Weigel and Social Supports

Rick and Eduardo have already weighed on George Weigel's article and expressed some of my thoughts.  Weigel states the powerful pro-life case against Obama, which I recognize and feel deeply.  But -- and I want to make a point about principles and policy, not about for whom to vote -- there is also a pattern in his article of unjustifiably denigrating the value of social supports for women as a factor reducing abortions.  Following Rick's lead, I'll restate my own belief: these measures are a crucial part of any pro-life strategy, both because they face fewer obstacles than abortion prohibitions do and because they will have to accompany any significant abortion prohibitions if we want the latter to pass and stick over time, given how they could affect women who become pregnant in difficult circumstances.

Weigel writes:

The "social safety net" component of the pro-life, pro-Obama argument may seem, at first blush, to make sense. Yet it, too, runs up against stubborn facts: for example, Sweden, with a much thicker social safety net than the United States, has precisely the same rate (25 percent) of abortions per pregnancy as America.

I've already discussed the fallacy in this argument, in responding to John Breen's article (John, I'd be interested in your thoughts).  As I wrote last January,

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? . . . [W]hat 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.. . .

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. . . .  [T]here is still evidence that our less protective safety-net system is a factor, [and] that strengthening the safety net can help. . . .

Weigel continues:

As for the claim, often repeated by pro-life, pro-Obama Catholics, that more financially generous welfare policies would drive down abortion rates because financial pressure is a predominant cause of abortion, another stubborn fact intrudes: according to a survey conducted by the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the Guttmacher Institute, a mere 23 percent of abortions in the United States are performed primarily because of alleged financial need.

Well, a "mere" 23 percent right now is a "mere" 220,000 abortions a year.  Although I understand that Weigel is comparing the effects of different policies, it's still pretty cavalier for him to denigrate the importance of making a significant dent in the 220,000 number.  That's to say nothing of other figures:  The much broader 74 percent in the same Guttmacher study who said financial need was a contributing reason for aborting; some of them will still be affected in their decision by having greater financial security.  The 25 percent whose primary reason was they weren't "ready for a child"; for some of them, the reasons doubtless had to do with their economic condition.  The 38 percent who said having a child would conflict with a job, and 38 percent who said it would conflict with schooling; for many of them the job or schooling demands are more serious than just convenience, and they could be helped by various social supports.  The Guttmacher figures showing that the abortion rate is 4 times higher among those below the poverty level than among those at three times the poverty level of higher.  The recent study finding that generous increases in AFDC-TANF and WIC payments to needy families would decrease  abortion rates substantially.

Weigel adds:

Moreover, the Freedom of Choice Act Obama has pledged to sign forbids publicly supported programs helping pregnant women from "discriminating" against abortion. Thus a federal Pregnant Women Support Act—a key plank in the platform of pro-life congressional Democrats—would, in Orwellian fashion, be legally bound by FOCA to include support for abortion.

I understand the idea that in opposing a bad bill like FOCA, one wants to toss into the debate every bad effect one can conceive from it.  But it seems to me wholly implausible to claim that if FOCA passed, it would limit very many of the measures in the Pregnant Women Support Act: increasing nutrition programs for children, strengthening provisions against pregnancy discrimination by insurers, encouraging adoption, encouraging child-care and other resources for college or high-school students who are mothers or pregnant, giving information on parenting and on raising special-needs children, covering unborn children under SCHIP.  These programs cover unique costs of bearing and raising children that have no counterpart when a woman aborts.  Yes, from all I can tell FOCA would require Medicaid to fund the medical costs of an abortion when it funds the medical costs of childbirth -- but if FOCA passes, that unhappy result will already have occurred.  I don't see how one could then argue seriously that supporting adoption, child-care programs, pregnancy nondiscrimination, benefits for children, etc., constitutes "discrimination against abortion."  But if FOCA passed, I would hate to see Weigel's words used by someone who opposed (say on budget-cutting grounds) the programs in the Pregnant Women Support Act.