One of the common adjectives abortion advocates use in front of the word “child” is “wanted.” Since the American Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood) first created its “Every Child, a Wanted Child” motto in an attempt to control population, the idea that children shouldn’t exist unless they are “wanted” by their parents has become widely accepted.
Yet, research shows that women aren’t necessarily aborting because they don’t want their babies, but because they’ve been led to believe abortion is the only option they have.
Margaret Sanger, the eugenic founder of the American Birth Control League wanted “[to] create a race of well born children…” Her organization aimed to influence Americans regarding if, when, and how they had children. It said:
We hold that children should be
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- Conceived in love;
- Born of the mother’s conscious desire;
- And only begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health
If these conditions could not be met, Sanger argued that couples should not have children. This misconception spread, and while not everyone adheres to these eugenic policies regarding child-bearing, it’s these exact discriminatory ideas that keep abortionists in business. It often isn’t that women are having abortions because they don’t “want” their children, but because they have been led to believe that, due to their current circumstances, they are not fit to be mothers — and they are afraid.
‘Born of the mother’s conscious desire’
Sanger felt that one of the requirements for a woman to become a mother was her “conscious desire” to have children. Her organization hoped that birth control would ensure that women only became pregnant when they wanted to. A century later, the average family size has shrunk as Sanger hoped, but “unplanned” pregnancies still occur despite the wide availability of birth control.
Now that Sanger’s American Birth Control League is Planned Parenthood, and abortion is legal and accessible in the United States, it has become largely acceptable for women to abort those “unplanned” (and therefore deemed “unwanted”) babies, even when those babies are actually wanted.
Studies show that today, 64% of women who have undergone an abortion did so, not because they wanted to, but due to pressure from parents, boyfriends, employers, and friends, as well as the pressure they faced from their financial situations. Additional research published by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that 73.8% of women with a history of abortion experienced “at least subtle forms of pressure” to abort. Outside factors instilled fear in them and gave them doubts about their ability to be a mother.
READ: Do pro-life laws put women with cancer at increased risk? Get the facts.
“Conceived in love”
The idea that if a baby isn’t “conceived in love” she should be aborted also began with Sanger in the 1920s. Today, women and all of American society have been repeatedly told that rape survivors must not want their babies who were conceived as a result of sexual assault. Preborn babies conceived in rape are often labeled “satan’s spawn” and the pregnant mothers are told that their child will only remind them of their rapist. Women are led to believe that wanting to keep their baby who was conceived in rape makes them strange.
Yet research has found that a significant percentage of pregnant rape survivors want to choose life for their babies. One such study found that 73% of pregnant rape victims chose life; 64% raised their children, and 36% placed their babies for adoption. An older series of two studies found similar results: 75% of the women in those studies chose against abortion. The reasons why they chose life for their babies included viewing abortion as a “violent way of ending a human life.” They also felt that “all life has meaning” or “this child can bring love and happiness into someone’s life.”
Despite this, rape and incest survivors are expected to abort their babies because these children weren’t “conceived in love.” And because they weren’t, it’s assumed that they are “unwanted” children — and women feel pressured to abort. Even pro-life laws often contain an exception that allows rape survivors to abort their babies who were conceived in rape.
‘Begotten under conditions which render possible the heritage of health’
Finally, Sanger believed that parents who are at an increased risk of having children with health issues, such as genetic conditions like cystic fibrosis, should avoid having children. That eugenic mentality is thriving in America’s current culture.
Couples who know they carry a faulty gene that could be passed onto their children are often advised to use IVF to weed out any embryonic children who inherit those genes. People who conceive a child with a health condition diagnosed through prenatal testing often face pressure to have an abortion. Sadly, they are sometimes even expected to abort their baby. Even self-proclaimed pro-life politicians are writing so-called pro-life legislation that often includes exceptions for children who receive a prenatal diagnosis.
These children will be targeted for death by abortion even if they were planned and wanted by their parents. Doctors have been known to nudge parents towards abortion using fear tactics and often outdated statistics and information on the child’s condition. They have even scheduled an abortion before speaking to the parents. And parents have been told that laws protecting preborn children from abortion don’t apply to them. Research has found that in these circumstances, women are at increased risk for abortion-related trauma.
More fear tactics
Widespread access to the abortion pill now makes it easier for women to go through with an unwanted abortion. Mail order and telehealth access to the abortion pill also make it easier for abusive men to force abortion on women. Though administration of the hormone progesterone (known as abortion pill reversal, or APR) exists, many women are unaware. Instead of telling women about APR, abortion workers will tell them they must take both drugs in the abortion pill regimen, and if they don’t, they risk having a baby with a disability. The abortion industry also claims that APR is dangerous, though it is the administration of the pregnancy hormone progesterone, and has been used for decades to help prevent miscarriages.
Women who regret taking the first drug of the two-drug abortion pill regimen have been led to believe there is nothing they can do to save their babies, even though they have changed their minds and want to keep their babies.
Pro-life laws free women to have the babies they want
There’s a reason the abortion industry doesn’t want waiting periods for abortion. Waiting periods give women time to reconsider the abortion after initially speaking to abortion facility staff. In 2022, the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland revealed a total of 10,779 women had received an initial abortion consultation. Figures released by the Department of Health in Ireland, show there were 8,156 abortions in Ireland in 2022. This indicates that 2,623 women likely did not go on to have an abortion.
In the three years following the reenactment of a 48-hour waiting period for abortion in Tennessee, 2,365 women who went to Planned Parenthood for the first abortion appointment did not return for their second appointment to actually abort their children.
Because of pro-life laws that give women time to consider an abortion, women were able to freely choose life.
While abortion advocates would have Americans believe that the overturning of Roe v. Wade took away a “freedom” from women, it seems more likely that with the end of Roe, women became free to have the babies they wanted to have without the pressure of legalized abortion.
