The Wider Problem

There are many problems in this world, which in the Catholic prayer Salve Regina is described as a vale of tears.  Problems, like people, do not exist in isolation but are intricately linked in complex networks.  It is therefore simplistic to focus on some part of a problem without considering the holistic view.
 
The Roman Catholic Church, or at least powerful elements within it especially those from the US religious right, has announced that they intend to focus attention on abortion.  The representatives of this group in Belize have declared that there are 3,000 abortions a year in Belize, a situation which they find unacceptable. Their solution is to lobby government to tighten existing laws to make legal abortion more restrictive.  Whether their figure on abortion is accurate or not (they offer no evidence for its validity) I believe that most Belizeans would agree that there are too many abortions. However, many Belizeans, including myself, disagree with the proposed response. 
 
First of all there is some confusion about numbers. Abortion as a medical term refers to all pregnancies that result in the termination of a pregnancy, including those that occur naturally. Assuming that the figure of 3,000 abortions annually refers only to those pregnancies that were deliberately terminated, it is reasonable to assume that only a small minority were done according to the legal requirements. An abortion can be obtained legally only if two doctors agree that the pregnancy puts the mother’s mental or physical health at risk. In practice, this requires the services of doctors in the private sector and so it is generally not accessible to lower income women. Most abortions in Belize are procured from non official sources which are more affordable though also more risky. The women who use these unofficial sources frequently end up in the public hospitals suffering from the side effects of improperly performed abortions. Therefore, changes to the law are an extremely inefficient means to reduce the number of abortions.  Experience indicates that such changes will not reduce the number of abortions but will mean that more abortions are performed illegally thus putting more women at risk of death or injury.  This is particularly true for low income women since safer abortions will always be available for those who can pay.
 
It is more helpful to consider that abortion itself is not the problem but the end result of a more serious crisis – unwanted pregnancies.  There are many reasons why some pregnancies are unwanted, some more worthy than others.  The pregnancy may be the result of rape; the woman or girl may be considered too young or too old; the woman may have too many children to support; the timing may be inconvenient for reasons of employment, education or lifestyle. Regardless of why the pregnancy is unwanted it can have tremendous effects at both the personal and social level. The personal effects are fairly easy to imagine but we should not minimize the effect that a large number of unwanted children can have on society. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubnor in their book Freakonomics tease out the role legalised abortion in the USA may have had in reducing crime. The dramatic drop in crime rates in New York and other US cities occurred 16-20 years after legislative changes made abortion more available to low income women. The drop in crime is more closely correlated with this factor than any of the other supposed causes such as better policing, zero tolerance etc. It makes a lot of sense to assume that many unwanted babies grow up to be unwanted children and teenagers and this crop of unwanted citizens is at high risk for the destructive cycle of educational failure, early sexual activity, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and criminality.
 
A more helpful solution to the problem must be to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.  Again, experience teaches us that education on sexuality in its fullest sense can reduce promiscuity, raise the age of sexual initiation and increase the likelihood that sexual encounters will be less risky resulting in less unwanted pregnancies and a reduction in sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Let us not craft responses based on a rigid dogma that fails to see the broader picture. Studies show that abstinence only programs in schools have no positive effect on sexual behaviour.  Furthermore, restricting the availability of condoms and other forms of birth control does not reduce sexual encounters – it only makes them more risky.
 
If some groups are more comfortable working on some issues than others, that is fine. The churches can continue to teach about their value systems and find ways to make it relevant to this generation of young people.  However, it is unhelpful to block access to and preach against birth control and family life education while campaigning to further criminalise the results of such actions.
 
Abortion is a last resort, an act of desperation with many negative consequences for all involved.  Many women agonise over their decision and some suffer mental anguish after the event. However, the solution is not to restrict abortion but rather to reduce unwanted pregnancies.  Surely, we can all agree on that.