Question about abortion...?

Question

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but someone gave a debate about abortion in my speech class the other day and it got me thinking...

Do you think the rise in the illegitimacy rate had anything to do with the legalization of abortion?
Or is it more of just a cultural change?

The argument would be that people see abortion as birth control ("if I get pregnant I can always have an abortion"), so there are less worries about having sex, more women get pregnant, etc.

Any thoughts would be great!

Answer 1

I think the illegitimacy rate increase is purely a cultural change. The stigma of "having a child out of wedlock" is now gone. Women have more choices in regard to being able to care for a child on her own, career, daycare, assistance etc. So if finding herself pregnant she does not need to be married. Of course abortion as birth control is wrong, and so is having a child when you are fifteen and unable to meet the financial burdens of raising a child. But if you look merely at the question you put forth, rise in illegitimacy, legalization of abortion. You would think legalization of abortion would lower the illegitimacy rate.
Maybe the rise in illegitimacy rate is more tied to the lack of sexual education and thinking that teaching abstinence only to teens with raging hormones is counter-productive.

Answer 2

The legalization of abortion has nothing to do with abortion.
It has nothing to do with whether abortion is good or bad, and it has nothing to do with who is getting or not getting abortions. It has nothing to do with birth control or anything else.

The legal protection of the right to choose deals only with whether the government is allowed to force or prohibit a person from having certain medical procedures performed on their own body.

Those who are pro-choice (and the Supreme Court decisions legalizing the right to choose) say only that the government is not allowed to make those decisions against a person's will.

People need to understand the debate. Those who are pro-life are arguing that abortion is bad, and therefore the government is the only one allowed to make the decision.

Those who are pro-choice are not taking any stand on whether abortion is good or not (and in fact, most personally oppose abortion). The only thing they are saying is whether the government can force the decision.

So, the legalization of abortion has nothing to do with abortion itself. It is solely about what the government has the right to force a person to do with their own body.