Every lawmaker should be required to read The Turnaway Study, a preeminent ten-year study which measured 1,000 women’s short- and long-term effects of receiving, or not receiving, reproductive health care (The Turnaway Study | ANSIRH). The study provides current data and facts around the effects of reproductive health care, which lawmakers rarely, if ever, cite for their many reasons to restrict, or outlaw, safe and common medical procedures.
Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures available, even safer than a wisdom-tooth extraction. Women in America are 14 times more likely to die from childbirth than from receiving abortion care. On average, an abortion causes no long-term mental health issues for women. Rather, the results of studies show that abortion is a highly logical and deeply loving choice women make for themselves, and, in most cases, for the children they already have. Women, and people who can get pregnant, clearly understand their own personal situation and what is best for them and their families. We do not need government legislation to determine our personal family planning choices.
The Turnaway Study also found that men play a large part in the decision around reproductive health care choices. In many instances women opt for an abortion because of their partner, and their unwillingness to accept responsibility. Less than 10% of the men involved in the pregnancy wanted the woman to have the baby and were unsure themselves of what they wanted for their own futures.
Family planning and reproductive health care is one of the most personal and private decisions we make as individuals, male and female. As a society we should protect this fundamental human freedom to choose what is best for ourselves and our families. These complicated and financially burdensome decisions should not be left to politicians (who do not use or cite facts in their policy decision-making).
Robin Hough, president, Women’s Democratic Club of Utah