Effects of Restrictions on the right to choose

Since abortion has been labelled a crime, it is extremely difficult to get an accurate picture of how many women suffer through lack of access to safe, legal abortion. The facts are buried under a heap of secrecy and hypocrisy, The-only serious study we know of is the National Research Bureau Survey made in early 1972, which was commissioned by the Abortion Law Reform Association. That survey estimated that about 6,500 illegal abortions were taking place annually. It also estimated that attempts at abortion totalled about 11,000 a year.

There are other figures which have bearing on this question, such as the continuing high rate of births outside marriage, the numbers of women under 16 who give birth, and the proportion of brides who are pregnant, which is widely claimed to be one in three. It would be ridiculous to pretend that all the births involved in these cases were voluntary. The area in which it is most difficult to see the effects of abortion laws is that of married women, having no recourse to adoption, these women must resign themselves to additions to their family if they have an unwanted pregnancy. According to the above-men-Honed survey, married women constitute well over half of those seeking abortion.

Our case does not stand on numbers alone. If an injustice is being done, it matters little whether it is to one person or one million, it is still an injustice. But it is clear to us that the abortion laws and other restrictions on birth control have been responsible for bringing a great deal of strain and misery into the lives of many thousands of women over the years.