Abortion is one of those issues that quickly separate people into warring camps with no common ground.
I have to say that I and my frequent conversation partner, Leon Louw, are unusual in being undecided when normally we have strong opinions on most issues. That isn’t the case for the general population.
Though abortion for any reason was legal in the US, performing an abortion, or even just supporting it, could get you murdered or boycotted. 41% favour and 59% oppose it, so both sides have substantial support. Support jumps to 80% if the reason is rape, mother’s health or foetal deformation.
Abortions run into the millions per year but are decreasing among the upper classes and increasing among the lower classes. Unplanned pregnancies and abortions are overwhelmingly a lower-class phenomenon and becoming increasingly so. Both social class and unplanned pregnancies are strongly related to intelligence, the latter negatively.
The relationship of intelligence to the practice of, and opinions about, abortion is informative. Support for legal abortion increases strongly with intelligence, particularly when the reason for having an abortion is unpopular. Paradoxically given how divisive the issue is, intelligence is for being informed about abortion issues but against having a firm opinion about it or taking the issue very seriously.
Before concluding that legal abortion is the intelligent way to go one must rule out confounding explanations such as social class, education, income, age, gender, political ideology or religious belief. Contrary to expectations it is the better off who are more likely to think poverty, not wanting more kids or rape, are good enough reasons to have a legal abortion.
The poor are also more likely to think a woman needs her husband’s consent. Higher education is associated with greater support for legal abortion. As expected, being politically conservative or believing in God are strongly and independently associated with opposition to abortion – regardless of the reason. There is a weak trend for older people to favour legal abortion.
Even after controlling for all these factors intelligence remains strongly associated with support for legal abortion, but why should pro-choice be a smarter policy choice than pro-life? The General Social Survey of the USA offers some help because it asks what reasons respondents have heard of for and against abortion.
Firstly, it is decidedly unintelligent for either of the camps to have no reason at all for their opinion
More intelligent
Secondly, the more intelligent see a woman’s right to choose as a good reason to allow, and a bad reason to disallow, a legal abortion. In his book Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker gives a superb defence of the morality of autonomous choice.
He argues “instead of grounding morality in power, tradition or religious practice we should ground it on the suffering and flourishing of sentient individuals where they may not be treated as a common resource to be negotiated by other interested parties. With regard to rape the woman’s own interest counts for everything, and the interests of all other claimants for nothing. The same revaluation underlies the abolition of slavery, despotism, debt bondage and cruel punishment.”
It is a morality that rejects instinct, culture, religion and standard practice and built upon empathy and reason instead. That the more intelligent prefer reason isn’t surprising.
Thirdly, allowing abortion when a woman’s life or health is endangered is seen as intelligent but denying the right to choose because the process of abortion itself might be risky is seen as unintelligent. Again, women making autonomous choices about their own welfare is reasonable.
Fourthly, the rights of the unborn are seen as an unintelligent reason to disallow abortion. This is a reminder that there are two parties with legitimate rights-based stakes in the decision whether to abort. Forgetting that is not the intelligent thing. Rather it is to be aware that there is no way around the issue of deciding which party’s rights are paramount.
The associations with intelligence suggest it should be the woman’s rights. Why should that be? Well, the woman is clearly an autonomous sentient being while the foetus is not. The fact that the smarter among those who oppose abortion reject the notion that abortion is murder adds weight to this point.
Fifth, smarter people don’t see not being able to afford a child, or unwanted children imposing a high social cost, as reasonable grounds to have an abortion. Why should that be? Well, economists have shown that additional people are usually a net benefit to humanity. While extra people do involve extra costs, they also involve additional production and ideas.
Valid reasons
Sixth, intelligent opinion is only weakly for rape, incest or foetal abnormalities being good reasons to allow abortions. The reason is because almost everyone says these are valid reasons to allow it. The fact that there is any association with intelligence at all is remarkable.
Finally, the intelligent see religion and the Bible as a good basis for rejecting abortion. That may seem odd given that religious belief and reliance on the Bible are themselves strongly associated with lower intelligence plus what I said above about autonomous choice being a preferable basis for morality. Religion may not be the smartest basis for moral decisions, but neither is it unintelligent. The fact that intelligent opinion decidedly supports legal abortion on demand is consistent with placing humanistic morality above religious authority.
To summarise – seeing women (and sentient individuals generally) as autonomous moral entities rather than a common resource appears to be the intelligent way to go. A policy of allowing women to legally abort their foetus for their own reasons follows logically.
[Image: Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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