How to seriously reduce the number of abortions

Make contraception widely available.

It's really that simple. It's been demonstrated time, and time, and time again, in a variety of different studies. Where contraception is available and not blocked by cost, unwanted pregnancies go way down and so does abortion.

Some folks say that this, coupled with anti-abortion forces rabidly objecting to wide availability of contraception (including access by minors, and the ACA's coverage mandate) demonstrates a crass hypocrisy.  Those conservative Christians aren't really about reducing abortion, they're about controlling women (and, to some degree, men, and sexual activity).

Not necessarily.  It may well be that they really consider sexual promiscuity an evil to be avoided, and that they do not accept committing a lesser sin in order to prevent a greater one, and that the only truly acceptable answer is the outlawing of abortion, since, after all, even if you greatly reduced the number of abortions, any number of unborn babies being killed would be completely unacceptable.  Murder cannot be tolerated, after all.

To my eyes, that speaks of an overfondness for the Law, in the sense that both Jesus and Paul condemned (ironically enough, given these folks' love of Jesus and, especially, Paul).  Because while there may be (discuss among yourselves) some sinfulness in sexual activity outside of (officially sanctioned) marriage — or maybe even within marriage, if it's being pursued for a purpose other than birthing babies … yes, though that may be sinful, is it really worse than murder?

Is it better to avoid the discomfort of maybe providing, indirectly, for a female employee's access to sinful birth control if it saves an unborn baby's life?

Is it worse if your daughter feels more comfortable about fornication if it means she doesn't kill her unwanted, unborn baby?

The Law says "'Tis a sin to steal a pin much as a greater thing." Any wrong act is categorically wrong, so, yes, little Suzie being on the Pill is as much a crime as murdering an unborn child.

I think most folks against abortion would probably disagree, but the discomfort and opposition to any compromise on contraceptive access, even if it will clearly, convincingly, reduce the number of abortions, shows that it is the Law that these folks are most interested in, not the specific horrors of abortion.

Ideally, absolutely? I can understand, from their moral / theological premise, wanting all abortion ended — and, to take it the logical step further, all non-marital sex (and contraception) done away with as well.

But that's not likely to happen.  Even if abortion is once again outlawed, it will still happen.  And while it's altogether likely that contraception could be made economically unreachable for swathes of the population, that genie will never be fully put back in the bottle for those with a bit more more money in their pockets.

So, no, I don't understand. If one grants the premise that the greatest crime of the 20th and 21st Centuries is the holocaust of legalized abortion, it would seem to me that anything that would reduce that crime would be grasped at eagerly, even as an interim measure.  _If_ that was really what they were most concerned about..

Embedded Link

‘If conservatives really believe in the evil of abortion, they are morally obligated to embrace a policy that stands to limit it so impressively’
Eric C. Miller, writing at Religion Dispatches, calls the bluff of evangelicals and others who have based their entire politics on opposition to legal abortion. Miller presents the compelling argument…

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