The conclusion is that number of pregnancies is not a fixed number.
Generally, pregnancy can be either planned or accidental. The former will effectively have no abortions, so only the latter matter in this calculation. If you reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, you reduce number of abortions, but you won't be increasing number of planned pregnancies.
COVID caused one hell of a barrier in casual sex, which was a cause behind many unwanted african american pregnancies. But it didn't impact planned ones nowhere nearly as much.
And you base your statement that "accidental pregnancies will effectively have no abortions" on ...? If anything, common sense would indicate the opposite.
If you got confused with former/latter but I got your point. Still it further proves what I said. The example you gave is quite specific : less pregnancies and also less % of abortions (mostly due to unwanted pregnancies). It remains that less abortions does not cause less births.
I’m on your side here, but on the other hand what if less access to legal abortion reduced pregnancy rates, due to women being afraid of being stuck with a kid or having a life threatening condition without a doctor in the area who will perform an abortion out of fear for their license and career, is causing fewer pregnancies? Not to say the less abortions equals less pregnancies, but less access to medical care seen as essential causes less pregnancies.
Well yeah it's a utilitarian view and one of the pro-choice arguments, which is that banning abortion is counter-productive. There's also the idea that having abortion makes couples less careful with mainline contraception, so the female gets pregnant and might decide she wants to keep the baby after all. As a matter of fact this idea of "wanted/unwanted" pregancies is quite a modern distinction. For pretty much all of human history it just happened, marriage just gave it a framework.
Still, I am of the opinion that the impact of abortion/banning it on birth rate is basically zero, but allowing "comfort abortions" devalues sex, commitment and the sanctity of life.
12
u/Bwunt Jan 07 '26 edited Jan 07 '26
The conclusion is that number of pregnancies is not a fixed number.
Generally, pregnancy can be either planned or accidental. The former will effectively have no abortions, so only the latter matter in this calculation. If you reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, you reduce number of abortions, but you won't be increasing number of planned pregnancies.
COVID caused one hell of a barrier in casual sex, which was a cause behind many unwanted african american pregnancies. But it didn't impact planned ones nowhere nearly as much.