'Right to life' will end up killing more women
By Kathryn A. Edwards / Bloomberg Opinion
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will affect much more than women’s access to abortions. Decades of economic research demonstrate that, by limiting their power over when and with whom they form families and relationships, it will threaten their livelihoods and even their lives.
Arguably the most telling research has nothing to do with abortion at all. It involves divorce, or more specifically a revolution in family law that occurred nearly 50 years ago, about the time of the original Roe v. Wade decision. Instead of requiring both parties to agree to dissolve a marriage, or one party to prove that the other was at fault, states started allowing either spouse to act unilaterally. This gave women more power to leave unhappy or abusive marriages.
Different states enacted the changes at different times, creating a natural experiment that economists studied to tease out the effects on divorce rates, women’s earnings and retirement security. But the most significant and sobering findings involved mortality: 10 percent fewer women died at the hands of their spouses and 8 percent fewer committed suicide (there was no effect on men’s mortality). Reports of domestic violence against women fell as well.
Abortion also gives women the power to exit relationships. If you have a child with someone, you are bound to them for at least 18 years through custody, visitation and child support. In surveys, 31 percent of women seeking to terminate pregnancies cited a “partner-related reason,” such as not wanting a child with the man, wanting to end the relationship or believing that the father wouldn’t care for the child. Of those, about 8 percent cited abuse as the primary reason. Twice that many said the partner had physically abused them within the past six months.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-right-to-life-will-end-up-killing-more-women/