But if the need/desire for abortion was reduced to near zero, what red meat issues would conservatives rally around?
Guns, white replacement theory, trans access to sports and bathrooms, white Christian nationalism.....They have all sorts of red meat issues to use to stir up the ignorant base.
But, back to the OP. Imo, the best way to prevent abortion is to put the money that was removed from public health/family planning clinics that was removed since the Reagan administration back to where it needs to be.
I worked in both a maternity clinic for poor women, and I did a little work in a family planning environment. My most successful accomplishment from the brief time I worked in the maternity clinic was having almost 100% of my patients return for birth control. Most of these young women had enough family support to help them raise their children, but by being patient and nonjudgmental I was able to educate and convince them that using effective birth control gave them a lot of control over their lives. At that time, ( early 80s ) anyone who was high risk for pregnancy or who had at least 4 pregnancies was eligible for state paid tubal ligation. Quite a few of my patients chose that option. Plus you had to be at least 21. I still recall a 19 year old who had 5 children crying in my office because she couldn't get the tubal. Some of my patients had very little education as well as being controlled by a male partner, which almost made pregnancy inevitable.
Nobody gets pregnant to game the system. That's an old lie from the Reagan era, "welfare queen" nonsense. It is true that having children is a proud accomplishment for many low income women. I've worked with many of them. Most were very good mothers. Some had support from the fathers of their children. We could add more benefits to help them out, but subsidized housing, SNAP, the EIC, WIC and Medicaid or CHIP does help a lot of these women provide their children with with their basic needs. Free community college classes to allow them to be trained to do jobs that pay more, would also help their children. Free or very low cost childcare, especially preschool for those age 3 to 5 would also help these families.
Some only had one or two children, a few had 3 or 4 children, and there were two who had as many as 8 or more children. Oe of them had a very supportive family who gave her a lot of help. I didn't know them well enough to understand why they desired so many children, or if they were just careless with BC. Contrary to what some think, not many women choose abortions. The year I worked in a maternity clinic, only one girl chose an abortion.
I would support expanding these programs along with making it easier to have a tubal ligation or vasectomy. Most doctors don't like to perform those procedures on anyone who is very young unless they've already had at least two children. My husband had a vasectomy, when we decided not to have children together. He was 32 and I was 35, and I didn't want to get pregnant after that age, due to the increased risks. I had a 9 year old son when we met, and he treated him as if he was his own child. It was birth control that kept me from ever having an unwanted pregnancy prior to the vasectomy. Plus, my husband wore a condom every time we had sex prior to his vasectomy. Men are a part of the problem, as a good percentage of them refuse to use condoms. Most forms of birth control are quite effective if they are used correctly. Foam and condoms used together are about as effective as OCPs, so there are options. IUDs are usually very effective as well. But, now we need to be concerned about the crazies on the right who want to ban some methods of BC.
