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Trevor Noah<\/p><\/div>\n
On September 27, 2021, comedian Trevor Noah offered What Happens When a State Bans Abortions?<\/a> in his ongoing segment, \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Know, Now You Know.\u201d What I know after watching it is that Trevor is competent at giving the conventional talking points in favor of abortion availability, the ones we\u2019ve heard for decades.<\/p>\n There are rebuttals to what he said. He\u2019s entirely lacking in curiosity as to what those might be. As for the idea that there are empirical studies addressing his points, that doesn\u2019t seem to occur to him or his writers.<\/p>\n The one new part was about Uber and Lyft drivers in Texas being afraid to take people to Planned Parenthood at all. He had some good jokes on that. He also seems to be unaware that subjecting such drivers to civil suits isn\u2019t in the heartbeat bill itself<\/a> at all. It\u2019s in the interpretation of \u201caiding\u201d that opponents of the bill came up with. How ironic \u2013 the impact is because of pro-choice interpretations, not pro-life ones.<\/p>\n Everyone knows the law won\u2019t prevent all<\/em> abortions. But the argument it won\u2019t prevent any<\/em> \u2013 indeed, the argument it won\u2019t prevent a substantial number \u2013 crashes up against what empirical studies show. The vast majority of studies of any form of abortion regulations are done by people who oppose those regulations, so there\u2019s not a pro-life bias in most findings.<\/p>\n For more details and references, see Chapter 15 of Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion<\/em><\/a>, a chapter I wrote and a book I edited.<\/p>\n Here are highlights:<\/p>\n Women who ask and are turned down<\/strong><\/p>\n Back when committees could decide whether women got abortions, one study followed women who were turned down, mainly in Czechoslovakia. Many mothers changed their minds, as over a third \u2013 36% \u2013 denied they had made the abortion request, and 73% were satisfied with how the situation was resolved \u2013 that is, giving birth to their children. A few had placed the children for adoption, and the vast majority of mothers were raising the children themselves, countering the idea of major problems caused by an abortion not happening.<\/p>\n Funding <\/strong><\/p>\n In the U.S., the Hyde amendment suddenly removed most federal Medicaid abortion funding. So funding was available one year and not the next. Also, funding stopped in some states and not in others since some states put their own funds into abortions for the low-income. This created a natural experiment \u2013 meaning all the requirements of an experiment were in place and researchers only needed to collect the data.<\/p>\n From one year to the next, abortion rates among the low-income served by Medicaid went way down in those states where Hyde took effect compared to those states where the state government continued the abortion funding.<\/p>\n But in each state, the childbirth rate stayed the same or went down.<\/p>\n To explain this, consider that abortion has a fairly unique feature. If I don\u2019t brush my teeth, I\u2019m the one who gets cavities. Even if cavity-filling is free, I\u2019m motivated to avoid it. The same applies to a woman whose behavior can lead to pregnancy. Yet it doesn\u2019t apply to the man who engages in the same behavior.<\/em> If the government takes care of the bill, the activity is free to him, without consequences.<\/p>\n This would be irrelevant if the woman entirely controls her sexual relationships. It becomes relevant when she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Even outside male-dominated relationships, having an abortion require money becomes relevant to a couple\u2019s decision-making \u2013 when to have sex, or how much trouble to take to get a condom first.<\/p>\n Distance of Facilities<\/strong><\/p>\n Women in counties further away from clinics have a lower abortion rate than those nearby. This was shown early on in Georgia in the 1970s, where Atlanta was the place to go. Texas has been even clearer: the \u201csupply-side\u201d requirement of a 2004 law impacted only abortions past 16 weeks, and those dropped by 68%. With the 2013 law that led to several clinic closures, there was a 13% decrease in the state\u2019s abortion rate in the year following.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong><\/p>\n Studies done in various ways suggest that higher monetary costs do indeed decrease abortions.<\/p>\n Parental Involvement<\/strong><\/p>\n The most commonly observed immediate impact<\/a> of parental involvement requirements is a drop in the first-trimester abortion rate among minors, but not among teenagers who aren\u2019t minors (aged 18 and 19). This was found along with no increase in the birthrate in each of several different states. There appears to be no difference as to whether it was only parental notification or instead parental consent that was legally required.<\/p>\n On a side note, one study found states with parental involvement laws were associated with an 11% to 21% reduction in suicides among females 15-17 years old. No similar impact was found on males in that age group or on older females.<\/p>\n No kidding. We at the Consistent Life Network have held this for a long time.<\/p>\n But Trevor speaks as if Texas were doing nothing. In fact, the state has invested<\/a> hundreds of millions of dollars into a long-running program to help its pregnant women.<\/p>\n You can argue it could be done better. You can argue that certain social policies are also crucial. You can argue it\u2019s inadequate. I for one would certainly like to see more.<\/p>\n But \u201cinadequate\u201d isn\u2019t \u201cabsent.\u201d Treating it as merely absent is an assertion that\u2019s so easily refuted as to suggest anyone who does so hasn\u2019t researched it at all. It\u2019s easily googled.<\/p>\n The idea that men who think women are supposed to be sexually available to them would benefit greatly from vacuuming women out and making them re-usable \u2013 this is totally absent from Trevor\u2019s presentation. But he\u2019s presented on the point before. This tweet, still available online<\/a>, refers to an earlier Supreme Court decision which ruled against some previous Texas abortion regulations:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve often thought the astonishing sexism of his remark ought to have been career-ending, but of course it wasn\u2019t. Abortion was the topic at hand, so someone who feels a sense of male privilege over women\u2019s bodies writing only to male readers presumed to have that same sense is given a free pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most of the time, he\u2019s a good man. I usually enjoy his comedy, which I watch regularly. But this is one of many cases I\u2019ve observed where I conclude abortion has a toxic effect on otherwise good men.<\/p>\n Women who\u2019ve had abortions are a major portion of the pro-life movement \u2013 no one active in the movement can fail to know this, because it\u2019s so prevalent. Women who feel traumatized, bullied, unsupported, conned \u2013 these women\u2019s voices are every bit as relevant to the debate as the ones whose experience backs up The Daily Show<\/em>\u2019s view.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a continuum of women considering whether or not to get an abortion:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The segment shows one extreme in the continuum, and yet presents it as if it were everybody. That means deliberately ignoring so many women\u2019s lived experiences.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re puzzled as to why the pro-life movement is still so strong after all these years, that\u2019s a major reason. You can\u2019t make these women go away by pretending they don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n If the intention is to educate, as the title implies, and if the topic is what actually happens in a state with abortion bans, then to the writing staff of The Daily Show<\/em> I say: please do more homework. I\u2019ve given you some leads here, and with your research skills I expect you could find more, if only you could try to be thorough on the stated topic.<\/p>\n ===========================================<\/p>\n For more thoughts from Rachel MacNair on similar topics, see our posts:<\/p>\n What Do Men Have to Say on Abortion?<\/a><\/p>\nTrevor Noah Asserts: The Law Won\u2019t Stop Any Abortions<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nTrevor Noah Asserts: Stopping Abortions Can Be Done with Better Supports for Mothers<\/h3>\n
I assert: Women Don\u2019t Become Pregnant Unless a Man is Involved<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nThe Segment Privileges Some Women\u2019s Experiences over Others<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nConclusion<\/h3>\n