Negative Polarization Causes Abortion And Teen Pregnancy
The real costs of hatred and mistrust in American political culture
In St. Louis Missouri a group of clinicians offered contraception to female teenagers for free. The effects were dramatic. The young women in this study had 60% fewer abortions than similar women in the region.
Aside from the outcome, what’s interesting about this study is how it could, in theory, provide the perfect salve for an open wound in our culture war- the abortion debate.
Imagine, for a minute, that we handed out free IUD’s and oral contraception to any American woman who wanted it. What would happen? The CDC estimated that a little less than 620,000 abortions were performed in 2018. If we take the study in St. Louis as a predictor, free birth control would prevent 370,000 abortions.
For once, in the abortion debate, there is a policy intervention that substantial populations on both sides could agree on.
If you take pro-lifers at their word, their objection to abortion is that it is literal murder- the taking of life from an innocent human being. Therefore, they say, something must be done so that these acts are reduced. This would do just that.
If you take pro-choicers at their word, they view abortion as a necessary expression of female bodily autonomy. They want women to be able to have a defining agency in how they get pregnant and bring children into this world. This policy would increase such autonomy.
So, we have a policy that would satisfy the basic desires of a bi-partisan group of committed political actors. Why hasn’t it happened yet?
My answer to this question is disheartening. After interviewing 6 committed pro-choice and pro-life voters, I am left with a sad assertion. Negative polarization prevents a logical alliance of pro-life and pro-choice voters from supporting mutual beneficial policy.
I met my six interviewees on two reddit forums: r/prochoice and r/prolife. These spaces epitomize the political discourse of our internet age. Serious controversies about abortion law are sandwiched between clever memes delivering derogatory messages about the evil of the “other side.” Here are two popular posts from this year:
In describing their views on abortion, all of my interviewees gave answers that were fairly standard. “I believe that the unborn person is an equal human being. So that act of abortion is basically killing another human being. And that's why I don't think it's really justified,” said Bryan, a student in Southern California.
“I don't know, abortion just really disgusts me these days,” said a reddit user, named Trumpologist, who would not give his real name, “not only is it murder its, to me, it’s the murder of the most defenseless form of human life.”
Renee, a pro-choicer, said “a lot of human rights organizations actually declare a lack of abortion access is torture, because you're going through all these bodily changes, physically damaging, it's very hard on your mental health… if somebody doesn't want to go through that, then it is torture.”
After gathering their basic ideological viewpoints I put some different questions to them. I described the St. Louis experiment in detail and I asked if they would support a legal initiative to provide free contraception to women. I also asked if they would support such a measure if an organization from the opposing side was involved (I would ask a pro-lifer how they would feel about this initiative if Planned Parenthood backed it and I would ask a pro-choicer how they would feel if March For Life was involved). Finally, I asked them each to tell me why they thought such an initiative hadn’t happened yet.
All of my interviewees evinced enthusiasm for free contraception. “Those are great,” said Dinah, a pro-choicer and recent high school graduate from Florida, “Yeah I think we should have more of them.”
“100%,” said Sarah, a pro-lifer and mother of three in Georgia, “like if younger people are sexually active, and they and they need that to prevent pregnancy…That would be excellent, I would probably vote for it. If given the option.”
But, when asked what they would think if an organization from their ideological opposition were involved, suddenly their support for the idea lessened. When asked if Planned Parenthood supported such a bill, Bryan, who is pro-Life said “I definitely have a huge lack of trust…” He said he’d be afraid that Planned Parenthood, if they had any involvement in building this program would make it “…some sort of swindle. Based on (planned parenthood)’s past actions. ..So if the government's giving them all sorts of money, like how much would actually go to that instead of marketing against my cause? So I would I be scared.”
Renee thought that if an organization like March for Life were involved with this contraception provision bill “I would be concerned if there were any, like rules to it or anything like that…if they were like, Oh, hey, we will support this bill, but provide three contraceptives for teenagers for anybody that needs them. Um, but along with this bill, we're gonna cut off abortion at 11 weeks.”
When asked about why they thought such a policy hadn’t been implemented, most interviewees blamed negative polarization. According to Ashley, a pro-choice navy reservist and, self-described, “Midwestern Mom,” “people will just kind of turn off if they hear one word.”
“Some people that are, you know, very pro birth control. Like the pro life folks that I know that are, you know, for birth control, they hear Planned Parenthood and they shut down. And then, you know, some of the pro choice folks that I know, I would not put it past them to kind of shut down if they heard March for Life.”
Sarah, put it a slightly different way: “I could definitely see people, you know, drawing lines in the sand, even if they agree on something, because they're, they want to be different. And they want, people like to have an enemy. And so when you have an enemy, you really don't want to work with them.”
The fact that negative polarization is a problem in American political culture is typically portrayed as self-evident. But, this particular example shows its real evil- the opportunity cost of inventive compromise.
A push for mass provision of contraception in this country seems to be a clear win. It could potentially reduce the amount of abortions in the U.S. by hundreds of thousands. It would prevent hundreds of thousands of teenage pregnancies.
But, it is no use- the debate has calcified. The battle lines of the abortion debate have been drawn. The viciousness of the fight has guaranteed that any policy or legislation that an opposing side may favor will be viewed as a zero-sum loss.
Fixing our crisis of negative polarization needs to be looked at less as a call for civility and more as a call for tangible societal gains. Many other issues are turning into similar battles: law and order, climate change and voting. Letting this problem fester will guarantee that similarly inventive and beneficial ideas will go by the wayside.