Reducing Abortion in America

Recently, a former classmate Kolburt asked a few Christians representing different places on the political spectrum to weigh in on the question of abortion on his blog Faithful Politics. Specifically, he asked us to focus specifically on suggestions for reducing the number of abortions within the current framework of laws. My good friend Matthew Lee Anderson offered what I thought was a particularly interesting response. Check it out over at Mere Orthodoxy. My own contribution is copied below. What do you think? How would you have answered?

What is the best way to reduce the number of abortions? There’s no easy answer to this question. Abortion existed long before it was legal and will continue to exist wherever there is hurt, brokenness, and desperation. And therein lies the issue at the heart of ending abortion – meeting the needs of mothers-to-be who are scared and uncertain.

I share an office with Prison Fellowship Ministries, which includes Care Net, a network of more than 1,100 pregnancy centers. Recently, I was told that 90% of pregnant women who visit a crisis pregnancy center carry their child to term. Conversely, more than 90% of pregnant women who go to Planned Parenthood choose abortion. The reassuring words, health care, resources about adoption, and provision of basic material needs provided at a crisis pregnancy center allow women to make a clear-minded, optimistic choice about their pregnancy, rather than reacting out of fear and desperation. When given a real choice, women tend to choose life.

Marketing and expanding the availability of crisis pregnancy centers is one very important component of the framework that will end abortion in America. Overturning Roe is another, as is strengthening the general culture of marriage, promoting a more wholesome understanding of sex, and reaffirming a proper understanding of masculinity among fathers.