Thread by @WillMcAvoyACN

So, tonight I'm going to talk about abortion, because it is clear that abortion is going to be a major topic through election day and perhaps beyond, even more-so than usual.

This thread is going to look beyond the moral debate into policy and facts surrounding abortion.

We often talk about abortion as a moral absolute, either it's an inherent right or it is literally child murder, with very little gray area. But when you dig into the statistics American opinions on abortion are varied and often counter-intuitive.

You may have noticed I've turned off @ replies for this thread. This will not be a normal thing, but because of the nature of this topic and the ease at which it can go off the rails, I thought this was best. Once I finish I will have a post for people to share their thoughts.

Let's start with the statistics surrounding American opinions on abortion.

48% of Americans say abortion is morally wrong, while 20% say it is morally acceptable, while 31% do not view it as a moral issue at all.

However, 61% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

What's more, overturning Roe v. Wade via the Supreme Court is extremely unpopular, with only 28% of Americans supporting the court overturning the landmark ruling, and only 22% expecting abortion to become illegal anytime in the near future.

So you may be asking why Republicans are pushing so hard to overturn Roe v. Wade if it would be so unpopular (even 50% of Republicans think it should not be overturned).

There is one demographic group that overwhelmingly thinks abortion should be illegal: White Evangelicals.

77% of White Evangelical Protestants want abortion illegal. Every other major religious group (white mainline protestant, Black protestant, Catholic) have around a 60/40 split in favor of legality. However, the domination of WEP's opinion brings Protestants as a whole against.

White Evangelicals make up 17% of the US population and 8% of the US population under 30. It is a small, dying demographic. But it is also such a large, solid part of the Republican voting bloc that their desires cannot be ignored. So the battle to overturn Roe v. Wade continues.

These statistics all come from Pew, and you can review them here: pewresearch.org/politics/2019/…

From these statistics, you can either conclude that Republicans are either the dog that caught the mail truck they were chasing, or that many people who otherwise would want Roe v. Wade overturned have resigned themselves to thinking that would not be a possibility.

However, there's another possibility, which I will get into in a little bit.

In short, moral opposition to abortion doesn't necessarily mean favoring making it illegal, or doing so through the courts. That's something important to note, that you simply never hear in the debate.

So let's shift gears and talk about abortion from a historical standpoint. Because it's important to note that abortion is not the modern invention some claim it to be. Indeed, the writings of Aristotle and Plato both mention abortion in one way or another.

This makes the absolute absence of any reference to abortion in the Christian texts, specifically the New Testament interesting, though ultimately it has led to inconsistent application of policies concerning abortion throughout the ages.

Honestly, the Catholic history of abortion is a mess, with conflicting information an motivation prior to 1869. Trying to make sense of the various teachings before that time frame is a fool's errand. Suffice to say, it was not clear or a major part of the Catholic belief system.

As for the legal history, well, abortion was legal in the United States pre-quickening (fetal movement) in all states. it wasn't until the post-Civil War era that anti-abortion laws became common, driven mostly by doctors who had a variety of reasons for opposing abortion.

Some were related to medical care, other were related to getting abortion providers out of the medical or pseudo-medical business. They were successful. By 1900 all states had made abortion a felony.

Despite the felony status of abortions, they continued and by the 1930s hundreds of thousands of abortions were performed by physicians in the United States. Which brings us to Roe v. Wade.

Since this is about overturning Roe v. Wade, we should look at that ruling further.

It's important to note how the 7-2 ruling was found. The ruling found that the implied right to privacy found in other rulings (including those related and unrelated to procreation) also included abortion for a pregnant woman.

It was not a moral ruling, and it may have inadvertently created the trend of conservative justices being 'originalists'.

Keep in mind that overturning Roe v. Wade will not outlaw abortion, but it will allow states to outlaw abortion. So, what happens when a country that previously had legal abortion outlaws the practice? Well, for that we can turn by Romania, a country where this occurred.

Abortion was legalized in Romania in 1957. After watching the birth rate decline over the following years, in 1966 Nicolae Ceaușescu early into his rule of the communist nation outlawed abortion in order to encourage population growth, viewing it vital for the long-term success.

It worked... for a year or so. The birth rate doubled, then quickly fell again. Women quickly found ways around the ban, with middle and upper class women easily getting access to abortion. It was only the lower class women that weren't able to access abortion.

So what happened to them? Well, lots of them died, as many as 10,000 by 1989. Maternal mortality doubled between 1966 and 1989. (Keep in mind that maternal morality is also extremely high in the United States when compared to similar socioeconomic status)

When communism fell, warehouses all across the country were found hosing 170,000 children, most of whom were malnourished, and some of whom had been chained to their bed.

Not only did Romania's population not grow, but a generation of the populace suffered from mental and physical problems as a result of their imprisonment as a result of Romania's policies.

You can read in more detail here: foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/wha…

There's a lot more we could cover, but I feel like that's good for tonight.