Abortion and Marriage
by Michael Bell, Solicitor
Introduction
Nevertheless, there is one significant factor to which
little attention has been given by the pro-life movement. This is the
relationship between the rise in the number of abortions and the decline
in the upholding of chastity and marriage. The permissive society of
the sixties produced two changes of attitude in society which may not at
first sight seem to be related. These were the change in people's
attitudes towards their own sexuality, and the change in attitudes
towards the sanctity of life. It is suggested that the first of these
changes has contributed far more towards the rise in the number of
abortions than has the second.
If this is true, it is curious that all the effort of
the pro-life movement has been directed towards reversing the fall in
respect for the sanctity of human life. The movement has made little or
no effort to change people's attitudes towards their own sexuality and
towards marriage, preferring to regard these issues as outside the scope
of pro-life work. This is not to say, of course, that many people who
are pro-life are unconcerned about these issues.
There is, however, no pro-chastity and pro-marriage
lobby comparable to the pro-life lobby. There is no organisation with
groups or branches in almost every town working to uphold chastity and
marriage, which is in any way comparable in scale to the pro-life
organisations with their numerous groups and branches. The latter have
strong centralised structures which can effectively mobilise within days
hundreds of branches or groups to support pro-life initiatives. No
comparable organisations exist to mobilise pro-chastity and pro-marriage
opinion, even if initiatives existed which required such a
mobilisation, which on the whole they do not. This is in no way a criticism
of the several excellent organisations which are concerned about these
issues among others, including the Christian churches.
And yet, if marriage and chastity are in fact the key
to reducing abortion, as will be argued here, it would seem reasonable
that as great a proportion of the effort and expenditure of the pro-life
movement should be devoted to promoting them as is currently devoted to
promoting the concept of the sanctity of life. If promoting these ideas
will lead directly and swiftly to a fall in the number of abortions,
for how much longer can the pro-life movement continue to ignore them?
The background facts
Let us begin by considering some statistics. We must do
this with caution, but when these figures are looked at in the light of
fact-gathering which has been done to ascertain the reasons why women
seek abortions, certain indications of what is actually taking place
within our society seem fairly clear.
The first point we can look at is the comparative rates
of abortion for single women and married women. Table I below shows the
situation in 1975 and 1985, and in fact the trends shown are
continuous, both back to the Abortion Act 1967 and on to the present
day. Clearly the proportion of single adult women to married adult women
is steadily increasing. This is due to the continuing decline in the
number of first-time marriages. In 1966, the year before the passing of
the Abortion Act, the marriage rate for single women was 89 per 1000,
but by 1986 this had dropped to 55 per 1000. This is a fall of nearly
40% in the marriage rate for single women. (The "marriage rate" is the number of single women getting married per 1000 single persons aged 16 and over).
The second point which we may note from the table is that in 1985 there was a much higher probability of a single woman becoming pregnant than of a married woman becoming pregnant.
The third point to note is that more than 30% of the
pregnancies of single women were terminated by abortion as compared with
around 7% of the pregnancies of married women. The figures show that
the increase in abortions over the period was entirely among single
women, and that in fact abortions on married women actually fell in
numbers. We also see that the proportion of conceptions ending in
abortion was much the
same in both years as regards unmarried women, and that the big increase
in the number of abortions on unmarried women was a direct consequence
of the big increase in the number of single women becoming pregnant.
If single women are much more likely to have abortions
than are married women, and if the proportion of single women in the
population increases, then one would expect the number of abortions to
increase, and indeed this is exactly what happens. Furthermore we can
see that the number of conceptions among single women has increased at a
considerably faster rate than has the number of single women, so that
the increase in abortions is even greater than one would expect from
merely looking at the increase in the number of single women. In other
words, not only are women remaining single in ever-increasing numbers,
but (contraceptives and their availability notwithstanding) also those
who do remain single are getting pregnant more frequently. Many of
these women will, of course, be living in what are sometimes called
"stable relationships" with men. In such situations there is a much
greater probability of frequent sexual intercourse, and less social
stigma and fewer practical problems attached to pregnancy. Nevertheless the inescapable conclusion from the figures is that an 'illegitimate' baby is five times more likely to be aborted than is a 'legitimate' baby.
Table 1
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England and Wales - numbers in thousands
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1975
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1985
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Single women age 16-and over
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3,543
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4,522
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Married women age 16 and over
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12,572
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12,044
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Conceptions among single women
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160.6
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283.5
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Conceptions among married women
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532.8
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513.7
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Abortions among single women
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63.4
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105.0
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Abortions among married women
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43.0
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37.9
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[Statistics taken
from publications of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys
"Population Trends" 48 and 51 and "Trends in Conceptions" FM1 - 87/2]
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Among women born since 1967 one would expect to find
the same trends as one sees in the population as a whole, but to a much
greater degree. Women who grew up in the pre-1967 era attached much
greater importance to chastity and marriage, and of course many of them
would have passed their child-bearing years by the time that the sexual
revolution began to wreak its havoc. Let us therefore look at the
figures for young people between 1975 and 1985. These are shown in
Table 2.
The rejection of the institution of marriage by the
children of the permissive generation is even more pronounced when one
looks at the situation regarding teenage men. In 1971 the marriage rate
for teenage men (i.e., the number of men aged 16 to 19 who got married
in that year per 1000 of the
single teenage male population) was 26. The comparable figure for 1986
was 6. So, by 1986, the marriage rate had fallen to less than a
quarter of what it was 15 vears
earlier. It is true that teenage marriages were less common in the
first half of the 20th century than they were after 1950, but even in
the early 1900s the majority of men got married between 20 and 25.
This is no longer happening.
Table 2
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England and Wales: teenage girls 15 - 19
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1975
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1985
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Single girls
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1,602,105
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1,877,324
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Married girls
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136,866
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56,014
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Single girls —conceptions
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76,100
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101,000
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Married girls- conceptions
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35,900
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18,300
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Single girls -abortions
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28,600
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39,600
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Married girls- abortions
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1,100
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700
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There are economic factors in this, but undoubtedly one factor which has influenced
young people is that, as a result of the changes in the divorce laws
since 1967, an ever- increasing proportion of teenagers come from broken
homes. They do not want to go through the trauma of divorce which they
have seen in their parents. Now the members of the community who have
suffered most from this change in the attitude of young people towards
marriage have undoubtedly been the unborn children. Less than 4% of the
children of married teenage girls are aborted, while for single girls,
the figure is no less than 40%.
If we want to be even more precise and see where the greatest threat to the unborn child lies, we must make a distinction between children conceived where the couple ari. living
together, and those conceived where they are not. Although the
abortion rate is undoubtedly higher among couples living together than
among married couples, it is even higher where the young people have not
set up home together and probably have no intention of doing so.
Table 3
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England and Wales - numbers in thousands
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1975
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1985
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IIllegitimate conceptions
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160.6
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283.5
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These can be divided into
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Aborted
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63.4
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(40%)
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105.0
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(37%)
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Legitimised (by marriage in
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pregnancy)
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42.3
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(26%)
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52.3
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(18%)
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Born illegitimate
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54.9
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(34%)
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126.2
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(45%)
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Of those born illegitimate, births were
registered by: |
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both parents
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26.9
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(49%)
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81.8
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(65%)
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one parent
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28.0
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(51%)
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44.4
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(35%)
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We can see from Table 3 that the percentage of illegitimate conceptions which were subsequently legitimised by
marriage declined over the period. However, if we lump together the
percentages legitimised by marriage and those registered by both parents
we see that there was in fact a slight increase. At the same time we
can see that the percentage of illegitimate conceptions, registered by
one parent only, declined sharply over the period.
We know that the abortion rate among married people is
around 8%. If for the purposes of discussion we assume a similar rate
among co-habiting couples, then out of the 283,500 illegitimate
conceptions in 1985 about 90,000 occurred where the couple were
co-habiting, of which 81,800 would have been registered by both parents
and 8,200 would have been aborted. Deducting these from the 105,000
abortions following illegitimate conceptions we are left with 96,800
abortions on single women w
ho are not co-habiting. This can be compared with the 44,400 babies
who were registered by one parent. The figures obviously must be very
approximate, but they do give an indication that among single women who
are not co-habiting two out of three pregnancies are terminated.
We may also note that 40% of abortions performed on
single women are performed on teenagers, although teenagers make up less
than 20% of women in the fertile years 15-44. Nearly all these
abortions take place in the four years 16-19, and nearly all of them are
provided to girls who are not married.
Conclusions
These figures point to three clear and simple conclusions. First, that faced with the prospect of bringing up a baby on their own, two out of three women nowadays opt for an abortion. Secondly, exactly as one would expect from the first conclusion, as the marriage rate has fallen so the abortion rate has risen. Thirdly,
the unborn child is at greatest risk where his or her mother is a
teenager. The figures leave no room for doubt that the abortion rate in
this country could be halved, at the very least, if marriage could be
restored to the position it held in 1967 and before.
It is also clear that the place to begin is with
teenagers. If the Government were prepared to spend as much money on
promoting chastity and marriage among young people as it has spent on
promoting condoms, we would not only save most of the hundreds of lives
of men and women lost to sexually transmitted diseases, but also perhaps
as many as 80,000 lives of unborn children now lost each year through
abortions.
In the present climate of sexual permissiveness,
however, it seems that the last thing any Government is likely to
promote is chastity before marriage. It is up to ordinary people to
tackle the problem. We must start to educate our M.P.s about what is at
the root of the abortion problem, as well as of the AIDS problem and
the divorce problem. We must find ways of getting the message into
schools and of teaching
our young people the truth about the meaning and purpose and the beauty
of their own sexuality. They will not get the truth from the media, nor
from the Department of Education nor from the Department of Health.
Promoting pro-life legislation can be a valuable
propaganda exercise, but we must face the fact that if we really want to
save lives then we must tackle things in a different way. The abortion
rate will be most effectively reduced not by "gradualist" legislation,
but when and only when extra-marital pregnancies are reduced, especially
among the very young; and that in turn awaits a new awareness of the
value and meaning of chastity and marriage.
Action Point: Read SPUC literature on marriage, leaflet your area, and write/visit your MP. Thanks.
- Position paper on marriage
- Background paper on marriage
- Marriage leaflet
- Lobby your MP notes
- Step-by-step guide to seeing you MP
