Safe abortions are becoming more difficult for women to access and states that oppose the procedure should focus on preventing pregnancies by implementing policies to provide accessible birth control and resources to people who need them.
We are currently at a cultural crossroads in the U.S.
According to a 2016 study from the New England Journal of Medicine, 45% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned and disproportionately affect low-income women.
Abortions may be the only way some can prevent pregnancies, especially with many women lacking access to free or low-cost birth control.
However, the right to an abortion has been fiercely debated in the U.S. Supreme Court over the past decade, particularly during the recent years of former president Donald Trump’s administration.
The Supreme Court found restrictive abortion bans to be unconstitutional in 1973, ruling 7-2 in the landmark case Roe v. Wade.
Politicians have tried bypassing Roe v. Wade by implementing Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws. These laws are so specific clinics don’t receive enough state funding to make changes and are forced to close down, according to a May 15, 2019, Business Insider article.
TRAP laws include strict measurements on the size of procedure rooms, width of clinic corridors and regulations that would admit women to hospitals if complications arose. This is despite less than 0.5% of abortions resulting in complications that require a hospital visit.
Laws similar to these prevent people from getting safe abortions and also from receiving other resources available at women’s clinics.
“Politicians are taking a hatchet to the rights and freedoms of the very people they’re supposed to represent,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a 2019 New York Times interview.
Legislation restricting abortions is part of an effort to prevent women from accessing basic health care.
Politicians are passing laws influenced by their morals and not with the ideals of their citizens in mind.
Anti-abortion activists don’t stop at just limiting abortion. Some advocate for more restrictions on access to all birth control.
This culminated in a July 8, 2020, Supreme Court decision allowing employers to opt-out of women’s health provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for religious and moral reasons. The ACA provisions previously required employers to provide employees with contraceptives.
Decisions such as these are ridiculous. Why should companies decide if employees have birth control access? That’s a private decision.
The ACA currently provides people with birth control options including pills, implants, IUDs, the vaginal ring, a patch, a shot, internal condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, tubal ligation (female sterilization) and emergency contraception, according to Planned Parenthood.
Preventing people from receiving free and affordable birth control is counterproductive in abortion prevention.
If politicians wish to stop abortions, they must first help prevent unplanned pregnancies.
Colorado was one of the first states to test this idea and create a program allowing people to receive free and low-cost IUDs at health clinics, according to an Oct. 21, 2019, Colorado Sun article. Abortion rates dropped 10% in Colorado from 2014-17, according to Guttmacher Institute research.
Some government officials rejoiced in the effectiveness of the programs in 2017. Teen birth rates fell 54% with a 64% drop in abortion rates among teens 15-19, according to a Nov. 30, 2017 Denver Post article.
The state also avoided a hefty expense of $70 million by preventing labor and delivery costs, pediatric care, food stamps and child care, according to a 2017 Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment report.
If programs like these were implemented around the United States, lawmakers would limit abortions while still allowing women to keep their body autonomy.
