I disagree more on this, though. Of course there are wide-reaching societal effects, but I think the link re: crime was pretty decisively debunked by various economists—I found Lott and Whitley’s response particularly compelling: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00040.x. I would argue that most of the other negative effects of limiting abortion access have also been highly exaggerated (I have a paper in the International Family Law Journal on this topic and happy to send to anyone interested by email).
Then in addition there are considerable negative societal effects—e.g. increased STD transmission rates, increased family breakdown (and hence poverty), etc. Even aside from any consideration of the moral value of the embryo or fetus, I think there’s a decent consequentialist case against abortion access.
I’m pretty sure that in the way that increasing sentence lengths isn’t effective for deterring crime, reducing access to abortion isn’t effective for reducing STD transmission. And I’m pretty sure less family planning is related to more poverty, not less.
increasing sentence lengths isn’t effective for deterring crime
The main argument is that increasing sentence length reduces crime through incapacitation, not deterrence. Even if no-one is ever deterred, if criminals are imprisoned after their first assault you have prevented the subsequent crimes. (see for example discussion here).
I’m not sure I see the connection. The economic evidence that I’ve seen suggests that, pretty consistently in a wide variety of settings, increased abortion access has been responsible for pretty large increases in STI transmission (https://academic.oup.com/aler/article-abstract/14/2/457/162853). I’m not aware of any counterevidence, though there may be some.
I’m also not persuaded re: family planning. Yes, family planning can help relieve poverty in some cases. But on a wide-reaching societal level, I think the poverty that has resulted (especially among women) from family breakdown has probably more than compensated for any potential financial benefits: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2946680
I disagree more on this, though. Of course there are wide-reaching societal effects, but I think the link re: crime was pretty decisively debunked by various economists—I found Lott and Whitley’s response particularly compelling: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.2006.00040.x. I would argue that most of the other negative effects of limiting abortion access have also been highly exaggerated (I have a paper in the International Family Law Journal on this topic and happy to send to anyone interested by email).
Then in addition there are considerable negative societal effects—e.g. increased STD transmission rates, increased family breakdown (and hence poverty), etc. Even aside from any consideration of the moral value of the embryo or fetus, I think there’s a decent consequentialist case against abortion access.
I’m pretty sure that in the way that increasing sentence lengths isn’t effective for deterring crime, reducing access to abortion isn’t effective for reducing STD transmission. And I’m pretty sure less family planning is related to more poverty, not less.
The main argument is that increasing sentence length reduces crime through incapacitation, not deterrence. Even if no-one is ever deterred, if criminals are imprisoned after their first assault you have prevented the subsequent crimes. (see for example discussion here).
Yes… it would be great if the criminal justice system could actually rehabilitate people rather than mostly just punishing them.
I’m not sure I see the connection. The economic evidence that I’ve seen suggests that, pretty consistently in a wide variety of settings, increased abortion access has been responsible for pretty large increases in STI transmission (https://academic.oup.com/aler/article-abstract/14/2/457/162853). I’m not aware of any counterevidence, though there may be some.
I’m also not persuaded re: family planning. Yes, family planning can help relieve poverty in some cases. But on a wide-reaching societal level, I think the poverty that has resulted (especially among women) from family breakdown has probably more than compensated for any potential financial benefits: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2946680