Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds last Friday signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion legislation into law. The law prohibits abortion clinics in Idaho from performing abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected—usually around six weeks’ gestation. That early in pregnancy, many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant, or are only just learning of the pregnancy.
The bill is deliberately restrictive, in the hopes of sparking a Constitutional challenge that makes its way to the Supreme Court.
We don’t need to guess how the legislation will affect women and their families. Plenty of research already tells us: restrictive abortion laws don’t stop abortion. They kill women.
Do Abortion Regulations Stop Abortion? Nope.
Other nations that have banned abortion have not seen a drop in abortion rates. In fact, in Latin America, where many nations have banned or heavily restricted abortion, the abortion rate is higher than in the U.S. El Salvador is home to some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws, banning the procedure even for cases of rape or incest. When the law changed, suicide became the third-leading cause of maternal mortality, and the leading cause of death among adolescent girls.
The World Health Organization reports that, worldwide, more than half of abortions are unsafe. This is largely due to restrictive abortion laws and inaccessible clinics. Women who can’t get a safe and legal abortion turn to dubious DIY abortions, or to providers that offer unsafe and unsanitary procedures. In El Salvador, where illegal abortions are common, 11% of girls and women who seek an abortion don’t survive.
The Turnaway Study, an ongoing study of women denied abortions, has shown that women who are denied abortions are more likely to suffer from mental health problems, live in poverty, stay in abusive relationships, and rely on government assistance. So even when anti-choice laws succeed at stopping abortions, they also destroy lives.
How Iowa’s Anti-Choice Legislation Will Kill Women
Women feel strongly about the right to control their own bodies. So when abortion regulations restrict that right, they often turn to DIY abortions. In pre-Roe days, abortion was a common cause of death. A recent analysis by The New York Times suggests that DIY abortions could again kill women. In 2015, the paper found a surge in Google searches for “how to self-abort.” This suggests that, as anti-choice legislation becomes more prevalent, women’s willingness to self-abort increases. We already know what happens when women take abortion into their own hands. Anti-choicers know, too. They don’t care if women die.
Abortion Laws Aren’t Really About Stopping Abortion
If anti-choicers really wanted to lower the abortion rate, they could. Plenty of research points to policies that can decrease unwanted pregnancies and support women who want to give birth following an unplanned pregnancy. Comprehensive sex education, better family leave policies, access to affordable birth control, and a stronger safety net have all been shown to lower the abortion rate. Republican anti-choicers consistently oppose these policies.
It’s never been about abortion, about saving lives, about concern for babies, or about protecting women. Anti-abortion regulations are designed to punish women for having sex. It’s hard to imagine a more anti-life stance than using a human being as a punishment.