Complete Prevention of Unwanted Pregnancy is Impossible

Many (including abortion law reformers I argue that abortion is a poor substitute for abstinence or birth control as a means of preventing unwanted pregnancy. It is no good, however, being naive about human nature and the complex psychological, emotional, cultural, and intellectual problems of sexual behaviour and birth control. The illegitimacy/pre-marital conception rate in New Zealand shows that it is time certain facts about sexual behaviour in un-married New Zealand girls were accepted and that one cannot argue Canute-like for universal premarital abstinence.

Neither can adoption take -care of all unwanted children. Many unwanted children are not available for adoption since their mothers feel tied to them by guilt, and there is a group of physically or racially handicapped children who are unadoptable. One effect of the new British abortion law has been actually to increase adoptions in this latter group.