Is there any anti-abortion talking point that isn’t based on a lie?
As I’ve investigated both sides of the abortion debate, I’ve become honestly curious to discover if there is any anti-abortion argument that isn’t based on a lie (or lies). I’m going through the most popular current US anti-abortion talking points and giving each a Politifact-esque truth rating. Let’s investigate!
1. Fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks.
In this New York Times piece covering the issue of fetal pain, the overwhelming consensus among scientists is that fetuses are not capable of feeling pain before 24 weeks. The few scientists who speculate that fetuses might feel pain before 24 weeks point out that they “did not think their work or current evidence provided scientific support for fetal-pain laws.”
Truth-o-meter: False
2. Margaret Sanger secretly wanted to “exterminate the Negro population.”
Quotes by Margaret Sanger implying she wanted to exterminate black people are either taken out of context or are fabricated altogether. For example, in a letter to Clarence Gamble, she wrote, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” In the full context from the letter, she was acknowledging the probability that opponents of birth control would try to paint her as wanting to exterminate black people–exactly what opponents of safe access to birth control still do to this today. Washington Post, Politifact, and FactCheck.org have all done fact checks that come to the same conclusion that this accusation is wildly false.
Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire
3. 75-79% of abortion clinics in the US are in neighborhoods with a majority black population.
The three fact checks cited above also cover this ground, but here is the Guttmacher article showing that 6% of US abortion providers are located in majority-black neighborhoods. The toomanyaborted.com page claims that Guttmacher claims that “only 9% of abortion clinics are located in urban neighborhoods,” which means they are lying about Guttmacher lying in order to perpetuate their lie. It’s a lie within a lie.
Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire
4. We say that a person is dead when their heart stops beating.
On the contrary, medical professionals will declare a person “really dead” if they are brain dead. Brain death is recognized as legal death in the United States, even if the heart is still beating.
5. A “radical feminist” aborted a fetus because it was male.
Anti-abortionists believed a ridiculous story on the Internet because it gave them an anti-feminist boner.
Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire
6. Abortion causes breast cancer.
Major medical studies (including one by the National Cancer Institute) show that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer.
7. Abortion causes infertility.
There is no link between medical abortion and future infertility.
8. Abortion causes depression and “post-abortion syndrome.”
Neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Psychological Association recognizes the existence of “post-abortion syndrome”, and an American Psychological Association review found that “abortion is usually psychologically benign.”
Truth-o-meter: Mostly False
9. The birth control pill is an abortifacient.
Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, disagree. The birth control pill’s primary method of controlling birth is suppressing ovulation, with a backup of preventing implantation in the uterus. Maybe you think every fertilized egg flushed out before implantation is an abortion; in that case, you should definitely be taking the birth control pill, as many, many more zygotes are lost in “natural” sex than sex on the pill.
10. The IUD is an abortifacient.
IUDs work primarily to prevent fertilization by thickening the cervical mucus so that sperm can’t reach the egg or incapacitating the sperm before they reach the oviduct.
Condoms fail about 18% of the time when they are used incorrectly or inconsistently and fail only 2% of the time when worn correctly and consistently.
12. Surgical abortion is very dangerous and is more likely to kill the pregnant person than childbirth.
You should be able to intuitively conclude that this is not true, but if you want a citation, this study shows that the risk of death is 14 times greater in childbirth than in medical abortion.
13. Crisis pregnancy centers are legitimate clinics that give scientifically sound information about abortion, which is why employees wear lab coats and are trained in reading ultrasounds.
Crisis pregnancy centers are actually run by volunteers from local Christian churches. These volunteers are almost always not trained in any medical profession, including sonography, which might explain why one center told a woman her IUD was a baby. However, volunteers will frequently wear lab coats and give “intake” paperwork in an attempt to fool clients into thinking they are trained medical professionals. They are well-known for giving out false medical information, including that abortion causes breast cancer, infertility, “post-abortion syndrome,” and child abuse, or that abortion is much more dangerous than childbirth, or that birth control pills are abortifacients, or that condoms don’t work, and the list goes on …
Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire
14. The focal point of the abortion debate is whether or not a fetus is living.
The focal point of the abortion debate is whether or not pregnant people have the right to bodily autonomy, meaning the right to govern what happens to their own body. You’re welcome to your own personal opinion on when a human being’s life begins, but it’s irrelevant.
15. Banning abortion stops abortion.
Multiple comprehensive worldwide studies by the World Health Organization concluded that countries where abortion is illegal have no lower rates of abortion than countries where it is legal. They do have significantly higher rates of unsafe abortions, however.
Bonus: Abortion is reversible.
I don’t really know what to say about this one, except that if you believe this, please fill out this short survey for me:
Truth-o-meter: Pants on Fire
A wise person once said, “If your point of view requires you to lie through your teeth to get other people on board, maybe it’s time you rethink your point of view.” Pro-life defenders would do well to take this advice to heart. I became pro-choice in part because I was tired of finding out that every pro-life talking point I had ever heard was based on a lie.
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