The Joy of the Truth

In a recent issue of our local newspaper, Daniel J. McCarty, PhD, wrote an opinion piece entitled Abortion is a public health issue. He makes the following argument:

To make any headway in the abortion debate it is essential that we move away from the “pro-life” vs. “pro-choice” name-calling. In truth, both sides want to prevent abortions. Therefore, the central questions in the debate should be: a) why do women decide to have abortions in the first place? and b) what can we as a society do to prevent abortions? I believe we can better address these issues by treating unwanted pregnancy and abortion as a public health issue.

Dr. McCarty is an epidemiologist working in disease prevention and his arguments approach abortion as a public health concern. His solution is to get to the root of the problem, the causes of abortion, and address those as a society. He argues that countries that have done this, specifically those in Western Europe, have low abortion rates whether or not abortion is legal.

To this end, Henshaw et al. provide a very useful study of the “incidence of abortion worldwide” (International Family Planning Perspectives, 1999, 25(Supplement):S30-S38 link: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html).

This study clearly shows abortion is lowest in Western European countries and it is just as prevalent in countries where it is illegal as where it is legal. Just as the prohibition of alcohol in the early 1900s failed to prevent alcohol consumption, the Henshaw data suggest that making abortions illegal will fail to prevent the termination of unwanted pregnancies. The belief that abortion will end with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is a fallacy and it should be exposed as such. Removing the right to safe, legal abortions will simply make them unsafe and illegal — doing little to reduce the actual numbers of pregnancy terminations. Efforts would be better spent addressing the underlying reasons why women choose to terminate pregnancies.

What underlying causes of abortion does McCarty identify? The usual suspects are rounded up:

• poor health education
• inadequate access to contraceptives and family planning
• social stigma against being an unwed mother
• unaffordable childcare services
• lack of a livable minimum wage

Dr. McCarty makes a very good point in saying that refocusing the debate on these social issues and treating abortion as a public health issue can provide common ground for those on both sides of the abortion “debate.” However, his arguments are also based on a bad assumption – that the social/medical perspective makes the political fight obsolete.

People who consider themselves “pro-choice” believe that abortion is a valid solution to social problems. Those of us who are “pro-life” do not. That is a political question, and a very important one at that.

Can we work with our political adversaries to reduce the number of abortions through social action even as we go to war with them in the political arena? In some areas of social action, we certainly could. However, and I don’t mean to be a war-monger here, one must wonder if the worldviews of the two sides of the abortion “debate” are too divergent to expect such cooperation.

For example, one major cause of abortion omitted by the article is is the acceptance of “sexual freedom.” We can blame poverty, stigmas, and poor health education all we want – and surely these must be addressed. But abortions will not go down as long as we as a culture promote the myth of sex for pleasure and self-fulfillment without consequences. The purpose of sex is to generate life and love in the context of family. Abortion is one consequence of seeking pleasure before family. Do you think that pro-choice and pro-life activists will agree on this cause and address it together? Evidence to the contrary abounds – including outright attacks on abstinence education.

What kinds of answers for poverty, health care and childcare can we agree on? I truly hope there are some possible areas of cooperation. Perhaps working together on social causes would create inroads for some honest discussion and debate about abortion rather than the hostile diatribes that pass for political discussion today. However, such social cooperation does not erase the political question, nor the worldview question. Is abortion an acceptable solution to social problems? If we answer this question wrong, social action to address the causes of abortion will do little to change the heart of America.

End Note

“Abortion is a public health issue.” Marshfield News Herald. 21 October 2008. 6A.

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