January 27, 2006
From the desk of Jane Galt:Response to Peter Northup, and why I continue to believe that contraceptive availability is not a major factor in teen pregnancy
Am I a prisoner of UChicago price theory? Perhaps, though I never "drank the Kool-Aid" as thoroughly as some of my compatriots at the business school.
But price theory can be a useful, if simplistic framework, with which to look at human behaviour.
Let me posit that if women, or men, had some button they could push by their bed that would instantly render them temporarily infertile, the rate of abortions would fall dramatically. It would not be totally eliminated: we would still see terminating pregnancies because they have found out that their babies are potentially disabled, or the wrong gender--and those pregnancies (anecdotally considerable in some areas) that occurred because young girls erroneously believed that having a baby would revive their boyfriend's flagging interest. But it would be reduced by an order of magnitude.
But of course, contraception is not instant and costless. It has monetary costs: about 75¢ per condom, and about $25 a month for birth control pills, plus the cost of a doctor's visit. My argument, which I stand by, is that these costs are trivial relative to the non-monetary costs.
My evidence for this proposition? Well, for one thing, we know that a very substantial fraction of the women in the country are getting their birth control from subsidized public sources: "Of U.S. women who use a reversible method of contraception, 24% each year obtain family planning services from a publicly funded clinic or a private doctor reimbursed by Medicaid." I'd say that one-quarter of women of childbearing age is probably a generous estimate of how many of them would have difficulty affording birth control (even among women aged 18-24, the poorest age group, the poverty rate is only 19%).
For another, we know that free contraception programs produce only very modest results where they are tested. Consider these highlights from Planned Parenthood:
* The most successful adolescent pregnancy prevention programs in the U.S., which combine sexuality education with direct access to or information about contraceptive services, have increased contraceptive use among participants by up to 22 percent (Frost & Forrest, 1995). [emphasis mine]* More boys who participated in a high school condom availability program in Los Angeles reported using condoms every time they engaged in vaginal intercourse during the past year (50 percent) than the year before (37 percent), and more boys reported condom use for recently initiated first vaginal intercourse (80 percent) than the year before (65 percent) (Schuster et al., 1998).
* Condom use among students in New York City public high schools that have condom availability programs is five percentage points higher than in Chicago, where no such programs exist (Guttmacher et al., 1997).
In other words, if we give birth control to students for free, and tell them how to use it, and urge them to do so, we might increase the number of students using birth control regularly by 22% [memo to study neophytes: that 22% figure does not mean that out of 100 students, 22 more of them are now using contracpetion; it means that whatever smaller group were previously using contracption is now larger by 22% of itself--so if 50% were previously using contraception, 11 more students are now using birth control than were before.]. That's pretty damn underwhelming. And that's the best study Planned Parenthood can come up with, the one that is probably the outlier on the normally distributed bell curve of such study outcomes. I've no doubt that the abstinence folks have grabbed whatever study lies at the other end of the bell curve, and are using it to claim that contraception-based sex ed actually increases the number of pregnancies by teaching students that it's okay to have sex.
I do believe that educating people about sex and giving them contraception for free increases contraception usage somewhat, and lowers unwanted pregnancy. But how much it reduced unwanted pregnancies depends on how many of today's unwanted pregnancies result from ignorance or lack of access to contraception; if these are not the primary cause of unwanted pregnancy, then the effect of such laudable programmes will be modest. And based on the studies so far done, that effect seems to be pretty trivial--too small to make more than a small dent in the number of unwanted pregnancies.
This leads me to conclude that the monetary cost of contraception is, at best, a small contributing factor to unwanted pregnancy in this country. (These studies were, after all, conducted in school districts with some of the worst concentrations of poverty in the country.)
I must apologize to Mr Northup on one count; when I saw him linking AGI data on regional variations in abortion rates, I assumed that he was linking the same chart I had been looking at, which shows state-by-state variation in rates of abortion and pregnancy both for teens, and the population of childbearing women as a whole. I assumed that he was looking at the same thing.
Bad Jane! When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me both! He was not looking at the underlying data; he was looking at a puff-piece summary sheet supporting AGI's position of "more birth control, less restriction". Not that there is anything wrong with this position, but that page is a position paper, not data.
Remember that scene in Crocodile Dundee where the frightened heroine tells ol' Croc to give his money to a mugger because "he's got a knife"? Mr Dundee looks bemused and says, "That's not a knife." Pulling a sort of 3/4 length machete out of a holster, he says "This is a knife," and the muggers run in the other direction.
Well, that's not data. This is data. And Mr Northup, I'm sorry you were mugged.
Those data simply do not, in my admittedly cursory reading, support the contention that education and contraception access will substantially reduce abortion. The places with the best contraception access, the most liberal sexual mores, and the most liberal sex ed, are also the places with the most abortions. These are the states with more than 23 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age, which is the national mean.
California
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Florida
Hawaii
Illinois
Maryland
Massachussetts
Nevada
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
All have outstanding liberal governments, dense populations, and high levels of spending on public health, as well as lots of Planned Parenthood clinics.
I think Mr Northup has made a common, and understandable, error, conflating preventing pregnancies with preventing abortions. The best candidates for the kind of outreach he advocates--changing social mores, making birth control more known about and easily obtained, are poor rural areas in the bible belt, where the sex ed is least contraceptive focused, and the nearest Planned Parenthood may be a long drive away. Even allowing that one could march in down there with one's hip northeastern values and overcome parental resistance to giving their children free condoms, one might have a salutory effect on unwanted pregnancy (though I'm still unconvinced). But because so few women there have abortions, this would do very little to lower the number of abortions in this country.
Given the urban concentration of abortions in the United States, I simply cannot endorse the idea that the main problem is contraceptive access, or contraceptive education.
Mr Northup, in response to my posts, has clarified his position as follows:
So, to be clear, Ms. Galt's post annoyed me not because I disagreed with the claim about education, but because I disagreed quite strongly with the implicit claim that, having disposed of the education question, Saletan's *general* argument about targeting contraception falls apart. I was annoyed, not by what she put in, but by what she left out: all the other causal mechanisms that influence the relative costs and benefits of protected versus unprotected sex (which she rightly enough acknowledges in her replies to me).Ms. Galt and I both seem to agree that, overall, there are two interrelated choice functions in place, both of which are sensitive to costs and benefits: the choice to have protected v. unprotected v. no sex, and the choice to terminate v. keep an unintended pregnancy. Moreover, we can't look at these two separately: the relative cost of abortion will feed into the relative costs of protected and unprotected sex. And of course the number of people who are faced with the second choice, and so the number of abortions overall, is determined by the choices made at the first stage.
But the cost of abortion is hardly the only factor that constitutes the cost of protected v. unprotected v. no sex. And what I really objected to was the implication that protected sex is already basically as cheap as it can be, so the only way to shift costs is by manipulating the costs of unsafe sex through sanctions on abortion. Again, whether or not this is a fair reaction to her piece is up to the reader. I can only note that she seemed to dismiss such concerns pretty flatly with her claim that "there are cheap and effective prophylactics at the nearest drugstore." Even in her followup, she seems to stick with this: she has an extended paragraph about how Trinessa is only $25/month, condoms are often free, and Planned Parenthood allows for doctors' visits at "trivial" cost.
I don't think these claims serve to undermine my argument. $300 a year is not trivial, not for everyone, and again, we should not ignore the non-monetary costs of time and effort.
Ignore them? My primary argument, based on that tired old UChicago price theory, is that the reason that we will not significantly reduce abortions is that the non-monetary costs of birth control--acquiring and remembering to use it, and the unpleasant side effects, medical or otherwise (insert "raincoat in the shower" jokes here), so far outweigh the monetary costs that even giving people birth control for free has only a limited impact on their usage. In this, I have the advantage of having actually looked at some of the data. In this age of AIDS, if you can only achieve a modest increase in condom usage by giving them away for free in school, where everyone under the age f sixteen must at least occasionally drop in, then it seems to me that you have simply taken government action as far as it can go.
Mr Northup sticks by his thesis that social stigma and class are still big issues here. And to some extent they are. But in the context of reducing abortions, it's only useful to discuss them insofar as we believe that we can remedy these ills. I am very much aware of the fact that Mr Northup and I are members of a privileged class, and that this has conferred all manner of non-monetary benefits on my life. But while I would like to distribute the benefits of my privileged upbringing to everyone, not just insofar as access to health care goes, but in terms of having a great job and a stimulating life. But so far, I have no idea how to go about doing so. Nor, as far as I can tell, does Mr Northup; he states the goal of changing destructive norms as if it were a policy prescription, rather than merely a (laudable) desire.
And, of course, money and effort don't exhaust the "costs" of safe sex; social stigma is very real. This matters both directly, as worries about shame and reputation influence decision-making, and indirectly, as social norms about who is responsible for birth control (and whether birth control is something that, obviously, one should use, or is instead a signal of moral failure) factor into the monetary and non-monetary costs (do parents pay, or must a teenager pay secretly? Will her boyfriend chip in? Will she have to drive an hour away to fill her prescription so that no one knows she's on the pill? Etc.) Obviously these vary enormously across individuals and communities; for many people, they may indeed be trivial. But for many, they are not, and I believe that they could be lower than they are now--but not necessarily through government action, let alone reeducation!
As we've seen from the above, given the urban concentration of abortion, this is simply not credible. No teenager in Chicago, DC, New York, Boston, LA, New Haven has to drive an hour to get birth control from a completely anonymous source, and even if there were only one pharmacy in the city, it's unlikely that her community outside of her immediate failure will even tut-tut as she proudly steps up to the counter with her box of condoms. Payment, as we've seen, is pretty much irrelevant, since there is excellent free birth control provision for young women. If you want to go ahead and start another clinic to give kids the Pill, be my guest. Add a shuttle service, education classes, and for all I care a pedicure station. I'll applaud your efforts, and throw in a little of my own hard-earned cash to boot, since I think it's a worthy cause. But I will be surprised indeed if we see a meaningful drop in abortions as a result. I'm not denigrating providing contraceptive access as a project; I think it is a fine, fine idea. I just don't think it's going to do very much about the abortion rate, which was after all Mr Saletan's point.
I didn't intend the cross-national data to be anything but suggestive, but I do feel the data ought to make us realize that these costs, especially the social ones, are not set in stone or written into the deep structure of the universe. Cultures can and do change, although I would certainly hope that state coercion would be absolutely the last tool people reach for (sadly, it rarely is). Which, again, is why I was so very annoyed by Ms. Galt's first post: she critiques Saletan's statist prescriptions only to implicitly go along with his presumption that the only thing on the table is State Policy. She seems to have backed away from this in her replies, which is great, but I stand by my reading of the original post.
To me, the question of state vs. non-state policy simply isn't very relevant here--and to the extent that it is relevant, it undercuts Mr Northup's case. Giving out free stuff is something that the state is actually very good at, as state activities go; I don't expect substantial disparities in the success rate between free condom programmes from the New York City School District, or Planned Parenthood. Education might be a different story--but a widespread non-state sex ed programme simply is not within the constellation of available policy options, as far as I can see; there's no way to get the teenagers to you.
And broad social change, the third pillar of Mr Northup's argument, is simply too broad to be useful as a policy alternative. I certainly agree with Mr Northup that if there were different attitudes towards sex and contraception among the groups that currently rely heavily on abortions as birth control, then we could see a dramatic drop in abortions. But as an insight, that's trivial: if people were different, they'd be different. How do we persuade them to behave differently? Public education campaigns designed by non-profit groups have roughly the same dismal success rate as ones designed by public health departments.
The challenge posed by Mr Saletan (or so it seems to me), is "What can we do to make abortion rarer" But if "we" is Mr Saletan, and Mr Northup, and me, the answer is "very little". "We" are not members of the communities where abortion is prevalent, and have very little hope of effecting the grassroots change that might alter abortion rates. And the options available to "us", changing the relative cost of contraception, doesn't seem to work very well. That leaves an option that we know works: changing the relative cost of abortion. I don't find that an acceptable option. But it is the only policy open to those of us in the commentariat that we actually know works.
Posted by Jane Galt at January 27, 2006 10:22 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksJane:
I saw where you trackbacked to my blog on this post. Unless I missed something I did not see a link back to the post itself. My trackback policy is I only accept trackbacks on post that actually link to a post they are tracking back to. If I am mistaken forgive me and feel free to trackback again.
Good Post!
I'm not sure about much else, but I think the policy of 'reducing abortion' is the wrong tack... we should be reducing unwanted pregnancies.
And an aside in those quotes struck me: "and whether birth control is something that, obviously, one should use, or is instead a signal of moral failure"
Now, I'm talking city here - but not in any of those states you listed, and it was quite a long time ago. I went to high school for 3 years in Charlotte, NC - and I did what they called (back then) peer counseling. Even way back then, birth control was widely available - but almost every time I got a client who said "I think I'm pregnant" and asked if they'd used any birth control, they said 'no' - and when asked why, the overwhelming reason was that using it would have meant they were planning to have sex, which would make them 'bad'...
There were few legal abortions back then, only the rich could afford to have a D&C for 'polyps' - 2 of the 3 years I did that 'peer counseling' were before Roe Vs Wade.
But the women were still to afraid to be thought of as 'sluts' to use birth control. And I think, considering the continued prevalence of that word (especially on the right) that you might find that's a strong anti-birth-control incentive.
Admittedly, this is just anecdotal - but I don't think abortion restrictions will make any difference in unwanted pregnancies either. It will just create more ungrateful adopted bastards like me.
"How do we persuade them to behave differently?"
In the (ubiquitous) sex education classes, show a video of a partial-birth abortion. Show them what abortion really is.
Kathy said "(using) birth control... would have meant they were planning to have sex, which would make them 'bad'..."
And if they saw such a video as I suggest, then they would be less worried about being 'bad' and more worried about being evil.
Ed: We currently show high school students vidoes of horriffic automobile accidents in driver's ed, but it doesn't really change anything because they're highschool students and "in-class videos" are just a chance to catch up on sleep.
Even if they watch, I think they'd see through the transparent attempt to scare them off, and point out that most are abortions are *not* partial birth.
We could show an early term abortion too, but I doubt it would have the same effect.
I think the public and private money is better spent bribing pregnant women making a decision with good pre-natal care and encouraging adoption. Pro-Lifers like me put there money where their mouth is and America gets hundreds of thousands of new citizens a year.
Kathy,
The proposition of a negative social stigma as a dis-incentive towards birth control can be considered a further non-monetary cost of birth control. Therefore, this proposition actually serves to support Jane's argument that education coupled with cheap/free contraceptives will not lower the abortion rate...
Most if not everyone will agree that lowering the number of unwanted pregnancies is the ideal manner to lower the abortion rate. However, this goal, laudable as it is, does not lend itself to a simple solution or an obvious approach to a solution within a free society. How can society lower the number of unwanted pregnancies? Through education and cheap/free contraceptives? From Jane's post, education and cheap/free contraceptives does not appear to significantly lower the number of abortions let alone the number of unwanted pregnancies. After all, not all unwanted pregnancies are aborted.
How then is a society to lower the number of unwanted pregnancies? Through removal of the stigma associated with the use of contraceptives? While this will almost doubtlessly lower the number of unwanted pregnancies somewhat, will its effect be all that significant? There are still other non-monetary costs to contraceptive use such as the discipline to always use them and to use them appropriately. Maybe it is my cynical nature, but I am inclined to think that a lack of such discipline in the use of contraceptives likely leads to far more unwanted pregnancies than a negative social stigma. Sex does at times occur in the heat of the moment when contraceptives are not readily available to a couple that would and does use them otherwise. Moreover, the negative social stigma associated with female contraceptive use is somewhat mediated by the lack of such a stigma with males. Having lots of sex is essentially a badge of glory among most men. Therefore, a female's insistence that a condom MUST be used for all intercourse will essentially ensure that some form of contraceptive is always used during sex. (A man's rediculously large drive to partake in sex easily overcomes any form of negative stigma. There aren't many incentives more likely to make most men swallow their inhibitions than the thought of intercourse as a reward.) Not using any contraceptive at all then seems even more the fault of a lack of discipline to appropriately use them. Actually, in the end, the removal of the negative stigma associated with birth control is another one of those "broad social changes" that is simply to broad to be "useful as policy" as Jane nicely states it.
Finally, the statement that restricting abortions will not result in fewer unwanted pregnancies doesn't seem economically sound. If social stigma is sufficient to inhibit the proper use of contraceptives, then wouldn't likely having to carry a pregnancy to term with ALL the associated negative stigma, financial and emotional burdens be sufficient to inspire couples to be disciplined in their contraceptive use? It seems that hypothetical Jack and Jill would be far more likley to be disciplined regarding contraceptive use if they knew that there is no quick way out of a pregnancy. Such would be expected to lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies. Therefore, it seems that Jane's solution to reduce the number of abortions by raising its relative cost should likely also reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Morevoer, arguments can be made that this solution may even have a greater negative impact (as in lowering the number) on the amount of unwanted pregnancies relative to its impact on the amount of abortions. (Such arguments would assume a greater incentive towards disciplined contraceptive use.) Finally, granting Jane's argument regarding education and cheap/free contraceptives, she is correct in that there are a dearth of options left to a free society to effect its sexual behaviour other than restricting abortions. Personally, I can't think of any though it would be interesting to hear theories from those more creative than myself in the matter. (On the other hand, I can readily imagine alternative solutions for totalitarian societies.)
My $0.02...
The last time I looked, the ratio of women seeking abortions followed Pareto's rule i.e. 20% of women who sought abortions accounted for 80% of all abortions. It appears that this minority of women are simply using abortion as a means of birth control and are having multiple abortions as a result. Studies of this subset show them to be impulsive and systematically irresponsible in all facets of their lives. Drug and alcohol addiction are common. More extensive sex education and free contraception will not make much a dent in the abortion rate because the women responsible for most abortions won't take advantage of the opportunities.
I think discussions about abortion are heavily skewed by the perspective of women who had a single abortion at some point in their lives and then took care never to have to have one again. It is easy for these women to rationalize that if only they knew more or were more careful they wouldn't have needed the abortion and that therefor that is why most abortions occur.
First, as a San Francisco transplant to the south, I have to say your perception of "the way southerners think", for lack of a better term, is pretty inaccurate. If you wanted to give birth control away around here, opposition would be noisy, but not very broad.
Second, the problem with distrbution isn't cost or availibity - it's lack of anonymity. Even as a married adult, I feel a little uncomfortable buying condoms (yes we use them - it's a drug interaction issue). You feel like the guy in that Woody Allen movie standing there while they get a price check on his porn magazine. Make them available anonymously and I suspect your distribution percentages would go way up.
Third, on the education issue, as you have pointed out from the beginning, kids know how women get pregnant, and how to prevent it. Even the ones being "home schooled by really uptight religious parents", believe it or not. As Kathy pointed out above, a lot of girls feel a stigma about birth control, so let's put more pressure on the boys. Not with health classes, but with classes that dwell on 1.) the probability that they won't stay married to a girl they get pregnant, assuming they're willing to get married in the first place and 2.) what their child support bill for the next 18 years is going to look like (use the higher of avg or median, and include high cost areas). Throw in a couple of horror stories about wage garnishment and prison for deadbeat dads. Instead of "having the bejeesus scared out of them with scenarios that are possible, but wildly unlikely", lets scare the bejeesus out of them with scenarios that are highly likely, if not certain.
The best way to reduce unwanted pregnancy is to shorten the window of opportunity for them.
Eliminate summer breaks and shorten childhood. Leaving children in posession of working reproductive organs is a bad idea.
Folks like Peter Northup who worry about the "negative social stigma" attached to contraceptive use -- in which people are allegedly afraid to buy condoms or get a prescription for the pill, because the store clerk or doctor or pharmacist will look at them funny -- might be projecting their own attitudes as members of the well-to-do chattering class onto the poor folks having most of the abortions. I remember, back in law school, working at a convenience store that served an interesting mix of college and grad students, and people who probably never thought of going to college at all. The former, if they bought condoms from me, were always a little nervous, sometimes blushing, looking at the floor, etc. -- and this was so no matter how old (and therefore experienced in this sort of purchase) the buyer appeared to be. The latter would barge in, sometimes shout "Hey, where's the rubbers?!?" and show absolutely no shame whatsoever about the transaction.
Those of us who read and write for a living, and who make good choices about things like steady employment and avoiding pregnancy, sometimes want to give people who make bad choices the benefit of the doubt -- we assume that the poverty, or the constrained world view that often accompanies those choices accounts for them. That's what Northup was doing in his last little essay. But a little experience with the sorts of people who make these bad choices will show you that sometimes they just make bad choices. My experience as a full-time volunteer in "bad neighborhoods" (before law got the better of me) and convenience store clerk confirms Jane's data, and tells me that these folks have access to birth control, but just aren't using it. If Northup had any similar experiences, he likely wouldn't be so careful to assume, with Saletan, that there must be something other than sheer laziness or bloody-mindedness causing people to have unprotected sex.
There is a very interesting discussion of abortions at this blog http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/01/22/very-basic-economics-and-abortion/
that you would find of interest.
they make an interesting argument that Roe-Wade did not make any difference in the number of abortions. Just that before R-W they were illegal and that afterwards they became legal and therfore safer. I did not go into detail on the stats - so for all I know they are all wrong -- but it is at least an argument that you probably would find worth looking into.
So if I'm reading this right, the primary cause of abortions is irresponsible people. Tell me again why we don't want these people to have abortions?
Randy
Dangerous route you've chosen to go down. I think the point of the posts is what is the best way to prevent pregnancies that might otherwise lead to abortions. Not necessarily a judgment on what course of action should be taken by a irresponsible person(s) who has found herself (themselves) pregnant.
That said, no one is saying that an irresponsible couple must raise the child. Also, I think there must be a least some irresponsible people who've gone on to become perfectly responsible parents. And, finally, I'm guessing there are many, many people (productive and unproductive members of society) who were raised by irresponsible parents but who are still happy to be here. But as I say, this is all off-topic.
MB
We currently show high school students vidoes of horriffic automobile accidents in driver's ed, but it doesn't really change anything because they're highschool students and "in-class videos" are just a chance to catch up on sleep.
Long ago, when I was a lad in northern Iowa, the local magistrate sentenced teenagers found guilty of moving violations to "community service". Which meant that you spent a couple evenings per week at the local mortuary, which ran the ambulance service for much of the county, until you went out with them to a horrific traffic accident. As I recall, the mortician would casually ask you to "Pick up that arm and bring it here."
The program produced a lot of very cautious teenaged drivers...
Randy wrote:
So if I'm reading this right, the primary cause of abortions is irresponsible people. Tell me again why we don't want these people to have abortions?
Yes. The tricky part is convincing irresponsible people to make the responsible choice of having an abortion.
Social stigma is a fascinating, elusive force, hard to conceptualize, hard to define, and hardest of all to quantify. How do you measure "stigma?" Can you measure it? But for the sake of the discussion, let us assume, as most have done here, that the social stigma attached to contraceptive use has diminished over the pasty half century. A man walks into the pharmacy department of a Wal-Mart with a gorgeous woman by his side and asks for condoms. Why on earth would he be ashamed to let everyone know about the tail he's going to pound that night? (Shame levels may differ for men whose partner is not of said high quality tail.)
Conversely, I propose another assumption: the social stigma of *failing* to get an abortion when one is clearly not ready for the financial and emotional costs of a child has *increased* substantially. Familial, spousal, and relationship pressures are all important variables determining a woman's choice to abort. Problems of measurement present themselves--but lots of people have anecdotal stories about themselves or friends or friends of friends attesting to this increase. Pro-life groups like Silent No More have even made this message central to their advocacy.
Alas, this is barely scraping the point of Jane's post. Seeing as how many find the social stigma encouraging abortion distasteful, I suppose we should back up to the contraceptive stage.
Barring some tectonic shift in American politics that delivers the seat of governments directly to the papacy, I don't foresee any serious cultural trends re-stigmatizing the use of contraceptives. Such trends would undoubtably be countered by vociferous opposition by millions of Americans, and not just among the usual suspects.
Well, why not just stigmatize unwanted pregnancies? A silly question. Unwanted pregnancies are already stigmatized. That's why people are encourged to abort. In the past, women carried their illegitimate children to term, and society's response was to deem them unmarriageable whores and label their children bastards.
Which would you prefer?
If this post had been the original response to Saletan, I wouldn't have been nearly as annoyed. As I said, I think I agree with you about a lot--we don't know what works in terms of actually encouraging effective contraceptive use, and insofar as Saletan implied that we did, he was being misleading and deserved criticism. I still disagree with your claim that effective contraceptives (not just condoms, which are particularly subject to problems in moving from 'access' to 'use') are really as cheap as they could be, in either monetary or nonmonetary terms, even in the urban abortion-heartland; the studies you cite are hardly conclusive on that front. It all depends, I suppose, on what one means by "could be"; I don't have a policy prescription that would fix things, but then, why would I? The question is whether it makes sense to have people working on this question and looking for ways to improve things, and I think such work is indeed valuable (it's not clear we disagree). It's also true that, as others have mentioned, a small number of those who don't use contraceptives are responsible for a large portion of all abortions, so even small shifts in contraceptive use might well pay dividends. I suppose if the question is purely about policy levers that we can pull -right now-, targeting abortion costs alone is the main way to shift abortion numbers, but I don't think Saletan was committed to that way of framing the issue, and I certainly wouldn't want to be. My point was and is simply that this is an important discussion to be having, rather than one that needs to be shut down with one-liners.
And, finally, I'm guessing there are many, many people (productive and unproductive members of society) who were raised by irresponsible parents but who are still happy to be here.
Of course so. But by that measure, saying "No" or using contraception are both bad because they prevent the existence of people who would be happy to exist.
Minor nit:
Of the states listed, those with high rates of contraceptive availability, Florida and Nevada do not have "liberal governments."
Jane, nice job pointing out rural access issues. Here in Mississippi, there is *one* abortion clinic, and *one* Planned Parenthood clinic (with no abortions). They are separated by 90 miles. Although these are available in neighboring states, many regions face a >1 hr drive each way, as well as 24h waiting periods, meaning that either two trips or an overnight stay will be required for abortion.
Even if Roe were overturned and Mississippi banned abortion completely, how would it change things? If you're a poor teen with no access to a car, what does it matter that the county health department would give you free condoms? As in all things, the rural folks face a completely different set of issues, and there's no good answer (other than "move into a city").
What is that so many people find hard to understand? One must possess a certain degree of self discipline to successfully use birth control methods. It’s as simple as that. Most young ladies who get pregnant are immature. The concept of delayed gratification and a viable work ethic is completely alien to them. Furthermore, one must perceive abortion to be something horribly evil and to be avoided at all costs. How many merely consider abortion to be a minor ordeal, and not an existentially challenging crisis?
Well educated yuppies are hard working individuals. Their whole social and cultural milieu is comprised of workaholics. Sadly, this is not the mindset of the permanent underclass. It may not be politically correct, but it must be stated unequivocally: these inner city teenagers are generally lazy!
There is something else those states with high abortion rates have in common.
They are the states with the highest per capita income levels in the nation. All of the top six are represented, only one Florida (25) ranks in the lower half, and the average rank is 11
Here you go:
California 13
Connecticut 3
District of Columbia 1
Florida 25
Hawaii 22
Illinois 15
Maryland 5
Massachussetts 3
Nevada 18
New Jersey 4
New York 6
Rhode Island 17
Average 11
We are generally assuming here that the largest reduction in abortions can be made in the lower income brackets.
"....the ratio of women seeking abortions followed Pareto's rule i.e. 20% of women who sought abortions accounted for 80% of all abortions. It appears that this minority of women are simply using abortion as a means of birth control and are having multiple abortions as a result. Studies of this subset show them to be impulsive and systematically irresponsible in all facets of their lives. Drug and alcohol addiction are common....."
In that case, there is a simple answer: Free (i.e. taxpayer subsidised) abortions if and only if the recipient agrees to accept a free tubal ligation at the same time. Or, at the very least, a free Norplant or a free IUD.
Let me posit that if women, or men, had some button they could push by their bed that would instantly render them temporarily infertile, the rate of abortions would fall dramatically.
So in other words, every bedroom should have two things installed: a television with a remote control, and a high-frequency noise generator designed to produce headaches.
Okay, two buttons, but that's still pretty close.
How about the effect of Vi* *gra (gotta get past those spam filters!) and its ilk? Such preparations make it more likely that an older, high-status man will be pursuing his desired interaction with a younger, lower-status woman. Seems to me such a woman in such a situation would be even less likely to insist on contraception than when she's with men of her own social class.
Two thoughts:
1) The available state-by-state abortion data seems somewhat unreliable. Here is the Alan Guttmacher Institute data JG cites; here is the most recent CDC data. The data suggest, for example, that the abortion rate in Louisana is substantially less than half that of Massachusetts. That seems off to me. (I'm not saying JG's analysis is necessarily wrong, I'm just saying that the data are strange and possibly unreliable.)
2) Query whether pro-contraception advertising and related programs might have a significant effect on social norms regarding contraception use. (In price terms, does such advertising reduce noneconomic costs associated with contraceptive use?)
On a lighter note, "assume" does not, in fact, make an ass out of (yo)u and me, but instead combines "ass", "u", and "me".
Which makes for an off-color joke (which writes itself so I don't have to) or a pickup line, I suppose.
It is, I must admit, easier to remember than "assumptions can be and often are incorrect".
The challenge posed by Mr Saletan (or so it seems to me), is "What can we do to make abortion rarer" But if "we" is Mr Saletan, and Mr Northup, and me, the answer is "very little".
Well, you could avoid getting pregnant by Messrs. Saletan and/or Northrup, which I'm guessing would not be all that difficult.
The irony of abortion is that the ones who support the it stronger will never have one, or even seriously contemplate it. It's a linchpin; let abortion laws slide, even a little bit, and lo! the deluge.
I think Jane's point about social stigmas --- using contraceptives means admitting, even if only to yourself, that you're going to have sex --- is a very valid one.
What I wonder about its the notion that we're going to be able to have increasingly early ages of sexual maturity, and expect to have later ages of sexual activity. Back when people go married in their late teens, menarche as in the mid-teens. Now we expect marriage to be in the mid-twenties --- but menarche is averaging in the early teens, or even earlier.
I can't help but think that when you've got 4 billion years of evolution saying "reproduce now while you can!" versus a change in social expectations that's only decades old, the evolution is gonna win.
How about a Constitutional amendment that grants certain inalienable rights to unborn babies? If you grant similar rights to unborn babies that currently-living beings have, then the issue of abortion goes right out the window. Sure, you're always going to have the tension between the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child, but I would bet the farm that once you get it back into people's heads that the "bump" they're looking at is a BABY, people in general might start taking the whole issue a little more seriously.
Now, where can we start a lobby for the unborn????? ;)
I'll say what has to be said:
Just A Suggestion, I'm pro-life by philosophy and reluctantly pro-"choice" (yeah, scare quotes because I don't believe "choice" is actually what's being advocated) in the first trimester as a matter of realpolitik, so to speak, and I support the overturn of Roe on States'-rights grounds. But what you suggest is the lynchpin of the pro-life movement: get the other side to acknowledge, admit, realize, or whatever term you choose that an embryo or fetus is a baby. Not gonna happen, since it's a lynchpin of the pro-"choice" side that an embryo or fetus is a parasitic bunch of cells with only a potential to become a baby - a potential that can be halted by many events natural or unnatural. It's not a matter of seriousness on the parts of the interlocuters but a fundamental difference in their postulates.
"...get the other side to acknowledge, admit, realize, or whatever term you choose that an embryo or fetus is a baby. Not gonna happen, since it's a lynchpin of the pro-"choice" side that an embryo or fetus is a parasitic bunch of cells with only a potential to become a baby..."
How about the middle ground, Viz: A pre-viable embryo is just a bunch of cells with the potential to become a baby; but once it gets far enough advanced to survive outside the uterus (under "natural" conditions & without space-age medical heroics), then it really IS a baby.
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that pretty close to the traditional position that the Catholic Church followed throughout the Middle Ages: 'Quickening' was supposed to indicate that God had implanted a soul in the embryo and it was now a Human Being.
john w -- Well, for one thing, quickening occurs a lot earlier in pregnancy than viability. Most women can feel the baby* move by 4 months. Viability is more like 7.
For another, there were a lot of things the Catholic Church believed in the Middle Ages. Speaking as a modern Catholic, I don't want that to be our guide. Science has not taught us everything about fetal development, but we have learned a lot. Just as we've not learned everything about the earth, but we can't go back to pretending it's flat.
* I say "baby" not because that's what I believe (although it is), but because nearly every pregnant woman will refer to "feeling the baby move" and not to "feeling the fetus/parasite/bundle of tissue move."
Jane,
What sense of the word "liberal" are you using? Florida most certainly does not have a liberal government, if we are using the definition most commonly used in our political discourse today.
[joke]If Democrats could think up a nicer word for "euphemism", they would[/joke]. But until they do, I have no problem with calling out-of-wedlock babies "bastards". And I am all for stigmatizing the father and the mother.
"But until they do, I have no problem with calling out-of-wedlock babies "bastards". And I am all for stigmatizing the father and the mother."
Well, if you stigmatize the father and the mother, you end up stigmatizing the poor little bastard too. Gosh, I would just love growing up being referred to as a "bastard" and my mother branded a whore all because she had sex before marriage and didn't have an abortion. What a nice philosophy. Unwed mothers are already stigmatized by society. Funny how I don't see people going on about how happy they are to be unwed mothers or fathers and how great it is to be a single parent.
"How about a Constitutional amendment that grants certain inalienable rights to unborn babies? If you grant similar rights to unborn babies that currently-living beings have, then the issue of abortion goes right out the window."
So, you're advocating that fertilized eggs be given full acknowledgement as a person for legal purposes? Or every embryo that implants in the uterus? Or every fetus over 3 weeks old? This Amendment idea might be a good one if it let us decide what exact stage of life of the embryo/fetus/baby is the cutoff befor we grant full legal protection. Because granting every fertilized egg full legal protection sets up a very repressive state for all woman of reproductive age. Every time a woman has sex, there is the possibility of a person being made inside her body, which she could accidentally kill/hurt/etc. by her behavior, before she even knows she pregnant. And since that person might be there, the state would have the right to determine if it was there, and then if it was, to force the woman to behave in the way the state thought proper, to protect the life inside her. If you think I'm being ridiculous, look at our child welfare laws -- children can be taken away when mothers abuse them, which is of course the right thing. But, if the child is inside them, and is legally protected, the state could take a woman into custody to protect the child. Some would be ok with that. But, if we think a fertilized egg is a person, then just by being sexually active and fertile there could be an fertilized egg after every act of intercourse. If there the possibility of legally protected person, shouldn't the state be able to intervene to make sure the woman acts correctly to protect that person? Shouldn't there be mandatory pregnancy tests to make sure women aren't killing/abusing that person by smoking or drinking, or puttting that person in danger by skiing, or mountain climbing, or skydiving?
Continued: Could we force pregnant women to exercise? Or to not eat fast food? Or to go to the doctor? Or to have blood tests done, even if it violated their religious beliefs? All those things are the right thing to do for the health of that person inside her.
This point may have already been made in the previous post, but I feel like one factor's being overlooked.
There doesn't seem to be any stigma any more for young men who father babies out of wedlock. And no real consequences either. The girl will get an abortion, or go on welfare, or her folks will look after her.
There are plenty of immature, horny young guys out there pressuring their girlfriends to have sex without condoms, because it feels better for them and why not? What's the risk to them?
And there are plenty of immature, insecure, irresponsible girls who will give in b/c they want those boys to love them.
I agree there isn't much stigma was unwed fathers. But, the law is doing something -- the woman can take the father to court and he will be forced to pay child support. She doesn't get full welfare unless she can prove she's tried to locate the father and he won't pay up.
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