More than 30 years have passed since the landmark case Roe v. Wade was decided. Its future, however, dominated last week's confirmation hearings of Judge John Roberts as the next chief justice. Twelve of the 18 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly referenced Roe or its 1992 reaffirmation, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and many made nuanced inquiries into stare decisis and the constitutional right to privacy, which were little more than thinly veiled references to these controversial opinions.
While the hearings left unclear Roberts' future opinions regarding the issue, they made very clear that the national debate over abortion is not about to subside any time soon.
In fact, national opinion seems to have changed very little over the past decade, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. The most recent survey (August 28-30) indicated that 54 percent of adults nationwide considered themselves "pro-choice," while 38 percent considered themselves "pro-life." The numbers for 1996 were almost identical: 53 percent versus 36 percent.
The debate between those who advocate for "choice" or "life" is often characterized as a bitter, ideological battle -- are you for, or against, abortion? For most Americans, however, the issue is far from black and white.
Further questions from the same poll reveal this more complex reality. Only 9 percent would like the Supreme Court to liberalize abortion restrictions, while 42 percent would like restrictions tightened. A mere 28 percent favor an unrestricted right to an abortion. For many individuals, the simple designations of "pro-choice" and "pro-life" do not adequately capture the range of issues at hand.
It's fair to say that almost no one takes lightly the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Those who work in abortion clinics suggest that a sizeable proportion of the women they see consider themselves an exception. "I very often hear, 'I don't believe in this, but my situation is different,'" claimed an Arkansas clinic worker recently interviewed by The New York Times.
In the intensity of the public debate, however, such nuanced views easily become polarized, and it is easy to forget that we do, in fact, have common ground.
When people disagree over abortion, they are disagreeing over how to handle the more fundamental problem of unintended preganancy. A 1998 study in the journal Family Planning Perspectives estimated that approximately half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and about half of those unintended pregnancies end in abortion.
Unintended pregnancy disproportionately occurs among young women who are less educated and less financially secure. The majority of women who choose abortion have never been married. Children born into such situations are less likely to grow up in a stable household, less likely to receive a decent education and, some contend, more likely to be involved in criminal activity. In 1999, economist Steven Levitt and legal scholar John Donohue published a highly controversial paper asserting that the legalization of abortion may have accounted for as much as 50 percent of the significant drop in crime across the nation in the 1990s.
Even if you disregard such assertions, the problem of unintended pregnancy is clear and not inherently controversial. So why aren't we doing a better job of working together to address it?
Unfortunately, by pushing abstinence-only education and restricting access to contraceptives, it is those who most oppose abortion who are doing the worst job of preventing it.
We need to better educate our teenagers. Abstinence-only education is not enough. Statistics released last week by the Centers for Disease Control indicate that roughly half of all teenagers are engaging in sexual intercourse. Comprehensive sexual education and access to contraceptives is crucial to ensure students are safe when they do choose to become sexually active. In fact, teenagers account for almost 20 percent of abortions, and they often choose abortion further along in pregnancy due to the burdens imposed by parental consent laws in many states, including Pennsylvania.
We also need to provide emergency contraception, known as Plan B, over the counter. Two weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Lester Crawford, indefinitely postponed its decision to approve Plan B for non-prescription use because he was uncomfortable with sales to minors. Susan Wood, director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health, resigned in outrage. Plan B has been long been available in Europe, and its potential for significantly reducing the incidence of unintended pregnancy is obvious.
John Roberts will almost certainly be confirmed as our next chief justice, and he will likely preside over at least one case concerning regulation of abortion throughout his tenure on the court. Those who are truly concerned about the issue, however, should be working together today to address the root of the problem, where bipartisan progress should be possible.
