Health & Science
Is the Recession Causing More Abortions?
If it is, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
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To plunging home values and tanking stock prices, add another effect of the recession: a spike in abortions. Newspapers are reporting that more women are seeking to end their pregnancies because they can't afford to raise a child. Family planning clinics from Florida to Iowa to Denver have seen the number of abortions they perform rise by as much as 15 percent; this past January, Planned Parenthood of Illinois provided the highest number of abortions in its history. The National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps needy women pay for abortions, reports that calls to its national helpline have nearly quadrupled from a year ago. At the hotline for the National Abortion Federation, the phone has been "ringing off the hook" with calls from women in financial trouble, Vicki Saporta, the group's president, told a Reuters reporter.
Pro-life activists and commentators deplore this rise in abortions, of course-but they are especially agitated by the reason behind it. Women are choosing their own material comfort over the life of their unborn children, they say, a development that reveals the sorry state of our country's moral fiber. "Americans, coming off years of hedonism and credit card spending orgies, are now increasingly aborting their babies who were unfortunate enough to be conceived during this economic recession," Christian radio show host Ingrid Schlueter writes on her blog. "Gone is anything remotely related to the spirit of America past where difficulties were not solved by taking the coward's or murderer's way out, but by fulfilling one's duty and taking responsibility for loved ones, no matter how hard the challenge."
But this interpretation of the relationship between financial distress and the decision to have an abortion gets it wrong on several counts. No one wants her most intimate decisions to be driven by money. At the same time, opting not to have a child you can't afford to raise can be a realistic and responsible-if painful-choice, one often based on taking good care of the kids you already have. Nor is the intrusion of economic concerns on childbearing a phenomenon of this recession, or even of the loosening of sexual mores over the past half-century: historically, financial hardship has been an ever-present motivation for ending a pregnancy.
A report by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan research organization focused on sexual and reproductive health, demonstrates the persistence of economic concerns in women's decisions about whether to have a child. The study, titled "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions," draws its results from a survey of 1,209 abortion patients, and in-depth interviews with 38 more. When asked why they were having an abortion, the second most common reason, given by almost three-quarters of the respondents, was that they "could not afford a baby now." The most common reason was that children would interfere with their education, work, or ability to care for dependents-concerns that are also largely economic in nature. (According to other Guttmacher research, 57 percent of U.S. women obtaining an abortion are economically disadvantaged, 61 percent have one or more children already, and 67 percent are unmarried.) The study was published in 2005-when the Dow was still riding high and the housing bubble seemed it would never pop.
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Comments
The problem with open discussions....
By: Murasaki | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 14:07
...is idiotically beginning a statement with phrases like "the problem with feminism is..."
I strongly suspect one of the problems with feminism is YOU; namely, that you're another obstacle for us to grind under our remorseless spiked treads of progress. Please tip your waitress. Have a nice day.
Is this killing?
By: jea | Mon, 05/18/2009 - 21:37
I think that the real question is, "do these women think of abortion as murder or killing?" I suspect that most of these women do not think of this as killing anybody. Abortions can be done at very early stages - the fetus has no idea what is going on. How can you murder someone who does not exist?
Also, the woman said that the adoption would be emotionally distressing but you don't mention if the report said that the women thought that the adoption would be distressing for herself or for the child or for both. Choosing to have an abortion is self sacrificing for a lot of women. They are sacrificing time, money and their own energy to help make their lives better for their current children, themselves and our society who would be stuck picking up/paying for their choice to have a baby they could not afford or care for.
Trust women.
By: esculenta | Mon, 05/18/2009 - 09:34
Thanks for mentioning the role that NNAF plays in abortion access! I've worked with three member funds over the years, and am continually impressed by the energy and dedication of these grassroots organizations.
So I've heard hundreds of women tell me their story--how they got pregnant, and why they need help to pay for an abortion. There is no singular reason, or "justification," or set of wildly depressing circumstances. Each woman or girl has her own complex life. Birth control sometimes fails. Contraception isn't always available. Sex isn't always consensual. Wanted pregnancies can turn life-threatening. Unwanted pregnancies can be a serious health risk. There are millions of these stories. You have to trust women to make this important decision for themselves.
If you live/ work in NYC and want to show your support for these women who are "ringing phones off the hook:"
New York Abortion Access Fund and Haven Coalition
are bringing us together with drinks and action
TONIGHT May 18th, 6pm to 9pm
@ Village Pourhouse, 3rd Av & 11th St
Your $15 donation will defray the cost of abortion for a woman in need.
recession abortions: adoption
By: M | Sun, 05/17/2009 - 11:58
While skimming the Guttmacher site, I found the following tidbits: from “Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives,” (2005?), by Lawrence B. Finer, Lori F. Frohwirth, Lindsay
A. Dauphinee, Susheela Singh and Ann M. Moore:
“Opinions on adoption. Respondents were not specifically asked about adoption; nevertheless, it came up spontaneously in both parts of the study. While fewer than 1% of women in the quantitative survey volunteered that they would not consider or did not favor having a baby and giving it up for adoption, more than one-third of interview respondents said they had considered adoption and concluded that it was a morally unconscionable option because giving one’s child away is wrong.“
Note that these “objective” researchers did not themselves even mention adoption, the life-saving alternative to abortion. But in their report, they use negative adoption language: “giving one’s child away,” as opposed to “making an adoption plan for one’s child.”
They did not explore these women’s understanding of adoption. Nor apparently did they explore why a woman would believe that placing her son or daughter for adoption is wrong, but killing him or her is acceptable.
However, there’s a clue in another report cited on the Guttmacher site but available only for money (and I thought this was a non-profit), "I Would Want to Give My Child, Like, Everything in the World." A summary sentence states, “One fourth of the women had considered adoption but regarded it as being emotionally distressing.” In other words, these women believed their feelings are more important than the life of their child.
Many years ago, the Holt International adoption agency magazine “Hi Families” featured a story on how to discuss adoption with one’s Asian-born children. It was poignant reading, because the author or authors discussed how in Asia, the highest form of love is self-sacrifice (think of the student standing in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square), but in America, the highest form of love is possession.
Therefore, American women tend to believe that no mother who loved her child would place him for adoption.
In other words, in my blunt translation, the maternal version of O.J. Simpson: ‘if I can’t have her, I’ll kill her,” has become the standard for too many American women, the women who year after year, excuse after excuse, some tragic, some trivial, chose death for their unborn children.
How do we change this?
abortion
By: canary | Sat, 05/16/2009 - 23:52
The results from more than 20 years ago were almost identical to the ones from 2005. The weighing of financial hardship in the decision to have a baby goes back still further, to a time even before abortion was legal. The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was moved to open her first clinic in 1918 by the stories of the poor women she encountered as a nurse working in the New York City slums-women like Sadie Sachs, who begged Sanger for birth control (then against the law), and later died from a botched abortion. "One by one worried, sad, pensive, and aging faces marshaled themselves before me in my dreams, sometimes appealingly, sometimes accusingly," Sanger wrote of these desperate women.
You can hear an echo of Sanger's description in an Associated Press story published in March. A men in Oakland, Calif., already struggling to support three children and an unemployed , couldn't afford bus for hotmail user: orbecargo peru email:denunciasinternacionales@hotmail ready to use .fare to the clinic. "I just walked here for an hour," she tells the clinic's doctor. "I'm sure of my decision." The same article quotes Ste Poggi, executive director of the National Network as every body know and jhon cordova orbezo author of denunciasinternacionales@hotmail.com who sent several emails , who says her clients are telling her: "'I've already put off paying my rent, my electric bill. I'm cutting back on my food.' They've run through all the options."
And yet to hear the pro-life activists tell it, women aren't really struggling with difficult choices-they just don't want to give up the luxuries to which they've become accustomed. "Our vision of wealth...has been radically changing over the past 36 years since abortion was legalized," Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, told the Catholic News Agency. Our sense of what we need has become "inflated," Foster says, as we cling to unrealistic expectations of a "perfect life." A forthcoming issue of her organization's magazine aims to counter these expectations, featuring an article on "Raising Kids Cheap." A similar piece posted on the Feminists for Life website offers tips like wearing second-hand clothes, cooking meals at home, and choosing generic-label products over name brands.
However well-intentioned, such advice will be of limited use to women who are among the almost 9 percent of Americans who are now unemployed, or the more than 900,000 who've had their homes foreclosed on since the beginning of this year, or the 46 million who have no health insurance. To raise a child to age 18 in a low-income family now costs $196,010, according to the federal government; for middle-income families, the figure is $269,040. That's just for the basics-housing, clothes, food, transportation, health care
Sure
By: SvenRagnarson | Sat, 05/16/2009 - 20:59
As usual, women do what they want, then search for rationalizations later. More abortions because of the economy? Hogwash.
Sure an abortion is cheaper than a baby, but do you know what is even cheaper? Contrception. If it really were simply a matter of money, contraception is the preferred option. But of course women can't be bothered to take a pill every day. No, it's better to be so short sighted that you eventually have to make a much more expensive choice, and then blame it on the economy.
Desert Island
By: wren | Sat, 05/16/2009 - 19:46
M asks, "who would you want on a desert island with you? The people who chose abortion or the ones who chose life?"
I would, without hesitation, answer "the people who chose abortion" - that is, the people who, when faced with a situation that could have ended very badly for both parent and potential child, opted to avoid risking the security and happiness of both in favor of rational self-preservation. That's the kind of person who would likely exhibit better decision-making abilities and ultimately fare better in a desert-island scenario.
And I think that the "desert island" metaphor isn't such a bad one for the economic situation currently facing Americans today - many of us are finding that we're cut off from some of the resources we were previously able to take for granted, and we're forced to make do with what we have and make decisions based on the aforementioned need for self-preservation.
It's a scenario that would make a rise in abortions during the recession make a great deal of sense, statistically speaking. And I'm glad it's being pointed out in this article that anyone seeking to discourage abortions would do well to address making assistance for child-rearing a reality and not a matter of ultimately empty promises.
recession abortions
By: M | Sat, 05/16/2009 - 10:03
The Guttmacher Institute is good for statistics but, founded and partially funded by Planned Parenthood, it is not non-partisan in its interpretation of those statistics.
There are a lot of correlated questions raised in the claim that the recession has increased abortions. For example, were these aborting women pregnant before their financial problems occurred? If not, were they using birth control that failed? Do recession-abortion occur later in the pregnancy, and if so, why? What health care was available? What family resources? Does being married affect the decision? Note: to answer that last question, researchers will have to find folks who let their kids live.
Also requiring a future comparison with people who let their kids live is how the parent(s) feel about their abortion decision years later.
Adoption is the loving alternative to abortion, but it is much harder than abortion. The biological mother, or biological parents if the father is involved, bear the burden of loss and will suffer.
"Liberals" want to eliminate suffering, usually through government intervention. But it is not possible to eliminate suffering in an unwanted pregnancy, whether that pregnancy was wanted at first and then the parents learned the child would be retarded or mom lost her job, or the pregnancy was unwanted from the start. Abortion passes suffering on to the child, rather than the procreating parents, and to the society it coarsens. Abortion is not leading us into a brave new world. We've already seen societies where abortion was completely accepted, in the ancient world, and they were not nice places to live if you were a woman, a slave, or a peasant. Abortion says: the baby is the problem. It's the baby's fault.
Lastly, of course, who would you want on a desert island with you? The people who chose abortion or the ones who chose life?
@ Fallonius, contra Malthus
By: Diamantina | Sat, 05/16/2009 - 05:59
As one of those "Christian anti-abortion folks" (Catholic variety), I oppose infanticide, abandoning children, child prostitution and child labor in general. My personal solution to preventing abortion is abstaining from sex -- which Malthus thought a good idea, if I recall correctly. However, since most adults do not willingly abstain from sex, my other solution to preventing abortion is adoption (which can be as open as the biological parents wish).
If I were not on SSI, I would adopt a child if I were allowed to do so -- but I am barely able to care for myself adequately, much less be able to take care of a child. It is a shame that more children are not being adopted: healthy infants and toddlers are always in demand, I think, and would be less daunting to prospective adoptive parents than older children with physical or psychological disabilities who are currently available for adoption. Also, I (and many other people who believe that abortion should be criminalized) oppose capital punishment -- please do not generalize about people who oppose abortion rights, Fallonius!
But as a member of Feminists for Life, I think that they are out of touch if they think that buying second-hand clothing and the like is going to help women who are thinking of getting abortion for economic reasons. Pregnant women seeking abortions need more than advice and pity. If they cannot raise their children, then those who are able to raise children must step up to the plate and raise them instead.
Malthus
By: fallonius | Fri, 05/15/2009 - 19:14
Hard times mean the following things: more abortions,more infanticides, more abandoned children, more child prostitution, more child labor of all kinds. A sane mother in any culture would choose the first over any of the others. The Christian anti-abortion folks would choose any of the others over an abortion. Of course, they wouldn't really help you with raising the child, would they? They care about the one thing. Not so much about the others. And then if your child grew up and committed a murder, they would be the first to put him or her to death with that capital punishment thing. Makes no sense to sense to me.