As a strategy for reducing the number of abortions, the half-century-long project of overruling Roe v. Wade has ended in failure.
One consequence of Kamala Harris’s newborn presidential candidacy is that abortion has become an even bigger campaign issue. Harris has been talking about it for months, far more than Biden did. She aims to mobilize pro-choice voters on her side.
But pro-life voters, who want more than anything else to minimize the number of abortions, also ought to vote for her. They should try to elect Democratic congressional candidates, as well. A Trump presidency, particularly if he gets a Republican Congress, would probably mean more abortions.
As a strategy for reducing the number of abortions, the half-century-long project of overruling Roe v. Wade has ended in failure. The rate of abortion went up after that decision was overruled by Trump’s Supreme Court appointees in Dobbs v. Women’s Health.
This was partly because of interstate travel to get an abortion, and partly because of the increased use of medication abortion. The Dobbs decision provoked the emergence of a new “underground railroad” of networks that make abortion pills available in every state. (The popularity of that phrase reinforces my longstanding belief that the right to abortion is properly understood as protected by the 13th Amendment’s abolition of involuntary servitude.)
Roe's reversal has had other unintended consequences. We keep reading horror stories about raped children fleeing their states, and women bleeding out because their dying fetuses still have a heartbeat. Women have been prosecuted for miscarriages, which are medically indistinguishable from chemically induced abortions. It’s too early to tell whether abortion prohibitions overall have worsened public health outcomes for women, but the anecdotal evidence is powerful, as are the stories of obstetricians fleeing jurisdictions where the routine exercise of their medical judgment could land them in prison.
There are measures that a new Trump administration could take in response, and they’ve aroused alarm among abortion rights advocates: changing FDA regulations to restrict access to abortion drugs; deploying the ancient Comstock Act to bar mailing of abortion materials.
But when Trump changed the Republican Party’s platform to abandon most of its anti-abortion language, he made clear that, although the issue helped him win the presidency in 2016, he wants no more part of it. Trump sees which way the political winds are blowing. Those who want to double down on repression should not count on his help. We’ve also learned that government is pretty ineffective at preventing people from getting drugs when they want them.
On the other hand, quite a lot of what the Republicans contemplate would in fact drive the abortion rate upward. Matthew Yglesias has pointed out that Republicans have promised not to cut Medicare or Social Security, but they do want to increase military spending and reduce taxes. There’s nowhere for that money to come from except Medicaid, food stamps, the federal school lunch program and other anti-poverty measures.
When asked why they chose to abort, the most common response women give is financial pressure; 6 percent say it’s the only reason. There are about 82,000 abortions a month in America, so 6 percent of that is almost 5,000.
These women are right to worry. Women who are denied abortion are more likely to go into debt, declare bankruptcy and be evicted. Those effects persist for at least six years after the birth. There are many women who are initially happy to learn they are pregnant, but when they look at their finances they reconsider.
The most reliable way to reduce the abortion rate is to make life less difficult for people who have babies. That’s entirely congenial to pro-choicers like myself. We are, after all, pro-choice, not pro-abortion. We think it’s terrible to force women to bear children, and nearly as bad to leave people in a position where they can’t have the families they want.
Harris has strongly supported the expanded child tax credit, which briefly pulled millions of children out of poverty. (Wonky details here.) The tax credit increases educational attainment and lifetime earnings, with no discernible negative effect on employment. Harris has long advocated for paid family leave and subsidized child care.
The government policy that has had the most dramatic impact on lowering the abortion rate is Obamacare, which requires health insurers to cover the cost of contraception. Fewer unintended pregnancies means fewer abortions. Republicans remain unenthusiastic about Obamacare, and Trump did what he could to sabotage it.
Republicans have also opposed measures to guarantee access to contraception. Trump cut off funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. (Anyone who cares about children should also note that Trump has now gone fully anti-vaccine, opposing vaccine requirements that prevent thousands of childhood deaths.)
Americans will keep arguing about the moral status of the early fetus, and I confidently predict that we aren’t going to reach a consensus before Election Day. But people who disagree about the metaphysics of personhood can still agree about what to do.
The most admirable elements of the pro-life movement want to reduce the number of abortions and make it easier to be a mother. That does not entail — in fact, it competes against — their impulse to criminalize abortion. Prohibition is an ineffective symbolic gesture that does nothing but harm. The alignment of the anti-abortion movement with the Republican Party has been a catastrophic error.
Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed.”
