What’s the Problem? Abortion Rates and Teen Pregnancy Have Been on the Decline for 30 Years
I recently saw a MAGA friend’s (yes, I still have a few) post on Facebook. She was decrying the evil of abortion and, among other things, stated, “These little ones are who evil will target in the end of days.”
I hate to break it to her, but if that is the criteria, the end days were in 1991. That was when both abortions in the United States and teen pregnancies were at an all-time high, according to Pew Research and the CDC. And, just for those who think the President influences all the bad things that happen, that was well into the twelve years of the Reagan/Bush regime. So much for conservative values.
In the thirty or so years since then, abortions are down one-third, and teen pregnancies are down by an astonishing 75%. The drop in teen pregnancy is attributed to better contraception, more information about pregnancy prevention, and better education about the adverse economic effects of teen pregnancy.
Teens represent about 6% of all pregnancies but have a higher rate of abortions. Even so, abortion rates among teens have also fallen. That’s because they learn too late that they are pregnant, they have to deal with parental consent laws, and they have to travel to get abortions. Teen pregnancy costs the US about $11 billion a year — more in healthcare costs and a long-term drain on the economy because both teen mothers and fathers are less likely to get a high school diploma, which leads to lower lifetime wages.
So, if education has been working, why do we need all of these new stringent laws? The highest rates of teen pregnancy are already in southern states and yet those are the states that are imposing the strictest abortion bans. How will Florida’s new 6-week ban on abortions increase teen pregnancies in the state? Likely a lot!
First of all, very few people would consider themselves pro-abortion; I don’t care what the right wing tells you. As with anything, you will find extremes on both ends. A small percentage of folks might consider abortion to be a guilt-free form of birth control. On the other end, you’ll get a few who will object to the morning-after pill, even in cases of rape or incest, as interfering with God’s plan. But what about all of those who stand somewhere in the middle? Is there no place for them to have a say?
Again, hate to break it to the MAGAs, but back when “America was great” (still waiting to hear their definition of when that was), abortion was quite common. In colonial America, abortion was legal unless it was after quickening (when the movements of the fetus could be felt in the womb, anywhere from 18–21 weeks). Connecticut was the first state to outlaw abortion after quickening, in 1821. Perhaps not coincidentally, more abortion laws were put into place after the Civil War, around the same time the women’s movement was growing. (And need I say that our legislators and physicians were men?) One might be surprised to learn that the anti-abortion sentiment at the time was not particularly tied to religion.
Even in the 1930s, licensed physicians performed 800,000 abortions per year — more than in 2019, according to the CDC statistics, and we now have three times the population we had in the ’30s. So much for our evil end times.
No matter what laws we pass, abortion and teen pregnancy will never truly end, although they may decline. But the laws will almost certainly result in more dangerous births and abortions, affecting the health of the mother (and possibly the child, in cases of difficult births).
A recent segment on MSNBC’s Katie Phang Show featured two Florida women who were happily pregnant but suffered miscarriages about 16–18 weeks into their pregnancy. When they sought treatment, the doctors apologized for not being able to treat them, because they could lose their license for interfering with a pregnancy after 15 weeks. The women basically had to wait it out and deal with the miscarriage. One of the women lost half of her blood from hemorrhaging. (Florida’s DeSantis recently signed a new law reducing the time to six weeks, when many women aren’t even aware they are pregnant.)
If folks are protesting abortion on religious grounds, why don’t they use their tax-free churches to spread the message and to help unwed or poor mothers? Why do we need these new laws that will adversely affect the poor? (A rich woman, or the mistress of a rich man, will never have trouble obtaining a safe abortion, I’m quite sure.) Most laws always adversely affect the poor more than the middle class or wealthy.
We should celebrate the good news of thirty years of declining abortion and teen pregnancy rates. But for some, it’s not enough, even when two-thirds of Americans support some kind of abortion rights. They continue to scowl and impose their joyless version of religion on the rest of us, even as they spout their “freedom” jargon.
