The recent announcement that the Supreme Court this March will hear an appeal in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration — a case regarding the regulation of mifepristone, the most common chemical abortifacient — puts questions surrounding women’s health once more in the national spotlight. With the abortion pill under scrutiny, undoubtedly a chorus of voices will rise in favor of expanding “preventative” care: contraceptives. Liberals and conservatives alike argue that birth control reduces demand for abortion.
However, this is not always the case. Depending on the wider context, an increase in contraceptive use in a particular sample group can correlate to an increase of abortions. A 2003 study from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute chalks up the correlated increase of contraceptive use and abortions to the paradigm shift caused by the widespread introduction of contraceptives: With an influx of contraceptives, women begin to change their outlook on pregnancy itself. Contraceptives now present pregnancy as a choice rather than a fact. Is this pregnancy wanted or unwanted? If the latter, abortion suggests itself as the logical next step.
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