- Are Pro-Life Education and Activism Bringing Abortion Numbers Down?
Could pro-life education or activism have been making women more pro-life before they became pregnant? Public opinion polls give us no reason to think so. The good news is, to reduce abortions now, we don’t have to change public opinion. We are winning where it counts: the ratios of abortions to birth continue to fall. Local pregnancy medical centers are key, and advertising these centers makes those ratios fall faster.
2. Are Contraception, Abortifacients, and “Self-Managed” Abortions Reducing Abortion Numbers?
Those who promote contraception to reduce abortions generally have a simple, amoral view of women: if they get pregnant using contraception, of course they would want an abortion. They assume that unintended or unexpected pregnancy equals a simple demand for abortion, as though the moral nature of abortion doesn’t cross the minds of women. The facts contradict this simple view. In reality, people involved in pregnancy help know that women thinking about abortion are usually conflicted. Most women are troubled to one degree or another. They don’t want to have an abortion. They feel they have no choice.
The centers show them that they do have options, which many of them take up. They choose life because they get that help. It was this which has driven abortion ratios down. Advertising pregnancy help increases its effect.
3. Are Restrictive State Laws the Reason for Falling Abortion Numbers?
Abortion has been seen by many chiefly as a conflict of rights: the woman’s right to control her body, and the right of the unborn child to live. But this has distorted our perception of the decline in the abortion numbers.
Protecting unborn children in law is a worthy goal, and has measurable results. Is it the driver in the dropping abortion ratios? No. Pregnancy help, however, reaches women where they are, and has measurable effects on those ratios, as we shall see. Advertising that help, too, has measurable effects.
4. Is a “Lack of Access” the Reason That Abortion Numbers Have Fallen?
Put simply, we can say that more clinics did not equal more abortions; fewer clinics did not equal fewer abortions.
It is often assumed, rather than argued, that greater distances between abortion centers and their clients is the reason for the drop in abortion numbers. Pro-abortion researchers have shown that the difficulty of getting to an abortion center affects abortion numbers, but the effect is slight compared to the dropping ratios.
Also, like those other changes to the law, these reductions in “access” are relatively recent, and do not explain the long-term decline we noted previously. Pregnancy help, however, has increasingly reached women where they are, and made a demonstrable difference. Advertising, like that of Vision for Life, tells them where the centers are.
5. Conclusion: Pregnancy Help Lies Behind the Decline in Abortion Numbers.
To our knowledge, no one has studied in depth the effect of the establishment of pregnancy help centers on abortion ratios over time. Nor has anyone looked at the role that the proximity of pregnancy help centers to women in need would play in those ratios. Again, the focus has been on the supply of abortion. Only in the last few years have those on the pro-life side recognized that it is pregnancy help that has reduced abortion demand.
We are convinced that advertising pregnancy medical centers is the most effective way to reduce the numbers of abortions today. You can help.
Your donation today will mean lives saved in the days ahead, as our advertising makes more and more women aware:
- that they can get help,
- that they do have a choice,
- that they can do the right thing,
- that they can have no regrets,
- that they can choose life.
Will you join with us to see even more moms and babies saved?
