Abortion Rates Hit A 34-Year Low

Here is an excellent article on the declining abortion rate, and a slew of various explanations that can help explain this drop. Some of the hypotheses put forward include better access to birth control (good), decreased access to abortion providers (bad), and changing views with respect to abortion.

If abortion rates have declined due to increased access to birth control, then I am thrilled!! Contrary to what some people think (or say) when I tell them I'm pro-choice, I am not pro-abortion. I would like nothing better than to see every single pregnancy in this country be a wanted one. So if abortion is dropping because people are preventing unwanted pregnancies, then I say that this is a wonderful advancement!

If, however, it's dropping due to decreased access to abortion clinics, well, I'm not so thrilled about that. The fact is that a woman should be able to decide whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, and her choice should be dictated by her desires and her doctor's input; that's it. Not by her proximity to an abortion clinic or her ability to find a doctor who's willing to perform one.

I'm sure the pro-lifers are ecstatic about fewer abortion providers, however, and this is what irritates me about so many who subscribe to that movement. They claim to be pro-life, but where are they when the baby is born to a single teenage mother who has to drop out of high school to care for her baby? Where are the pro-lifers when the mother is struggling to put food on the table for her child or struggling to scrape together enough money to pay the rent? It seems that so many pro-lifers (not all, of course) are pro-birth, not pro-life. If they were pro-life, they would be proponents of social programs to help unwed mothers get back on their feet and obtain the training necessary to actually make a living wage, even if it meant she had to receive government assistance in the process. But so many pro-lifers are the same ones that say we need fewer government-sponsored social programs, that people should just "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and support themselves. This is ridiculous! In essence, they are saying that they don't care what happens to that baby after it's brought into the world; all they care is that it's born alive, regardless of the mother's ability to care for it. Now, obviously I know that not all pro-lifers are like that, but unfortunately that vast majority that I have personally met hold this very unsettling mindset. (And before anyone advocates adoption, please realize that among teen mothers, this is a very unlikely choice. According to the article I posted yesterday, "29 percent of pregnant teens have abortions; 14 percent miscarry; of the 57 percent who carry to term, less than 1 percent give up the baby." By the way, the editor in me wants you to know that it should actually be fewer than 1 percent, but that's beside the point.) So the fact remains that if teenagers do not terminate their pregnancies, the likelihood that they will give up their child to a family who is better able to take care of it is practically nil.

Anyway, it's a very interesting article; check it out!