Hypothetical scenario (it’s actually a rather short one):
Abortion becomes 100% available, legal, easily accessible and affordable throughout all fifty states of the United States. However, nobody gets an abortion. Everyone who has an unwanted pregnancy voluntarily chooses instead to simply carry their unwanted pregnancy all the way til childbirth and then gives up the unwanted child for adoption. Furthermore, society will always be this way - nobody ever gets an abortion again. They, out of their own free will, choose to give birth and then let their unwanted child be adopted.
(Don’t ask me how the abortion clinics remain open despite the lack of clients. Maybe the government supports the clinics financially or something.)
If you are pro-life, would you consider this to be a good outcome? Or would you think, “No, abortion is still technically legal, therefore this is still unacceptable?”
If you are pro-choice, would you consider this to be a good or bad outcome?
Sorry, but I have to fight the hypothetical, here. WHY does every woman suddenly voluntarily carry every (non-miscarriage) pregnancy to term? Is there a simultaneous gigantic medical advancement that instantly makes pregnancy and childbirth 100% safe for every woman? Or something else?
Even as a hypothetical, I can’t treat this as just an idle thought experiment, basically. Because of some inherited stuff, if I were to become pregnant, I’d have a higher risk of maternal mortality and it’d be virtually certain I’d experience severe pain (and be at greater risk of physical injury) for ~the last half of the pregnancy to the point of weeks of mandatory bed rest. Not to mention the (needed and extremely beneficial) antidepressants that I’d have to stop taking.
So I’d need to have some reason why hypothetical me would, if I got pregnant, voluntarily go through all of that. Also, I think my opinion of the situation (for the hypothetical society) may vary depending on what the reason is.
OP’s question seems to rest on the assumption that anyone thinks abortion is a priori and in itself a good thing: does anyone seriously think it’s anything other than the least worst option in the given circumstances? The debate is usually about who should decide.
If everybody acts of their own free will and within the law, why would it be considered acceptable for anyone else to have a view as to whether it was “acceptable”? Why would it be an issue if abortion clinics closed for lack of custom?
The only relevant factor missing is the question as to whether there would adequate care arrangements for the children in question, or would too many end up in appalling baby farms?
The question we are being asked is: if you think it’s wrong that service X is available, is is still wrong if service X becomes universally available, but then nobody lines up to use it.
i.e. is it the availability of abortion that Pro-lifers think is wrong, or is it the fact that people make use of that availability.
I still don’t see the point of the question. Why would someone think it right for it to be allowed and provided for, but wrong for anyone to use the option? Granted, there are many who would accept varying degrees of legal permission as a least worst option, on the principle that anything’s better than the horrors of old-fashioned back-street methods, but still disapprove of individual people who take advantage of it, but that’s not quite the same thing as an absolute right/wrong dichotomy.
Conversely, why would someone think it right that people have the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion but wrong that no one actually chooses to do so? Who actually wants abortions to happen just for the sake of doing abortions?
This just takes the “legal, safe and rare” position to its logical extreme - legal, safe and never chosen. Assuming we don’t fight the hypothetical and question why no one is choosing to have an abortion, this is an ideal situation from the pro-choice perspective.
For a more realistic scenario, assume that social structures are such that carrying the fetus to term is an appealing and realistic option for all women. They could still choose abortion, and some might, but there would be very little reason for that choice.
And yes, this would be a good turn of events. The goal is fewer or no abortions. Making it illegal is good exactly insofar as it would accomplish that goal, and I don’t actually think it would do much at all in that regard. On the other hand, taxpayer-funded prenatal care and an end to the public shaming of unwed mothers would both do a lot to accomplish that goal, and should be pursued.
I don’t feel I can vote because the scenario is not only hypothetical, its a fairy tale. Everybody lives happily ever after? Sure, what’s not to like! But it is an impossibility. Safe and legal are not enough. A woman still has to endure the stress and life-changing effects of pregnancy, even if only temporarily. And in nearly 100% of cases this alone is the reason for wanting an abortion.
You want hypothetical? Imagine a Star Trek-like transporter which can ‘beam’ the fetus out of a woman’s body immediately. Of course at that level of technology birth control would be ironclad to begin with.
In Candyland, where all fetuses are implanted in healthy bodies by suitable people and there is ample prenatal healthcare for everyone, and all involved have the income needed and/or the paid medical leave when it is necessary, and there is a good family for every single child born no matter what sex, color or physical condition that child is, I would have no objection.
Some women simply can’t handle the physical demands of carrying a child to term. However, should such a scenario become reality, I would want a job in the abortion clinic.
It’s a way of drilling down to the thinking that underlies a position (as most of these hypothetical type scenarios are really - given a field of noisy input comprising mixtures and superpositions of “this is immoral!” / “it should be illegal” / “people shouldn’t even want to do it”, etc, a hypothetical like this one pushes the sliders all the way to one end, in an attempt to determine which of those factors is fundamental.
There might not be any such fundamental factor, or (more likely) it may not be consistent across the field, but it’s not an entirely worthless method