Why does the number of abortions in America appear to be rising? I’ve written about increased publicity for and use of abortion pills, as well as animosity among young women toward the most publicized prolife advocate from 2016 to 2023, Donald Trump. But I’d like to throw out a question about a very different possibility.
Here’s a bit of speculation about which I hope others will comment: What if pro-life legal successes (limiting the availability of abortion in half the country) and cultural successes (showing that unborn children starting at about eight weeks increasingly resemble born children) are contributing to a fatal rush to judgment?
My wife Susan was instrumental in starting the Austin Crisis Pregnancy Center 40 years ago, and we’ve always emphasized the importance of counseling women distressed by pregnancy to “make an informed choice… don’t panic… slow down.” The message at more than 2,000 similar centers has been: instead of rushing to abort, consider your options and see that you can bear your child and still flourish.
But more women, since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2002 and the growing use of chemical abortion, may have thought: I can’t slow down. Florida has a six-week deadline. Pills kill at eight weeks with only rare physical hazard for mothers. Abortion businesses demand: hurry up! In some states those who wait and have a surgical abortion face travel expense, missing work, and greater costs for the abortion itself.
Some parents may will themselves to think, as most women thought in the nineteenth century, that in the initial months of pregnancy the unborn child is just a few ounces of flesh, not really human. We should devote more resources to education than to the legal battle. We should pray for more heart change and for another breakthrough like the deployment of 3D ultrasound starting in the 1990s.
I welcome suggestions in the spirit of understanding that the Dobbs decision was not a triumph but an opportunity.