For all of my haters:
Sweden’s abortion rates went up 17% from 2000-2007 even though their use of contraceptives like the morning after pill also increased. [1]
Scottland’s abortion rates ALSO increased to an all time high even though contraceptive use increased. [2]
Maternal Mortality rates have declined in the Philipines even without legalized abortions. [3]
Abortion rates DOUBLED in Spain even when contraceptive use increased by 30%. [4, 4.1]
A study done at the University of Edinburgh showed that increased use of emergency contraception did not lower abortion rates. [5]
Abortion rates ROSE at Planned Parenthood of Washington despite having FEWER pregnancies. [6]
38 states recognize the killing of a pregnant woman to be double homicide yet still have legal abortions. Sorry, I didn’t realize that being wanted was a qualification for being human… [7]
The purpose of the article I posted was simply to point out to my mainly pro-life and pro-chastity followers that a mindset that is open to contraceptives (closed to life) can very easily slip to being open to abortion. If you don’t want to read this message, I have a really helpful tip for you: block me, stop reading my page, do what ever you want to do to avoid my message. I don’t care. But responding to my posts with “what the f***” and telling me that I’m illogical does not fly with me.
Your summaries are a just a bit off. In Sweden, instead of saying “the use of contraceptives like the morning-after pill,” you should have just said, “the use of the morning after pill,” because that’s what the article was about. Contraceptive use was declining in Sweden, meaning emergency contraception was on the rise.
Abortion increase blamed on declining use of the pill
The declining popularity of the contraceptive pill is considered by Lena Marions to be the main explanatory factor. The responsibility for protecting against unwanted pregnancies it seems remains with the woman and the use of alternative forms of contraception have not increased sufficiently to compensate.
Figures from the national pharmacy monopoly Apoteket indicate that use of the pill has been in decline since 2005.
Fear of the side effects of the contraceptive pill are to blame for the trend; these fears are exaggerated according to Marions, who is head of the sex and cohabitation clinic (SESAM) at Karolinska University Hospital.
“There is broad concern over the side effects of the contraceptive pill. As soon as the media make a fuss about a blood clot then use of the pill declines dramatically.”
Agneta Zellbi, senior physician at Stockholm South General Hospital (SÖS), concurs in that the main reason for the increase in abortions and the use of morning-after pills is the declining use of the pill but also notes other factors behind the trend.
Zellbi argues that that changes to sexual habits, delayed parenthood, shorter relationships and primarily the woman’s relationship situation at the time of the pregnancy are decisive factors.
Turns out not using contraception regularly, like birth control pills and condoms, leads to increased usage of emergency contraception and abortion! Who knew?
According to another pro-life website (you like those, right?), Scotland’s abortion rates are now decreasing because - drumroll, please - sex ed and contraception services are improving and increasing! Nice use of the all-encompassing term “contraception” for merely one form of it, yet again.
There are some other explanations for the decline in maternal mortality, as well. Obviously, as technology and medicine improves, we’ll see a drop. You also have to take historical context into account, as well as possibly bad methodology:
However, the 1980s was a decade of severe crisis in the Philippines. 1980 was the eighth year of martial law imposed by Ferdinand Marcos. A rival for the presidency was assassinated in 1983, which led to years of protests until a mass uprising in 1986 forced out the dictator. The new government then faced a series of attempts to topple it, the bloodiest of which ended in December, 1989. Economic growth suffered, as seen in the 9% fall in per-capita gross domestic product2 in 1989 compared with 1980. It is implausible that the Philippines achieved a record-setting decline in MMR amid all the turmoil.
You can read the rest of the criticism here, and the original study here (seriously, what’s up with not linking to studies? Lifenews and its ilk are not reliable sources, people).
The Spain study is here, and LifeNews conveniently ignored the entire discussion, which gave many possible reasons for the increase, such as an increase in abortion reporting, poor contraceptive use, gender disparity in contraceptive use, people having sex at younger ages (therefore being less knowledgeable about and able to negotiate contraceptive use), and an increase in immigrant population:
It has been argued that the most probable cause is that immigrant status is associated more often with low education, weak social network, poverty, unemployment and being outside common pathways to health care. In a case-control study that compared 1095 Danish-born women and 233 immigrant women requesting abortion with a control group of 1295 pregnant women intending to give birth, lack of contraceptive knowledge and experience with contraceptive problems were associated with the choice of abortion.
Ignoring the discussion section of a study seems pretty routine for pro-life websites. They did the same for the University of Edinburgh study:
Perhaps the most likely explanation for the failure to influence abortion rates lies in the observation that even when women did have EC at home, it was not always used when it might have prevented a pregnancy. Seventy-four percent of the 36 women who had advanced supplies and reported an unintended pregnancy did not use EC. Many women have a “low sense of vulnerability towards pregnancy” [25], even when they know that they have taken risk. In a number of studies in different countries among women having abortions [2,26,27], the failure to recognize a risk of pregnancy is the most common reason for nonuse of contraception including EC. Having a supply of EC to keep at home will not help women who do not recognize the risk of pregnancy, and therefore do not recognize the need to use EC.
It’s the same reason people don’t wear helmets or seatbelts. With absolutely no reason other than a particularly strong invincibility complex, they simply believe it couldn’t happen to them. Talk to people who don’t use contraception, even when they don’t want to get pregnant. I guarantee this will be an extremely common answer.
Read the comments in this article for some hypotheses on the increase in Washington.
You are seeing the issue with a very black-and-white mindset, and mistakenly conflating the use of contraception with being, I don’t know, anti-life? “Closed to life” doesn’t really mean much other than the knee-jerk emotional response I assume it’s meant to elicit. It takes a whole lot of assumption on your part to presume to know the inner workings of the mind of every person who uses contraception.
At any rate, declaring that pregnancy is always welcome, no matter the circumstance, or that certain groups of people should just never have sex, is ignorant and cruel. You can be pro-life and pro-chastity for yourself to your heart’s content, but the moment you start being patronizing and creepy about complete strangers’ sex lives, well, that won’t fly with me, either.
