As the United States approaches the 2026 election, pro-life (particularly anti-abortion) voters are faced with the same false dichotomy: vote Republican in order not to exacerbate the unjust social and economic conditions that drive abortion demand, or vote Democrat to reduce demand while safeguarding the supply of abortion options. While the former option is off the table for consistent life ethic (CLE) adherents like myself, I argue the latter should be equally unacceptable.<\/p>\n
This is not merely a matter of principle but equally one of pragmatism. Despite how benevolent and pragmatic it may seem. “lowering abortion demand” instead of legally protecting human life is a flawed premise. Legal abortion creates its own demand! So says science, so says common sense.<\/p>\n
As an independent voter with no loyalty to either side of the American partisan duopoly, I call out both ends of the spectrum rather equally. I have no sympathies toward either camp; rather I hold quite a bit of animus towards whatever party is in power and the opposition which fails to stop them. Yet I still can (and do) give credit where it\u2019s due on both sides of the aisle. What I\u2019ve found among left-leaning pro-life advocates seeking to rationalize a vote that effectively advances legal abortion in order to stop the human rights abuses from the supposedly \u201cpro-life\u201d right involves conveniently disregarding the efficacy of Republican-enacted state-level abortion regulations.<\/p>\n
My pet peeve as a political scientist is when people state something factually accurate to support an inaccurate conclusion;<\/strong> a common one is that abortion rates go down under Democrat presidents. This is true, but to conclude that \u201ctherefore Democrats lower abortion demand\u201d is not so simple.<\/p>\n When I ask how Democrats can simultaneously protect abortion access while somehow lowering the number of those who wish to access it, the answer I often get is social welfare policies.<\/p>\n But which ones? The first time we saw a decline in abortion rates was under the Clinton Administration, but he didn\u2019t expand welfare at all. Instead, Clinton limited it significantly, capping it at only five years by changing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). For many, welfare was cut off. \u00a0This explanation fails. So then what actually happened that lowered abortion rates in that time period?<\/p>\n Answer: Abortion laws at the state level passed by Republicans after Planned Parenthood v Casey<\/em> made this possible in 1991. The correlation between lower abortion rates and Democratic presidents only occurs after<\/em> 1991. This coincides perfectly with political behavior that tends to elect one party at the federal level and the opposite party at the state level.<\/p>\n The decrease we see corresponds to Republican-enacted state laws:<\/strong> informed consent, parental involvement, waiting periods, regulations. Essentially any hurdle between a woman and a hasty abortion is lifesaving. We can see this decrease has less to do with demand for abortion and more to do with limiting supply despite existing demand levels.<\/p>\n This is human behavior 101. People respond to consequences and behave differently when they perceive less risk.<\/p>\n We have seen this phenomenon with emergency contraception (also known as E.C. or the morning-after pill). Before E.C. decreased the perceived risk, concern for pregnancy often meant no condom = no sex. But after E.C., those who then believed they could engage in sex without contraception and just pick up a pill in the morning meant the pill’s very existence and ease of access created its own demand. This increased as barriers to access decreased (i.e. supply increased). The demand was far less when it involved the inconvenience of seeing a doctor, and more when it became a simple trip to the corner drugstore. The consequences of an action and the difficulty dealing with those consequences are the decision-making criteria that determine human actions. \u00a0When it\u2019s easy to end an unwanted pregnancy, there’s less care to prevent it.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t believe me or think that I\u2019m underestimating abortion as no big deal, let me tell you about something called pregnancy ambivalence. Pregnancy ambivalence is where a woman is unsure how she would feel about a pregnancy. Rather than avoiding pregnancy until those feelings become clear, many are simply not engaged much with trying to achieve or prevent pregnancy whatsoever. They instead decide to just see how they feel about having a baby after they make one. This idea of test-driving pregnancy is only possible because women know they can end it.<\/p>\n This assumption that people always have and always will rampantly risk pregnancy in bad situations doesn\u2019t hold true. If crisis pregnancies were a static fact of life, we\u2019d have the same rate of unplanned pregnancy and fewer teen or out-of-wedlock births after abortion became legal. Instead, they\u2019ve skyrocketed. When pregnancy requires a big commitment, behavior changes. Contraception created a false sense of security and created abortion demand. Yet even after contraception became accessible but abortion was illegal, the stakes were higher if it failed. There were far fewer unplanned pregnancies when they led to a shotgun wedding.<\/p>\n There are millions of babies only conceived because abortion is legal, most of whom are dead. When there\u2019s no back-up plan, people are more careful about prevention or take fewer risks in general. This is basic risk compensation theory.<\/p>\n This is why lowering demand for abortion is not largely possible while safeguarding abortion access. Supply for abortion creates its own demand. Women have abortions because they don\u2019t want their children for reasons that typically existed before the children were conceived (since year after year, around 87-88 of abortions are performed on women who got pregnant while single and don\u2019t want a child with that father or no father at all). Even if more social welfare programs could mitigate the consequences of single motherhood, they don\u2019t change those pre-existing circumstances. Women can change this by changing their sexual behavior, but while abortion is legal, they don\u2019t feel any need to.<\/p>\n The problems for which women demand abortion like “I can’t afford to raise a child alone” are problems women simply didn\u2019t risk so often before abortion was legal to “solve.” Without abortion, many of these problems would disappear. Society would be forced to actually help those that remain because our violent cop-out would be gone. There\u2019s no legitimate need for abortion, and any problems abortion solves can be solved without violence.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no evidence that abortion can be stopped by government interventions beyond prohibition. More food stamps would be nice, but I sincerely doubt it would change the minds of 4,400 women a day or that any woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant would remain so in order to depend on a welfare check. Believing we can save lives if we just had better social welfare programs is a comforting delusion that allows people to believe there’s something they can do and that women only have abortions out of desperation. Neither are true. It allows people to sound compassionate about the unborn while not actually protecting them. For that reason, it\u2019s incredibly cruel.<\/p>\n If we truly desire justice for women and children, we can’t concede to abortion staying legal, thinking that with enough government support, abortion will end. This idea forgets one fundamental factor: the power differential between pregnant women who might not want abortion and the non-pregnant people who do<\/em> want them to abort. Who has more power?<\/p>\n While abortion remains legal, it gives negotiating power and leverage to everyone\u00a0 but<\/em> the pregnant woman. A man can say to a pregnant girlfriend, “it’s me or the baby,” or to his stay-at-home pregnant wife, “I\u2019m not having more kids to take care of — so I hope you have a good job and someplace to go.”<\/p>\n Why? Because legal abortion lets<\/em> them!<\/p>\n A woman terrified of the possibility of being kicked out on the streets with her other children might feel she has no choice.<\/p>\n Likewise, disappointed parents can tell their pregnant teen, “abort or get out,” or “if you have this baby we\u2019re not going to help you pay for college anymore,” to get what they want. Terrified teens who don’t want abortions have abortions anyway.<\/p>\n Why? It’s legal! And because it\u2019s legal, others have the power.<\/p>\n Threats are only possible because legal abortion makes pregnancy “reversible.” When pregnancy is an unchangeable reality, this takes threats off the table.<\/p>\n True, people can abandon pregnant women all the same. But it\u2019s much harder to do, and they\u2019re more likely to answer for it.<\/p>\n I know women who\u2019ve called the bluff of those making such threats, who weren’t abandoned and whose children are deeply adored by those who had tried so hard to get them killed. But these are the strong ones.<\/p>\n When pregnancy isn\u2019t an “optional” condition, pregnant women are more likely to be accommodated rather than abandoned. Because of this, threats like “if you really think you’re grown up enough to take care of a baby then you’re grown up enough to buy your own car to get to work” or “if you want another baby, you\u2019re on your own” will bully women into unwanted abortions out of fear they can’t take care of themselves or their children unless they comply.\u00a0 I have seen it. A lot.<\/p>\n As long as abortion is a legal option, a woman will be told that any problems she faces from pregnancy was because of the choice she made to remain pregnant. Therefore, it’s all on her. If women can’t end pregnancy on demand, other people will be forced to deal with it and abandonment won’t be so easy.<\/p>\n True concern for unborn children involves demanding their human rights as human beings, and true concern for women requires ending abortion so women aren\u2019t constantly expected to choose between someone else’s demands and the lives of their unborn children. The only way to get women the support they deserve is to stop allowing abortion as a cop-out!<\/p>\n In sum, every policy to support women and families that could lower abortion rates doesn\u2019t require keeping abortion legal and accessible. This is a trade-off that some use to rationalize their vote for Democrats in the same way others use Democrats\u2019 championing of abortion to rationalize their vote for Republican-sanctioned violence. We must do better.<\/p>\n ===========================<\/p>\n For more of our thoughts on abortion regulations, see:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What Studies Show: Impact of Abortion Regulations<\/a><\/p>\n Should Abortions be Illegal?<\/a><\/p>\n Who the Law Targets<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/1-blog-chart-abortion.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Problem of Power<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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