On the structural implications of fetal heartbeat bills and cycles of poverty.
Conversations regarding the legality and politics of abortion are often focused on the ethical right or wrong of abortions, but whether or not something is “right” or “wrong” does not affect the real structural implications of abortion legislation. When women are unable to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, for whatever reason, they are, for all intents and purposes, locked into a massive financial and life commitment they did not choose. Aside from the obvious relationship this has with our ethical concepts of freedom, the socioeconomic burden of a child creates immense personal and communal barriers.
Personal barriers are exemplified in a multitude of ways, for one, every decision made by a new mother will now be shaped in some way by self-imposed social expectations of what raising a child looks like. This ideological pressure will incite conformity to a set of actions and desired outcomes. Perhaps an individual’s culture stresses the importance of a stay at home mother; perhaps the mother has seen, through social media, how their friends are raising their children, maybe she feels that she isn’t meeting the same level of parenting and must then deal with the associated anxiety and cognitive dissonance; perhaps she wanted to spend her life savings on college, but she will instead have to spend her life savings on medical bills for childbirth.
The communal outcomes of abortion restriction legislation will almost undoubtedly, for American communities of average wealth, result in economic slow downs. Some examples: money spent on your child’s, or grandchild’s, stroller does not equate to money spent at a locally owned business; money spent on medical bills for childbirth does not necessarily go to your local hospital; money spent on a bigger car contributes more to climate change. Combine these direct implications of financial spending with the reduced potential for financial advancement that arises with an unplanned pregnancy, and it should be clear just how distinct a single mother, or a young couple, is in terms of their economic contribution compared to the same individual without a child.
One might argue that families, overall, contribute more to the economy because they are rooted in one community and therefore will give in to this community for extended periods of time. And this is likely true in the cases of stable families with planned childbirth, but it is callous to expect young adults to simply stop their lives and build up a communal relationship with their area in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. Furthermore, upon having an unplanned child this new family does not magically receive a pay raise that would enable them to buy a house, and without the capacity to buy a house the prospects of a long term relationship with a community is lessened, as the individuals may feel only temporarily tethered to a lease or apartment.
Looking at the relationship of unplanned pregnancies structural outcomes with any number of other societal issues, we can really start to see how widespread and negative the effects of draconian legislation such as fetal heartbeat bills are. Additionally, we can, through the same discussion, shed light onto the positive outcomes that progressive sexual health policy can have.
Not picking at random, let’s consider the effects of unplanned pregnancies on homelessness or poverty. If you are a household living on the edge of financial ruin, and your daughter happens to be one of the unlucky part of the “1%” who’s contraceptives fail, AND your state has made it nearly impossible for your daughter to have an abortion, then maybe you sell the house to help cover the bills… Maybe you rented… Maybe the grandparents come in to help, and in doing so diminish their retirement and inheritances…
These may seem like isolated cases, but there are 30 million people living in the four states that passed fetal heartbeat bills. Currently, in America, the bottom 20% of Americans have no money in savings, and other studies have found that roughly 60% of Americans have less than $1000 dollars saved. Even if we only looks at the 20% of people with nothing in savings that is 6 Million people living with no money in savings, who now will not be able to elect for an abortion.
Take into account that these communities of Americans living at or below $0 in savings are likely the same communities with underfunded schools, which results in worse sex education, and therefore higher teen pregnancy rates. Impoverished communities are at a higher risk of environmental exposures such as air pollution. Exposure which, especially during a child’s development, will have lifelong impacts on cognitive development, health outcomes, and financial opportunities therefrom.
Restricting access to abortions for large swaths of people plays a direct role in the cycle of poverty these populations find themselves within. In essence, Alabama, Ohio, Mississippi and Georgia have chosen to support a policy that may align with their policymaker’s ethical ideological outlook, but a policy which actively harms the communities they are elected to serve. Coincidentally, there is not a public majority in favor of banning abortions in Ohio and Georgia.
On the structural implications of fetal heartbeat bills and cycles of poverty.
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