All Our Lives

One of the arguments contraception opponents commonly make is that the acceptance of contraception leads to abortion. For a good debunking of that argument, read "Examining the argument that provision of contraception leads to increased abortion rates".

What leads to increased use of both contraception and — especially when contraception is unavailable or inadequate — abortion is the desire for relatively low fertility. Contraception and abortion are going to be much less of an issue when people fully expect to have six or eight or ten kids. Those days are over for most people in the developed world, for complex social and economic reasons. What we have to decide now is whether we're going to deal with that reality in an evidence-based manner, or pretend it's not happening (or that it shouldn't be happening, and therefore people who want to have sex but not have a lot of babies are just immoral).

When I attended the helping pregnant women Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words conference last fall, pro-choice and pro-life attendees alike expressed frustration with politicians who talked a good game about protecting human life but then tried to cut funding to programs that help women choose life for their children.

We're told that the government doesn't need to help people, because that's what private charity is for. But private charity can't do the job alone. Crisis pregnancy centers rely not only on volunteers and donations, but on referring clients to government assistance programs such as Medicaid and WIC. Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the United States. Ask a crisis pregnancy center volunteer how much harder their job will get if Medicaid is cut.

Please urge your members of Congress to reject Medicaid cuts.

Contraception does not increase abortion

Medicaid cuts: harmful for pregnant women and their children