The Science of Abortion
In a few days, U.S. citizens will go to the polls for a national election. They won’t be electing a president; that happens every 4 years. Rather, they’ll be electing Senators and Representatives to Congress, the law-making body. These are called mid-term elections, as they fall half-way through the term of the incumbent president, Joe Biden.
One of the topics that is central to the elections is abortion. Yes, I know, “that again?” One would have thought a woman’s fundamental right to make decisions on her own health was an established fact. However, American media is keen on finding new ways to divide opinion and stoke anger. So, I thought I would try to take a brief, but critical look at the topic from a scientific point of view. After all, perhaps there is some underlying science upon which to decide whether or not a crime is being committed when a woman induces an abortion.
Well, I failed. There is no specific scientific criterion establishing when life begins, but rather a full spectrum of possibility. On one extreme, you could define a sperm or an egg as a living precursor to a human and establish that killing either is a crime. Of course, then women would be committing crimes every month and men, well, possibly every day. Maybe sometimes twice.
At the other extreme, one could consider a baby is not living until it is born and begins to breath. That would fit more closely to how we establish death, but women in their 3rd term of pregnancy would certainly disagree. Too much kicking. But where on the spectrum one decides life has started is completely arbitrary. There’s an excellent Radiolab podcast examining this matter, looking into finding the point at which an embryo could survive. But again, it’s not up to science to decide if that is what we, as a species, want to define as the beginning of life. So, who does?
Should it be the mother, whose health, life and future are determined by the choice? Or should it be decided by law? In a recent national poll, 69% of participants agreed with the original Supreme Court decision (Roe v Wade) to leave the choice with the mother. Similarly, Pew found that 61% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal all or most of the time. Yet, a more recent decision by the Court, whose composition has become less representative of the majority, left the decision up to the States. And several of the State legislatures, whose compositions are even more skewed, have come up with draconian laws that don’t even provide exceptions for rape and incest. What’s with that?
The lawmakers argue that the mother, by having an abortion, is willfully killing a baby and that they are defending the child. How brave and moral of them! But, I don’t buy it. These very same politicians vote against publicly supported child care and preschool. They oppose renewing the Child Tax Credit and would like to cut social security to working class families. They also oppose gun laws. It seems these guardians of life only truly care about babies when they are still in the womb.
But what about the murderous mothers? There is no stronger force in nature than the unconditional love of a mother for her children. It is hard to imagine the anguish a woman endures when she is forced to decide to abort. I would think there need to be good reasons, but perhaps I live a protected life. Maybe there are mothers or potential mothers out there who choose to end their pregnancies intentionally out of hatred, disdain or neglect. Well, to better understand, let’s take a look at the most common reasons cited by women who induced abortions.
From “Reasons why women have induced abortions: a synthesis of findings from 14 countries,” by S. Chae, S. Desai, M. Crowell and G. Sefdh, published in Contraception, Vol. 96, Issue 4 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2017.06.014). In the most recent U.S. data, here are the primary reasons cited:
40% Not financially prepared to have a child;
36% Not the right time for a baby;
31% Partner-related;
29% Need to focus on the other children;
20% Interferes with future opportunities (education, work);
19% Not emotionally or mentally prepared;
12% Risk to maternal / fetal health;
12% Wants a better life for the baby than she could provide.
Note that multiple reasons are typical, which is why the total is more than 100%.
I don’t see any malintent included in any of these responses. In most cases, it appears the potential mother is concerned about being able to provide for the child and to be a good mother. Interestingly, in many cases, it would seem that legislatures opposed to abortion would be better off also voting to provide child support, tax credits and pre-school, rather than forcing a woman to raise a child in an economically impossible environment.
So, what is their motivation, anyway? There is no “abortion crisis” in America. In fact, according to Pew, the number of legal abortions in the US has dropped from a peak of about 1.6 million in 1990 to 930,000 in 2020. The rate per 1,000 women has been declining since 1981 and, regardless, how does this affect the health of the nation? How does forcing women to bring a fetus to term, regardless of the effect on her health or that of the baby, improve the well-being of our nation? It doesn’t. It brings babies into this world into unhealthy situations. Or it kills them cruelly. Or it kills their mothers. These state lawmakers do not have our nation’s well-being in mind.
Let’s put some perspective on this “debate.” Imagine the uproar if these legislatures required every woman to have an abortion? We wouldn’t allow it. It would violate the basic human right to create a family. On this, we all agree. Forcing a woman to bring an unwanted child into this world, a child that has terrible health issues or was conceived by a rapist or through incest or who simply could not grow up in a healthy environment, is effectively the same. It violates the basic human right of a woman to care for her own health and the health of her family. It is unthinkable.
Nobody wants to have an abortion. It is an extraordinarily difficult choice to make. Many choose not to, even under dire circumstances. They would rather risk their lives because they feel so strongly against the act. That is their right and we all defend that right. The choice is with the woman and the woman alone. She might seek advice from loved ones, family, counseling, but only she can make the decision and we respect it. The same is true for those who choose to have an abortion. It is a decision between her and her doctor and it must be respected in every state of our nation, with no exceptions.
Laws opposing these rights clearly do not have morality in mind, only cruel, misogynistic spite. Their goal is to suppress women and their effects are not only painful, but often deadly. I will be forever perplexed about how the makers of these laws ever got elected. The Supreme Court had correctly decided previously that it was none of their damned business. Now, our only hope is to vote them out of office.