the French and 25 percent of the English thought so.  Because attitudes toward abortion are "clearly linked to religion and the depth of religious belief," according to the same Pew study (p. 110), I would expect that such patterns would hold concerning moral beliefs about abortion generally, and that the extent and depth of moral opposition to abortion in Sweden, Denmark, etc., would be closer to that in France (since all are relatively secularized countries) and significantly lower than in America.  (I should say that I am not an expert on these statistics and am happy to hear input from those who know more than I.)

if my sense of the statistics is correct, the real question is: given that the belief in abortion's immorality is less widespread or deeply held in many of these Western European nations, what would the abortion rates/ratios be were it not for the safety-net provisions that support children, families, and pregnant women?  In view of the differences in attitude, as I said, what seems striking that the European ratios are lower at all than America's -- and in countries with relatively weak abortion prohibitions similar to the U.S.'s (like France), the safety net is prima facie a very plausible explanation.  So a strengthened safety net (I'm leaving aside important questions about how exactly to strengthen it) would very plausibly make a difference here too.

This fits with studies, which John acknowledges, showing that the difficulty of raising children under financial pressures is among the major reasons for abortions, and the latest Guttmacher numbers showing that, as in previous years, the abortion rate is much higher for poor women:

The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women).

Our distinctive problem in the U.S., compared with other developed Western nations, is that -- even with the current reductions -- we have a relatively high abortion rate despite a relatively high percentage of public opinion opposed to abortion.  Of course, this is in part because our courts have forced on the whole country a uniform system of relatively unrestricted abortion.  But in addition, I think, there is still evidence that our less protective safety-net system is a factor, that strengthening the safety net can help, and that the pro-life argument for strengthening the safety net should not be ignored.  (In the end, it should be noted, John too calls for a combination of restrictions plus social supports and programs, analogous to the successful campaign to reduce drunk-driving fatalities.)

Tom