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Abortion Argumentative Essay: Definitive Guide

Academic writing

Abortion remains a debatable issue even today, especially in countries like the USA, where a controversial ban was upheld in 13 states at the point this article was written. That’s why an essay on abortion has become one of the most popular tasks in schools, colleges, and universities. When writing this kind of essay, students learn to express their opinion, find and draw arguments and examples, and conduct research.

It’s very easy to speculate on topics like this. However, this makes it harder to find credible and peer-reviewed information on the topic that isn’t merely someone’s opinion. If you were assigned this kind of academic task, do not lose heart. In this article, we will provide you with all the tips and tricks for writing about abortion.

Where to begin?

Conversations about abortion are always emotional. Complex stories, difficult decisions, bitter moments, and terrible diagnoses make this topic hard to cover. Some young people may be shocked by this assignment, while others would be happy to express their opinion on the matter.

One way or another, this topic doesn't leave anyone indifferent. However, it shouldn’t have an effect on the way you approach the research and writing process. What should you remember when working on an argumentative essay about abortion?

• Don’t let your emotions take over. As this is an academic paper, you have to stay impartial and operate with facts. The topic is indeed sore and burning, causing thousands of scandals on the Internet, but you are writing it for school, not a Quora thread.
• Try to balance your opinions. There are always two sides to one story, even if the story is so fragile. You need to present an issue from different angles. This is what your tutors seek to teach you.
• Be tolerant and mind your language. It is very important not to hurt anybody with the choice of words in your essay. So make sure you avoid any possible rough words. It is important to respect people with polar opinions, especially when it comes to academic writing. 
• Use facts, not claims. Your essay cannot be based solely on your personal ideas – your conclusions should be derived from facts. Roe v. Wade case, WHO or Mayo Clinic information, and CDC are some of the sources you can rely on.

Speaking of Outline

An argumentative essay on abortion outline is a must-have even for experienced writers. In general, each essay, irrespective of its kind or topic, has a strict outline. It may be brief or extended, but the major parts are always the same:

• Introduction. This is a relatively short paragraph that starts with a hook and presents the background information on the topic. It should end with a thesis statement telling your reader what your main goal or idea is.
• Body. This section usually consists of 2-4 paragraphs. Each one has its own structure: main argument + facts to support it + small conclusion and transition into the next paragraph.
• Conclusion. In this part, your task is to summarize all your thoughts and come to a general conclusive idea. You may have to restate some info from the body and your thesis statement and add a couple of conclusive statements without introducing new facts.

Why is it important to create an outline?

• You will structure your ideas. We bet you’ve got lots on your mind. Writing them down and seeing how one can flow logically into the other will help you create a consistent paper. Naturally, you will have to abandon some of the ideas if they don’t fit the overall narrative you’re building.
• You can get some inspiration. While creating your outline, which usually consists of some brief ideas, you can come up with many more to research. Some will add to your current ones or replace them with better options.
• You will find the most suitable sources. Argumentative essay writing requires you to use solid facts and trustworthy arguments built on them. When the topic is as controversial as abortion, these arguments should be taken from up-to-date, reliable sources. With an outline, you will see if you have enough to back up your ideas.
• You will write your text as professionals do. Most expert writers start with outlines to write the text faster and make it generally better. As you will have your ideas structured, the general flow of thoughts will be clear. And, of course, it will influence your overall grade positively.

Abortion Essay Introduction

The introduction is perhaps the most important part of the whole essay. In this relatively small part, you will have to present the issue under consideration and state your opinion on it. Here is a typical introduction outline:

• The first sentence is a hook grabbing readers' attention.
• A few sentences that go after elaborate on the hook. They give your readers some background and explain your research.
• The last sentence is a thesis statement showing the key idea you are building your text around.

Before writing an abortion essay intro, first thing first, you will need to define your position. If you are in favor of this procedure, what exactly made you think so? If you are an opponent of abortion, determine how to argue your position. In both cases, you may research the point of view in medicine, history, ethics, and other fields.

When writing an introduction, remember:

• Never repeat your title. First of all, it looks too obvious; secondly, it may be boring for your reader right from the start. Your first sentence should be a well-crafted hook. The topic of abortion worries many people, so it’s your chance to catch your audience’s attention with some facts or shocking figures.
• Do not make it too long. Your task here is to engage your audience and let them know what they are about to learn. The rest of the information will be disclosed in the main part. Nobody likes long introductions, so keep it short but informative.
• Pay due attention to the thesis statement. This is the central sentence of your introduction. A thesis statement in your abortion intro paragraph should show that you have a well-supported position and are ready to argue it. Therefore, it has to be strong and convey your idea as clearly as possible. We advise you to make several options for the thesis statement and choose the strongest one.

Hooks for an Abortion Essay

Writing a hook is a good way to catch the attention of your audience, as this is usually the first sentence in an essay. How to start an essay about abortion? You can begin with some shocking fact, question, statistics, or even a quote. However, always make sure that this piece is taken from a trusted resource.

Here are some examples of hooks you can use in your paper:

• As of July 1, 2022, 13 states banned abortion, depriving millions of women of control of their bodies.
• According to WHO, 125,000 abortions take place every day worldwide.
• Is abortion a woman’s right or a crime?
• Since 1994, more than 40 countries have liberalized their abortion laws.
• Around 48% of all abortions are unsafe, and 8% of them lead to women’s death.
• The right to an abortion is one of the reproductive and basic rights of a woman.
• Abortion is as old as the world itself – women have resorted to this method since ancient times.
• Only 60% of women in the world live in countries where pregnancy termination is allowed.

Body Paragraphs: Pros and Cons of Abortion

The body is the biggest part of your paper. Here, you have a chance to make your voice concerning the abortion issue heard. Not sure where to start? Facts about abortion pros and cons should give you a basic understanding of which direction to move in.

First things first, let’s review some brief tips for you on how to write the best essay body if you have already made up your mind.

Make a draft

It’s always a good idea to have a rough draft of your writing. Follow the outline and don’t bother with the word choice, grammar, or sentence structure much at first. You can polish it all later, as the initial draft will not likely be your final. You may see some omissions in your arguments, lack of factual basis, or repetitiveness that can be eliminated in the next versions.

Trust only reliable sources

This part of an essay includes loads of factual information, and you should be very careful with it. Otherwise, your paper may look unprofessional and cost you precious points. Never rely on sources like Wikipedia or tabloids – they lack veracity and preciseness.

Edit rigorously

It’s best to do it the next day after you finish writing so that you can spot even the smallest mistakes. Remember, this is the most important part of your paper, so it has to be flawless. You can also use editing tools like Grammarly.

Determine your weak points

Since you are writing an argumentative essay, your ideas should be backed up by strong facts so that you sound convincing. Sometimes it happens that one argument looks weaker than the other. Your task is to find it and strengthen it with more or better facts.

Add an opposing view

Sometimes, it’s not enough to present only one side of the discussion. Showing one of the common views from the opposing side might actually help you strengthen your main idea. Besides, making an attempt at refuting it with alternative facts can show your teacher or professor that you’ve researched and analyzed all viewpoints, not just the one you stand by.

If you have chosen a side but are struggling to find the arguments for or against it, we have complied abortion pro and cons list for you. You can use both sets if you are writing an abortion summary essay covering all the stances.

Why Should Abortion Be Legal

If you stick to the opinion that abortion is just a medical procedure, which should be a basic health care need for each woman, you will definitely want to write the pros of abortion essay. Here is some important information and a list of pros about abortion for you to use:

• Since the fetus is a set of cells – not an individual, it’s up to a pregnant woman to make a decision concerning her body. Only she can decide whether she wants to keep the pregnancy or have an abortion. The abortion ban is a violation of a woman’s right to have control over her own body.
• The fact that women and girls do not have access to effective contraception and safe abortion services has serious consequences for their own health and the health of their families.
• The criminalization of abortion usually leads to an increase in the number of clandestine abortions. Many years ago, fetuses were disposed of with improvised means, which included knitting needles and half-straightened metal hangers. 13% of women’s deaths are the result of unsafe abortions.
• Many women live in a difficult financial situation and cannot support their children financially. Having access to safe abortion takes this burden off their shoulders. This will also not decrease their quality of life as the birth and childcare would.
• In countries where abortion is prohibited, there is a phenomenon of abortion tourism to other countries where it can be done without obstacles. Giving access to this procedure can make the lives of women much easier.
• Women should not put their lives or health in danger because of the laws that were adopted by other people.
• Girls and women who do not have proper sex education may not understand pregnancy as a concept or determine that they are pregnant early on. Instead of educating them and giving them a choice, an abortion ban forces them to become mothers and expects them to be fit parents despite not knowing much about reproduction.
• There are women who have genetic disorders or severe mental health issues that will affect their children if they're born. Giving them an option to terminate ensures that there won't be a child with a low quality of life and that the woman will not have to suffer through pregnancy, birth, and raising a child with her condition.
• Being pro-choice is about the freedom to make decisions about your body so that women who are for termination can do it safely, and those who are against it can choose not to do it. It is an inclusive option that caters to everyone.
• Women and girls who were raped or abused by their partner, caregiver, or stranger and chose to terminate the pregnancy can now be imprisoned for longer than their abusers. This implies that the system values the life of a fetus with no or primitive brain function over the life of a living woman.
• People who lived in times when artificial termination of pregnancy was scarcely available remember clandestine abortions and how traumatic they were, not only for the physical but also for the mental health of women. Indeed, traditionally, in many countries, large families were a norm. However, the times have changed, and supervised abortion is a safe and accessible procedure these days. A ban on abortion will simply push humanity away from the achievements of the civilized world.

Types of abortion

There are 2 main types of abortions that can be performed at different pregnancy stages and for different reasons:

• Medical abortion. It is performed by taking a specially prescribed pill. It does not require any special manipulations and can even be done at home (however, after a doctor’s visit and under supervision). It is considered very safe and is usually done during the very first weeks of pregnancy.
• Surgical abortion. This is a medical operation that is done with the help of a suction tube. It then removes the fetus and any related material. Anesthesia is used for this procedure, and therefore, it can only be done in a hospital. The maximum time allowed for surgical abortion is determined in each country specifically.

Cases when abortion is needed

Center for Reproductive Rights singles out the following situations when abortion is required:

• When there is a risk to the life or physical/mental health of a pregnant woman.
• When a pregnant woman has social or economic reasons for it.
• Upon the woman's request.
• If a pregnant woman is mentally or cognitively disabled.
• In case of rape and/or incest.
• If there were congenital anomalies detected in the fetus.

Countries and their abortion laws

• Countries where abortion is legalized in any case: Australia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.
• Countries where abortion is completely prohibited: Angola, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Paraguay, Palau, Jamaica, Laos, Haiti, Honduras, Andorra, Aruba, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, Senegal, etc.
• Countries where abortion is allowed for medical reasons: Afghanistan, Israel, Argentina, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Bahamas, Central African Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Algeria, Monaco, Pakistan, Poland, etc. 
• Countries where abortion is allowed for both medical and socioeconomic reasons: England, India, Spain, Luxembourg, Japan, Finland, Taiwan, Zambia, Iceland, Fiji, Cyprus, Barbados, Belize, etc.

Why Abortion Should Be Banned

Essays against abortions are popular in educational institutions since we all know that many people – many minds. So if you don’t want to support this procedure in your essay, here are some facts that may help you to argument why abortion is wrong:

• Abortion at an early age is especially dangerous because a young woman with an unstable hormonal system may no longer be able to have children throughout her life. Termination of pregnancy disrupts the hormonal development of the body.
• Health complications caused by abortion can occur many years after the procedure. Even if a woman feels fine in the short run, the situation may change in the future.
• Abortion clearly has a negative effect on reproductive function. Artificial dilation of the cervix during an abortion leads to weak uterus tonus, which can cause a miscarriage during the next pregnancy.
• Evidence shows that surgical termination of pregnancy significantly increases the risk of breast cancer.
• In December 1996, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics concluded that a fetus is considered a human being on the 14th day after conception.

You are free to use each of these arguments for essays against abortions. Remember that each claim should not be supported by emotions but by facts, figures, and so on.

Health complications after abortion

One way or another, abortion is extremely stressful for a woman’s body. Apart from that, it can even lead to various health problems in the future. You can also cover them in your cons of an abortion essay:

• Continuation of pregnancy. If the dose of the drug is calculated by the doctor in the wrong way, the pregnancy will progress.
• Uterine bleeding, which requires immediate surgical intervention.
• Severe nausea or even vomiting occurs as a result of a sharp change in the hormonal background.
• Severe stomach pain. Medical abortion causes miscarriage and, as a result, strong contractions of the uterus.
• High blood pressure and allergic reactions to medicines.
• Depression or other mental problems after a difficult procedure.

Abortion Essay Conclusion

After you have finished working on the previous sections of your paper, you will have to end it with a strong conclusion. The last impression is no less important than the first one. Here is how you can make it perfect in your conclusion paragraph on abortion:

• It should be concise. The conclusion cannot be as long as your essay body and should not add anything that cannot be derived from the main section. Reiterate the key ideas, combine some of them, and end the paragraph with something for the readers to think about.
• It cannot repeat already stated information. Restate your thesis statement in completely other words and summarize your main points. Do not repeat anything word for word – rephrase and shorten the information instead.
• It should include a call to action or a cliffhanger. Writing experts believe that a rhetorical question works really great for an argumentative essay. Another good strategy is to leave your readers with some curious ideas to ponder upon.

Abortion Facts for Essay

Abortion is a topic that concerns most modern women. Thousands of books, research papers, and articles on abortion are written across the world. Even though pregnancy termination has become much safer and less stigmatized with time, it still worries millions. What can you cover in your paper so that it can really stand out among others? You may want to add some shocking abortion statistics and facts:

• 40-50 million abortions are done in the world every year (approximately 125,000 per day).
• According to UN statistics, women have 25 million unsafe abortions each year. Most of them (97%) are performed in the countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 14% of them are especially unsafe because they are done by people without any medical knowledge.
• Since 2017, the United States has shown the highest abortion rate in the last 30 years.
• The biggest number of abortion procedures happen in the countries where they are officially banned. The lowest rate is demonstrated in the countries with high income and free access to contraception.
• Women in low-income regions are three times more susceptible to unplanned pregnancies than those in developed countries.
• In Argentina, more than 38,000 women face dreadful health consequences after unsafe abortions.
• The highest teen abortion rates in the world are seen in 3 countries: England, Wales, and Sweden.
• Only 31% of teenagers decide to terminate their pregnancy. However, the rate of early pregnancies is getting lower each year.
• Approximately 13 million children are born to mothers under the age of 20 each year.
• 5% of women of reproductive age live in countries where abortions are prohibited.

We hope that this abortion information was useful for you, and you can use some of these facts for your own argumentative essay. If you find some additional facts, make sure that they are not manipulative and are taken from official medical resources.

Abortion Essay Topics

Do you feel like you are lost in the abundance of information? Don’t know what topic to choose among the thousands available online? Check our short list of the best abortion argumentative essay topics:

• Why should abortion be legalized essay
• Abortion: a murder or a basic human right?
• Why we should all support abortion rights
• Is the abortion ban in the US a good initiative?
• The moral aspect of teen abortions
• Can the abortion ban solve birth control problems?
• Should all countries allow abortion?
• What consequences can abortion have in the long run?
• Is denying abortion sexist?
• Why is abortion a human right?
• Are there any ethical implications of abortion?
• Do you consider abortion a crime?
• Should women face charges for terminating a pregnancy?

Want to come up with your own? Here is how to create good titles for abortion essays:

• Write down the first associations. It can be something that swirls around in your head and comes to the surface when you think about the topic. These won’t necessarily be well-written headlines, but each word or phrase can be the first link in the chain of ideas that leads you to the best option.
• Irony and puns are not always a good idea. Especially when it comes to such difficult topics as abortion. Therefore, in your efforts to be original, remain sensitive to the issue you want to discuss.
• Never make a quote as your headline. First, a wordy quote makes the headline long. Secondly, readers do not understand whose words are given in the headline. Therefore, it may confuse them right from the start. If you have found a great quote, you can use it as your hook, but don’t forget to mention its author.
• Try to briefly summarize what is said in the essay. What is the focus of your paper? If the essence of your argumentative essay can be reduced to one sentence, it can be used as a title, paraphrased, or shortened.
• Write your title after you have finished your text. Before you just start writing, you might not yet have a catchy phrase in mind to use as a title. Don’t let it keep you from working on your essay – it might come along as you write.

Abortion Essay Example

We know that it is always easier to learn from a good example. For this reason, our writing experts have complied a detailed abortion essay outline for you. For your convenience, we have created two options with different opinions.

Topic: Why should abortion be legal?

Introduction – hook + thesis statement + short background information

Essay hook: More than 59% of women in the world do not have access to safe abortions, which leads to dreading health consequences or even death.

Thesis statement: Since banning abortions does not decrease their rates but only makes them unsafe, it is not logical to ban abortions.

Body – each paragraph should be devoted to one argument

Argument 1: Woman’s body – women’s rules. + example: basic human rights.

Argument 2: Banning abortion will only lead to more women’s death. + example: cases of Polish women.

Argument 3: Only women should decide on abortion. + example: many abortion laws are made by male politicians who lack knowledge and first-hand experience in pregnancies.

Conclusion – restated thesis statement + generalized conclusive statements + cliffhanger

Restated thesis: The abortion ban makes pregnancy terminations unsafe without decreasing the number of abortions, making it dangerous for women.

Cliffhanger: After all, who are we to decide a woman’s fate?

Topic: Why should abortion be banned?

Essay hook: Each year, over 40 million new babies are never born because their mothers decide to have an abortion.

Thesis statement: Abortions on request should be banned because we cannot decide for the baby whether it should live or die.

Argument 1: A fetus is considered a person almost as soon as it is conceived. Killing it should be regarded as murder. + example: Abortion bans in countries such as Poland, Egypt, etc.

Argument 2: Interrupting a baby’s life is morally wrong. + example: The Bible, the session of the Council of Europe on bioethics decision in 1996, etc.

Argument 3: Abortion may put the reproductive health of a woman at risk. + example: negative consequences of abortion.

Restated thesis: Women should not be allowed to have abortions without serious reason because a baby’s life is as priceless as their own.

Cliffhanger: Why is killing an adult considered a crime while killing an unborn baby is not?

Examples of Essays on Abortion

There are many great abortion essays examples on the Web. You can easily find an argumentative essay on abortion in pdf and save it as an example. Many students and scholars upload their pieces to specialized websites so that others can read them and continue the discussion in their own texts.

In a free argumentative essay on abortion, you can look at the structure of the paper, choice of the arguments, depth of research, and so on. Reading scientific papers on abortion or essays of famous activists is also a good idea. Here are the works of famous authors discussing abortion.

A Defense of Abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Published in 1971, this essay by an American philosopher considers the moral permissibility of abortion. It is considered the most debated and famous essay on this topic, and it’s definitely worth reading no matter what your stance is.

Abortion and Infanticide by Michael Tooley

It was written in 1972 by an American philosopher known for his work in the field of metaphysics. In this essay, the author considers whether fetuses and infants have the same rights. Even though this work is quite complex, it presents some really interesting ideas on the matter.

Some Biological Insights into Abortion by Garret Hardin

This article by American ecologist Garret Hardin, who had focused on the issue of overpopulation during his scholarly activities, presents some insights into abortion from a scientific point of view. He also touches on non-biological issues, such as moral and economic. This essay will be of great interest to those who support the pro-choice stance.

H4 Hidden in Plain View: An Overview of Abortion in Rural Illinois and Around the Globe by Heather McIlvaine-Newsad 

In this study, McIlvaine-Newsad has researched the phenomenon of abortion since prehistoric times. She also finds an obvious link between the rate of abortions and the specifics of each individual country. Overall, this scientific work published in 2014 is extremely interesting and useful for those who want to base their essay on factual information.

H4 Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules: Women’s Rights or “Fetal Rights”? by Helena Wahlström

In her article of 2013, Wahlström considers John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules published in 1985 and is regarded as a revolutionary work for that time, as it acknowledges abortion mostly as a political problem. This article will be a great option for those who want to investigate the roots of the abortion debate.

FAQs On Abortion Argumentative Essay

• Is abortion immoral?

This question is impossible to answer correctly because each person independently determines their own moral framework. One group of people will say that abortion is a woman’s right because only she has power over her body and can make decisions about it. Another group will argue that the embryo is also a person and has the right to birth and life.

In general, the attitude towards abortion is determined based on the political and religious views of each person. Religious people generally believe that abortion is immoral because it is murder, while secular people see it as a normal medical procedure. For example, in the US, the ban on abortion was introduced in red states where the vast majority have conservative views, while blue liberal states do not support this law. Overall, it’s up to a person to decide whether they consider abortion immoral based on their own values and beliefs.

• Is abortion legal?

The answer to this question depends on the country in which you live. There are countries in which pregnancy termination is a common medical procedure and is performed at the woman's request. There are also states in which there must be a serious reason for abortion: medical, social, or economic. Finally, there are nations in which abortion is prohibited and criminalized. For example, in Jamaica, a woman can get life imprisonment for abortion, while in Kenya, a medical worker who volunteers to perform an abortion can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.

• Is abortion safe?

In general, modern medicine has reached such a level that abortion has become a common (albeit difficult from various points of view) medical procedure. There are several types of abortion, as well as many medical devices and means that ensure the maximum safety of the pregnancy termination. Like all other medical procedures, abortion can have various consequences and complications.

Abortions – whether safe or not - exist in all countries of the world. The thing is that more than half of them are dangerous because women have them in unsuitable conditions and without professional help. Only universal access to abortion in all parts of the world can make it absolutely safe. In such a case, it will be performed only after a thorough assessment and under the control of a medical professional who can mitigate the potential risks.

• How safe is abortion?

If we do not talk about the ethical side of the issue related to abortion, it still has some risks. In fact, any medical procedure has them to a greater or lesser extent.

The effectiveness of the safe method in a medical setting is 80-99%. An illegal abortion (for example, the one without special indications after 12 weeks) can lead to a patient’s death, and the person who performed it will be criminally liable in this case.

Doctors do not have universal advice for all pregnant women on whether it is worth making this decision or not. However, many of them still tend to believe that any contraception - even one that may have negative side effects - is better than abortion. That’s why spreading awareness on means of contraception and free access to it is vital.

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Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Crafting a Convincing Persuasive Essay About Abortion

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Are you about to write a persuasive essay on abortion but wondering how to begin?

Writing an effective persuasive essay on the topic of abortion can be a difficult task for many students. 

It is important to understand both sides of the issue and form an argument based on facts and logical reasoning. This requires research and understanding, which takes time and effort.

In this blog, we will provide you with some easy steps to craft a persuasive essay about abortion that is compelling and convincing. Moreover, we have included some example essays and interesting facts to read and get inspired by. 

So let's start!

• 1. How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?
• 2. Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples
• 3. Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion
• 4. Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics
• 5. Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments. 

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing. 

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument. 

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both? 

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument. 

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay. 

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

• Should abortion be legal in the United States?
• Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
• What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
• Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
• What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
• How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
• Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
• Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
• Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
• How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values? 

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you. 

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

• According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
• The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
• Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
• In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
• Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
• In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
• A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
• According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing. 

Need the services of a persuasive essay writing service ? We've got your back!

MyPerfectWords.com that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Pro and Con: Abortion

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether abortion should be legal, go to ProCon.org .

The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option has long divided people around the world. Split into two groups, pro-choice and pro-life, the two sides frequently clash in protests.

A June 2, 2022 Gallup poll , 55% of Americans identified as “pro-choice,” the highest percentage since 1995. 39% identified as “pro-life,” and 5% were neither or unsure. For the first time in the history of the poll question (since 2001), 52% of Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable. 38% believed the procedure to be morally wrong, and 10% answered that it depended on the situation or they were unsure.

Surgical abortion (aka suction curettage or vacuum curettage) is the most common type of abortion procedure. It involves using a suction device to remove the contents of a pregnant woman’s uterus. Surgical abortion performed later in pregnancy (after 12-16 weeks) is called D&E (dilation and evacuation). The second most common abortion procedure, a medical abortion (aka an “abortion pill”), involves taking medications, usually mifepristone and misoprostol (aka RU-486), within the first seven to nine weeks of pregnancy to induce an abortion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 67% of abortions performed in 2014 were performed at or less than eight weeks’ gestation, and 91.5% were performed at or less than 13 weeks’ gestation. 77.3% were performed by surgical procedure, while 22.6% were medical abortions. An abortion can cost from $500 to over $1,000 depending on where it is performed and how long into the pregnancy it is.

• Abortion is a safe medical procedure that protects lives.
• Abortion bans endangers healthcare for those not seeking abortions.
• Abortion bans deny bodily autonomy, creating wide-ranging repercussions.
• Life begins at conception, making abortion murder.
• Legal abortion promotes a culture in which life is disposable.
• Increased access to birth control, health insurance, and sexual education would make abortion unnecessary.

This article was published on June 24, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org , a nonpartisan issue-information source.

Persuasive Essay Writing

Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Learn How to Craft a Compelling Persuasive Essay About Abortion With Examples!

Published on: Jan 12, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 29, 2024

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Writing an essay on abortion is a controversial and often difficult undertaking. 

But with the right approach, you can craft an effective persuasive essay that brings awareness to this complex issue. 

In this blog post, we’ll outline how to approach your research. You will also learn how to create a strong argumentative structure to support your stance. 

So without further ado, let's dig in to learn more about this.

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How to Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Writing a persuasive abortion essay can be tricky. After all, abortion is an emotionally charged topic, and it can be hard to write objectively. 

But with careful planning and research, you can write an effective persuasive essay on abortion. 

Here are five steps to get you started. 

Step 1: Research Both Sides of the Issue

Before writing your essay, you should familiarize yourself with both sides.

 Read up on both pro-choice and pro-life arguments so that you have a comprehensive understanding of the debate. 

This will help ensure that your argument is well-informed and balanced.

Step 2: Choose a Stance and Develop Your Thesis Statement.

Once you've researched, decide which side of the debate you want. Construct a thesis statement that reflects this stance. 

This statement should be clear, concise, and specific enough to guide your essay.

Step 3: Support Your Argument With Evidence & Sources.

Now it's time to back up your thesis statement with evidence from credible sources such as scholarly articles or government reports. 

As much as possible, use facts rather than opinions when citing evidence to make your argument more convincing. 

Be sure to cite any sources used properly in either MLA or APA format so readers can easily find them. Check out this video explaining the importance of supporting your persuasive essays with evidence.

Step 4: Keep a Formal and Persuasive Tone Throughout Your Essay. 

When writing about such a sensitive subject, it’s important to maintain a formal tone throughout your essay.  

Avoid emotional language or personal anecdotes, as these can be biased or unprofessional.

Instead, focus on presenting logical arguments backed up by reliable evidence. 

This helps to create an argument that is compelling yet unbiased in presenting both sides of the issue.

Step 5: Make Sure You’ve Addressed Counterarguments & Objections. 

Before submitting your essay for grading or publication, take some time to reflect on potential counterarguments.

Address these issues directly, if necessary, to strengthen your argument’s validity and persuasiveness further. 

Read our extensive guide on crafting a persuasive essay , so that you know all ins and outs of crafting a perfect persuasive essay.

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Outline of a Persuasive Essay on Abortion

Here is a detailed outline of a persuasive essay about abortion. Follow this to make sure your essays stand out.

Read our extensive blog on how to create a persuasive essay outline here!

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples 

Having different examples and points of view on an abortion essay is a great way to learn about this controversial issue. 

Here are a  few examples of persuasive essays about abortion that you can look at for more information.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Check out some more persuasive essay examples to learn more!

Example of Argumentative Essay About Abortion 

Reading samples of argumentative abortion essays can provide insight into different perspectives.

Argumentative essays seek to challenge existing beliefs as well as propose new ones. 

Here are a few examples of argumentative essays about abortion that you can look at for more information: 

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

Here is a list of few topics that can inspire you for your next essay. Take a look at them.

• Should abortion remain legal? 
• Are there any circumstances where abortion should be illegal? 
• Is there a moral obligation to have an abortion in certain situations? 
• Why is the debate on abortion so contentious?
• What are the psychological effects of abortion? 
• How can society better support pregnant women who do not wish to have a baby? 
• Should there be stricter regulations around access to abortion services? 
• What are the long-term effects of abortion on a woman’s reproductive health? 
• Could pro-choice and pro-life advocates come together to compromise on abortion policies? 
• Does a woman’s right to choose trump the potential life of a fetus? 
• What are some of the possible medical complications related to abortion? 
• Can men have an opinion on abortion that is just as valid as a woman’s? 
• Are there any alternatives to abortion that can be used in cases where the baby cannot survive? 
• How has the legality of abortion affected women’s rights over the years?
• What is the best way to reduce abortions without denying a woman her right to choose? 

Check out our comprehensive list of  persuasive essay topics . You might find the inspiration to write your next persuasive essay!

A Few Interesting Facts About Abortion 

Abortion is a highly controversial topic, and many different viewpoints exist.

Some people believe that abortion is morally wrong, while others believe that it is a woman's right to choose what happens to her body. 

There are many facts about abortion that both sides of the debate can agree on, however. Here are some key points

1. Globally, an estimated 56 million abortions are performed each year. 

2. In the US, about 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion. 

3. Most women who have abortions (78%) are unmarried, and 25% are younger than 20. 

4. About half of all abortions performed in the US are done in the first eight weeks of pregnancy. 

5. There is a direct correlation between the legal availability of abortion and decreased infant mortality rates. 

6. In countries where abortion is illegal, women are more likely to die during childbirth due to a lack of access to safe, medical abortions. 

7. Most women (75%) who have abortions do so because they cannot afford to care for a child. 

8. The most common reasons why a woman would choose to have an abortion are financial, relationship issues, and feeling unprepared for the responsibility of parenting. 

9. Most abortions in the US occur in clinics or doctor’s offices rather than hospitals. 

10. Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures available, with a low rate of complications (less than 0.3%). 

In the end, a persuasive essay is all about making your point convincingly. With the right evidence, logical reasoning, and engaging tone, you can make an argument for any topic you choose. 

If you’re still struggling to put your thoughts together or need help getting started, don’t worry. Trust our professional essay writer with your next essay.

CollegeEssay.org offers top essay writing service  that will take care of everything for you. We guarantee a high-quality persuasive essay writing service that will get you the grades you deserve. So what are you waiting for? 

Contact us today, and let our essay writer AI help you write the perfect essay about abortion!

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• America’s Abortion Quandary

1. Americans’ views on whether, and in what circumstances, abortion should be legal

Table of contents.

• Abortion at various stages of pregnancy 
• Abortion and circumstances of pregnancy 
• Parental notification for minors seeking abortion
• Penalties for abortions performed illegally 
• Public views of what would change the number of abortions in the U.S.
• A majority of Americans say women should have more say in setting abortion policy in the U.S.
• How do certain arguments about abortion resonate with Americans?
• In their own words: How Americans feel about abortion 
• Personal connections to abortion 
• Religion’s impact on views about abortion
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

As the long-running debate over abortion reaches another  key moment at the Supreme Court  and in  state legislatures across the country , a majority of U.S. adults continue to say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About six-in-ten Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in “all” or “most” cases, while 37% think abortion should be  illegal  in all or most cases. These views have changed little over the past several years: In 2019, for example, 61% of adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.    Most respondents in the new survey took one of the middle options when first asked about their views on abortion, saying either that abortion should be legal in  most  cases (36%) or illegal in  most  cases (27%). 

Respondents who said abortion should either be legal in  all  cases or illegal in  all  cases received a follow-up question asking whether there should be any exceptions to such laws. Overall, 25% of adults initially said abortion should be legal in all cases, but about a quarter of this group (6% of all U.S. adults) went on to say that there should be some exceptions when abortion should be against the law.

One-in-ten adults initially answered that abortion should be illegal in all cases, but about one-in-five of these respondents (2% of all U.S. adults) followed up by saying that there are some exceptions when abortion should be permitted. 

Altogether, seven-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in some cases and illegal in others, including 42% who say abortion should be generally legal, but with some exceptions, and 29% who say it should be generally illegal, except in certain cases. Much smaller shares take absolutist views when it comes to the legality of abortion in the U.S., maintaining that abortion should be legal in all cases with no exceptions (19%) or illegal in all circumstances (8%). 

There is a modest gender gap in views of whether abortion should be legal, with women slightly more likely than men to say abortion should be legal in all cases or in all cases but with some exceptions (63% vs. 58%). 

Younger adults are considerably more likely than older adults to say abortion should be legal: Three-quarters of adults under 30 (74%) say abortion should be generally legal, including 30% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. 

But there is an even larger gap in views toward abortion by partisanship: 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 38% of Republicans and GOP leaners.  Previous Center research  has shown this gap widening over the past 15 years. 

Still, while partisans diverge in views of whether abortion should mostly be legal or illegal, most Democrats and Republicans do not view abortion in absolutist terms. Just 13% of Republicans say abortion should be against the law in all cases without exception; 47% say it should be illegal with some exceptions. And while three-in-ten Democrats say abortion should be permitted in all circumstances, half say it should mostly be legal – but with some exceptions. 

There also are sizable divisions within both partisan coalitions by ideology. For instance, while a majority of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should mostly be legal (60%), just 27% of conservative Republicans say the same. Among Democrats, self-described liberals are twice as apt as moderates and conservatives to say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception (42% vs. 20%).

Regardless of partisan affiliation, adults who say they personally know someone who has had an abortion – such as a friend, relative or themselves – are more likely to say abortion should be legal than those who say they do not know anyone who had an abortion.

Views toward abortion also vary considerably by religious affiliation – specifically among large Christian subgroups and religiously unaffiliated Americans. 

For example, roughly three-quarters of White evangelical Protestants say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. This is far higher than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (38%) or Black Protestants (28%) who say the same. 

Despite  Catholic teaching on abortion , a slim majority of U.S. Catholics (56%) say abortion should be legal. This includes 13% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception, and 43% who say it should be legal, but with some exceptions. 

Compared with Christians, religiously unaffiliated adults are far more likely to say abortion should be legal overall – and significantly more inclined to say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Within this group, atheists stand out: 97% say abortion should be legal, including 53% who say it should be legal in all cases without exception. Agnostics and those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” also overwhelmingly say that abortion should be legal, but they are more likely than atheists to say there are some circumstances when abortion should be against the law.

Although the survey was conducted among Americans of many religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, it did not obtain enough respondents from non-Christian groups to report separately on their responses.

As a  growing number of states  debate legislation to restrict abortion – often after a certain stage of pregnancy – Americans express complex views about when   abortion should generally be legal and when it should be against the law. Overall, a majority of adults (56%) say that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining when abortion should be legal, while far fewer (14%) say that this should  not  be a factor. An additional one-quarter of the public says that abortion should either be legal (19%) or illegal (8%) in all circumstances without exception; these respondents did not receive this question.

Among men and women, Republicans and Democrats, and Christians and religious “nones” who do not take absolutist positions about abortion on either side of the debate, the prevailing view is that the stage of the pregnancy should be a factor in determining whether abortion should be legal.

Americans broadly are more likely to favor restrictions on abortion later in pregnancy than earlier in pregnancy. Many adults also say the legality of abortion depends on other factors at every stage of pregnancy. 

Overall, a plurality of adults (44%) say that abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, which is about when cardiac activity (sometimes called a fetal heartbeat) may be detected and before many women know they are pregnant; this includes 19% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception, as well as 25% of adults who say it should be legal at that point in a pregnancy. An additional 7% say abortion generally should be legal in most cases, but that the stage of the pregnancy should not matter in determining legality. 1

One-in-five Americans (21%) say abortion should be  illegal  at six weeks. This includes 8% of adults who say abortion should be illegal in all cases without exception as well as 12% of adults who say that abortion should be illegal at this point. Additionally, 6% say abortion should be illegal in most cases and how long a woman has been pregnant should not matter in determining abortion’s legality. Nearly one-in-five respondents, when asked whether abortion should be legal six weeks into a pregnancy, say “it depends.” 

Americans are more divided about what should be permitted 14 weeks into a pregnancy – roughly at the end of the first trimester – although still, more people say abortion should be legal at this stage (34%) than illegal (27%), and about one-in-five say “it depends.”

Fewer adults say abortion should be legal 24 weeks into a pregnancy – about when a healthy fetus could survive outside the womb with medical care. At this stage, 22% of adults say abortion should be legal, while nearly twice as many (43%) say it should be  illegal . Again, about one-in-five adults (18%) say whether abortion should be legal at 24 weeks depends on other factors. 

Respondents who said that abortion should be illegal 24 weeks into a pregnancy or that “it depends” were asked a follow-up question about whether abortion at that point should be legal if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Most who received this question say abortion in these circumstances should be legal (54%) or that it depends on other factors (40%). Just 4% of this group maintained that abortion should be illegal in this case.

This pattern in views of abortion – whereby more favor greater restrictions on abortion as a pregnancy progresses – is evident across a variety of demographic and political groups. 

Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say that abortion should be legal at each of the three stages of pregnancy asked about on the survey. For example, while 26% of Republicans say abortion should be legal at six weeks of pregnancy, more than twice as many Democrats say the same (61%). Similarly, while about a third of Democrats say abortion should be legal at 24 weeks of pregnancy, just 8% of Republicans say the same. 

However, neither Republicans nor Democrats uniformly express absolutist views about abortion throughout a pregnancy. Republicans are divided on abortion at six weeks: Roughly a quarter say it should be legal (26%), while a similar share say it depends (24%). A third say it should be illegal. 

Democrats are divided about whether abortion should be legal or illegal at 24 weeks, with 34% saying it should be legal, 29% saying it should be illegal, and 21% saying it depends. 

There also is considerable division among each partisan group by ideology. At six weeks of pregnancy, just one-in-five conservative Republicans (19%) say that abortion should be legal; moderate and liberal Republicans are twice as likely as their conservative counterparts to say this (39%). 

At the same time, about half of liberal Democrats (48%) say abortion at 24 weeks should be legal, while 17% say it should be illegal. Among conservative and moderate Democrats, the pattern is reversed: A plurality (39%) say abortion at this stage should be illegal, while 24% say it should be legal. 

Christian adults are far less likely than religiously unaffiliated Americans to say abortion should be legal at each stage of pregnancy.  

Among Protestants, White evangelicals stand out for their opposition to abortion. At six weeks of pregnancy, for example, 44% say abortion should be illegal, compared with 17% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 15% of Black Protestants. This pattern also is evident at 14 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, when half or more of White evangelicals say abortion should be illegal.

At six weeks, a plurality of Catholics (41%) say abortion should be legal, while smaller shares say it depends or it should be illegal. But by 24 weeks, about half of Catholics (49%) say abortion should be illegal. 

Among adults who are religiously unaffiliated, atheists stand out for their views. They are the only group in which a sizable majority says abortion should be  legal  at each point in a pregnancy. Even at 24 weeks, 62% of self-described atheists say abortion should be legal, compared with smaller shares of agnostics (43%) and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” (31%). 

As is the case with adults overall, most religiously affiliated and religiously unaffiliated adults who originally say that abortion should be illegal or “it depends” at 24 weeks go on to say either it should be legal or it depends if the pregnant woman’s life is in danger or the baby would be born with severe disabilities. Few (4% and 5%, respectively) say abortion should be illegal at 24 weeks in these situations.

The stage of the pregnancy is not the only factor that shapes people’s views of when abortion should be legal. Sizable majorities of U.S. adults say that abortion should be legal if the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the pregnant woman (73%) or if pregnancy is the result of rape (69%). 

There is less consensus when it comes to circumstances in which a baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems: 53% of Americans overall say abortion should be legal in such circumstances, including 19% who say abortion should be legal in all cases and 35% who say there are some situations where abortions should be illegal, but that it should be legal in this specific type of case. A quarter of adults say “it depends” in this situation, and about one-in-five say it should be illegal (10% who say illegal in this specific circumstance and 8% who say illegal in all circumstances). 

There are sizable divides between and among partisans when it comes to views of abortion in these situations. Overall, Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances outlined in the survey. However, both partisan groups are less likely to say abortion should be legal when the baby may be born with severe disabilities or health problems than when the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape. 

Just as there are wide gaps among Republicans by ideology on whether how long a woman has been pregnant should be a factor in determining abortion’s legality, there are large gaps when it comes to circumstances in which abortions should be legal. For example, while a clear majority of moderate and liberal Republicans (71%) say abortion should be permitted when the pregnancy is the result of rape, conservative Republicans are more divided. About half (48%) say it should be legal in this situation, while 29% say it should be illegal and 21% say it depends.

The ideological gaps among Democrats are slightly less pronounced. Most Democrats say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances – just to varying degrees. While 77% of liberal Democrats say abortion should be legal if a baby will be born with severe disabilities or health problems, for example, a smaller majority of conservative and moderate Democrats (60%) say the same. 

White evangelical Protestants again stand out for their views on abortion in various circumstances; they are far less likely than White non-evangelical or Black Protestants to say abortion should be legal across each of the three circumstances described in the survey. 

While about half of White evangelical Protestants (51%) say abortion should be legal if a pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health, clear majorities of other Protestant groups and Catholics say this should be the case. The same pattern holds in views of whether abortion should be legal if the pregnancy is the result of rape. Most White non-evangelical Protestants (75%), Black Protestants (71%) and Catholics (66%) say abortion should be permitted in this instance, while White evangelicals are more divided: 40% say it should be legal, while 34% say it should be  illegal  and about a quarter say it depends. 

Mirroring the pattern seen among adults overall, opinions are more varied about a situation where a baby might be born with severe disabilities or health issues. For instance, half of Catholics say abortion should be legal in such cases, while 21% say it should be illegal and 27% say it depends on the situation. 

Most religiously unaffiliated adults – including overwhelming majorities of self-described atheists – say abortion should be legal in each of the three circumstances. 

Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say that doctors or other health care providers should be required to notify a parent or legal guardian if the pregnant woman seeking an abortion is under 18, while 28% say they should not be required to do so.  

Women are slightly less likely than men to say this should be a requirement (67% vs. 74%). And younger adults are far less likely than those who are older to say a parent or guardian should be notified before a doctor performs an abortion on a pregnant woman who is under 18. In fact, about half of adults ages 18 to 24 (53%) say a doctor should  not  be required to notify a parent. By contrast, 64% of adults ages 25 to 29 say doctors  should  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, as do 68% of adults ages 30 to 49 and 78% of those 50 and older. 

A large majority of Republicans (85%) say that a doctor should be required to notify the parents of a minor before an abortion, though conservative Republicans are somewhat more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans to take this position (90% vs. 77%). 

The ideological divide is even more pronounced among Democrats. Overall, a slim majority of Democrats (57%) say a parent should be notified in this circumstance, but while 72% of conservative and moderate Democrats hold this view, just 39% of liberal Democrats agree. 

By and large, most Protestant (81%) and Catholic (78%) adults say doctors should be required to notify parents of minors before an abortion. But religiously unaffiliated Americans are more divided. Majorities of both atheists (71%) and agnostics (58%) say doctors should  not  be required to notify parents of minors seeking an abortion, while six-in-ten of those who describe their religion as “nothing in particular” say such notification should be required. 

Americans are divided over who should be penalized – and what that penalty should be – in a situation where an abortion occurs illegally. 

Overall, a 60% majority of adults say that if a doctor or provider performs an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, they should face a penalty. But there is less agreement when it comes to others who may have been involved in the procedure. 

While about half of the public (47%) says a woman who has an illegal abortion should face a penalty, a nearly identical share (50%) says she should not. And adults are more likely to say people who help find and schedule or pay for an abortion in a situation where it is illegal should  not  face a penalty than they are to say they should.

Views about penalties are closely correlated with overall attitudes about whether abortion should be legal or illegal. For example, just 20% of adults who say abortion should be legal in all cases without exception think doctors or providers should face a penalty if an abortion were carried out in a situation where it was illegal. This compares with 91% of those who think abortion should be illegal in all cases without exceptions. Still, regardless of how they feel about whether abortion should be legal or not, Americans are more likely to say a doctor or provider should face a penalty compared with others involved in the procedure. 

Among those who say medical providers and/or women should face penalties for illegal abortions, there is no consensus about whether they should get jail time or a less severe punishment. Among U.S. adults overall, 14% say women should serve jail time if they have an abortion in a situation where it is illegal, while 16% say they should receive a fine or community service and 17% say they are not sure what the penalty should be. 

A somewhat larger share of Americans (25%) say doctors or other medical providers should face jail time for providing illegal abortion services, while 18% say they should face fines or community service and 17% are not sure. About three-in-ten U.S. adults (31%) say doctors should lose their medical license if they perform an abortion in a situation where it is illegal.

Men are more likely than women to favor penalties for the woman or doctor in situations where abortion is illegal. About half of men (52%) say women should face a penalty, while just 43% of women say the same. Similarly, about two-thirds of men (64%) say a doctor should face a penalty, while 56% of women agree.

Republicans are considerably more likely than Democrats to say both women and doctors should face penalties – including jail time. For example, 21% of Republicans say the woman who had the abortion should face jail time, and 40% say this about the doctor who performed the abortion. Among Democrats, far smaller shares say the woman (8%) or doctor (13%) should serve jail time.  

White evangelical Protestants are more likely than other Protestant groups to favor penalties for abortions in situations where they are illegal. Fully 24% say the woman who had the abortion should serve time in jail, compared with just 12% of White non-evangelical Protestants or Black Protestants. And while about half of White evangelicals (48%) say doctors who perform illegal abortions should serve jail time, just 26% of White non-evangelical Protestants and 18% of Black Protestants share this view.

• Only respondents who said that abortion should be legal in some cases but not others and that how long a woman has been pregnant should matter in determining whether abortion should be legal received questions about abortion’s legality at specific points in the pregnancy.  ↩

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Comparison/Contrast Essays: Two Patterns

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First Pattern: Block-by-Block

By Rory H. Osbrink

Abortion is an example of a very controversial issue. The two opposing viewpoints surrounding abortion are like two sides of a coin. On one side, there is the pro-choice activist and on the other is the pro-life activist.

The argument is a balanced one; for every point supporting abortion there is a counter-point condemning abortion. This essay will delineate the controversy in one type of comparison/contrast essay form: the “”Argument versus Argument,”” or, “”Block-by-Block”” format. In this style of writing, first you present all the arguments surrounding one side of the issue, then you present all the arguments surrounding the other side of the issue. You are generally not expected to reach a conclusion, but simply to present the opposing sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined) Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Block-by-Block Format

One of the most divisive issues in America is the controversy surrounding abortion. Currently, abortion is legal in America, and many people believe that it should remain legal. These people, pro-choice activists, believe that it is the women’s right to chose whether or not to give birth. However, there are many groups who are lobbying Congress to pass laws that would make abortion illegal. These people are called the pro-life activists.

Explains pro-choice

Abortion is a choice that should be decided by each individual, argues the pro-choice activist. Abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet fully human, therefore, it is not in defiance against God. Regardless of the reason for the abortion, it should be the woman’s choice because it is her body. While adoption is an option some women chose, many women do not want to suffer the physical and emotional trauma of pregnancy and labor only to give up a child. Therefore, laws should remain in effect that protect a woman’s right to chose.

Explains pro-life

Abortion is an abomination, argues the pro-life activist. It makes no sense for a woman to murder a human being not even born. The bible says, “”Thou shalt not kill,”” and it does not discriminate between different stages of life. A fetus is the beginning of life. Therefore, abortion is murder, and is in direct defiance of God’s will. Regardless of the mother’s life situation (many women who abort are poor, young, or drug users), the value of a human life cannot be measured. Therefore, laws should be passed to outlaw abortion. After all, there are plenty of couples who are willing to adopt an unwanted child.

If we take away the woman’s right to chose, will we begin limiting her other rights also? Or, if we keep abortion legal, are we devaluing human life? There is no easy answer to these questions. Both sides present strong, logical arguments. Though it is a very personal decision, t he fate of abortion rights will have to be left for the Supreme Court to decide.

Second Pattern: Point-by-Point

This second example is also an essay about abortion. We have used the same information and line of reasoning in this essay, however, this one will be presented in the “”Point-by-Point”” style argument. The Point-by-Point style argument presents both sides of the argument at the same time. First, you would present one point on a specific topic, then you would follow that up with the opposing point on the same topic. Again, you are generally not expected to draw any conclusions, simply to fairly present both sides of the argument.

Introduction: (the thesis is underlined)

Explains the argument

The Abortion Issue: Compare and Contrast Point-by-Point Format

Point One: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Supporters of both pro-life and pro-choice refer to religion as support for their side of the argument. Pro-life supporters claim that abortion is murder, and is therefore against God’s will. However, pro-choice defenders argue that abortion is not murder since the fetus is not yet a fully formed human. Therefore, abortion would not be a defiance against God.

Point Two: Pro-life and Pro-choice

Another main point of the argument is over the woman’s personal rights, versus the rights of the unborn child. Pro-choice activists maintain that regardless of the individual circumstances, women should have the right to chose whether or not to abort. The pregnancy and labor will affect only the woman’s body, therefore it should be the woman’s decision. Pro-life supporters, on the other hand, believe that the unborn child has the right to life, and that abortion unlawfully takes away that right.

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The Case Against Abortion

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

A striking thing about the American abortion debate is how little abortion itself is actually debated. The sensitivity and intimacy of the issue, the mixed feelings of so many Americans, mean that most politicians and even many pundits really don’t like to talk about it.

The mental habits of polarization, the assumption that the other side is always acting with hidden motives or in bad faith, mean that accusations of hypocrisy or simple evil are more commonplace than direct engagement with the pro-choice or pro-life argument.

And the Supreme Court’s outsize role in abortion policy means that the most politically important arguments are carried on by lawyers arguing constitutional theory, at one remove from the real heart of the debate.

But with the court set this week to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, it seems worth letting the lawyers handle the meta-arguments and writing about the thing itself. So this essay will offer no political or constitutional analysis. It will simply try to state the pro-life case.

At the core of our legal system, you will find a promise that human beings should be protected from lethal violence. That promise is made in different ways by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; it’s there in English common law, the Ten Commandments and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We dispute how the promise should be enforced, what penalties should be involved if it is broken and what crimes might deprive someone of the right to life. But the existence of the basic right, and a fundamental duty not to kill, is pretty close to bedrock.

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Essay Service Examples Social Issues Abortion

Why Abortion Should Be Banned Essay

Table of contents

Introduction, the immorality of abortion, why abortion should be banned, the procedures and legalities of abortion, the right to choose: a woman's perspective, the historical context of abortion, life begins at conception: the biological argument.

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• Abolishing Abortion: The History of the Pro-Life Movement in America. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/.
• Baird, R. M., & Rosenbaum, S. E. (2001). The ethics of abortion: pro-life vs. pro-choice. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• Beckwith, F. (2008). Defending life: a moral and legal case against abortion choice. Cambridge University Press.
• Higgins, M., & Dellapenna, J. W. (2013). Roe v. Wade: abortion and a woman’s right to privacy. Minneapolis, MN: ABDO Pub.
• OBOS Abortion Contributors. (n.d.). History of Abortion in the U.S. Retrieved from https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/u-s-abortion-history/.
• Shettles, L. B., & Rorvik, D. M. (1983). Rites of life: the scientific evidence for life before birth. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House.
• Williams, D. K. (2019). Defenders of the unborn: the pro-life movement before Roe v. Wade. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Willke, J. C., & Willke, B. (1985). Handbook on abortion. Cincinnati, OH: Hayes Pub. Co.

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There’s a Better Way to Debate Abortion

Caution and epistemic humility can guide our approach.

If Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization becomes law, we will enter a post– Roe v. Wade world in which the laws governing abortion will be legislatively decided in 50 states.

In the short term, at least, the abortion debate will become even more inflamed than it has been. Overturning Roe , after all, would be a profound change not just in the law but in many people’s lives, shattering the assumption of millions of Americans that they have a constitutional right to an abortion.

This doesn’t mean Roe was correct. For the reasons Alito lays out, I believe that Roe was a terribly misguided decision, and that a wiser course would have been for the issue of abortion to have been given a democratic outlet, allowing even the losers “the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight,” in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Instead, for nearly half a century, Roe has been the law of the land. But even those who would welcome its undoing should acknowledge that its reversal could convulse the nation.

From the December 2019 issue: The dishonesty of the abortion debate

If we are going to debate abortion in every state, given how fractured and angry America is today, we need caution and epistemic humility to guide our approach.

We can start by acknowledging the inescapable ambiguities in this staggeringly complicated moral question. No matter one’s position on abortion, each of us should recognize that those who hold views different from our own have some valid points, and that the positions we embrace raise complicated issues. That realization alone should lead us to engage in this debate with a little more tolerance and a bit less certitude.

Many of those on the pro-life side exhibit a gap between the rhetoric they employ and the conclusions they actually seem to draw. In the 1990s, I had an exchange, via fax, with a pro-life thinker. During our dialogue, I pressed him on what he believed, morally speaking , should be the legal penalty for a woman who has an abortion and a doctor who performs one.

My point was a simple one: If he believed, as he claimed, that an abortion even moments after conception is the killing of an innocent child—that the fetus, from the instant of conception, is a human being deserving of all the moral and political rights granted to your neighbor next door—then the act ought to be treated, if not as murder, at least as manslaughter. Surely, given what my interlocutor considered to be the gravity of the offense, fining the doctor and taking no action against the mother would be morally incongruent. He was understandably uncomfortable with this line of questioning, unwilling to go to the places his premises led. When it comes to abortion, few people are.

Humane pro-life advocates respond that while an abortion is the taking of a human life, the woman having the abortion has been misled by our degraded culture into denying the humanity of the child. She is a victim of misinformation; she can’t be held accountable for what she doesn’t know. I’m not unsympathetic to this argument, but I think it ultimately falls short. In other contexts, insisting that people who committed atrocities because they truly believed the people against whom they were committing atrocities were less than human should be let off the hook doesn’t carry the day. I’m struggling to understand why it would in this context.

There are other complicating matters. For example, about half of all fertilized eggs are aborted spontaneously —that is, result in miscarriage—usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Focus on the Family, an influential Christian ministry, is emphatic : “Human life begins at fertilization.” Does this mean that when a fertilized egg is spontaneously aborted, it is comparable—biologically, morally, ethically, or in any other way—to when a 2-year-old child dies? If not, why not? There’s also the matter of those who are pro-life and contend that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being but allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That is an understandable impulse but I don’t think it’s a logically sustainable one.

The pro-choice side, for its part, seldom focuses on late-term abortions. Let’s grant that late-term abortions are very rare. But the question remains: Is there any point during gestation when pro-choice advocates would say “slow down” or “stop”—and if so, on what grounds? Or do they believe, in principle, that aborting a child up to the point of delivery is a defensible and justifiable act; that an abortion procedure is, ethically speaking, the same as removing an appendix? If not, are those who are pro-choice willing to say, as do most Americans, that the procedure gets more ethically problematic the further along in a pregnancy?

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

Plenty of people who consider themselves pro-choice have over the years put on their refrigerator door sonograms of the baby they are expecting. That tells us something. So does biology. The human embryo is a human organism, with the genetic makeup of a human being. “The argument, in which thoughtful people differ, is about the moral significance and hence the proper legal status of life in its early stages,” as the columnist George Will put it.

These are not “gotcha questions”; they are ones I have struggled with for as long as I’ve thought through where I stand on abortion, and I’ve tried to remain open to corrections in my thinking. I’m not comfortable with those who are unwilling to grant any concessions to the other side or acknowledge difficulties inherent in their own position. But I’m not comfortable with my own position, either—thinking about abortion taking place on a continuum, and troubled by abortions, particularly later in pregnancy, as the child develops.

The question I can’t answer is where the moral inflection point is, when the fetus starts to have claims of its own, including the right to life. Does it depend on fetal development? If so, what aspect of fetal development? Brain waves? Feeling pain? Dreaming? The development of the spine? Viability outside the womb? Something else? Any line I might draw seems to me entirely arbitrary and capricious.

Because of that, I consider myself pro-life, but with caveats. My inability to identify a clear demarcation point—when a fetus becomes a person—argues for erring on the side of protecting the unborn. But it’s a prudential judgment, hardly a certain one.

At the same time, even if one believes that the moral needle ought to lean in the direction of protecting the unborn from abortion, that doesn’t mean one should be indifferent to the enormous burden on the woman who is carrying the child and seeks an abortion, including women who discover that their unborn child has severe birth defects. Nor does it mean that all of us who are disturbed by abortion believe it is the equivalent of killing a child after birth. In this respect, my view is similar to that of some Jewish authorities , who hold that until delivery, a fetus is considered a part of the mother’s body, although it does possess certain characteristics of a person and has value. But an early-term abortion is not equivalent to killing a young child. (Many of those who hold this position base their views in part on Exodus 21, in which a miscarriage that results from men fighting and pushing a pregnant woman is punished by a fine, but the person responsible for the miscarriage is not tried for murder.)

“There is not the slightest recognition on either side that abortion might be at the limits of our empirical and moral knowledge,” the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in 1985. “The problem starts with an awesome mystery: the transformation of two soulless cells into a living human being. That leads to an insoluble empirical question: How and exactly when does that occur? On that, in turn, hangs the moral issue: What are the claims of the entity undergoing that transformation?”

That strikes me as right; with abortion, we’re dealing with an awesome mystery and insoluble empirical questions. Which means that rather than hurling invective at one another and caricaturing those with whom we disagree, we should try to understand their views, acknowledge our limitations, and even show a touch of grace and empathy. In this nation, riven and pulsating with hate, that’s not the direction the debate is most likely to take. But that doesn’t excuse us from trying.

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Article Contents

I. the hope that abortion bans will deter abortion, ii. the hope that abortion bans will send a message, iii. the hope that abortion bans will be competently implemented and enforced, iv. conclusion, acknowledgements, ethics approval statement.

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What will and won’t happen when abortion is banned

Katharine & George Alexander Professor of Law, Santa Clara University School of Law.

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Michelle Oberman, What will and won’t happen when abortion is banned, Journal of Law and the Biosciences , Volume 9, Issue 1, January-June 2022, lsac011, https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsac011

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For the past 50 years, abortion opponents have fought for the power to ban abortion without little attention to how things might change when they won. The battle to make abortion illegal has been predicated on three nebulous assumptions about how abortion bans work. First, supporters believe banning abortion will deter it. Second, they hope bans will send a message about abortion—specifically, that abortion is immoral. And third, they expect bans to be competently implemented and enforced. Drawing on empirical work from within and outside of the U.S., this Article offers an evidence-based assessment of each of these assumptions. Part One examines the question of deterrence by exploring findings from countries with relatively high and relatively low abortion rates. After explaining why restrictive abortion laws alone do not reduce aggregate abortion rates, I consider the matter of individual deterrence. By identifying those most likely to be deterred by U.S. abortion bans, I illustrate how abortion bans intersect with structural inequalities to disproportionately impact poor women of color and their children. Part Two tests the idea that abortion bans send a message. I consider the bans’ meaning in context with U.S. laws and policies affecting families, exposing the difference between laws discouraging abortion, and those encouraging childbirth. Then, drawing from literature on the expressive function of the law, I assess the limits on the message-sending capacity of abortion bans in a society divided over abortion and over its commitment to children living in poverty. Part Three turns to the expectation that abortion bans will be competently enforced, noting the legitimacy struggles arising from law enforcement patterns, along with the administrative challenges inherent in overseeing the various exceptions to abortion bans. This article concludes by considering why the consequences and limitations of abortion bans should matter to supporters and opponents, alike.

For the past 50 years, abortion opponents have fought for the power to ban abortion without paying much mind to the details of how things might change when they won. The battle to make abortion illegal has been waged over a surprisingly nebulous assumption that banning abortion would, in itself, lead to meaningful changes in the practice of abortion in America. It has been a policy based on hopes and prayers, rather than on actual evidence about how restrictive abortion laws work in practice.

When the law on the ‘books’ changes in the United States, what might the law on the ground look like? Drawing on empirical work from within and outside of the USA, this article offers an evidence-based answer to the question of what will and would not happen where abortion is banned.

In the spirit of full disclosure, like almost everyone who engages with the abortion war, I have a bias: I am an unambivalent supporter of abortion rights. Nonetheless, I strive in this article to maintain a tone that I hope will permit readers who disagree with me to hear my message. I do so because those on all sides of our abortion war should care about it. For 50 years, the USA abortion war has been fought almost exclusively around the issue of legalization. 1 Yet all evidence suggests the changes likely to be wrought by banning abortion should leave even ardent supporters of abortion bans not just disappointed, but profoundly disturbed by their downstream consequences.

The question of how abortion bans work in practice is a live one among abortion-rights advocates, with many, (including myself), working to identify what happens, and to whom, so as to permit advocates and policy makers to mitigate their harsh impact on the vulnerable. 2 By contrast, anti-abortion Americans who have spent decades working to enact such laws have paid relatively little attention to how things actually change when abortion is illegal. Instead, they have rested their support for outlawing abortion on three general assumptions about how abortion bans will work. First, they believe banning abortion will deter it. 3 Second, they hope the bans will send a message about abortion—specifically, that abortion is immoral. 4 And third, they expect the laws will be competently implemented and enforced. 5

This article interrogates each of these expectations. Part One begins its consideration of the question of deterrence by exploring research from countries with relatively high and relatively low abortion rates. This comparison offers powerful evidence that restrictive abortion laws alone do not reduce abortion rates. But while outlawing abortion is unlikely to cause an aggregate decline in abortion rates, bans will cause some to carry to term pregnancies they might otherwise have aborted. 6 This section concludes with an examination of how abortion bans intersect with structural inequalities to disproportionately impact poor women of color and their children–already the most vulnerable and marginalized Americans.

Part Two tests the assumption that outlawing abortion will send a message that abortion is morally wrong, thereby helping to foster a culture that rejects abortion as an option. This section considers the messages sent by US abortion bans by placing them in context with our laws and policies that inform when and whether people seek abortions. Then, drawing from literature on the expressive function of the law, this section explores the practical and symbolic limits on the message-sending capacity of abortion bans in a society divided over abortion and over its commitments to children living in poverty.

Part Three moves to the expectation that abortion bans will be competently enforced. Here, I examine the legitimacy struggles arising from law enforcement patterns, along with the administrative challenges inherent in overseeing the various exceptions to abortion bans.

This article concludes with a consideration of why the consequences and limitations of abortion bans should matter to supporters and opponents, alike.

Abortion opponents anticipate that banning abortion will deter it. That said, they are not overly sanguine about this hope; anti-abortion advocates acknowledge that abortions will continue to take place, even if illegal. 7 But their support for abortion bans rests firmly on the expectation that there will be fewer of them, once abortion is a crime. 8 In this section, I explore the question of deterrence, first considering the population-wide impact of bans on abortion rates, and then describing the Americans most likely to be deterred by abortion bans.

I.A. Deterrence, in the Aggregate

To think about whether abortion can be deterred by outlawing it, we must begin by reflecting on what leads people to have abortions. Abortion demand is driven by a host of factors—health status, relationship status, job status—but the most commonly cited concern is lack of money. 9 Half of all US abortions go to the 13 per cent of Americans living below the poverty line–which in 2022, means living on less than $13,590. 10 Those living in poverty or near poverty make up a full 76 per cent of abortions every year. 11 These are people whose abortion decisions are motivated, at least in part, because they cannot afford the costs of child rearing. 12

Rather than focusing on reducing abortion demand by offsetting the costs of having children, abortion bans aim to deter abortion solely by reducing access to legal abortion. Even a cursory glance at worldwide abortion rates suggests that strategy might not work. Abortion rates vary dramatically by region. In Latin America, (home to countries with the world’s strictest abortion bans), we find some of the highest abortion rates in the world: 32 abortions for every 1000 women. 13 At the other end of the spectrum, Western Europe, (with relatively liberal abortion laws), has the world’s lowest abortion rates: only 12 abortions per 1000 women. 14

The variation in abortion rates is best understood as an artifact of variation in rates of unintended pregnancy. 15 The single biggest predictor of abortion rates is not the legal status of abortion, but rather, the percentage of pregnancies that occur among those who were not looking to have a baby. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, 44 per cent of pregnancies globally were unintended. 53 per cent of those unintended pregnancies ended in abortion. 16 Rates of both unintended pregnancy and abortion vary by a country’s wealth status. In the world’s wealthier nations, over the past quarter century, rates of unintended pregnancies dropped by 30 per cent, triggering a decline in abortion rates from 46 abortions per 1000 women of reproductive age to an average of 27. 17 By contrast, over the same time frame in the developing world, unintended pregnancy rates fell by only 16 per cent, while abortion rates remained static. 18

Like other wealthy countries, U.S. abortion rates have dropped significantly in recent decades. 19 The decline is evident across almost every demographic in the country—younger, older, Northern, Southern. With one exception: abortion rates have remained constant among the poorest Americans. 20 This finding underscores the significance of unintended pregnancy in driving abortion rates: nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended—a higher rate than in many other developed countries. 21 These rates vary dramatically by class: a poor woman in the USA is more than five times as likely as an affluent woman to have an unintended pregnancy. 22

The single most effective way to help people avoid unwanted pregnancies, thereby deterring abortion, is by increasing contraception rates. When the Affordable Care Act mandated insurance coverage for contraception, the unintended pregnancy rate dropped from 44.7 to 37.9 per cent. 23 And yet, the anti-abortion movement has opted to oppose efforts to increase access to contraception. 24 Indeed, abortion opponents vigorously fought the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate, which the Supreme Court ultimately struck down in 2014. 25

If the goal of banning abortions is to deter them, a strategy that fails to focus on reducing unintended pregnancy seems limited, at best. But even if one accepts that abortion opponents are too ambivalent about promoting contraception to center the goal of deterring abortion by reducing unwanted pregnancy, the plan to deter abortion by banning it is flawed for a second reason. Specifically, owing to the ready availability of abortion medicines, abortion bans cannot effectively restrict access to a safe, effective, and affordable means to end a pregnancy.

The widespread availability of abortion medicines has completely transformed the world of illegal abortion. Unlike the pre-Roe era, medication abortion solves the problem of finding a doctor to perform an illegal abortion, while simultaneously reducing the health risks. 26 The most common and widely available abortion medicine is misoprostol. 27 Although less effective than the FDA-approved combination of mifepristone and misoprostol typically used in medical abortions in the USA, misoprostol alone causes an abortion in approximately 90 per cent of cases. 28 Efforts to restrict access to misoprostol are complicated for two reasons. It is both cheap and easy to manufacture, costing only pennies to make, and it also is an important life-saving medicine. 29 Indeed, the World Health Organization lists misoprostol as an ‘essential medicine,’ owing in part to its vital role in reducing deaths from postpartum hemorrhages, miscarriages, and illegal abortions. 30

There is a robust international market in misoprostol across the world today—particularly in countries where abortion is strictly banned. 31 Even in Central America, which boasts the world’s strictest abortion bans, one in three pregnancies ends in abortion, largely induced by medicines purchased online or on the street. 32 Americans familiar with the black market in opioids should have little trouble imagining how a market in abortion medicines will proliferate, where abortion is banned. As is all too evident from the scope of the opiate problem, it is unrealistic to think the government can prosecute away the expanding market in abortion medicines. 33

Outlawing abortion may lead to a short-term decline in US abortion rates, while people adjust to new market conditions. 34 But as we learn from the experiences of countries throughout the world, this decline is unlikely to be sustained. If anything, given the availability of reliable online information and buying options, it should take far less time for people to adapt to accessing illegal abortion than was true for alcohol access after Prohibition. 35

I.B. Deterrence, in the Specific

Even if abortion bans are unlikely to cause an aggregate decline in abortion rates–at least not independently of other trends 36 –we can predict that they will cause some to carry to term pregnancies they might otherwise have aborted. 37 In fact, we have a surprisingly clear picture of those who the bans are most likely to deter: they will be disproportionately young, poor, Black, and brown women. Abortion bans come as one in a long list of factors that circumscribe the reproductive lives and life options of these Americans. 38 They are more likely to experience unintended pregnancy, and where abortion is outlawed, they are more likely to struggle with accessing abortion, whether by traveling to a legal jurisdiction, or by identifying reliable information about how to safely end an unwanted pregnancy with abortion medications. 39

Those who support abortion bans on deterrence grounds have yet to fully grapple with what happens to those for whom abortion, legal or otherwise, is out of reach. The standard response is to promote the solution of placing newborn babies for adoption. Justice Amy Coney Barrett nodded to this viewpoint at oral argument in the Dobbs case, correcting the assertion that abortion bans amount to ‘forced motherhood’ by noting that safe haven laws permit them to surrender their newborns without legal consequences. 40 Adoption proponents point to the ways in which open adoptions have become the norm, hopeful that the prospect of staying involved in their baby’s life will encourage more people to place them for adoption. 41 Banning abortion, as they see it, can be a ‘win-win-win’ situation, in which the baby survives, the mother gets to go on with her life, and a married couple or family gets to raise the child. 42

Yet all available evidence suggests that banning abortion is unlikely to transform adoption from an outlier into a commonplace response to unwanted pregnancy. Even in the years prior to Roe, when the stigma of unwed motherhood led some facing pregnancy to place their babies, only 9 per cent of women chose adoption. 43 Much of that rate was driven by white women, because the two-parent family norm was less entrenched among Black and brown Americans. Today, the stigma is gone: 40 per cent of all children are born out of wedlock. 44 When faced with an unintended pregnancy, fewer than 5 per cent of people seriously consider adoption, and of those, fewer than 2 per cent ultimately place their children with adoptive families. 45

The best indication of what is likely to happen to those unable to access abortion is found in the Turnaway study, a 10-year longitudinal investigation of the impact of being denied an abortion. 46 That study followed hundreds of women who sought abortions, but were turned away because they were beyond the clinic’s gestational limits. 47 Fully 91 per cent of them opted to raise their child. 48

The Turnaway study also tells us about the consequent intensification of poverty for these families:

[C]hildren of women who are denied an abortion had greater odds (72 vs 55%) of living in poverty compared to children of women who received a wanted abortion. Similarly, existing children were more likely (87 vs 70%) to live in a household in which their mother is not able to afford necessary living expenses such as food, housing, and transportation compared to children of women who received a wanted abortion. 49

As we look to understand what happens when an abortion ban ‘works’ by deterring abortion, the only question is how broad a lens to use. More than one in three single-mother families lived in poverty in 2016. 50 Poverty is not color-blind. Instead, far more women of color live in poverty than do their white counterparts: close to 25 per cent of all American Indian or Alaskan native and 20 per cent of all Black and Hispanic women live in poverty, compared to only 9 per cent of their white counterparts. 51

So severe are the downstream consequences for children born into poverty that the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement decrying the short and long-term consequences of the ‘medicalization of poverty’:

Children who experience poverty, particularly during early life or for an extended period, are at risk of a host of adverse health and developmental outcomes through their life course. Poverty has a profound effect on specific circumstances, such as birth weight, infant mortality, language development, chronic illness, environmental exposure, nutrition, and injury. Child poverty also influences genomic function and brain development…. Children living in poverty are at increased risk of difficulties with self-regulation and executive function, such as inattention, impulsivity, defiance, and poor peer relationships. Poverty can make parenting difficult, especially in the context of concerns about inadequate food, energy, transportation, and housing. Child poverty is associated with lifelong hardship. Poor developmental and psychosocial outcomes are accompanied by a significant financial burden, not just for the children and families who experience them but also for the rest of society…. 52

We should read these statistics as a forecast. To the extent abortion bans deter abortion, we will likely see a disproportionate increase in the number of poor families of color experiencing the devastating consequences of living in poverty. Abortion bans work by leveraging existing inequalities. 53

Abortion opponents are of two minds about how to respond to the poor predicted outcomes for those who opt to raise children after being unable to access abortion. Small numbers of advocates–largely drawn from the volunteer ranks of pregnancy support or ‘crisis pregnancy’ centers–advocate helping women who are in desperate straits by offering housing, counseling, job training, and other support. 54 But the dominant voice of the anti-abortion movement–those advocates engaged in political activism and law reform, rather than direct service–focuses not on supporting poor mothers, but instead, on promoting adoption. 55

The suggestion that adoption is the optimal solution to a poorly timed pregnancy is as convenient as it is naïve. It allows abortion opponents to avoid a reckoning with consequences of having made the Republican party their political home. 56 The GOP’s historical and ongoing objection to family-friendly government policies 57 will make it hard, in the years to come, for abortion opponents to gain much traction for laws aimed at blunting the crushing impact of poverty on those whom the bans deter from having abortions.

Those who support abortion bans do not rest their support solely on the expectation that such laws will deter abortion. Instead, abortion opponents often invoke the belief that changing the law will send a message, thereby promoting culture change. 58 This section first considers the nature of that message, and then turns to whether it will be received.

It is helpful, when considering the message sent by outlawing abortion, to note the difference between an anti-abortion message (one that condemns abortion) and a pro-natal message (one that urges people to have babies). This distinction is easiest to observe when contrasting U.S. laws with those of countries that actively encourage childbearing.

Consider the case of Israel, which makes abortion a crime unless the person can prove to an official ‘pregnancy termination committee’ that they qualify for one of the statute’s exceptions. 59 This law would send a message that, outside of exceptional circumstances, abortion is wrong. 60 But it also exists alongside a host of laws and policies that encourage people to have children. 61 In Israel, there is guaranteed paid maternity leave—you can leave your job for 26 weeks, still get paid, and your employer cannot fire you. 62 Parents enjoy access to local neighborhood, government-subsidized day care. 63 In addition to tax deductions, the Israeli government pays everyone—rich and poor alike—a small monthly allowance for each child under eighteen. 64

In addition to the ways in which these policies help offset some of the most immediate costs associated with having a child, they send a message about how the government feels not just about abortion but also about babies. Israel’s laws send a message that the government wants people to have babies.

By contrast, US laws reflect little interest in encouraging people to have babies, particularly ones they cannot afford to raise. There is no paid parental leave, and no job security at all beyond the first 12 weeks of unpaid leave. 65 There is no child allowance. The Covid-related child income tax break, which reduced child poverty by 30 per cent, was permitted to lapse after a single year. 66 The goal of providing universal access to quality day care and preschool remains a pipedream. 67 The federal assistance program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, is so under-funded that no state’s subsidy amounts to more than 60 per cent of the federal poverty line, with the result that even in states with relatively generous monthly allocations, families cannot afford modest rent. 68

Those who believe abortion bans promote a culture of life might do well to recognize that any message sent by an abortion ban is necessarily entwined with the messages sent by government laws and policies that set the price of having a child. The message of an abortion ban on its own says little about embracing life, and instead merely suggests that abortion is wrong. 69

As to whether that message will be received, the answer is complicated. For all that, it is common to suggest the law can send messages, there is surprisingly little evidence for how it might do so. Professor Richard McAdams, one of the leading authorities on the ‘expressive function’ of the law, posits that an expressive law reveals the lawmakers’ beliefs, which in turn causes individuals to update their beliefs and ultimately to change their behaviors, usually in the direction of compliance. 70 He points to the example of indoor smoking bans by way of illustration. In the face of mounting evidence on the harmfulness of secondhand smoke, lawmakers enacted indoor smoking bans that served, in part, to send the message that tobacco was dangerous. In turn, these bans helped shift the culture away from smoking. 71

According to McAdams, smoking bans succeeded because lawmakers had a clear, credible message. But government credibility is not automatic; rather, it is earned. To send a message, government actors must offer some reason why the public should trust their conclusions. McAdams suggests the government earned credibility by persuading the public they were acting on data showing that the hazards of secondary smoke inhalation required nothing less. 72

Unlike smoking bans, abortion bans address themselves to a question of morality—one that cannot be settled by aggregated data or special expertise. A government hoping to persuade the public that abortion is immoral will struggle simply because it lacks the expertise needed to settle the question. 73

The challenge of sending a message by banning abortion is intensified by the impact of the ongoing battle over abortion’s legality. When it comes to the law’s ability to send a message, Professor McAdams notes, background noise can be fatal:

Individuals are constantly being bombarded by information from sources other than the law: the print media, Internet, social acquaintances, etc. For expression to change beliefs, there must be some factor that makes the legal signal strong enough to stand out against this background. 74

To send a message, abortion bans must compete for air time with a world of counter-messages. After all, the fight over abortion does not end with abortion bans. Together with the likelihood that abortion remains commonplace, even where banned, and remains legal in almost half the country, the message-sending capacity of abortion bans is more akin to that of marijuana bans than to indoor smoking bans. 75

At the end of the day, perhaps the most that can be said for the message-sending capacity of abortion bans is that, where popularly embraced by an anti-abortion electorate, the bans might contribute to a broader cultural message that abortion is wrong. As Katrina Kimport forcefully demonstrates in her book, No Real Choice , the ‘abortion as killing’ narrative can combine with structural constraints like legal barriers and cost to render abortion ‘unchoosable.’ 76

The final set of expectations harbored by those who support outlawing abortion involves tacit baseline assumptions about how the law will work, in practice. Specifically, supporters assume that abortion bans will be competently implemented and enforced—that the laws will have integrity. Competent implementation and enforcement are not abstract ideals, but rather, are necessary preconditions for a law to be considered a legitimate exercise of state authority. The failure to competently implement an abortion ban will undercut its legitimacy, thereby undermining both the law’s capacity to deter abortion and also its ability to send a message.

To understand the practical considerations relevant to enforcing abortion bans, begin by noting what is required in order to implement them. The standard form of US abortion bans includes a general prohibition, accompanied by a small number of exceptions. 77 This structure gives rise to two implementation and enforcement questions, both of which will determine whether the laws are ultimately seen as legitimate exercises of government authority. When and how will prosecutors endeavor to enforce the bans, and by what mechanisms will states evaluate cases involving exceptions to the bans?

Let us examine each of these in turn.

III.A. Enforcing Abortion Bans

Supporters of abortion bans have given relatively little thought to the question of how abortion laws will be enforced. In late 2021, movement leader Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List (a nonprofit that supports pro-life politicians) explained how she views the question of enforcement:

[M]y view, and the view of the entire movement—without any exception that I’m aware of—is that the doctor, the one who has been planning to break the law, is the guilty party. The law is enforced against that person, not the woman. 78

But illegal abortion today need not involve a doctor or any third party besides an overseas pharmacy, outside the easy reach of US laws. 79 Given abortion medicines, the reality is that there are no doctors to prosecute.

When abortion becomes a crime, the question of who is the criminal will require an answer. And rather than being answered by movement leaders, the decision will rest in the hands of locally-elected prosecutors. No county can afford to prosecute every crime–far from it–so local District Attorneys set priorities when enforcing the law. 80 Their choices may be informed by many factors: staff resources, strength of evidence, heinousness of crime, perception of public will, or say, pro-choice or anti-abortion sentiment. As Judge Stephanos Bibas notes, there is no check on ‘idiosyncratic prosecutorial discretion.’ 81

A quick review of abortion prosecutions both historically and today helps us understand what idiosyncratic abortion prosecutions might look like. Historian Leslie Regan’s work documents the episodic nature of abortion prosecutions in the years prior to Roe , showing how they tended to be sporadic—an occasional crackdown, motivated by a zealous prosecutor, rather than a comprehensive effort at enforcement. 82

A similar pattern is seen today in places where abortion is outlawed. For example, consider El Salvador, which bans abortion without exception. In the 10 years from 2000–2010, there were 129 prosecutions. 83 This number suggests enforcement is relatively rare—just over 10 prosecutions per year—when, by the government’s own estimates, the country sees tens of thousands of abortions every year. 84 But there is a pattern to the prosecutions. Those charged with abortion crimes are drawn from the most vulnerable, marginalized sectors of society. 85 Almost half were illiterate; only a quarter had attended high school. 86

In the U.S. we already see a version of this pattern: abortion-related prosecutions are brought by zealous prosecutors 87 , and they disproportionately target Black and brown women. 88 The work of National Advocates for Pregnant Women helps us to understand the scope of abortion-related prosecutions in the years since Roe legalized abortion. They have tracked 1600 USA such cases since 1973. 89 These cases involve a range of allegations, linked by the common thread of alleged harm to a pregnancy. 90 The prosecutions overwhelmingly target poor people, and in particular, poor Black pregnant women. Of 413 cases arising from 1973 to 2005, 71 per cent involved low income women, of whom 59 per cent were women of color, with 52 per cent identifying as Black. 91

These patterns in abortion-related prosecutions tell us two important things. First, we can expect abortion bans to be enforced against those who end their own pregnancies. 92 And second, abortion prosecutions are likely to target the most marginalized, vulnerable members of society—those whom prosecutors view, or at least believe others will be willing to view, not as victims but rather, as villains. 93

Supporters of abortion should stop insisting that bans won’t be enforced against women, and should start figuring out what to do about the fact that, when abortion bans are enforced, the defendants will likely be Black and brown. It is, of course, unfair to make one subset of the population pay the price for acts that go unpunished when committed by others. Furthermore, as we learn from racial disparities in drug law enforcement, such patterns undermine the legitimacy of the law, and have downstream corrosive effects both on the people disproportionately targeted by the law and on society as a whole. 94

III.B. The Return of Conditional Abortion Access

Setting aside the question of prosecution, abortion laws also must be fully implemented in the regulatory sense of the word. A law that limits abortion access to patients with qualifying conditions presupposes an adjudicatory mechanism for determining eligibility. And barring a dramatic evisceration of the right to life for those who are pregnant, every state will have to make at least one exception to their abortion bans, for life-threatening pregnancies. 95

How will a patient establish their right to an abortion when they are experiencing a life-threatening pregnancy?

There are a variety of models by which states might screen such claims, ranging from relatively formal proceedings, such as those seen in cases involving termination of government benefits, to loosely structured processes like school disciplinary hearings. 96 Indeed, we already have a model for abortion-related adjudications in the judicial bypass system, by which minors can seek permission to end a pregnancy without parental involvement. 97

Each model is fraught, when it comes to screening for abortion eligibility. Formal judicial hearings pose challenges in terms of accuracy (there is surprisingly little agreement on what constitutes a life-threatening pregnancy) 98 and efficiency (given the urgent, technical nature of the inquiry). 99 A judge could not conceivably rule on such petitions without expert testimony, which raises numerous questions about process and evidence.

Prior to Roe , rather than ask judges to decide these cases, states delegated the determination to doctors, essentially leaving the medical profession to devise its own ways of complying with the law. 100 For reasons ranging from lack of consensus about qualifying conditions, 101 to concern over the legal implications of their decisions (which might trigger prosecution on the one hand, or a wrongful death suit if the pregnant patient dies, on the other), 102 doctors eschewed this responsibility. By the mid-20th century, hospitals around the country used so-called ‘therapeutic abortion committees’ to establish eligibility. 103 These committees were marked by inconsistent outcomes, stemming from a lack of consensus over what constituted a ‘valid’ reason for terminating a pregnancy, whether legally or morally. 104 Rather than standardizing the application of the law, the committee process facilitated ad hoc decision-making. 105

As states set about banning abortion, it is urgent that they erect a scientifically sound, impartial process by which to evaluate cases involving potentially life-saving abortions. Given that the vast majority of Americans support abortion in cases of life-threatening pregnancy, we can expect an enormous outcry from all quarters in the case of an incompetent oversight process, let alone a highly publicized death. 106

Yet the struggle to define what constitutes a life-threatening pregnancy, (or depending upon the law, a qualifying rape or fetal anomaly), is just the start. Which parties’ interests will be represented at these adjudicatory proceedings; however, they are configured? Will the pregnant patient be entitled to a lawyer? 107 Will the fetus? If unhappy with the outcome, can either side appeal? Will there be an expedited appeals process? By what criteria will adjudicators be chosen? Will these be adversarial proceedings, with experts from the state and from the pregnant patient’s medical team, or will the patient’s doctor’s testimony suffice? How will the government determine whose interests it represents: those of the patient in peril, or those of the fetus?

These are serious questions, made all the more so because they implicate vital interests and therefore trigger Constitutional due process rights. 108 Surely, there will be litigation over the answers in the years to come. But what is interesting about these questions is not so much their answers, but instead, the reality that they demand answers now. We are past the time when those who support banning abortion can respond to such questions about how the laws will be implemented with vague references to ‘traditional means of enforcement.’ 109 And the quality of those answers matters because inconsistent, incompetent or otherwise corrupt law enforcement cannot help but undermine the legitimacy of abortion bans.

We have spent half a century reckoning with abortion largely in abstractions, fighting over rights rather than focusing on the people whose lives are affected by those rights. If nothing else, the impact of abortion bans seems likely to put human faces on the abortion war. And if we stay true to the patterns laid out in this essay, those faces will be disproportionately poor, Black and brown women and children.

Abortion bans are not color blind.

It has become common for abortion opponents to invoke allegations of eugenics and racism when talking about abortion rates among Black Americans. 110 That rhetoric–already contested 111 –will become strained as the country witnesses the actual racist impact of abortion bans: their disparate impact on poor Black families, coupled with the disparate rates of prosecution of Black women for acts that go largely unpunished when committed by whites. 112

By bringing into focus the struggles facing the most vulnerable among us, abortion bans have the potential to transform the abortion war by forcing a direct engagement with the structural forces driving abortion, poverty, and racism. We are approaching a moment of truth for advocates on all sides of the abortion war.

For advocates of abortion rights, there will be a reckoning with the question of whether being pro-choice simply means supporting the right to abortion, rather than a commitment to working to offset the forces that constrain all reproductive options–including having a child. As Sister Song, a leading voice of the reproductive justice movement puts it, the commitment is to support, ‘the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.’ 113 As the impact of abortion bans brings structural inequality into sharp focus, will pro-choice movement leaders stay focused on legalizing abortion, or will the movement commit to this more robust understanding of reproductive autonomy?

For abortion opponents, the question is whether the term ‘pro-life’ has come to mean anything beyond one’s support for abortion bans. The years ahead likely will pose an existential challenge for people who have supported abortion bans, but who cannot help but be disturbed by the ways in which they fall short of expectations. Perhaps this result will embolden those who care deeply about deterring abortion, and find them laboring to craft policies that might actually help those contemplating abortion to continue their pregnancies. 114

Certainly, anti-abortion movement leaders are aware of the need to do something proactive in response to the impact of abortion bans on the poor. As Marjorie Dannenfelser, of the Susan B. Anthony Fund, put it: ‘Speaking for the pro-life movement, which is obviously attempting to lead Republicans, we absolutely, without question, have a responsibility to serve the needs of women and children as we pass ambitious laws. There’s no question about it.’ At the same time, Dannenfelser is aware that such policies are unlikely to fly, at least not in states dominated by a Republican party that has long opposed family-friendly government programs. 115

There’s a quote I keep on my desk these days: “How will we go when we’re faced with this? I don’t think it’s predetermined, and a great human moral drama is being played out in front of us.” 116 It is from a historian of pandemics, written in the early days of Covid-19. I keep it there because it speaks to me as we navigate the era of abortion bans. There is comfort in the invitation to step back and notice that we are in a time of high moral drama, in which things are in flux. But there is also, within it, a call to action. “How will we go when we’re faced with this?”

For helpful suggestions and conversation, I’m grateful to Diana Greene Foster, Julia Hejduk, Carole Joffe, Katrina Kimport, Larry Marshall, and my anonymous reviewers. I was particularly lucky to work with Jenai Howard (SCU Law, 2022), who provided outstanding research assistance. All errors are my own.

Human Subjects Research for this article was approved by Santa Clara University’s IRB, Protocol 17-03-950.

Research was funded in part by a Hackworth Grant (Santa Clara University, Markkula Ethics Center).

See Mary Ziegler, After Roe: The Lost History Of The Abortion Debate (2015), for a rich history of the anti-abortion movement in the early years after Roe v. Wade, illustrating among other things the way the anti-abortion movement shifted its focus from efforts to support pregnant women to the narrow issue of criminalization.

See generally Michelle Oberman, How Abortion Laws Do and Don’t Work , 36 Wis. J. L. Gender & Soc’y 163 (2022); see also Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On The Front Lines Of The Abortion War, From El Salvador To Oklahoma (2018); Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, And The Consequences Of Having Or Being Denied An Abortion (2020) [hereinafter, greene foster, the turnaway study]; Ushma Upadhyay, Alice F. Cartwright, and Daniel Grossman, Barriers to Abortion Care and Incidence of Attempted Self-Managed Abortion Among Individuals Searching Google for Abortion Care: A National Prospective Study , 106 Contraception 49 (2021); Lizzie Widdecombe, What Does an At-Home Abortion Look Like in 2021 , The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 2021), https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-does-an-at-home-abortion-look-like-in-2021 (profiling self-managed abortion researcher, Abigail Aiken).

For example, see Ross Douthat, The Case Against Abortion , N.Y. Times (Nov. 30, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/opinion/abortion-dobbs-supreme-court.html (celebrating the impact of Texas’ S.B. 8, credited with causing a 93 per cent drop in the number of abortions taking place in the state).

See eg Richard Garnett, One Untrue Thing , Nat’l Rev. (Aug. 1, 2007), ( https://www.nationalreview.com/2007/08/one-untrue-thing-nro-symposium/ (‘The point of criminalization, after all, is not merely to put people in prison, or deter people from engaging in harmful behavior. It is, instead, to make a statement—a public statement, in the community’s voice—that certain actions, or certain harms caused, are morally blameworthy.’). See also Oberman, supra note 2, at 85–86 (quoting an anonymous Oklahoma state senator):

The purpose of the law is to stop abortion. To send a moral message. To get the message out via the law, to spark a debate in the population. The government’s responsibility is to give people education. It is up to the government to tell them that abortion is wrong. It’s not an acceptable solution.

This assumption is largely a tacit one, inherent in assertions about how abortion bans will be received by the public, and how they are likely to inspire others states to follow suit. See eg Issac Chotiner, The Pro-Life Movement Plans for a Future Without Roe , The New Yorker (Dec. 7, 2021), https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-pro-life-movement-plans-for-a-future-without-roe (interviewing Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, on her expectations for passing abortion bans in 30 states).

See Diane Greene Foster, Stop Saying That Making Abortion Illegal Won’t Stop People From Having Them , Rewire News Group (Oct. 4, 2018) [hereinafter Green Foster, Stop Saying ], https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2018/10/04/stop-saying-that-making-abortion-illegal-doesnt-stop-them/ ; see generally Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study, supra note 2.

See eg Stephanie Ranade Krider, Pro-life Advocates Focused on Legal Battles. They’re Not Enough to End Abortion , Wash. Post (Oct. 15, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/pro-life-after-roe/2021/10/15/7e2a059e-2cf8-11ec-985d-3150f7e106b2_story.html (Krider, an abortion opponent, acknowledges that while ‘the end of Roe would be a victory and a cause for celebration for those…who oppose abortion, [it] would not end the practice nationwide.’).

See Douthat, supra note 3.

See Biggs, M. Antonia, Heather Gould & Diana Greene Foster, Understanding why Women Seek Abortions in the US , 13 BMC Women’s Health 1–13 (2013); see also Sophia Chae et al., Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: A Synthesis of Findings From 14 Countries , 96 Contraception 233–41 (2017). (Analyzing data from 14 countries to identify the primary reasons given for seeking abortion, and finding that, although people often listed several reasons, the dominant reason involved socioeconomic concerns).

See Annual Update of the HHS Poverty Guideline, 87 Fed. Reg. 3315, 3316 (Jan. 21, 2021).

See Rachel K. Jones & Jenna Jerman, Population Group Abortion Rates and Lifetime Incidence of Abortion: United States, 2008–2014, 107 Am. J. Publ. Health 1904–909 (2017), https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304042 ; see also Abortion Rates by Income Level , Infographic , Guttmacher Inst. (Oct. 19, 2017), https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2017/abortion-rates-income .

More accurately, because almost 60% of those having an abortion already have at least one child, they cannot afford the costs of another child. Jerman J, Jones RK & Onda T, Characteristics of U.S. Abortion Patients in 2014 and Changes Since 2008 , Guttmacher Inst. (2016), https://www.guttmacher.org/report/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014 .

Bearak J et al., Unintended pregnancy and abortion by income, region, and the legal status of abortion: estimates from a comprehensive model for 1990–2019 , 8 lancet global health 9 (2020).

An unintended pregnancy is one that occurred when a woman wanted to become pregnant in the future but not at the time she became pregnant (‘wanted later’) or one that occurred when she did not want to become pregnant then or at any time in the future (‘unwanted’). See Unintended Pregnancy in the United States , Guttmacher Inst. (Jan. 2017), https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states . In recent years, this frame has been problematized by calling into view the reality that, for many people, pregnancies are not so much planned as they are responded to. That is to say, the relevant question is not whether it was intended, but whether it is wanted or unwanted. See Abigail R.A. Aiken, et al., Rethinking the Pregnancy Planning Paradigm: Unintended Conceptions or Unrepresentative Concepts? , 48 Perspect Sex Reprod Health 147–151 (2016).

See generally Unintended Pregnancy Rates Declined Globally from 1990 to 2014 , Guttmacher Inst. (Mar. 5, 2018), https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2018/unintended-pregnancy-rates-declined-globally-1990-2014 .

Between the 1990s and 2020, abortion rates declined by almost 40%. See Sabrina Tavernise, Why Women Getting Abortions Now Are More Likely to Be Poor , N.Y Times (July 9, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/abortion-access-inequality.html . In the years since 2010 alone, rates have declined by almost 20%. Elizabeth Nash & Joerg Dreweke, The U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Drop: Once Again, State Abortion Restrictions Are Not the Main Driver , Guttmacher Inst. (Sept. 18, 2019), https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2019/09/us-abortion-rate-continues-drop-once-again-state-abortion-restrictions-are-not-main . Scholars are divided in their explanations for the decline, which vary from increasingly effective contraceptive practices to declines in rates of sexual activity. See Pam Belluck, America’s Abortion Rate Has Dropped to its Lowest Ever , N.Y. Times (Sept. 20, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/health/abortion-rate-dropped.html ; see also Diana Greene Foster, Dramatic Decreases in US Abortion Rates: Public Health Achievement or Failure? , 107 Am J. Public Health 1860 (2017); Alia E. Dastagir, Fewer Women are having abortions. Why? , USA Today (June 13, 2019), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/13/abortion-law-fewer-women-having-abortions-why/1424236001/ ; Doug Stanglin, US Abortion Rate is at its Lowest, but Restrictive Laws aren’t the Likely Cause, Study Says , USA Today (Sept. 18, 2019), https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/18/number-of-abortions-us-drops-guttmacher-institute-study/2362316001/ .

See U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Decline, Hits Historic Low, Guttmacher Inst. (Jan. 17, 2017), https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/us-abortion-rate-continues-decline-hits-historic-low .

See Guttmacher Inst., supra note 15. Although poor Americans have higher rates of unintended pregnancy for a range of reasons, central among them is that they struggle to access contraception. See Michele Troutman, Saima Rafique & Torie Comeaux Plowden, Are Higher Unintended Pregnancy Rates Among Minorities a Result of Disparate Access to Contraception? , Contracept Reprod Med 5, no. 16 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40834-020-00118-5 (describing the factors underlying the disparate rates of unintended pregnancy by race and class). One finds evidence of this struggle in the data on contraceptive use among sexually active women not seeking pregnancy. While 90% of those covered by private health insurance and 87% of those covered by Medicaid use contraception, that figure drops to 81% for those who have no insurance coverage. Megan L. Kavanaugh & Emma Pliskin, Use of Contraception Among Reproductive-aged Women in the United States , 2014 and 2016 , Guttmacher Inst. (July, 2020). On the cost of contraception, see Eliana Kosova, How Much Do Different Kinds of Birth Control Cost Without Insurance? , Nat’l Women’s Health Network (Nov. 17, 2017), https://nwhn.org/much-different-kinds-birth-control-cost-without-insurance/ (noting that the most effective methods, long-acting implants and devices, cost upwards of $800, and that oral contraceptives can cost up to $600 per year).

Cost is not the only barrier to contraception, ranging from cost to personal preferences. For example, Black women tend to report higher rates of dissatisfaction with existing contraceptive options, putting them at further disadvantage in terms of risk of unwanted pregnancy. Andrea V. Jackson, Deborah Karasek, Christine Dehlendorf, and Diana Greene Foster, Racial and Ethnic Differences in Women’s Preferences for Features of Contraceptive Methods , 93 Contraception 406–411 (2016).

See Colleen L. MacCallum-Bridges & Claire Margerison, The Affordable Care Act Contraception Mandate & Unintended Pregnancy in Women of Reproductive Age: An Analysis of the National Survey of Family Growth, 2008–2010 v. 2013–2015 , 101 Contraception 34–39 (2020) (Overall, the odds of experiencing unintended pregnancy decreased 15% from the pre-mandate to post-mandate period); See also Susan Christiansen, The Impact of the Affordable Care Act Contraceptive Mandate on Fertility and Abortion Rates (Dec. 2020) (Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University), https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/63939 (last visited Jan. 28, 2022).

See Molly Jong-Fast, The Anti-Birth Control Movement Is the New Anti-Abortion Movement , Vogue (July 1, 2021), https://www.vogue.com/article/anti-birth-control-movement .

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) (striking down the ACA’s contraception mandate because it ‘created a substantial burden’ on Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom and it was not the ‘least restrictive means of satisfying the government’s interests.’) . See eg Tom Cohen, Hobby Lobby Ruling Much More Than Abortion , Cnn Politics (July 2, 2014), https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/02/politics/scotus-hobby-lobby-impacts/index.html (describing anti-abortion advocates opposition to contraception mandates).

See Carole Joffe, Failing to Embed Abortion Care in Mainstream Medicine Made it Politically Vulnerable , Wash. Post (Jan. 11, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/11/failing-embed-abortion-care-mainstream-medicine-made-it-politically-vulnerable/ (describing the range in quality of abortion providers when abortion was illegal).

See Elizabeth G. Raymond et al., Efficacy of Misoprostol Alone for First-Trimester Medical Abortion: A Systematic Review , 133 Obstet Gynecol 133–147 (2019).

Id. (This consolidated report of existing research finds that misoprostol alone successfully terminates a pregnancy in 93% of cases).

See How to Buy Abortion Pills That Are Safe and Effective , https://www.ipas.org/our-work/abortion-self-care/abortion-with-pills/how-to-buy-abortion-pills-that-are-safe-and-effective/ (Noting that manufacturers sell the pills to pharmacies for very little cost—less than $0.05 per pill—and that the highest sales price found in a recent study was $2 per pill).

See eg Celina Schocken, Business Case: Investing in Production of High Quality Misoprostol for Low-Resource Settings , Concept. Found. (Dec. 2014), https://www.conceptfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/BusinessCase_Misoprostol_web.pdf (describing misoprostol’s vital role in treating postpartum hemorrhage); see also Essential Medicines List includes Misoprostol tablets for use during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care , World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/essential-medicines-list-includes-misoprostol-tablets-for-use-during-pregnancy-childbirth-and-postpartum-care .

Beverly Winikoff & Wendy Sheldon, Use of Medicines Changing the Face of Abortion , Guttmacher Inst. (Sept. 2012), https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/ipsrh/2012/09/use-medicines-changing-face-abortion . For a description of the misoprostol market in countries where abortion is illegal, see Michelle Oberman, What Happens When Abortion is Banned? , N.Y. Times (May 31, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/opinion/sunday/abortion-banned-latin-america.html .

See Gilda Sedgh et al., Induced Abortion: Incidence and Trends Worldwide from 1995 to 2008 , 379 The Lancet 625, 625 (2012) (comparing the one out of three pregnancies in Central America end in abortion with one out of five in the United States); see also Susheela Singh et al., Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress , Guttmacher Inst. (Oct. 2009), http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Abortion-Worldwide.pdf .

There is evidence of an expanding market in misoprostol in the U.S. See Caroline Kitchener, Self-Managed Abortion Could be the Future—But it’s Very Hard to Talk About , The Lily (Dec. 20, 2021), https://www.thelily.com/self-managed-abortion-could-be-the-future-but-its-very-hard-to-talk-about/ . See also, Erica Hellerstein, The Rise of the DIY Abortion in Texas , The Atlantic (June 27, 2014), https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-rise-of-the-diy-abortion-in-texas/373240/ .

Kari White et al., Initial Impacts of Texas’ Senate Bill 8 on Abortions in Texas and at Out-of State Facilities , Texas Policy Evaluation Project (Oct. 2021), http://sites.utexas.edu/txpep/files/2021/11/TxPEP-brief-SB8-inital-impact.pdf .

In the immediate aftermath of Prohibition–evidenced by mortality rates, mental health, and crime statistics–alcohol consumption fell to approximately 30% of its pre-Prohibition level. But this drop in alcohol consumption was short-lived. Within a few years after Prohibition, alcohol consumption had increased to 60–70% of its pre-Prohibition level. See Annika Nekalson, Prohibition was a Failed Experiment in Moral Governance, The Atlantic (Jan. 16, 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/prohibition-was-failed-experiment-moral-governance/604972/ .

See Nash & Dreweke, supra note 19, regarding the various reasons behind declining abortion rates.

See Greene Foster, Stop Saying , supra note 6; see also Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study, supra note 2.

Hence the insistence of the reproductive justice movement that advocates center the goals of racial justice. RJ Squared. For a detailed description of the ways in which structural inequities circumscribe the reproductive choices of poor women and women of color, see Jamila K. Taylor, Structural Racism and Maternal Health Among Black Women , 48 Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics 506–517 (2020).

See generally, Katrina Kimport, No Real Choice: How Culture And Politics Matter For Reproductive Autonomy (2021) (positing that for the most marginalized Americans faced with an unwanted pregnancy, the question is not whether to have an abortion or have a baby, but rather, whether they can actually get an abortion or not).

At oral argument, Justice Barrett said, “Both Roe and Casey emphasized the burdens of parenting, and insofar as you and many of your amici focus on the ways in which the forced parenting, forced motherhood would hinder women’s access to the workplace and to equal opportunities, it’s also focused on the consequences of parenting and the obligations of motherhood that flow from pregnancy. Why don’t the safe haven laws take care of that problem?” Transcript of Oral Argument at 56, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, No. 19–1392. For a compelling analysis and indictment of safe haven laws, see Laury Oaks, Giving Up Baby: Safe Haven Laws, Motherhood, And Reproductive Justice (2015); see also Lizzie Widdicombe, The Baby-Box Lady of America , The New Yorker (Dec. 18, 2021) https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-baby-box-lady-of-america .

See Mardie Caldwell, Open Adoption is a Win-Win Situation (Apr. 7, 2018), https://mardiecaldwell.com/open-adoption-is-a-win-win-situation/ ; see also Julia D. Hejduk, Gift Motherhood, the Prius, and the Peace Corps: Reducing Abortion by Incentivizing Adoption , The Public Discourse (Sept. 27, 2017), https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/09/20054/ .

Id . On the merits, what limited scholarly evidence there is on adoption runs counter to this rosy characterization of adoption’s outcomes, at least for birth mothers. See eg Are Birth Mothers Satisfied with Decisions to Place Children for Adoption? , Science Daily (June 8, 2018), https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180608131605.htm (a longitudinal study of birth mothers that found women reported a mean satisfaction of 3.11 on a scale of 1–5). See also Gretchen Sisson, ‘Choosing Life’: Birth Mothers on Abortion and Reproductive Choice , 25 Women’s Health Issues 349–54 (2015) (a study involving in-depth interviews with 40 women who had placed infants for adoption from 1962 to 2009. The majority of the participants–many of whom placed their babies in closed adoptions, which are less typical today–described their adoption experiences as ‘predominantly negative,’ a response that Sisson attributes in part to the reality that adoption is not a preferred course of action, but rather, something chosen by those who feel they have no other options).

Olga Khazan, Why So Many Women Choose Abortion Over Adoption , The Atlantic (May 20, 2019). ( https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/why-more-women-dont-choose-adoption/589759 ; S ee also Olga Khazan, The New Question Haunting Adoption , The Atlantic (Oct. 22, 2020), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/10/adopt-baby-cost-process-hard/620258/ (‘Since the mid-1970s—the end of the so-called baby-scoop era, when large numbers of unmarried women placed their children for adoption—the percentage of never-married women who relinquish their infants has declined from nearly 9% to less than 1%.’).

See Elizabeth Wildsmith, Jennifer Manlove et al., Dramatic Increase in the Proportion of Births Outside of Marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016 , Child Trends (Aug. 8, 2018), https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels#:∼:text=Recent%20estimates%20show%20that%20about , worldwide%20(Chamie%2C%202017). The most rapid growth is among white women: as of 2016, 28% of all births to white women were non-marital. See also Khazan , supra note 43 (Starting in the 1970s, single white women became much less likely to relinquish their babies at birth: nearly a fifth of them did so before 1973; by 1988, just 3% did).

Khazan, Id .

The Turnaway Study is a longitudinal study examining the effects of unintended pregnancy on women’s lives. For the study and its findings, see Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study, supra note 2.

See id . See also Diana Greene Foster, What Happens When It’s Too Late to Get an Abortion , N.Y. Times (Nov. 22, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/abortion-supreme-court-women-law.html .

See Gretchen Sisson, Lauren Ralph, Heather Gould & Diana Greene Foster, Adoption Decision Making among Women Seeking Abortion, 27 Women’s Health Issues 136 (2017).

See Women’s Access to Abortion Improves Children’s Lives , Ansirh (Jan. 2019), https://www.ansirh.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/womens_access_to_abortion_improves_childrens_lives.pdf .

See generally Kayla Patrick, National Snapshot: Poverty Among Women & Families , National Women’s Law Center, https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Poverty-Snapshot-Factsheet-2017.pdf . (The poverty rate for female-headed families with children was 36.5%, compared to 22.1% for male-headed families with children and 7.5% of families headed by married couples with children).

Robin Bleiweis, Diana Boesch & Alexandra C. Gaines, The Basic Facts About Women in Poverty , American Progress (Aug. 3, 2020), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/basic-facts-women-poverty/ .

See American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Community Pediatrics, Poverty and Child Health in the United States , Pediatrics 137 no. 4 (2016): e20160339.

See kimport, supra note 39, at 37, and generally.

See Leah Outten, Birth Mothers and the Adoption Option , Focus On The Family (Nov. 9, 2021), https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/the-adoption-option-birth-mothers-need-your-support/ ; Stephanie McCrummen, A Maternity Ranch is Born: How Evangelical Women in Texas are Mobilizing for a Future Without Abortion , Wash. Post (Nov. 16, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/16/evangelical-women-texas-abortion/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F354c967%2F6193e9909d2fdab56b8e7f16%2F5a1f90909bbc0f4d5203bb72%2F8%2F73%2F6193e9909d2fdab56b8e7f16 . see also Michelle Oberman, The Women the Abortion War Leaves Out , N.Y. Times (Jan. 11, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opinion/sunday/abortion-crisis-pregnancy-centers.html (describing Oklahoma City’s Rose Home, a pro-life organization that houses up to five pregnant women and their children at any given time).

See Outten, supra note 54. See also Eleanor Bartow, 12 Pro-Life Truths to Counter Every Abortion Myth , The Federalist (Oct. 11, 2021) https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/11/12-pro-life-truths-to-counter-every-abortion-myth/ (where Bartow asserts adoption is ‘a better option than killing an unborn child’ because there are many ‘loving, screened, financially stable parents [who] are waiting to adopt babies.’).

See Sue Halpern, How Republicans Became Anti-Choice , The N.Y. Rev. (Nov. 8, 2018), https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/08/how-republicans-became-anti-choice/ (reviewing Reversing Roe , a documentary film directed and produced by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg).

See Robert Reich, Republicans, So Called party of Family Values, Do Not Support Needy Families , The Guardian (Jul. 18, 2021), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/18/child-allowance-payments-american-rescue-plan-republicans

See eg Richard Garnett, supra note 4. See also Hadley Arkes, in One Untrue Thing , Nat’l Rev. (Aug. 1, 2007), https://www.nationalreview.com/2007/08/one-untrue-thing-nro-symposium/ , (‘[T]he law does not need to invoke the harshest penalties for the sake of teaching moral lessons.’).

§315, Penal Law, 5737–1977, LSI Special Volume (1977), as amended (Isr.),

https://knesset.gov.il/review/data/eng/law/kns8_penallaw_eng.pdf [ https://perma.cc/N9QZ-8JEV ].

Or at least it would do so if the law were interpreted in a way that strictly limited abortion access. Instead, as I explain elsewhere, the committees close to 100% of the requests they receive, making legal abortion readily available in the country. See Oberman, supra note 2, at 172.

And they do. Recall that Israel has the highest fertility rates of any country in the OECD. Families have an average of 3.1 children. See Family Database: Fertility Rates , Org. Econ. Coop. Dev., https://www.oecd.org/els/family/SF_2_1_Fertility_rates.pdf [ https://perma.cc/5J2Y-YGWG ] (last updated June 2021).

See Maternity Leave , Kol Zchut, https://www.kolzchut.org.il/en/Maternity_Leave [ https://perma.cc/Q29Q-T6Q6 ] (last visited June 19, 2021).

See Childcare in Israel , Expat.Com (Sept. 18, 2017) https://www.expat.com/en/guide/middle-east/israel/15420-childcare-in-israel.html [ https://perma.cc/2Z7S-SJCK ] (describing the relative level of state support that young Israeli families receive, compared to the U.S.). See also, Register to State Recognized Daycare and Afternoon Care, and Request State Participation in Tuition Fees , Gov. IL, https://www.gov.il/en/service/registration_for_day_care_centers_and_nurseries1 (last updated Feb. 7, 2020) (Israeli government website describing eligibility for state supported day care). Rates of enrollment in both day care and preschool are among the highest in the developed world. Indeed, preschool enrollment rates are double that of the OECD average. https://issuu.com/bernardvanleerfoundation/docs/publication_taub_center_early_childhood_education_ (at 27).

See, eg Children , Nat’l Ins. Inst. Of Isr., https://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Benefits/Children/Pages/default.aspx [ https://perma.cc/8KE2-3K8L ] (last visited on Dec. 19, 2021). Although these policies may not significantly offset the costs of having a child, surely, they are a benefit to Israel’s poorest families.

The only government support for those who have babies lies in family medical leave, which promises twelve weeks of unpaid leave time after the birth of a child. See Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. § 2612.

Ben Casselman, Child Tax Credit’s Extra Help Ends, Just as Covid Surges Anew , N.Y. Times (last updated Jan. 3, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/02/business/economy/child-tax-credit.html .

Ali Safawi & Cindy Reyes, States Must Continue Recent Momentum to Further Improve TANF Benefit Levels , Cntr on Budget & Pol’y Priorities (updated Dec. 2, 2021), https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/states-must-continue-recent-momentum-to-further-improve-tanf-benefit .

For signs that anti-abortion advocates are beginning to grapple with the need to take systemic realities into account, see Tish Harrison Warren, The Systemic Realities Created by Legal Abortion , N.Y. Times (Jan. 22, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/opinion/roe-legal-abortion.html .

See Richard H. McAdams , A Focal Point Theory of Expressive Law, 86 V.A. L. Rev.1649, 1713–28 (2000) (applying expressive law theory to smoking bans and landlord liability law). See generally Richard H. McAdams, The Expressive Powers Of Law: Theories And Limits (2015).

He offers little evidence, by way of proof. However, numerous studies both domestically and worldwide document an association between smoking bans and an overall decline in smoking rates, including a reduction in smoking by smokers. See eg Thomas W. Carton, Michael Dardon, et al., Comprehensive Indoor Smoking Bans and Smoking Prevalence: Evidence from the BRFSS , 2 J Health Econ. 535–56 (2016); see also Silke Anger, Michael Kvasnicka, Thomas Seidler, One Last Puff? Public Smoking Bans and Smoking Behavior , 30 J Health Econ. 591–601 (2011).

See McAdams, supra note 70, at 197.

These lawmakers also must contend with considerable public opposition to their position. As of 2020, 79% of Americans say that the decision to have an abortion is best left to women, not lawmakers, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study from 2020. See Ariana Eunjung Cha & Emily Guskin, Most Americans Want Abortion to Remain Legal, but Back S ome State Restrictions , Wash. Post (Jan. 22, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/01/22/most-americans-want-abortion-remain-legal-back-some-state-restrictions/ .

See McAdams, supra note 70, at 180.

Recreational cannabis is legal in 18 states, while 11 states criminalize it. (See https://disa.com/map-of-marijuana-legality-by-state for a breakdown of the various jurisdictions’ laws). Experts estimate that at least 15 states will keep abortion legal, and perhaps even expand abortion rights, regardless of the absence of a Constitutional right. https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-policy-absence-roe .

Kimport, supra note 37, at 28 and 62–69.

See eg Anna North, All the Near-Total Abortion Bans Passed This Year Have Now Been Blocked in Court, Vox (updated Oct. 29, 2019), https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20895034/alabama-abortion-ban-blocked-georgia-law ; see also Sean Murphy, Oklahoma Supreme Court Blocks 3 New Anti-Abortion Laws, ABC News (Oct. 25, 2021), https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/oklahoma-supreme-court-blocks-anti-abortion-laws-80779946 .

See Chotiner, supra note 5. See also O. Carter Snead, in One Untrue Thing , Nat’l Rev. (Aug. 1, 2007), https://www.nationalreview.com/2007/08/one-untrue-thing-nro-symposium/ (Offering a pragmatic justification for not punishing self-abortion: ‘[T]he public is more willing to accept a law that punishes doctors rather than mothers. Pro-lifers can thus achieve their goal of ending abortion without provoking a political backlash.’).

Although there are legal strategies a government might employ in response to overseas entities that sell abortion medicines to U.S. consumers (eg border patrol agents or diplomatic pressure), we learn from both the heroin and the fentanyl epidemics that the government’s options in the face of high demand are limited. See Claire Felter, Backgrounder: The U.S. Opioid Epidemic , The Council on Foreign Relations, (Sept. 8, 2021), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-opioid-epidemic .

Stephanos Bibas, Prosecutorial Regulation Versus Prosecutorial Accountability , 157 U. Pa. L. Rev. 959 (2009).

Stephanos Bibas, The Need for Prosecutorial Discretion , 19 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. Rev. 369, 371 (2010).

See Leslie Reagan, When Abortion Was A Crime: Women, Medicine, And Law In The United States, 1867–1973 (1997), at 114, 164.

See From Hospital to Jail: The Impact on Women of El Salvador’s Total Criminalization of Abortion , 22 Repr. Health Matters 52–60 (2014); see also Oberman, supra note 2 , at 8–10 and 49–55 (describing similar patterns in Chile and El Salvador).

See Oberman , supra note 2, at 44.

See Repr. Health Matters, supra note 83.

See eg Chelsea Becker’s prosecution for murder, following stillbirth allegedly caused by methamphetamine use. Judge Dismisses Murder Charge Against Califronia Mother After Stillbirth , N.Y. Times (May 21, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/chelsea-becker-stillbirth-murder-charges-california.html .

They may also conscript doctors into law enforcement. See Michelle Oberman, Abortion Bans, Doctors, and the Criminalization of Patients ,48 Hastings Ctr. Rep.5 (2018); see also Oberman, Her Body Our Laws, supra note 2, at 43–67 for a discussion of how reports from doctors to police in El Salvador overwhelmingly involve poor, marginalized women.

Priscilla Thompson & Alexandra Turcios Cruz, How an Oklahoma Women’s Miscarriage Put a Spotlight on Racial Disparities in Prosecutions , Nbc News (Nov. 5, 2021), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-prosecuted-miscarriage-highlights-racial-disparity-similar-cases-rcna4583 . For a detailed discussion of these cases, see Lynn M. Paltrow & Jeanne Flavin, Arrests of and Forced Interventions on Pregnant Women in the United States, 1973–2005: Implications for Women’s Legal Status and Public Health , 38 J. Health Pol., Pol’y And L. 299, 304–05 (2013) (discussing these findings and the limitations of the research which led the authors to conclude that their findings represent a substantial undercount of cases). See also Michele Goodwin, Policing The Womb: Invisible Women And The Criminalization Of Motherhood (2020).

See Arrests and Prosecutions of Pregnant Women, 1973–2020 , Napw (Sept.18, 2021), https://www.nationaladvocatesforpregnantwomen.org/arrests-and-prosecutions-of-pregnant-women-1973-2020/ (summarizing the range of cases). See also Lynn M. Paltrow, Constitutional Rights for the ‘Unborn’ Would Force Women to Forfeit Theirs , Ms. Magazine (Apr. 15, 2021), https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/15/abortion-constitutional-rights-unborn-fetus-14th-amendment-womens-rights-pregnant/ (The rate of arrests and prosecutions is increasing. ‘From 2006–2020, we have documented over 1000 such arrests—more than double in half as many years. Black, Brown and low-income, rural white women are the typical targets of these arrests.’).

Thompson & Turcios Cruz, supra note 85 (noting that the Black defendants were also significantly more likely to be charged with felonies than white women, with 85% of Black women receiving felony charges compared to 71% of white women); see also Lynn M. Paltrow, Roe v. Wade and the New Jane Crow: Reproductive Rights in the Age of Mass Incarceration , 103 Am. J. Pub. Health 17, 19 (2013). Note that healthcare experts object strenuously to these prosecutions on the grounds that they deter people from seeking treatment essential both to their own welfare and to that of the fetus. See eg Katherine C. Arnold, Viewpoint: Criminalizing Young Women is not the Way to Improve Birth Outcomes , The Oklahoman (Dec. 26, 2021, 5:00 AM), https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/2021/12/26/viewpoint-prosecuting-oklahoma-women-who-miscarry-wrong/8930865002/ .

While beyond the scope of this Article, it bears noting the range of options that state lawmakers have given prosecutors, when it comes to abortion crimes, outlawing things like purchasing abortion medicine, or aiding and assisting an abortion. See eg Emily Bazelon, A Mother in Jail for Helping her Daughter Have an Abortion , N.Y. Times (Sept. 22, 2014), https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/magazine/a-mother-in-jail-for-helping-her-daughter-have-an-abortion.html . See also Sabrina Tavernese, Citizens, not the State, Will Enforce New Abortion Law in Texas , N.Y. Times (Nov. 1, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulations-texas.html (Describing the ways that Texas S.B. Eight criminalizes all those who aid and assist abortion, and quoting Prof. Melissa Murray, ‘If the barista at Starbucks overhears you talking about your abortion, and it was performed after six weeks, that barista is authorized to sue the clinic where you obtained the abortion and to sue any other person who helped you, like the Uber driver who took you there.’).

See Paltrow , supra note 91. See generally Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Invisible Women: Mass Incarceration’s Forgotten Casualties , 94 Tex. L. Rev. (2015).

See Race & Justice News: Eliminating Crack/Cocaine Sentencing Disparity The Sentencing Project (July 27, 2021), https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/race-justice-news-senate-hearing-crack-cocaine-sentencing-disparity/ (summarizing the ongoing work toward sentencing equality in drug crimes, starting with the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act). On the negative downstream consequences of race bias in drug law enforcement, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson noted that racial disparities, “undermined community confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. I talked with drug task force officers and front-line agents at the DEA who said this sense of injustice had a real impact in the fight against illegal drugs; it made it more difficult for agents to build trust and work with informants in the areas most impacted by the crack epidemic. The disparity in sentencing led to more harm than help in our federal anti-crime efforts.” ( Gov. Asa Hutchinson: It’s Time to Fix an Old Wrong and End the Disparity Between Crack and Cocaine Offenses , Fox News (June 8, 2021)), https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/end-crack-cocaine-offenses-gov-asa-hutchinson .

See Caroline Kitchener, The Texas Abortion ban has a Medical Exception. But some Doctors Worry it’s too Narrow to use, The Lily, Oct. 22, 2021 (describing existing legal protections and the limitations of Texas S.B. 8’s ‘medical emergency’ exception to its abortion ban), https://www.thelily.com/the-texas-abortion-ban-has-a-medical-exception-but-some-doctors-worry-its-too-narrow-to-use/ .

See Michael Asimow, Federal, Administrative Adjudication Outside The Administrative Procedure Act 3–4 (2019) (classifying these hearings into three categories, according to level of formal process).

See Kari White, Subasri Narasimhan, Sophie A. Hartwig, Erin Carroll, Alexandra McBrayer, Samantha Hubbard, Rachel Rebouché, Melissa Kottke & Kelli Stidham Hall, Parental Involvement Policies for Minors Seeking Abortion in the Southeast and Quality of Care , Sexuality Rsch. & Soc. Pol’y (Jan. 18, 2021), https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13178-021-00539-0.pdf .

See David S. Cohen & Carole Joffe, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle To Get An Abortion In America 209 (2020) (quoting Ohio doctor Chrisse France, decrying this standard in U.S. practice today; ‘She cannot be seen at our public hospital unless pretty much she’s going to die today or maybe tomorrow’).

See Kari White, Subasri Narasimhan, Sophie A. Hartwig, Erin Carroll, Alexandra McBrayer, Samantha Hubbard, Rachel Rebouché, Melissa Kottke & Kelli Stidham Hall, Parental Involvement Policies for Minors Seeking Abortion in the Southeast and Quality of Care , Sexuality Rsch. & Soc. Pol’y (Feb., 2021) (noting the impact of these policies in delaying access to early abortion among those ultimately deemed eligible to end their pregnancies).

See Herbert L. Packer & Ralph J. Gampell, Therapeutic Abortion: A Problem in Law and Medicine , 11 Stan. L. Rev. 417, 418, 421 (1959). (Explaining that hospitals developed protocols at least in part as a defensive measure: to protect themselves from potential downstream criminal or civil liability). See also, Carole Joffe, Doctors Of Conscience 31 (1995) (describing how doctors who performed abortions illegally would do so outside of the hospital setting, but legal abortions that met the test of necessary to save life would necessarily have been performed in a hospital, thereby implicating both medical and hospital oversight).

See generally Packer & Gampell, id . at 418 . (Noting these questions, among others: Is the procedure limited to cases where its purpose is to avoid shortening the pregnant woman’s life? If so, how do we determine whether carrying the child to term will shorten life? If not, what other considerations are relevant? Is a threat to health necessarily a threat to life? Must the threat to life (or health) be on account of a somatic illness? Or is the woman’s mental condition also to be considered? If so, is a probability that suicide will ensue a justification for therapeutic abortion?). For a searing indictment of U.S. therapeutic abortion committee practices in the mid-twentieth century, see Rickie Solinger, ‘A Complete Disaster:’ Abortion and the Politics of Hospital Abortion Committees, 1950–1970 , 19 Feminist Stud. 241 (1993).

See Packer & Gampell, supra note 100, at 449. (‘[R]eputable members of the medical profession may well find it galling that their freedom from criminal and civil liability turns merely on the nonenforcement of provisions of the law which, on their face, appear to embrace the conduct in question.’). Texas’s S.B. 8 law employs such a threat by way of subjecting doctors who provide abortions after six weeks to civil suit. See Sabrina Tavernese, supra note 75.

Id. at 421 (citing Alan F. Guttmacher, The Shrinking Non-Psychiatric Indications for Therapeutic Abortion , in Therapeutic Abortion 12 (Rosen, ed. 1954)).

Id . at 430. Their study concluded with a call for law reform—a call that was echoed by their Canadian counterparts in the 1977 Badgley report, which found “gross inequities existed in the availability of therapeutic abortion to the women of Canada.” W.D.S. Thomas, The Badgley Report on the Abortion Law, 116 Can. Med. Ass’n. J. 966, 966 (1977).

See Carole Joffe and Jody Steinauer, Evan Texas Allows Abortions to Protect a Woman’s Life. Or Does It? , N.Y. Times (Sept. 12, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/opinion/abortion-texas-roe.html (describing how contemporary abortion bans will likewise challenge medical integrity).

See Oberman, supra note 2, at 13–42 (describing the highly public Salvadoran case of Beatriz, a woman forced to continue a life-threatening pregnancy until her doctors agreed that death was imminent, which then triggered her right to self-defense, permitting doctors to end her pregnancy).

For a thoughtful consideration of the constitutional protections owed to one who is pregnant, when abortion is illegal, see Meghan Boone, Reproductive Due Process , 88 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 511, 526 (2020) (‘Beyond its flexibility and ability to evolve, a third feature of due process is simply its function as a catchall constitutional backstop for determining the fairness of government action’).

See Matthews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976) (“Identification of the specific dictates of due process generally requires consideration of three distinct factors: first, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and, finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirements would entail.”). See also Simona Grossi, Procedural Due Process , 13 Seton Hall Cir. Rev. 155, 158 (2017) (‘[A]…procedural law that is not supported by logic, fairness, and efficiency considerations,…violates due process.’).

See Chotiner, supra note 5, (citing Marjorie Dannenfelser).

See eg Box v. Planned Parenthood, 139 S. Ct. 1780 at 1783 (Thomas, J., concurring) (supporting an Indiana law banning abortion on grounds of fetal anomaly by invoking the state’s ‘compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.’).

See eg Eli Rosenberg, Clarence Thomas Tried to Link Abortion to Eugenics. Seven Historians Told the Post He’s Wrong , Wash. Post (May 30, 2019, 9:50 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/31/clarence-thomas-tried-link-abortion-eugenics-sevenhistorians-told-post-hes-wrong [ https://perma.cc/5DNR-PJT5 ]; Imani Gandy, When It Comes to Birth Control and Eugenics, Clarence Thomas Gets It All Wrong , Rewire (May 29, 2019, 5:11 PM), https://rewire.news/ablc/2019/05/29/when-it-comes-to-birth-control-and-eugenics-clarencethomas-gets-it-all-wrong [ https://perma.cc/3HZ3-689B ]; Lydia O’Connor, What Justice Clarence Thomas Gets Wrong About Eugenics and Abortion , Huff. Post (May 29, 2019, 5:50 PM), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clarence-thomas-eugenics-abortion_n_5ced6c87e4b0356205a07182 [ https://perma.cc/6AHJ-MS5U ].

See Melissa Murray, Race-ing Roe: Reproductive Justice, Racial Justice, and the Battle for Roe v. Wade , 134 Harv. L. Rev. 2025 (2021) (providing a compelling response to the eugenics charge); see also Jennifer L. Holland, Tiny You: A Western History Of The Anti-Abortion Movement (2020) (arguing that the goals of the anti-abortion movement are deeply entwined with those of the white supremacy movement). Indeed, one might find evidence of racism in the suggestion that adoption is the best solution for poor Black and brown babies, which echoes the U.S. Indian Adoption Project of 1958–1967, under which as many as one-third of indigenous children were separated from their families. 85% of those children were placed in non-native homes or institutions. See Stephanie Woodward, Native Americans Expose The Adoption Era and Repair Its Devastation , Indian Country Today (updated Sept. 13, 2018), https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/native-americans-expose-the-adoption-era-and-repair-its-devastation .

Reproductive Justice–Sister Song   https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice . See also, Mission and Vision , If, When, How, https://www.ifwhenhow.org/about/mission-vision/ [ https://perma.cc/3RRJ-LKT5 ] (last visited Dec. 21, 2021) (A leading reproductive justice organization, their vision statement reads: ‘We envision a transformation of the legal systems and institutions that perpetuate oppression into structures that realize justice, and a future when all people can self-determine their reproductive lives free from discrimination, coercion, or violence.’).

They might begin by looking to Germany. Not, as Chief Justice Roberts suggested in the Dobbs oral argument, because its law restricting abortion to 12 weeks’ gestation is a good compromise. (Transcript of Oral Argument at 53–55, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, No. 19-1392). Rather, because of the story of how anti-abortion German lawmakers concluded that the best way to deter abortion was to enact, along with a partial ban, “a suite of services that had to be made available to women and families as part of any law regulating abortion: financial assistance for stay-at-home parents; a guaranteed return to a parent’s prior job if he or she took off up to three years to care for a child; extended day care and extensive tax credits for day care costs; increases for child support payments; extended paid leave to care for sick children; reemployment guarantees for empty nesters; sex education services; and a host of other measures relating to adoption, housing and taxation.” Jamal Greene, How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart 130 (2021).

See Chotiner interview, supra note 5. (“We make sure there’s child care in the first few years of that child’s life that’s cheap or free. That’s going to look very different in Minnesota than it does in Georgia. In Minnesota, there very well may be a political appetite for passing more state-supported aid…. There is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to…how the needs of women will be met. That is vital work for the pro-life movement, and the Republican Party.”).

See Isaac Chotiner, How Pandemics Change History , The New Yorker (Mar. 3, 2020), https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-pandemics-change-history (quoting Frank M. Snowden).

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About Abortion

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• Made by History

How Doctors Came to Play a Key Role in the Abortion Debate

O n June 13, The Supreme Court announced its unanimous decision in FDA vs . Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine , governing access to a critical drug used in medication (non-surgical) abortions and to manage miscarriages. The decision preserves access (for now) to the widely used drug mifepristone, currently legal in 36 states. The court decided the case on procedural grounds, concluding that the plaintiffs, a coalition of anti-abortion physicians and medical associations, lacked standing.

Reproductive-justice advocates cautioned that challenges to the availability of the drug are likely to make their way back to the court, threatening access to a medication that has proved extraordinarily safe and effective.

Yet this case goes far beyond issues of legal standing and procedure. The plaintiffs explicitly deployed their authority as doctors and medical providers to frame their interests as rooted in safety, patient care, and public health, rather than in their religious or moral opposition to abortion.

The complex history of how physicians have organized to legitimate their authority over the reproductive lives of their patients is worth examining, as it reveals how anti-abortion forces are building on a well-worn path that has been at least partially cleared by abortion-rights advocates.

The familiar claim that the decision to have an abortion should be made “between a woman and her doctor” has long been associated with abortion-rights rhetoric as a right to privacy from the state. This principle was at the heart of the Roe majority opinion authored by Justice Blackmun. The “and her doctor” part of this formulation has received less attention, but is at the heart of the argument in the mifepristone case.

Read More: Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down Challenge to Abortion Drug Mifepristone

Physicians’ assertions of authority over the right to terminate a pregnancy and other issues of reproductive health did not begin with Roe . As the Roe opinion noted, in the late 19th century, the American Medical Association’s Committee on Criminal Abortion had denounced abortion and asserted that it should only be permitted if “at least one respectable consulting physician” also concurred with the decision. Thus, even when physicians took positions allowing for some access to abortion, they insisted that medical professionals hold an an outsized voice in the process.

In the early 20th century, elites associated with the American Eugenics movement advocated for laws permitting states to sterilize individuals without their consent, in their efforts to rid the population of those they deemed “undesirable” or “unfit.” Doctors were again critical to this effort to supervise and legitimate curbs on reproductive freedom.

In the 1930s, a group called the American Eugenics Society organized meetings of doctors to encourage them to play an active role in the eugenic sterilization programs as an extension of their responsibility as medical professionals. Having doctors on state eugenic boards gave these sterilization schemes the aura of respectability, as they were overseen by medical professionals. As one physician explained to his colleagues at a 1937 conference on the subject, “There is no longer any doubt but that the physician has a eugenic responsibility. In any eugenic scheme of society, the physician, and particularly those concerned with preventive medicine, must play an important part. He will function most in the therapeutic measures of sterilization and birth control.” Doctors thus framed their role not only as treating individual patients but as also having authority over policy and law, especially over issues related to reproduction.

Appeals to physicians to use their authority in this manner continued well after the public respectability of the American eugenics movement waned. In the 1950s and 1960s, some obstetricians and other doctors advanced similar arguments about their obligation to advocate for population control policies. Dr. C. Lee Buxton, Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine argued in a medical journal in 1966 that “the medical profession should accept a major responsibility in matters related to human reproduction as they affect the total population and the individual family.” Doctors would play a significant role in the growing population control movement , again deploying their medical expertise and authority to advance laws rooted in social control.

Read More: 'I Don't Have Faith in Doctors Anymore.' Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control

This authority was not just a legal right; by this logic it was a professional obligation that doctors could not refuse. Consequently, doctors served on state eugenics boards that oversaw systematic non-consensual sterilizations until into the 1970s. At least 60,000 documented involuntary sterilizations were approved and performed by state bodies in the 20th century.

Obstetricians like Buxton also supported the framework eventually enshrined in Roe that physicians, rather than the state, possessed the authority to determine whether a pregnancy should be terminated or carried to term. In 1970, an AMA committee revised its position opposing access to abortion but still cautioned against "mere acquiescence to the patient's demand" for an abortion, a sentiment expressed elsewhere by doctors who also supported Roe . Again, we see skepticism from medical authorities that a pregnant person be trusted to make reproductive decisions for themselves.

Most state eugenic laws were repealed by the 1970s, but non-consensual sterilizations continued under certain circumstances. Notably, the federal government continued to approve the procedure for Native American women under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Elsewhere, physicians, rather than state authorities, oversaw non-consensual sterilizations.

For example, in the 1970s, doctors at Los Angeles County Hospital, the teaching hospital of the USC School of Medicine, performed hundreds of tubal ligations on Mexican-origin women, many of whom later stated they never provided their consent.

Ten of these women eventually sued the hospital, naming Dr. Edward Quilligan, the Chief of ob/gyn at the time, as the defendant. The women offered heart-wrenching testimonies about the profound damage these non-consensual sterilizations caused them and their families. Quilligan told a journalist at the time (and to producers of a documentary on the case 40 years later) that he had done nothing wrong: “We were practicing good medicine.”

The judge agreed . In other words, physicians were not only entitled to abridge the reproductive autonomy of their patients, but they were also sometimes required to do so in the name of “good medicine.” Indeed, Quilligan suffered few professional repercussions and he has been honored at the highest level by prestigious medical schools and professional associations.

Read More: Abortion Rights Benefit People Who Want Kids, Too

When a group of anti-abortion medical providers incorporated as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine with the express purpose of filing a lawsuit to ban mifepristone, the briefs they submitted all built on this history. They too were doctors drawing on the principle valorized in Roe that decisions regarding the termination of pregnancy required their authority and involvement.

These briefs are largely free of religious and moral arguments, focusing instead on estimates of gestational development, safety of medication, and the efficacy of review processes, among others that fall under the authority of medical providers. And their language often centers on issues between a woman and her doctor, sometimes in paternalistic terms. One brief insisted that their interest in banning the drug stemmed from their ethical commitment to “protect women and girls from the documented danger of chemical abortion drugs,” against all evidence about the safety of the drugs. 

Such arguments draw on the troubling history of deference that (historically largely male) physicians have demanded to sometimes supersede the autonomy of their (female) patients.

Abortion and reproductive health providers do face significant legal, political, and personal threats for their work; their safety and professional right to practice must be protected vigorously. Nor should medical expertise and evidence-based research be dismissed. They are a vital part of reproductive health and care.

But a reliance on medical expertise need not be rooted in reflexive deference to that expertise, as Justice Blackmun envisioned. Indeed, the Women’s Health Movement of the 1970s developed approaches to reproductive health, including contraception, access to abortion, care and support during pregnancy and delivery, and child raising that demonstrated how medical expertise and reproductive autonomy can work together. Many reproductive justice groups today advocate similar practices, including advocating for legal access to self-managed abortions that do not require a physician’s involvement.

But the framing of reproductive decisions as lying “between a woman and a doctor” has opened the door for foes of reproductive autonomy to advance their arguments in the neutral language of medical authority. To secure a more expansive vision of reproductive justice will require retiring this phrase in favor of a vision of reproductive justice that does not reject medical experience or advice, but guards against any potential coercion, even when it comes bearing a white coat, to any person’s reproductive autonomy.

Emma Peterson is a recent graduate of Yale University with a degree in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health. Daniel Martinez HoSang is a Professor of American Studies at Yale University with a secondary appointment in the Section of the History of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here . Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors .

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Write to Emma Peterson and Daniel Martinez HoSang / Made by History at [email protected]

Why Abortion Should Be Banned

Table of Contents

Abortion is the elimination of fetus or an embryo from the womb, which leads in the fetus’s death. This can occur unsurprisingly as a miscarriage or be purposefully induced using chemicals, surgery, or other methods. Hence, one of the numerous difficult problems that have recently surfaced internationally is abortion. There was not much of a problem before, but recently, the abortion rate has been rapidly increasing. Thus, abortion should be banned because it has a long-term effect on the mother, is inhumane, and goes against the sanctity of life.

Abortion is Inhumane

Abortion is inhumane because it takes away the life of an unborn child. Every single individual has a fundamental right to life. The individual is viewed as a living being that must be safeguarded from the time of birth. In essence, the human character says that it is imperative to defend one’s dignity, which comes about, above all else, as a result of protecting one’s right to life (Humanium, 2019). The infant’s life may be superior to ours in certain ways. Hence the baby must not be killed. Furthermore, the pro-choice dispute that a female has a right to control her own body does not hold up regarding abortion. The unborn child is not part of the woman’s body but a separate human being. Therefore, the woman does not have the right to end its life. Abortion is also often motivated by selfish reasons. Women may have abortions because they do not want to be pregnant, because they cannot afford a child, or because they do not want to be tied down by the responsibilities of parenthood. These are all selfish reasons that do not consider the unborn child’s rights.

It Has a Long-Term Effect on the Mother

Abortion can have long-term effects on the mother. First and foremost, abortion is a very traumatic experience. It can cause both physical and emotional damage to the woman. The physical damage can include infection, hemorrhage, and damage to the cervix or other internal organs. The emotional damage can include guilt, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Abortion can also cause problems with future pregnancies. It can increase the risk of miscarriages, premature births, and other complications (NIH, 2018). In some cases, it can even lead to infertility. A study identifying the psychological impacts of abortion among post-abortion facilities indicated that at least 25% of the participants had adverse mental impacts. The respondents identified the three most usual mental impacts of abortion as despair, anxiety over being unable to get pregnant again, and irregular eating patterns (Pourreza & Batebi, 2011). Also, 43.7% of them encountered reduced self-esteem, 33.3% regret, 37.5% guilt and 39.5% nightmares. Furthermore, abortion can have social effects on the mother. For example, the mother may have to deal with judgment and stigma from family, friends, and society. The mother may also face financial difficulties if she is not able to return to work or if she needs to pay for expensive medical care.

It Goes Against the Sanctity of Life

Abortion goes against the sanctity of life by taking the life of an unborn child. The sanctity of life is the conviction that each individual life is sacred and ought to be revered and safeguarded. This conviction is founded on the notion that human existence is a God-given gift and ought to be treated as such. God created human beings in His image and likeness and has a plan and purpose for everyone. When we abort a child, we are going against His plan and purpose for that child. Taking the life of an unborn child is a direct violation of this belief. According to the Church of God, abortion is immoral and kills millions of unborn children. Nowadays, abortion demands frequently result from sexual liberation without matching responsibilities. The Assemblies of God maintain that following the biblical command for sexual chastity and accountability will prevent many, if not most, circumstances in which abortion is either necessary or acceptable (Religious Institute, 2022. In Luke 1:31 the bible recognizes that a female is pregnant even in the initial phases. An angel predicted that the Virgin Mary could become pregnant and give birth to a boy when she was chosen to be the Jesus’s mother (Biblehub, 2022). According to this verse, abortion not only does it take the life of a defenseless and innocent human being, but it also goes against the will of God. Human life is sacred and should be treated as such.

Abortion is a controversial issue that is hotly debated in many parts of the world. It should be banned because it is inhumane to take away the life of an unborn child. It is also a violent act that can cause physical and emotional damage to the woman who has the procedure. Abortion can have long-term effects on the mother, including physical and emotional damage and problems with future pregnancies. Abortion goes against the sanctity of life by taking the life of an unborn child. This directly violates the belief that all human life is holy and should be respected and protected.

• Biblehub. (2022). Luke 1:31 Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. Biblehub.com. https://biblehub.com/luke/1-31.htm
• Humanium. (2019). Understanding Children’s right to life – Humanium . Humanium.org. https://www.humanium.org/en/life/
• NIH. (2018, March 16). The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States; Long-Term Health Effects . Nih.gov; National Academies Press (US). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507237/
• Pourreza, A., & Batebi, A. (2011). Psychological Consequences of Abortion among the Post Abortion Care Seeking Women in Tehran. Iranian Journal of Psychiatry , 6 (1), 31–36. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395931/
• Religious Institute. (2022). “Sanctity and Human Life” – Abortion | Religious Institute . Religiousinstitute.org. http://religiousinstitute.org/denom_statements/sanctity-and-human-life-abortion/
• Rocchi, B. (2013). Why should the baby live? Human right to life and the precautionary principle. Journal of Medical Ethics , 39 (5), e6–e10. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2012-100735
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Abortion rates have been steadily decreasing in the United States, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still reports over 600,000 legal abortions per year (CDC, 2018). In spite of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, abortion remains a contentious public policy issue. I still feel that abortion is life and as I researched it more, some of these articles make sense and I may feel that it could be okay for certain circumstances.

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• The Ban on Abortion is Not Right
• Abortion: An Ethical Issue
• Should Abortion Be Illegal or Legal
• Why women should not have an abortion?
• Abortion Argumentative
• Abortion: John Rawls vs. Robert Nozick
• Abortion- the termination of the life
• Freakonomics Crime and Abortion
• Abortion a Choice of Life
• Abortion – Research and Analysis

History and Background

Both views from medical and legal perspectives the term abortion refers to different procedures used to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy (“Abortion Law and Legal Definition,” 2018, p. 1). Abortions can be medical or clinical. Medical abortions utilize pharmaceutical methods to terminate the pregnancy; a clinical abortion involves the use of specialized tools and procedures such as suction devices to terminate the pregnancy. The vast majority (more than 91%) of abortions are performed before the 13th week of gestation (“Abortion Fast Facts,” 2018). There has been some additional controversy over late-term and “partial birth” abortions (“Historical Attitudes To Abortion,” n.d., p. 1).

As long as women have been getting pregnant, they have been having abortions. Contrary to popular belief, abortion is not mentioned at all in either the Old Testament or the New, and was until recently an “accepted” practice that was certainly not criminalized (“Historical Attitudes to Abortion,” n.d., p. 1).

History of Abortion Issue in the US

In fact, abortion was not always a political issue in the United States. “There was a time when abortion was simply part of life in the United States. People didn’t scream about it in protest, and services were marketed openly,” (Ravitz, 2016, p. 1). Historians believe abortion to have been “common in colonial America,” albeit hidden from view (“Historical Attitudes to Abortion,” n.d., p. 1). Due to a combination of factors, including changes to the medical profession itself, abortion gradually became stigmatized. By the middle to the late nineteenth century in both England and the United States, abortion laws started to become more strident, and eventually, abortion became criminalized in American law around 1900 (“Historical Attitudes to Abortion,” n.d.). Abortion remained illegal until the 1973 case Roe v. Wade was brought before the Supreme Court. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that women have the right to legal abortion based on the provisions in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution such as the citizen’s right to privacy. Since Roe v. Wade, anti-choice activists have continued to press for the re-criminalization of abortion either at the state or federal level with varying degrees of success in restricting access to abortion services.

Religion and Ethics

The abortion debate became tied up with factors like religiosity and ethics, often in distorted and illogical ways. Both Catholic and Protestant traditions have fluctuated between condoning abortion and banning it (Ravitz, 2016). Current anti-abortion rhetoric is frequently cloaked in religious terminology, primarily from the Christian tradition, even though the Bible does not expressly outlaw abortion (“Historical Attitudes to Abortion,” n.d.). The view that life is sacred does permeate most religious and ethical traditions, but this precept can also be applied to women—fully-fledged human beings whose life is also sacred. Abortion debates should, therefore, always be framed in terms of gender norms. To ban abortion effectively means to legally strip a woman of her personal rights and freedoms, such as the right to self-determination. Banning abortion means forcing a woman to carry an unwanted child to term, and therefore also presents an ethical conundrum. Those who do not believe abortion is an ethical choice need not take part in the practice, rather than demand that those who hold different worldviews conform to their ethical standards.

Causes and Solutions

Abortion does not need to be the contentious issue that it has become. Being realistic about abortion provides the most sensible approach to resolving the social and political problems surrounding the debate. As Alvargonzález (2017) points out, “the complete elimination of abortion is not possible,” (p. e39). When abortion was still illegal in the United States, even clergy groups were helping women locate safe abortion services as a public service (Ravitz, 2016). Women may seek a termination of their pregnancy for any number of reasons; abortion remains a deeply personal choice. Abortion cannot be framed as murder, given the fact that an embryo is not a fully formed human being. Likewise, abortion is no replacement for birth control, but birth control methods frequently fail. Women who have been raped obviously should not be made to carry their rapist’s child to term.

Therefore, the law needs to allow access to safe abortions. People who support the rights of women to have an abortion also do not necessarily believe that abortion itself is desirable. “Nobody doubts that, regarding the methods of birth control, contraception is better than abortion, abortion is better than infanticide and abortion is worse the later and the less safe it is performed,” (Alvargonzález, 2017, e39). If anti-choice activists would realize that pro-choice attitudes are not unethical but merely logical and sensible, then it might be possible to reach a consensus. Abortion is not something that would ever be made mandatory, and nor should carrying a child to term unnecessarily be made mandatory. In countries where abortion is patently illegal, women suffer from grave health consequences when they resort to illegal means of terminating the pregnancy (Faúndes & Miranda, 2017). Therefore, the legality of abortion can be viewed as a pressing moral imperative. Women have the right to access safe abortions on demand, no matter what their purpose or their need. It serves no real purpose to restrict women’s right to safe abortions.

Alternative Solutions

The best possible solution is to retain the Roe v. Wade decision, based on pure Constitutional law while opening the forum for debate to encourage people to participate in healthy dialogue. One possible solution would be to promote more open communication between anti-abortion groups, those who believe that abortion should be illegal, and those who believe that it should be legal. Many people who believe that abortion should be banned for everyone might not have considered that their views hold no real footing in the realm of logic, reason, and law.

A second solution would be for pro-choice activists to invite those from the anti-choice camp to express their opinions openly and without judgment. Understanding that anti-choice individuals do not necessarily base their beliefs on the Bible, it may be helpful to hear alternative opinions related to why abortion is akin to the murder of a human being, and why a woman’s right to self-determination is subordinate to the right of a cluster of cells to gestate for nine months. Dialogue might offer the opportunity to bridge the gap between disparate groups and allow for sensible solutions.

The abortion issue has been discussed ad nauseam, framed from many different points of view. Neither side seems able to recognize the validity of the other’s, which highlights the social and political rifts in American society. Further research may reveal the best ways of demonstrating the need for a more logical analysis of the issue based on the fact that abortion is an unfortunate, but inevitable, reality.

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Argumentative Essay

Jazatte Dalisay is a ninth-grade student at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics. This essay was composed in a class tutored by James Traub, a long-time PEN Member and coordinator of PEN’s Writers in the Schools program.

Women’s rights have greatly evolved throughout the centuries. As of 2014, women in the U.S. are entitled to their right to decide when to have a child. But there is a constant debate on whether or not abortion should remain legal in the United States. The legalization of abortion has not only kept women from danger, but has provided women with a concrete solution to unplanned pregnancies and protects their civil rights. Taking abortion off the shelf of opportunity for women will only make them seek illicit and dangerous methods to abort an unwanted child and takes away the ability of women to decide what to do with their own bodies.

It is understandable why some might think abortion is an inhumane act that is unnecessary and unlawful, especially since there are alternatives. Adoption has been seen as the perfect solution to unplanned pregnancies; women can simply give their unwanted child away to someone who wants it. With adoption, infertile couples get another chance at making a family, and the child still has a chance at life. This would seem to be the most logical, and humane thing to do. So why does abortion exist?

What people who are pro-life fail to see is the psychological and emotional damage that is inflicted on the woman during the pregnancy. If abortion were to be banned, women who have gotten pregnant through rape and/or incest would have to withstand the shame and pain of knowing that an unwanted child is growing inside them. Victims would be forced to have a constant reminder of their rape. A recent study shows that rape victims are 13 times more likely to attempt suicide, and 26 times more likely to abuse substances such as alcohol and drugs (mscu.edu). Banning abortion would mean destroying the chances of women who are victims of rape to get closure. The psychological and emotional stress can fuel their desperation to rid themselves of the fetus and make them go to great lengths to do that. According to Daniel R. Mishell, Jr., MD, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, “before abortion was legalized women would frequently try to induce abortions by using coat hangers, knitting needles, or radiator flush, or by going to unsafe “back-alley” abortionists.” In the end, banning abortion will not stop women from trying to rid themselves of the fetus, but just put their own well-being in jeopardy.

Abortion is also a concrete solution to unplanned pregnancies. Though the use of contraceptions, such as the morning-after pill, have been proven to work, it is not always as effective. “Fifty-one percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method in the month they got pregnant, most commonly condoms (27 percent) or a hormonal method (17 percent)” (guttmacher.org). Often, women and teenage girls are too afraid to speak up or don’t even know that they are pregnant, and once they realize they are, it’s already too late—contraceptions are not effective after a certain amount of time. Abortion is their last chance of terminating the pregnancy in a safe and legal way.

Lastly, keeping abortion legal protects women’s rights. Women have full control over their bodies, meaning what they do with them is their decision. If abortion were illegal, women would be stripped of this right. According to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives” (procon.org). Abortion is also viewed as a fundamental right under law. The Constitution gives “a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy,” and that “This right of privacy…is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (procon.org). Making abortion illegal means robbing women of their rights.

Keeping abortion legal ensures a woman’s safety when faced with unplanned pregnancies, provides hope for rape victims and helps them in moving on with their lives, and protects women’s rights. Making abortion illegal does not stop women from trying to terminate a pregnancy, nor does it save lives. Rather, it does the opposite — illegalizing abortion puts women in danger and prevents them from having control over their own bodies.

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Supreme Court upholds broad access to key abortion pill mifepristone

Ever since the high court eliminated the right to abortion in 2022, medications to terminate pregnancy have grown in importance and been challenged in court.

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to limit access to a widely used abortion medication, rejecting a challenge from antiabortion doctors two years after the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade .

In a unanimous ruling, the court sided with the Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone and reversed a lower court decision that would have made it more difficult to obtain the drug used in more than 60 percent of U.S. abortions . The justices found that the plaintiffs did not have legal grounds to bring the challenge.

Writing for the court , Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the anti abortion doctors behind the case do not prescribe or use mifepristone, and the FDA’s relaxed regulation of the medication does not require those doctors to do or refrain from doing anything.

“Rather, the plaintiffs want FDA to make mifepristone more difficult for other doctors to prescribe and for pregnant women to obtain,” Kavanaugh wrote. Under the Constitution, he added, a group’s “desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.”

Kavanaugh emphasized in his opinion that doctors opposed to abortion are protected by federal conscience laws from having to perform abortion-related care that violates their beliefs, and that they can instead voice objections to the medication through the legislative, regulatory or political processes.

Where is abortion legal and illegal?

Ever since the high court eliminated the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, medications to terminate pregnancy have grown in importance and become a major target of litigation, in part because the pills can be sent by mail, including to states that have severely limited or banned abortions.

Even though the court’s decision was unanimous, it is unlikely to be the end of efforts to restrict access to the pill. The ruling leaves an opening for three states with Republican attorneys general — Missouri, Kansas and Idaho — to quickly try to revive the challenge before a federal judge in Texas who is well-known for his antiabortion views .

After the ruling, abortion opponents pledged to continue their efforts to limit access to mifepristone, promising that this case is not over.

“While we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, we will continue to advocate for women and work to restore common-sense safeguards for abortion drugs,” said the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior counsel, Erin Hawley, who represented the doctors. “We are grateful that three states stand ready to hold the FDA accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of women and girls across this country.”

President Biden said in a statement Thursday that the court’s decision “does not change the fact that the fight for reproductive freedom continues. … It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states.”

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said she felt “both relief and anger” about the court’s decision.

“In the end, this ruling is not a ‘win’ for abortion,” she said in a statement. “It just maintains the status quo, which is a dire public health crisis in which 14 states have criminalized abortion.”

The issue of who has standing to sue over FDA decisions could also resurface if former president Donald Trump , the presumptive Republican nominee in the November election, returns to the White House and appoints an FDA commissioner who reinstates restrictions on the medication — sparking legal challenges from abortion rights groups.

While this decision is a “resounding victory” for reproductive rights advocates, the opinion “sidesteps the core issue of how involved in the FDA decision-making process the courts will be,” said Ameet Sarpatwari, an attorney and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Before the end of the month, the justices are also set to decide in a separate abortion case from Idaho whether hospitals that receive federal funds must provide emergency abortion care to stabilize patients even in states with strict bans on the procedure.

The high court’s decision on Thursday reversed a ruling from the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that said that the Food and Drug Administration failed to follow proper procedures or thoroughly explain its reasoning when it loosened regulations for obtaining mifepristone in 2016 and 2021.

A group of antiabortion doctors sued the FDA, saying the agency did not sufficiently consider safety concerns when it removed restrictions starting in 2016 that allowed the use of mifepristone later in pregnancy; permitted medical providers other than doctors to prescribe it; and cleared the way for the medication to be sent directly to patients by mail.

The FDA, considered one of the world’s most stringent regulators, first approved the medication in 2000. The agency has repeatedly found the medication-abortion protocol that includes mifepristone and a second drug, misoprostol, to be a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortions. Leading studies have shown that the changes in regulations that are the focus of the lawsuit do not affect the safety or efficacy of the medication.

In advance of oral argument in March, hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and former FDA officials warned the justices not to second-guess scientific experts, and said a ruling against the FDA would destabilize the regulatory system and jeopardize investments in research and innovation.

The justices did not decide Thursday whether the FDA acted lawfully when it made it easier to obtain mifepristone starting in 2016. Instead, the court issued a procedural ruling, finding that the antiabortion doctors could not challenge FDA approval of a drug just because the use of some medication may require additional visits to a health-care provider.

“Virtually all drugs come with complications, risks, and side effects. Some drugs increase the risk of heart attack, some may cause cancer, some may cause birth defects, and some heighten the possibility of stroke,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Approval of a new drug may therefore yield more visits to doctors to treat complications or side effects.”

Individual physicians and the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed the initial lawsuit in Amarillo, Tex., where the only sitting District Court judge is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee known for his opposition to abortion .

How mifepristone is used

Kacsmaryk’s 2023 ruling would have removed the medication from the market completely, but the 5th Circuit scaled back the decision. It was the first time a judge suspended longtime approval of a medication despite opposition from the FDA and the drug’s manufacturer. Kacsmaryk will now be in position to decide whether the three states are permitted to pursue a separate challenge to the drug without the doctors leading the lawsuit.

When the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, the justices said they would not consider taking mifepristone off the market but would look at the rule changes in 2016 and 2021.

In its opinion Thursday, the court acknowledged the strongly-held objections of the antiabortion doctors but said those beliefs were not sufficient to meet the standard for bringing a case in court because the doctors had not suffered a direct injury.

“We recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff doctors here, have sincere concerns about and objections to others using mifepristone and obtaining abortions. But citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities,” wrote Kavanaugh, who was one of five justices in the majority in 2022 who voted to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion after nearly 50 years.

The justices said they would not invent a new rule of “doctor standing.” Allowing doctors or other health-care providers to challenge general safety regulations as unlawfully lax would be “an unprecedented and limitless approach” that would open the door to lawsuits from doctors over numerous policies affecting public health, the court said.

In making their case, the antiabortion doctors said the FDA’s loosening of regulations would cause more pregnant women to suffer complications from mifepristone, and that the doctors would therefore be required — against their consciences — to provide emergency abortion or related treatment.

But the court echoed assurances in its opinion from the Biden administration that federal conscience laws protect doctors from being required to perform abortions or to provide other treatment that violates their consciences. The justices said the doctors had not identified any examples in which they were required to perform an abortion or of a hospital failing to accommodate a doctor’s objections.

The court’s opinion quotes Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar’s comments at oral argument, including her statement that the protections provide “broad coverage” and “shield a doctor who doesn’t want to provide care in violation of those protections.”

Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Biden administration seemed to embrace a broad reading of those protections as a way to ensure support from as many justices as possible on a court with a 6-3 conservative majority.

When the Supreme Court initially put a lower court decision in the case on hold last April and maintained access to mifepristone while the litigation continued, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. Alito said at the time that the public would not be harmed by reimposing restrictions on the pill. But on Thursday, all nine justices signed on to Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Sepper said the unanimous decision was overbroad in interpreting federal laws that protect doctors from being required to perform certain procedures. Conscience laws have previously been defined as applying to abortions and sterilizations, she said, not as a “general carve-out for anyone who objects to any kind of treatment.”

She said she worries the ruling could embolden providers or institutions to refuse treatments such as vaccines, care for women who have previously had abortions or LGBTQ+ communities. Sepper also said the Supreme Court’s expansive interpretation of the law could spur religiously affiliated hospitals to claim conscience objections to providing abortions in emergency rooms.

“I still think the mid- to long-term effects could be quite devastating for emergency abortion care, particularly in blue states,” Sepper said.

Justin Jouvenal and Caroline Kitchener contributed to this report.

U.S. abortion access, reproductive rights

Tracking abortion access in the United States: Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade , the legality of abortion has been left to individual states. The Washington Post is tracking states where abortion is legal, banned or under threat.

Abortion pills: The Supreme Court refused to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone . Here’s how mifepristone is used and where you can legally access the abortion pill .

Abortion and the election: Voters in about a dozen states could decide the fate of abortion rights with constitutional amendments on the ballot in a pivotal election year. Biden supports legal access to abortion , and he has encouraged Congress to pass a law that would codify abortion rights nationwide. After months of mixed signals about his position, Trump said the issue should be left to states . Here’s how Biden and Trump’s abortion stances have shifted over the years.

Reproductive rights: The Senate voted to block a bill to create a federal right to contraception access . Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, far-right conservatives have been trying to curtail birth-control access by sowing misinformation about how various methods work to prevent pregnancy. See how every senator voted on the Right to Contraception Act .