In case there was any doubt, let’s get one thing clear. If Brett Kavanaugh ends up on the Supreme Court—and, as Katha Pollitt wrote, he won’t get there without a political fight—he will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and deny women the guarantee of reproductive rights they currently enjoy. That’s not a possibility or even a probability, it’s a fact. Kavanaugh wouldn’t have been on the Federalist Society’s magic list of nominees acceptable to the right if they weren’t absolutely sure of that, something the WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin explained in a column aimed at supposedly pro-choice Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
So we know that Republicans want to take away women’s reproductive rights. They say it’s because they want to stop abortions. But here’s the thing: we already know how to do that, and the evidence shows that changing the laws and subjecting women to much greater risk in order to get the abortions they are going to get either way isn’t going to be particularly effective.
First, let’s talk about individual states. Many states have since 2010 passed laws that seek to restrict access to abortion. An Associated Press report compared data from 2010 and 2014 drawn from all 45 states where numbers on abortion are comprehensively collected (California, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Wyoming do not compile such data). Which states saw the biggest drop?:
Five of the six states with the biggest declines — Hawaii at 30 percent, New Mexico at 24 percent, Nevada and Rhode Island at 22 percent, Connecticut at 21 percent — have passed no recent laws to restrict abortion clinics or providers.
Know what else those five states have in common? They all accepted the Obamacare expansion of Medicaid, which took effect on January 1, 2014, thus increasing access to contraception after that date. Then-president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, further explained: “Better access to birth control and sex education are the biggest factors in reducing unintended pregnancies. More restrictive abortion laws do not reduce the need for abortions.”
Another report, this one from the Guttmacher Institute, examined similar data from 2011 to 2014 and likewise “did not find a clear and consistent relationship between state restrictions and changes in state abortion rates.” Here’s state by state data from 2010 to 2014 compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation.