Wherever and whenever there is a demand the market will supply the product:
Now that a year has passed since women lost the right to abortion, we can assess how our neighbor Idaho’s near-total ban on it is faring.
In short: It has accomplished next to nothing.
You can’t say categorically that the Idaho ban hasn’t stopped a single abortion. But the data suggests that is essentially the case – that the whole thing is a burden, cost and danger to Idaho’s own women, but hasn’t met the anti-abortion goals that supposedly informed it.
We know this now because clinics in the Pacific Northwest have started releasing data on where women come from to use their services, both back when abortion was legal nationwide, and now that it’s not.
Idaho women are simply fleeing.
Bans didn’t stop alcohol consumption, minors from getting tobacco, or other recreational drug use. They didn’t stop criminals from getting handguns. And it should be no surprise it didn’t stop abortions. Just as there were abortions when they were banned prior to Roe v. Wade. I knew a high school classmate who traveled from Idaho to Washington get an abortion. And women are doing it again.
Reduction and even elimination of abortions is a worthy goal. But I can’t see the legal system making a significant change in the total numbers. It has to be cultural change.
Legal bans only work when you have an adversary party involved which has the ability to support the legal action.*
* In the case of murder you have friend, relatives, and dedicated detectives to “speak” for the victim. The aborted fetus/child is unable to speak for itself and without a dependable voice from those who know what happened.
The law is a great moral teacher.
The adversarial party should be the father, or at least the father should have the right to bring action to save their children.
I have several male friends who carry abortion guilt and anger for 30 or 40 years. There is no advocacy for them for the violence their “partners” committed against their children. That anger is a deep well and a very dangerous one.
I don’t disagree with you. But if such legal action were enabled the women would avoid the situation by never telling the father. And in many cases the father applies pressure on the woman to dispose of the child through abortion.
The bottom line is that I don’t expect it would make more than a marginal difference. Worth it? I don’t know. The unintended consequences are hard to predict.
This is the Left’s version of “lax gun law” states. I also thought they were big fans on State’s right and democracy deciding issues. Oh my! A person might have to take a road trip and be inconvenienced for a few hours before they can get an abortion. Color me unsympathetic.
I’ve always held to the view that abortion was a act of last resort, not birth control for the lazy. CVS is cheaper than a clinic.
And yet, somehow, the Left can’t look in the mirror and see their own behavior coming back to bite them.
abortion usually IS an act of last resort, just as are firearms when it comes to lawful self-defense. that’s why banning either does little but hurt people to no good use.