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1. I can’t answer to Matt’s hypothetical, but my understanding was that abortion is a disproportionate phenomenon among the poor, along with single-parent families.

   — Blar · Sep 9, 08:32 PM · #

2. I can see abortion exacerbating the social and economic inequality in our society. Among the upper classes, where the social and economic supports for marriage are already strong, abortion eliminates one of the few events that can disrupt the functional bourgeois path to marriage.

   However, among the working class and urban poor, the social and economic supports for marriage are already weak. By separating sex from procreative risk, and applying the responsibilities of sexual activity solely to women, abortion adds to the deformation of relationships, and thus weakens marriage.

   In short, among the upper classes the main problem confronting the marriage culture is getting “knocked up”. Abortion addresses this problem. Outside of the privileged, the main problem is finding men who are appropriate and willing husbands. Abortion exacerbates this problem, by making it a lot easier for men to evade sexual responsibility.

   — gabriel · Sep 9, 08:58 PM · #

3. @ Blar

   Yes you are correct – the fact that abortion is overwhelmingly more frequent in lower income areas is a central tenant to the Steven Levitt theory on Abortion-and-Crime detailed in “Freakonomics.”

   Is that to say that abortion is of a negligible incidence in middle-to-upper class women, either single and/or in a relationship? I doubt it. Realistically though one would have to hypothesize that women who are single but financially stable, or women and men in a relationship who are less financially less stable but not bodering on poverty would be statistically less likely to opt for abortion than would a single woman living at-or-below poverty. This is confirmed by actual abortion incidence data.

   The question is: does the incidence of abortion somehow correlate to increasing “living standards” amongst those who opt for it versus those who do not? (Note that “living standards” are purely subjective here, because someone like Ross Douthat – I assume – would argue that a single woman who opts for abortion instead of motherhood and thus increases her net disposable income by a marginal amount over 10-15 years is not necessarily increasing her standard of living.) The Levitt argument holds that abortion has (or had) an unintended consequence of eliminating a large number of lives that would have been statistically more likely become criminals. One could say that this argument validates the standard of living claim, since reduction in crime is a metric used to show an improved quality of life in most districts.

   I think the Levitt argument of unintended cosequences maybe supports the Matt Feeney hypothesis (or question, whichever you prefer) that if the incidence of abortion is relatively higher than expected amongst couples who defer childbirth until after marriage there must be some correlation between abortion and the strength of family formation. I’m afraid, however, that the incidence in this group is most likely negligible enough that an effect could never be proven. I think the only way you could prove this would be to evaluate COUPLES who opted for abortions, rather than single women who did then married later. Good luck finding a large enough sample for that.

   — mattc · Sep 9, 09:12 PM · #

4. An additional thought:

   I think the Weisberg article is terrible. When did it become a conservative principle to want everybody to be married, happy, and rich? Or to graduate college, or high school even?

   I think the exact opposite is true in the case of conservatism. We recognize most “flaws” as an inherent component of humanity. Conservatives (should) have a very deep resentment towards actions and/or policies that are aimed at negating the very things that make us human (e.g. abortion and torture). I have an immense amount of respect for the single woman who gets pregnant, drops out of high shool, never goes to college, and lives on a lower-to-middle-income salary for the remainder of her life as she tries to raise her children alone. I root for her, in fact. In this case, it’s the man who abandoned his duties as a father that I loathe. He is disconecting himself from humanity, and more often than not could care less about human life. If there is one area where conservatism and pro-life philosophies have gone awry, it’s in the far too restrained admonishment of men who cheat on their wives (David Vitter), abandon their family commitments (Rudy Guliani), or generally show no regard for human life (President Bush).

   — mattc · Sep 9, 09:41 PM · #

5. Re: Is that to say that abortion is of a negligible incidence in middle-to-upper class women, either single and/or in a relationship?

   Many upper income (inlcuding the better off middle class types) avoid relationships altogether until they are established, and if they do have sex the Pill and condoms (often both) are de rigeur. Hence there are fewer unplanned pregnancies. Generally the more moneyed you are, the less spontaneous and impulsive you are, and certainly for young people from these backgrounds life is planned out in great detail. Of course they may slip up when they are teenagers, but one they reach their 20s that is far less likely.

   — Jonfraz · Sep 9, 10:39 PM · #

6. I’m not sure what planet Jonfraz is on where upper-income people avoid relationships until they are established. Most people in the demographic we’re talking about begin sexual activity in their late teens, usually in a pattern of serial monogamy, and settle down into a more permanent partnership and marriage in their mid-to-late-20s. They are usually on the pill, but seldom use condoms inside a relationship. Unplanned pregnancies are terminated.

   — Brendan Moran · Sep 9, 11:33 PM · #

7. There’s a lot of talk about abortion and single and young (< 30) people, but what about middle-aged working-class and urban poor couples that have established marriages? In this age of income volatility, uncertainty and “risk transfers” among the working class, how could abortion access NOT be a stabilizing force among 30s-40s working class people?

   Barbara Ehrenreich from an nytimes editorial:
   ====
   Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children – the actual extrauterine ones, that is – I was, and remain, a lioness.
   ====

   — Mike · Sep 10, 12:35 AM · #

8. The reason I brought up the connection between abortion and single parenthood among poorer Americans is that, contra Matt’s hypothesis, abortion rates and stable two-family homes do not seem to coincide, at least in one socio-economic class. What we need to address Matt’s case is data that shows unintended pregnancy rates by class, abortion rates by class, and some way of measuring successful families thereafter (which I don’t know how to measure, though divorce rates would likely be part of it). My meager Google-fu excavates no such data.

   But without such data, many of the responses here are mere unsubstantiated assertions and are useless in addressing Matt’s hypothetical.

   — Blar · Sep 10, 06:14 PM · #

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