The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

THERE has been reporting and commentary in The Tribune in recent days about some issues that are important to a lot of women here and in the United States. (And to a lot of men, too).

Plaudits are due to several government leaders for their measured response, but at the same time, the unexpected emergence of these issues has to be creating some anxiety in government and party ranks.

The issues are marital rape and abortion. As the Tribune editorialized, “where marital rape went from not being on the government’s agenda to becoming legislation that – supposedly – was to be put forward, is the issue of abortion set to follow?”

Abortion is illegal in The Bahamas in all cases except to save the mother’s life.

Millions of Americans, passionately engaged on both sides of this almost uniquely polarizing issue of abortion, can only offer sympathy and the hope that The Bahamas can somehow navigate this extraordinarily set of issues with less rancor and divisiveness than has resulted in the United States.

Here in Nassau, The Tribune reported that the prime minister has offered some public comment on abortion, which has come to the fore in connection with an ongoing dialogue on the highly contentious issue of marital rape.

“Mr. Davis was asked about (abortion), to which he responded that ‘abortion is a personal choice.’”

The Tribune commented that “abortion is not legal in The Bahamas – so if it is a personal choice, it is one that faces legal consequences.”

“Mr. Davis also said that changing the law so that rape victims can get an abortion is a ‘medical matter’ that he ‘would have to consider.’”

Minister of Social Services and Urban Development and Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly Obie Wilchcombe said that although abortion has not dominated public discourse in recent years, he believes the door has now opened for discussion.

“We’ll have to talk to the Bahamian people again about it and see exactly where we ought to go,” he said. “But let’s appreciate that for years, these subjects have been off for discussion. They’ve not been on the landscape for dialogue. It’s been almost taboo in some circumstances to have the dialogue. But now it’s opened, and now we want to take a look at it again.”

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville said “the issue of abortion, I think, needs to come back to the forefront. Personally, I do support the fact that we need now to bring it to the forefront and discuss it in the open as it relates to what may be happening in the country and what the law says.”

The Tribune concluded that “if the issue of marital rape has proven to be too controversial to bring the legislation to the House as yet, then the issue of abortion is even more so.”

The history of the issue of abortion in the U.S. is a long, emotionally incendiary one, and may offer some instructive insights for Bahamian leaders and readers.

From the time of the American Revolution in the late 18th Century right up to the middle of the 19th century, abortion was legal in every state up until the point when movement of the fetus in its mother’s womb was detectable.

Abortion was not then an issue of significant controversy, and most Americans followed the traditional belief that human life began when the infant acquired a soul and thus humanity – roughly when that movement inside the womb was detected -- rather than at conception.

The state of Connecticut was the first state to regulate abortion, in 1821. It outlawed abortion after movement in the womb (then called ‘quickening’) and did not allow for the use of any substances to induce an abortion after quickening.

Many states also subsequently passed various laws on abortion. Time passed. America fought many wars, including its awful Civil War and two World Wars. The nation was preoccupied with westward expansion and a rush to the centre of the world stage.

But then came the landmark 1973 U.S. supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade, which essentially decriminalized abortion nationwide. The Roe v. Wade decision imposed a federally mandated uniform framework for state legislation on the subject. It also established a minimal period during which abortion would be legal, with some restrictions throughout the pregnancy.

Ironically, evangelical Christians were reportedly overwhelmingly either supportive of or indifferent to the Roe v. Wade decision when it was first handed down 50 years ago. According to several accounts, they saw nothing in the Bible that explicitly condemned abortion.

Indeed, they celebrated the decision’s apparent reaffirmation of religious freedom and restriction on government interference in people’s individual lives. But within the next 15 years, anti-abortion Catholics had begun to assert their leadership in a focused effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Beginning with Ronald Reagan’s presidency and carrying onward, abortion became a rallying cry issue for conservatives in politics and religion. The issue has largely been appropriated by the Republican Party since that time.

All of this culminated in the installation of three anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court under Donald Trump, and not long thereafter, Roe v. Wade was overturned last year.

And as Trump forecast, the Republican Party has paid last year and will continue to pay a huge price, especially among women who regard abortion as a private, personal decision. The GOP stands to lose many votes at the ballot box for years to come as a result.

The well-regarded Pew Research Centre has done regular polling on abortion in the U.S. for many years. Much of their data also comes from American government figures, largely collated by the Centres for Disease Control. Here are some facts and figures:

In a Pew survey conducted after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to end the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. This tracks roughly with similar data over many years.

The last year for which the American Centres for Disease Control reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2020. There were 620,327 abortions nationally in 2020, a 1.5% decrease from 629,898 in 2019.

These figures include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices.

According to other polling, in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. But overall, polling data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it was reported there were over twice as many abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

We can certainly expect those abortion totals to drop significantly for 2022 and beyond, as many conservative states have speedily enacted highly restrictive limits on abortions and penalties for doctors performing them.

What are the demographics of women who had abortions in 2020?

In the 46 states that reported data to the CDC in 2020, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2020 were unmarried (86%), while married women accounted for 14%, according to the CDC.

And the great majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2020, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation. This data is also from the CDC.

In a look back and perhaps forward in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year, there were 35 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. Since 1990, the annual number of deaths nationwide among women due to induced abortion has ranged from two to 12, according to the CDC.

Everyone reading this will have their own view on this controversial subject. If we are to have a national discussion on abortion, let’s try to avoid the American experience. Similar division and discord cannot be helpful to anyone here.