Universal health care tends to cut the abortion rate

[Joanne98]

Countless arguments have been advanced for and against the pending bills to increase health-care coverage. Both sides have valid concerns, which makes the battle tight. But one prominent argument is illogical. The contention that opponents of abortion should oppose the current proposals to expand coverage simply doesn't make sense.

Increasing health-care coverage is one of the most powerful tools for reducing the number of abortions -- a fact proven by years of experience in other industrialized nations. All the other advanced, free-market democracies provide health-care coverage for everybody. And all of them have lower rates of abortion than does the United States.

This is not a coincidence. There's a direct connection between greater health coverage and lower abortion rates. To oppose expanded coverage in the name of restricting abortion gets things exactly backward. It's like saying you won't fix the broken furnace in a schoolhouse because you're against pneumonia. Nonsense! Fixing the furnace will reduce the rate of pneumonia. In the same way, expanding health-care coverage will reduce the rate of abortion.

At least, that's the lesson from every other rich democracy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031202287.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[Oregone]

1. Correlation is not causation

Civilized societies that agree to offer universal health care may be more proactive with sexual education and may stigmatize single mothers less (who will also experience a wider safety net). Though, it may definitely have a direct link because it is so expensive to have a baby in the US (insured or not).

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. I have little doubt your second thought is correct.

Regrettable as it may be, a good number of abortions are performed because of the mother's financial insecurity. If she doesn't need to worry about how she will deal with the expense of healthcare, that alone could give her assurance enough to keep the baby. Despite what the right says raising a baby - even with those wonderful welfare benefits - is a hell of a lot more expensive than not having one in the first place.

[bemildred]

5. There is certainly a disincentive to have children these days.

It is very expensive and there is no payback.

[JohnWxy]

3. Recommended! Now if we could just get zealots to shut up so common sense can be heard!

[Tutankhamun]

4. The article, although brief, does a good job of ilustrating why free health care leads to fewer

abortions.

Of course, many of the anti-abortion zealots in this country aren't really against abortion so much as they are really just against other people's sexual fulfillment. Sexual jealousy plays a strong role in the anti-abortion movement.

[Patty55]

6. the anti abortionists and sex

I am new here, but I like you already...You are so right,it seems like the right wingers hate the fact that normal men and women love to have sex. That is why so many of the right wing husbands have to find sex outside of their marriages because there is nothing going on in their own bedrooms..
Getting to the topic, I am eternally grateful for Planned Parenthood because without them I wouldn't have had access to birth control. The anti abortion zealots think that all women that walk through the doors of PP go there to have abortions..Planned Parenthood does so much more. I don't need birth control anymore, but I have no money for pap smears, mammograms, etc, and I can get that done even if I don't have a dime in my pocket. Roe V Wade became law when I was 17 years old, and the antis are still trying to get it overturned. God help us if they succeed because if they do, women are going to die from back alley abortions if they are poor, the rich women can always go out of the Country but that is so unfair. Here we are again hurting the poorest people..When I say we, I just mean the anti abortionists. They claim abortion is murder, but they kill the doctors who are brave enough to still offer them. My own OBGYN had his office burned down to the ground because he worked at Planned Parenthood on Saturdays..He was practically run out of town..He was the best doctor I ever had, and I can guarantee anyone that he delivered 100 babies to 1 abortion.. I never had to have an abortion BECAUSE THERE IS A PLANNED PARENTHOOD. I am pro choice and even though I am way past the having a baby stage, I will support Roe V Wade till I am an old woman. Why should a woman be forced to carry a child she can't afford? At least now that Baby Bush is out of office, we don't have to listen to the unrealistic abstinence BS..If it didn't work for Palin's daughter we know that the kids aren't buying the wait till marriage speech...Why don't the antis admit that PP is about many other services, not just abortion..If we don't watch out we will be like Nicaraguga..Forcing women who have terminal cancer to not be treated for it and being forced to carry the baby even though she will surely die...That is where we are heading if we don't pay attention to who we vote for. Listen very carefully and make sure we know where they stand. Both Bushes are gone, but there are other right wing fanatics waiting in the wings to take their place...
I was watching Big Love last Sunday and I got tears in my eyes because the FLDS believe women are only here for giving birth. and Nikki though she was no longer needed because she can't conceive a child.. There are really sects out there who still believe that..I sure am glad I married a man who didn't want any children. I think its better to know you wouldn't be a good mother (I wouldn't) than to have a child and resent him/her..Thank you PP from the bottom of my heart

Patty55

[Tutankhamun]

7. Thanks, Patty. As for your first sentence, it's mutual :-)

Planned Parenthood is a wonderful organization. I know others who have benefitted from their services -- as parents and as young 'uns.

BTW Welcome to DU! :hi:

[Igel]

9. Don't know about that.

The article decomposes all by itself.

The claim is that by having subsidized health care the women with unwanted pregnancies more readily decide that financially they can swing the delivery and raising the kid. That many of the expenses are covered. Therefore, if you have subsidized health care you have fewer abortions, with the consequence being that you'd have a higher fertility rate than you'd otherwise have.

One problem: The countries with government-provided health care tend to have lower fertility rates than you get in the US. I.e., lack of health care makes for more kids born, not fewer. I mean, since we're trying to claim causality here, this seems to be a problem that really needs an account. So while the reason given in the article gives a possible reason for a fertility rate slightly higher than it would otherwise be, it misses the elephant in the Volkswagen.

Still, the US does have a higher abortion rate. Combine that with the higher fertility rate and you find that the conception rate is much higher. So if you're going to make correlation into causality you'd have to say that state health care, at least in Europe, leads to far higher contraception rates (or much lower rates of intercourse). On the other hand, it brings up a question: Are contraceptive measures provided as part of state health care in most of those countries? IUDs, birth control pills, contraceptive implants, vasectomies? If so, then you've managed to account for a much larger portion of the data than the proffered reasons could. If contraception was routinely offered in the other countries as part of health care and not offered in the US, perhaps that would be the answer. But . . .

Various kinds of birth control are offered in the US as part of Medicaid--so one portion of the US population that disproportionately has abortions is covered. In some communities the highest rate of births to single mothers (and those often considered "unwanted") and of abortions cooccurs with the highest rate of Medicaid coverage. So I tend to think that it's not the providing of contraception itself that accounts for the difference in at least some cases.

In other words, the author mucks about around the edges of the problem. Another, more obvious solution, is also incomplete and may not be the dominant factor. And yet we seem to be mostly content with a nice sounding, politically convenient answer and that passes our awesome critical thinking apparatus.

The writer didn't ask some obvious yet important questions before coming to his predetermined conclusion. Shoddy work. Advocacy posing as journalism.

[RainDog]

10. maybe it's the influence of noxious religions

the highest rates for out-of-wedlock births in the U.S. corresponds to the areas of the nation with the highest rates of religious fundamentalists.

access to contraception that is not presented as an issue of religious belief goes a long way toward helping people make rational health care decisions.

obviously this is just my question as to causation.

however, I do know that western european nations are far more secular and less opposed to basic issues of settled reality, such as evolution, than the U.S. Scalia calls it "post-christian europe."

funny how "post-christian europe" beats out the U.S. in quality of life for citizens. you'd think religious organizations would be devoted to improving people's lives, but this does not appear to be the case, based upon religious influence around the world and quality of life.

doesn't matter what the religion is, either.

[yurbud]

8. the other sad reason: economic considerations may lead someone to abort

[midnight]

11. Providing adequate resources for health and wealth is key to the pro lifers

dilemma. If they would show an ounce of care and prevention for those pregnant mothers, it would go a lot further toward their claims of caring for life.