In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court released the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The decision basically stated that the U.S. Constitution does not confer the right to an abortion and that abortion laws should be left up to individual states (essentially reinforcing the Tenth Amendment). That ruling should not have been a surprise—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had stated when she was on the Court that Roe v. Wade was bad law.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned, there were approximately 609,360 abortions reported in 2022 and an estimated 1,037,000 in 2023, marking an increase of 11% from 2020. So why did the number of abortions increase rather than decrease after the law changed? First of all, there was the increased use of the abortion pill, making abortion something you could do at home. Unfortunately, there are some real concerns about the safety of that pill, but it is being used frequently despite the concerns. Secondly, the people supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade saw abortion as a legal problem—not a cultural problem.
Laws reflect the culture. If you change the law without changing the culture, the behavior the law is aimed at will not change. The cultural problem behind the large number of abortions in America is sexually immorality and the devaluing of life. Abortion is a symptom of both of these.
The sexual revolution of the 1960’s and the availability of abortion in the 1970’s changed the demographics of American society. In 1970 the median age for a first marriage in America was 23.2 for men and 20.8 for women. In 2024, the median age for a first marriage in America was 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women. In 1970, the age for first-time mothers was 21.4, in 2023 that number was 27.5. It should be noted that the divorce rate since 1970 has gone down because many people are choosing to live together rather than get married. That is also a reflection of the cultural decline of our society.
The trends of later marriage and fewer children are not good for our society. They are a reflection of the devaluing of motherhood and life that will eventually collapse our society. The answer to the problem of both abortion and the significantly lower birth rate is to go back to the time when America had a Biblically-based culture that valued chastity. Our culture is no longer Biblically based–it is based on the whims of Hollywood and the news media. Until the moral values of the nation change, we can make all the laws we want regarding abortion, but there will be no change in the number of abortions. Let’s start teaching our children the value of sexual morality and the risks they run when they are promiscuous—disease, heartbreak, unplanned pregnancy, etc. Let’s teach our daughters to value their purity and our sons to respect the women around them. Ideally, we could reach a point where laws against abortion are not necessary—it is just understood that the killing of babies is evil.