Thread by @roseperson

Reminder: You cannot ban abortion. You can only ban safe abortion.

Abortion rates in countries that outlaw abortion and those in countries where it is legal are statistically the same.

ALL the steps to reducing abortions lie in making more of them unnecessary: e.g., providing sex ed, contraception and healthcare, and reducing poverty, inequity, rape and domestic violence.

People don't get abortions for reasons at all similar to the reasons people speed, rape or murder. They get abortions because they need them. To reduce abortions, help more people not need them. Bans don't reduce the need, or abortion. They just increase the danger.

The data:"The abortion rate is 37 per 1,000 women in countries that prohibit abortion altogether or allow it only to save a woman’s life, & 34 per 1,000 in countries that allow abortion w/out restriction as to reason—a difference that is not significant." guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/ind…

At least 22,800 women die each year from complications of unsafe abortion. Almost all abortion-related deaths occur in developing countries (where abortion is widely illegal), the largest number occurring in Africa.
guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/ind…

This is a 2014 map of where abortion is broadly legal (green), legal for socioeconomic (yellow) or health (orange) reasons, or either banned entirely or except to save the woman's life (red). Again, abortion rates are comparable across color. In non-green ones, more women die.

Republicans are trying to turn the country red. And whatever the rhetoric, the facts are clear: there's nothing pro-life about it.

Of course, Americans of means will always have access to abortion--e.g., by traveling to a green country. Those who are poor (disproportionately people of color), experiencing abuse, etc. will be trapped in the wealthiest nation, with the health risks of a developing one.