by Brandon Reiter
On Tuesday, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito leaked to POLITICO, the Supreme Court voted to strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Although it is not a final ruling, if the current opinions of the justices do not change, the majority of the court will confirm the reversal.
Roe v. Wade established the precedent that guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights. A subsequent 1992 decision (Planned Parenthood v. Casey) maintained the right.
Many business owner’s will recuse themselves from political conversations, worried that their views will offend potential clients. For me, abortion is not a political conundrum, but a basic human right that Women have had in this country since 1973, and should have had forever. As a business consultant, I write blog posts to inform business owners how current events may impact them and the economy. While my intention of this post is to highlight the negative economical consequences surrounding the potential ban, I have no problem letting anyone who reads this (potential client or not) know that I strongly believe the concept of men deciding the laws directly affecting the bodies of women (and only women) is so astonishingly dystopian, that if you support it I have no desire to do business with you anyway. While I embrace different opinions, and believe everyone has a right to their own beliefs, I do think if you are in support of this ban you lack a certain level of emotional intelligence, are misinformed, or are are just plain selfish.
People may support an abortion ban for a variety of reasons that typically fall into two distinct categories: religious/morality and financial. If your moral belief is that getting an abortion is akin to murder, perhaps you should be aware of the FACT that decreasing abortion availability DIRECTLY leads to higher murder rates. Financially, If you don’t want your tax money to fund abortions, perhaps you should be aware of the FACT that for every ONE tax dollar spent to pay for abortions for poor women, more than FOUR dollars is saved in medical and social welfare costs over the next two years.
These are not opinions, these are facts supported by the almost-50 year history of data following Roe v. Wade.
While Roe v. Wade was a monumental decision in our nation’s history, the notorious Hyde Amendment of 1978 restricted the use of federal funds for abortions (except in cases of rape, incest, etc.) This amendment made it so that low-income woman were severely disadvantaged when it came to seeking safe and affordable abortions. Of course, this disproportionately affected Black and Hispanic women. Without the means to pay for a safe abortion, low-income women seeking an abortion have been forced to alternative options: either forgoing the abortion, finding a cheaper black-market option, or using their spending money to pay for it. Each of these alternatives not only has a direct negative impact on the woman and child’s life, but on the economy as a whole.
I won’t bore you with the actual numbers and statistics that support these facts, if you don’t believe me you can click on the links and studies cited at the bottom and do some research, but I will do you the liberty of summarizing the key findings.
The key concept to grasp is that the legalization of abortion has had a direct causation on the type of children being born where abortions are more difficult to access. Legalization allows for fewer children to be raised in single-parent families, fewer children to grow up living off public benefits, and fewer children growing up in poverty. The Roe V. Wade generation was more likely to graduate from college and make their own living without needing welfare.
A common message being spread across the internet and social media in the wake of Tuesday’s news is “You can’t ban abortion, you can only ban safe abortion.” Simply put, wealthy woman will have the means to figure out a way to get an abortion one way or another, while lower income women will be forced to either have their baby, or become even more poor while risking their lives to seek an unsafe route.
By leaving the law up to the states, elected officials, who are predominately men, will dictate the amount of unwanted births in unfavorable circumstances. It blows my mind that anyone who holds a public office can fail to understand that if you force low-income women to bear children they are not prepared for, that child is more likely to grow up and either be a criminal, or need welfare. Not to mention the woman who has to raise the child on the brink of poverty, forced to spend less and requiring welfare funds themselves.
The facts are simple: by making abortions harder to access and more expensive, you are signing off on deliberately making the world a poorer, more crime-ridden and welfare-dependent place. If you support that, I have no idea how you sleep at night.
Justice Alito was actually claimed that “supporters [of R v. W] have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population, It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect. A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are black.” Alito clearly lacks the understanding of what those fetuses grow up to become, essentially making the case why overturning the precedent is a racial attack on the very communities he’s claiming to protect.
An important note is the Justice Roberts said, “[the draft] does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-economics-of-abortion
https://www.abortionindia.com/abortion/economics-of-abortion
https://reproductive-health-journal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12978-022-01405-x
