Kevin Drum ruminates on this chart of the rate of abortions:
Drum doesn’t much care for either of the major competing explanations:
The usual answer [for the declining use of abortion] among liberals is that it’s due to better awareness of contraceptive choices. The usual answer among conservatives is that it’s due to restrictive new abortion laws. For various reasons I’m skeptical of both answers, but I don’t have a better one of my own.
Drum’s quite right to doubt both explanations, as do I, although my doubt isn’t based so much on detailed knowledge as it is on the fact that the two assertions are by interested, ideological parties. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to notice that individuals keep on asserting their positions, regardless of the facts on the ground, the longer they’ve been part of the ideological movement. I see it as investment bias, the emotional feeling that if they admit failure and fallacy, they lose prestige and position. Which is true. But leads to disregarding facts in favor of useless political wars.
So let me throw out some other factors. First, we’re (to beat my own drum) overpopulated, and our personal resources are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Having a child may mean choosing to not have something else. You may wonder why that didn’t apply hundreds of years ago, but back then, one, there wasn’t that much stuff to acquire, and, two, children were an asset, not a burden. At a young age, they could be workers on the farm, diggers of coal, and laborers in many other professions.
Now, you’d think that this should push abortion rates up, but not so fast. Scarcity of personal resources can render young males less attractive, and for ladies looking for a mate, that can be a deal-killer. Indeed, looking at US Census Bureau data, in 2018 the median age for marriage for men was just short of 30 years, and for women just show of 28. 1890? 26.1 and 22. And, to illustrate my point, 1947, after an existential war that cost a lot of lives, thus lessening overpopulation and resource usage, 23.7 and 20.4. Keep in mind a woman looking to have children has to be aware that abortion is a medical procedure, and that always carries risk. Add in contraceptives, and we have some bit of an explanation.
And then there’s also the mysterious – at least to me – fertility problem plaguing contemporary male humanity in the developed world. Lowering the odds of a fertilized ovum, lower the abortion rate.
Not all factors controlling our sexual behavior are overt and consciously considered. Simply the idea that a child could put you in poverty can make both sides of the equation decline to meet in the middle.
