It is uncommon to think beyond the immediate consequences and side effects of an action … but it shouldn’t be. Consider the action of ending legal abortion in America. The immediate consequence would be increasing births. A side effect would be higher death rates among women because even when risks to their lives are only a few times greater than normal, such risks are real.
Another side effect is an even higher rate of early infant mortality in America when this rate is already the highest of any developed nation and nearly twice that of the average in developed nations! In fact, infant mortality tends higher in states with lower rates of abortion. These deaths are painful for the infant as well as for the parents.
Women will die from illegal abortions that can’t be stopped with laws, and others will be incarcerated. Do we really want to further increase the largest prison population in the world? Since many and possibly most abortions involve young women who are already marginalized, most such consequences will amount to punishing those who are already victimized by lack of opportunity.
A longer-range consequence will be a large rise in crime rates. Within 20 years of the legalization of abortion in America, crime rates plummeted. A Stanford study strongly linked much of this to legalized abortion just over 20 years ago.
A legal consequence would be the general loss of a right to privacy relative to governments.
Robert J. Reiland
O’Hara