A Hot Take- Abortion
Abortion in the US has become an extremely controversial topic, with a larger debate occurring after Roe v. Wade in 1973 which declared abortion to be a “fundamental right.” There are two main sides to this argument: pro-choice and pro-life.
Pro-choice proponents contend that choosing abortion is a woman’s right that should not be limited by governmental or religious authority, and which outweighs any right claimed for an embryo or fetus. Pro-life opponents contend that individual human life begins at fertilization, and therefore abortion is the immoral killing of an innocent human being, which inflicts suffering on the unborn child, and that it’s unfair to allow abortion when couples who cannot biologically conceive are waiting to adopt.
To preface, I am pro-choice. I believe that women have the right to their own bodies and should have the option to abort if necessary. Most of my bias stems from being a woman/identifying as female and knowing that I have a high probability of being placed in this situation, would want the option of abortion available to me. I grew up in an American, mostly Christian, mostly liberal household and will admit to having had and sometimes still having a motivated reasoning bias.
A lot of the empirical data that is brought into this discussion from both sides involves personal experiences. Many pro-choice proponents have either had an abortion, knows someone who has had an abortion, or has been placed in a situation where they had to make the call themselves. To add, there has been a recent increase in women (and occasionally men) sharing their stories via social media. The majority of those stories conclude by asking people to understand why they chose what they did and to encourage people to see it as an individual case. Sometimes, they write, the abortion had to happen because it was putting themselves in danger, other times, the fetus was already dead in the body or it would die within seconds after being born. Access to safe and legal abortions reduces maternal injury and death caused by unsafe, illegal abortions. The World Health Organization estimated that unsafe abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year, many of those in developing countries where safe and legal abortion services are difficult to access. In 1972, there were 39 maternal deaths from illegal abortions. After Roe v. Wade, that number dropped to 2.
To switch sides, many pro-life people believe that abortion is a form of killing. They take on the role of speaking for the unborn child who is a human at this point and deserves a say on whether or not they should be killed. Typically, the word “murder” is associated when discussing abortion. There is biological evidence from French geneticist, Jérôme-Jean-Louis-Marie Lejeune who discovered the chromosome abnormality that causes Down syndrome in 1959. Among that, he wrote, “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion… The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.”
What makes this argument difficult, is that the two sides tend to argue the same points, but with different outcomes. For example, the emotional pain and trauma that can be brought onto the mother by this can be life-changing. Both sides argue that with or without it, there will be psychological damage. This peak-end rule of only perceiving the average of experience, how it was at its peak and how it ended is what makes this controversial. Regardless of whether you believe abortion is right or not, I would argue that it’s guaranteed (and obvious) that there’s going to be an emotional impact on the woman.
Not only have we brought in personal experience and biology, but it’s important to note that a large sum of this argument also has to do with religion. Many religious organizations and people of faith support women’s reproductive choices, such as the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. On the other hand, abortion is seen as the killing of a human being, which defies the word of God. In the Bible, there is no distinction between fetuses and babies and rather describes that once a baby is conceived, he or she is recognized by God. The Sixth Commandment of the Bible’s Old Testament writes, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) and applies to all human beings, including unborn babies.
Basing this debate off of personal experience, biology and religion are bound to be messy- and it is. It’s a lot of grey area and a lot of moral perceptions. A lot of bandwagon effects have been put into play which can extend into whole communities. Another cognitive bias that I have observed being put into play is the ultimate attribution error. It’s a group-level attribution where a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group. When this group-level attribution is placed into the argument, it tends to turn into a “the only reason you are killing your baby is because you don’t want it and that’s final.” However, many of the personal experiences told were independent cases where specific incidents have occurred, such as the fetus showing traits of not developing properly, or the baby being stillborn, etc. Additionally, a pro-life argument states that women should give their unwanted babies up for adoption to people who can’t conceive. To add in my own perspective- I am adopted. Many of my adoptee friends understand this view, and so do I. Adoption is wonderful and can bring a lot of joy to families. However, my issue with this specific argument is the word unwanted. I know very few people who would give up a child without shedding a tear. It’s a heartbreaking decision and one I have discussed at length in groups of other adopted children. Adopted children are almost never unwanted but rather put up for adoption because the family does not have the financial, mental or physical support to properly care for a child.
A second observation I have come to read is that often the argument is largely based on two very separate stages of pregnancy. The majority of abortions occur within the first trimester or 13-weeks. Anything after that is rare and often restricted by state laws. The pro-choice side argues that fetuses are incapable of feeling pain this early on. A review by Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state, “most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception.” The cortex doesn’t become functional until at least the 26th week of a fetus’ development. Yet, occasionally the pro-life stance perceives the abortion process to happen in the other two trimesters.
Looking at a dataset might be useful to understand why this debate is heated. Let’s look at reported induced terminations of pregnancy in 2017 which could be used for either argument.
After loading in and cleaning the data, we see that we have dates going back to 1967. With 50 years of numeric data, we can see how both arguments might use this singular set.
Let’s start by graphing this shows us a lovely trend:
Here, we can see that the number of terminations increases before dropping sharply. This shows that the number of legal abortions increased after the law declared them legal.
The pro-choice side may view this and observe the increase in legal abortions and use this to sway viewers to see the benefits of legal abortion. They could argue that women feel safer knowing they have the rights to choose what to do with their body in this event. The pro-life side may view this and observe the increase in legal abortions and sway viewers to see that more people are killing their unwanted babies. They could argue that this is immoral and illegal and should be stopped. The decrease between ~1985 to 2000 could also have a double meaning- again, based on what you want to believe.
Going back to the previous biases, the data above or any data like it provides the opportune moment for someone to encounter confirmation bias- searching and remembering information that confirms your own values. Similarly, the bandwagoning effect where one person believes something because others around them do is also in play here. This data comes from colorado.gov, so it’s possible that one could argue a certain viewpoint depending on what the majority of Coloradoans believe as well.
To really understand where you sit on the debate, it’s important to remember that the data you are reading for one side, could be the exact same data that the opposing side is using, too. Remember to look into the data yourself, read both sides and acknowledge your biases.
Data Retrieved from:
https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/vital-statistics-program
Resources:
A great source for other controversial topics: https://abortion.procon.org/
A full list of cognitive biases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Decision-making,_belief,_and_behavioral_biases
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/5113/9611/5527/Abortion_After_first_trimester.pdf
