In the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade (1973), which guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. Some state constitutions, however, independently protect abortion rights. States take two different approaches to unplanned pregnancy: Pro Choice or Pro Life. Many have wondered about the outcomes of a post-Roe v Wade world in the lives of real Americans.
Abortion is ubiquitously known as a contentious topic of conversation in the political landscape of 21st century America. However, before 1840, abortion was a common and primarily stigma-free experience for American women. According to Dr. Jennifer L Holland, university professor at the University of Oklahoma and Weber prize-winner for her work in southwestern American history, in 19th Century America, “Abortion was a crime, but only a misdemeanor. Some historians have suggested that laws against post-quickening abortions were primarily intended to protect the health of the pregnant woman—not fetal life—as it was much more common for women to die during abortions that used instruments rather than herbal abortifacients. Whatever the rationale, few abortions were prosecuted before the mid-nineteenth century because quickening was so difficult to prove. Only women themselves could testify to fetal movement” (Holland). Stigmas and opinions over the morality of abortion changed through centuries of the dynamic ebb and flow of America’s political tides. In fact, it was not a religious stirring that lit the anti-abortion fuse in America, but physicians themselves who instigated the first “right-to-life” movement. Anxious about their professional status in the 1840s, physicians wished to corner the medical market and strip homeopathic healers of their rising legitimacy. For instance, “in order to hurt lay healers’ business, sought governmental licensing and regulation to weed out the competition. Physicians used anti-abortion laws, pushed in state legislatures, to increase their own stature and undermine their opponents” (Holland). In 2023, nearly 200 years later, the abortion argument is more haughtily contested than it was at the beginning of the 19th century before the World Wars and women’s suffrage.
Why Pro Life?
According to Rachel Treisman, writer and editor of NPR’s Morning Edition and business contributor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Some 39% of Americans identify as pro-life, the lowest percentage since 1996. A majority of Americans (55%) are generally opposed to abortion in the second trimester, while 36% think it should be legal. Some 71% believe abortion should be illegal in the third trimester” (Treisman). Those who believe in pro-life policy cite religious reasons and unjustly forgetting someone’s right to life. According to Congressman Mike Bost of Illinois’ 12th district, “ It is my firm belief that every life created is a precious gift from God and that America is only as strong as our willingness to protect them” (Bost). In addition to faith-based convictions, some hold that life begins at conception (the meeting of sperm and egg in the womb) and thus taking that life is unequivocally murder. Atheist and feminist pro-life activists, while in the minority of their respective social parties, share this conviction. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics by Dr. James L Guth states that, “22% of non-religiously unaffiliated Americans describe themselves as 'pro-life on abortion' while just 12% of atheists and agnostics do” (Guth).
Why Pro Choice?
In 1973, the Supreme Court ratified Roe v Wade and brought the term “Pro Choice” to the forefront of American politics for the first time. The biggest change to abortion rights in nearly half a century–the result of the Dobbs v Jackson decision–contrasts with predominantly Pro-Life sentiments across the United States. Senior producer of politics and law at PBS NewsHour and Columbia university graduate, Domenico Montanaro, says of Americans, “61% mostly support abortion rights, [and] 37% count themselves as opposed. That support is at or near record highs in the Marist survey and other surveys taken over the last 20 years or so. A third of Republicans also qualify themselves as mostly supporting abortion rights, not an insignificant share in a party that has made opposition to abortion rights a litmus test for political candidates” (Montanaro, Marist) The Marist poll referenced here is a peer-reviewed poll on the campus of Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Advocates of Pro-Choice policy may attribute their beliefs to fundamental human rights, right to privacy, safe access to healthcare, and sociopolitical implications for minority communities. “It reduces a woman to a vessel,” said Nancy Byatt, D.O., M.S., M.B.A., a tenured professor of psychiatry, obstetrics/gynecology, and population and quantitative health sciences and director of the Lifeline for Families Center at UMass Chan Medical School and a member of APA’s Committee on Women’s Mental Health. “It is terrifying to consider the negative maternal and infant outcomes that will result from the pregnancies that women will be forced to carry to term.” Some Pro-Choice advocates, like Dr. Byatt, believe that abortion is first and foremost a human rights issue, reflecting the way America values a woman’s bodily autonomy. Both Dr. Byatt, Dr. Roy, and multitudes of other Pro-Choice citizens are concerned about how the Dobbs policy will disproportionately affect America’s most vulnerable populations. “Abortions will continue,” said Kamalika Roy, M.D., chair of APA’s Caucus of Women Psychiatrists. “People with resources will not have problems accessing abortions. This decision worsens the marginalization that many women experience based on class, ethnicity, race, and immigration status.”
Real-World Outcomes
Outside the political upheaval of the abortion debate, countless Americans want to know the truth. What is the real-world impact of Pro-Life Policy? The Turnaway Study asks just this. Over the course of three years, demographer Diana Grene Foster of University of California, San Francisco, recruited 1,132 women from the waiting rooms of thirty abortion clinics in twenty-one states, interviewing them twice a year for up to five years. Also according to Dr. Foster, “Abortion restrictions don't lower rates.”According to Margaret Talbot, New York Times reporter, “In the Turnaway Study, over ninety-five per cent of the women who received an abortion and did an interview five years out said that it had been the right choice for them. Researchers also found no long-term differences between women who receive and women who are denied an abortion in depression, anxiety, PTSD, self-esteem, life satisfaction, drug abuse, or alcohol abuse.” Dr. Foster’s research over the past decade supports the idea that there is no statistically significant difference in the long-term mental health of women who received an abortion and those who did not. In addition, research from the NIH clarifies the concern that barriers to healthcare access disproportionately affect people bearing an unplanned pregnancy. Dr. Risa Kauffman of the NIH cites her research as evidence for the negative implications of abortion restrictions on pregnant people, “Poverty is deeply intertwined with other forms of structural discrimination, and people of color, immigrants, LGBTQI + people, people with disabilities, and women and children suffer disproportionately from economic inequalities. With state bans going into effect and clinics shutting down, many instances of people seeking abortion in the United States must now travel across multiple state lines to reach a clinic, which exacerbates the financial and other hardship many already experience. For many, the barriers will simply be too high.” Those who cannot travel to get abortion are at the highest risk for maternal and infant mortality. Also, Kaiser Family Foundation (an NPR independent source for health policy research, polling, and news) uncovered shocking findings through their data: pregnant people and children in states with the strictest abortion restrictions tend to have the poorest access to health care and financial assistance, as well as worse health outcomes (Fig. 1)
Where Do We Go From Here?
Regardless of one’s personal stance on abortion, it's no secret that implementing just solutions (not to mention navigating the dizzying landscape of American politics) favors no easy answer. Across all 50 states and territories, there are legal preventative abortion measures. Providing accessible and affordable contraceptives dramatically decreases abortion rates. “Providing birth control to women at no cost substantially reduces unplanned pregnancies and cuts abortion rates by 62 to 78 percent compared to the national rate” (Washington University in St. Louis, Diane Duke Williams). Increasing sexual education on the state and local levels, in this context meaning how and where people can access contraceptives, could make an astonishing 78% difference in abortion rates nationally. Providing individuals with the education they need to make smart, informed decisions lifts everybody. Another powerful preventative solution to abortion is increased investment in family services. Since states with strong anti-abortion policy believe in the fetal right to life, it only makes sense that they invest in programs that support the pregnant people bringing unwanted pregnancies to term.
Abortion is complicated, but our collective ability to come together in civil discussion and actively choose bi-partisan collaboration to uplift all members of our society is the only way forward.
- Parker Stack, Editor