A lot of discussion about abortion at the moment, so I thought I'd do a thread on a common myth - that abortion bans prevent abortions 1/
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There is currently no good evidence that abortion bans prevent abortions 3/pic.twitter.com/kFWiji4iLY
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There have been quite a few studies on this - what we usually see when abortions are banned/restricted is that abortion rates barely change 4/pic.twitter.com/15BKFx5IGb
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(The rates are falling generally, but the rate of decline doesn't change if you implement bans or restrictions, it just keeps going down slowly) 5/
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If we look at the global context, countries with MORE restrictions on abortion almost always have HIGHER rates of abortion 6/pic.twitter.com/OK3jgZjvwH
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The problem here is that these countries are often very different to countries that don't implement abortion bans in many ways 7/
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However, if we look at what happened after the US banned the provision of international aid services for the purposes of abortion, the affected countries saw INCREASES in abortion rates 8/pic.twitter.com/hEj5zpXLyw
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This increase in abortion rates is likely due to a reduction in family planning services, because ironically one thing we definitely do know is that contraception access affects abortion rates 9/
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This has been very well demonstrated - if you want to reduce abortions, the best method is to improve access to contraception 10/pic.twitter.com/T7z0olVJnc
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One thing abortion bans may do is reduce the rate of REPORTED abortions This makes perfect sense - people are less likely to report abortion when it's a crime 11/
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However, it's been pretty well-demonstrated that reported rates of abortions are much lower than the true rate, and that criminalizing abortion just makes this problem even worse 12/
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So abortion bans don't stop abortions What DO they do? 13/
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The main thing that has been consistently found from abortion bans is that they increase the rates of unsafe abortions 14/pic.twitter.com/7aWTEjd6rV
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What does "unsafe" mean? The WHO defines an unsafe abortion as: "[terminating an] unintended pregnancy either by people lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimum medical standards, or both" 15/
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If that sounds too clinical for you, here are some examples that have been found by researchers looking into unsafe abortions 16/pic.twitter.com/UZqiHTn8VQ
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To highlight a few of these: - drinking bleach/acid - throwing self off roof/stairs - sticking bicycle spokes into vagina 17/
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The WHO estimates that about 45% of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, with rates highest in countries that have abortion bans, restrictions, or have poorer provision of family planning services 18/pic.twitter.com/4yoPJuZWiw
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So, to recap: - abortion bans don't reduce the rates of abortion - they DO increase the rates of UNSAFE abortion - the most effective way to prevent abortion is contraceptives/family planning 19/
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More importantly, if someone says that they support abortion bans because they want to see fewer abortions, they are either incorrect or not telling the truth 20/fin
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End of conversation
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