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Why do women have abortions? A lack of financial resources is often claimed to be the reason that the majority of women choose abortion. However, in a new paper commissioned by SPUC, Dr Greg Pike finds that the link between poverty and abortion is not so simple. Dr Pike notes: ‘While it is clear that women of lower socioeconomic status have a disproportionately high number of abortions, the reasons for this are far less clear.’
When we look at abortion figures, which show women living in the most deprived areas of England and Wales have nearly twice as many abortions as those living in wealthier areas, we naturally tend to think that their poor financial situation is the dominant reason. But it would be wrong to jump to that conclusion.
While it is true that women of lower socioeconomic status (SES) have a disproportionately high number of abortions compared with wealthier women, the picture changes when women in a low SES bracket are compared with other women in the same bracket.
A US study, which did precisely that, found that by far the majority of the women in the study sample had given birth but not had an abortion. This led the researchers to conclude: ‘Abortion among low income women with children is exceedingly uncommon.’ As most women who are poor are not having abortions, poverty is not the only issue that influences women to choose abortion.
It’s also interesting to look at other groups of women who have a disproportionately high number of abortions. A US study shows that Black women have four times the rate of abortions as white women, and Hispanic women twice as many as white women. This is true across all levels of SES, showing that these high abortion rates do not appear to be due to poverty alone.
Many factors
It’s important for us in the pro-life community to understand fully what tips women towards making the decision to abort. Women talk of many factors which influence their decision to have an abortion, including pressure from family and partners, relationship problems, study and career aspirations, and no community support.
The abortion industry tends to present abortion as a simple matter of choice that is clear and decisive. Yet we know that women are often uncertain about whether to go through with an abortion or not. This is well documented in SPUC’s publication ‘Abortion and Women’s Health’.
Is lack of money a key driver? Lack of finances is certainly not unimportant, but when looking at studies on abortion decisions, Dr Pike found that most research concludes: ‘non-economic issues are more central to women’s decision-making about reproduction than economic factors.’ So, the narrative that if women had more money then they wouldn’t abort their babies is not quite accurate.
UK two-child benefit cap
If lack of money was indeed a main reason for choosing abortion, we might expect that a cut in welfare payments would drive up abortions. Did this happen as a result of the controversial two-child benefit cap that was introduced in the UK in 2017? The answer is no. While abortion rates have risen since 2017, reaching their highest level ever in 2022, this has more to do with the pills by post policy than cutting child benefit payments.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), one of Britain’s biggest abortion providers, carried out a survey in 2020 claiming that 57% of women said the two-child cap was important in their decision to abort. This has been widely cited as evidence that the two-child policy, and subsequent financial pressure, caused more abortions. However, Dr Pike’s paper exposes the flaws in the survey, leading to the conclusion that the BPAS findings are of no value. Instead of increasing the abortion rate, the most significant impact of the policy has been to drive larger families deeper into poverty.
Poverty is a complex phenomenon and can be defined by a number of things, not just by lack of money. Lack of education, employment opportunities, and affordable housing are among the many aspects of deprivation to which a lack of money is inextricably linked. So the relationship between abortion and poverty is similarly complex and difficult to measure.
To further explore whether poverty causes more abortions, Dr Pike looks at the link between state welfare more broadly, and abortion. Specifically, what happens when state welfare in its various forms increases or decreases. We have seen the outcome of the two-child benefit limit in the UK, but it is in the US that we get a clearer view of the relationship between women of low SES, who depend on welfare, and abortion.
In his paper Dr Pike investigates a number of studies comparing abortion rates between states with greater or lesser welfare provision. Some studies have found less welfare was associated with higher abortion rates and some found the opposite, so there are other factors at play.
Community ethos
What other factors might there be that vary from state to state in the US, and which contribute to the impact which welfare provision might have on abortion? It transpires that the ethos or culture of each state is significant. So, in states with a pro-life culture, women on welfare were less likely to access abortion. In states with a pro-abortion culture, the opposite was true.
One researcher writes: ‘… a low income, pregnant woman may be more likely to see and accept welfare as an alternative to abortion if she faces a consistent set of cues that point her in a pro-birth (or anti-abortion) direction.’
What does this show us? Welfare on its own is not enough to tip a woman towards keeping her baby. She needs more than that. She needs to live in a culture where acceptance of abortion is not deeply embedded in the psyche of her community. In Britain, abortion has been mainstreamed as healthcare, so a low-income pregnant woman in Britain is not getting any cues from the state inclining her towards keeping her baby. In fact, she may be getting the opposite.
Marriage
Dr Pike’s insightful paper gives us plenty to consider when we think about what needs to change to end abortion. He leaves us with a final thought. There is another divide between those who have abortions and those who do not, and that is between those who are married and those who are not married.
Every set of abortion figures, from the US, UK and elsewhere, shows clearly that the vast majority of women who have one or more abortions are unmarried. SPUC wants to make abortion unthinkable. There is already a significant population for whom this is already, at least on a personal level, the case.
You can read Dr Pike’s paper in full here.
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