The Guttmacher Institute released a study this week concerning the characteristics of women seeking abortion which has highlighted once again the importance of marriage.
The study shows how disastrous the sexual revolution and it’s consequential disintegration of marriage has been.
Married women were underrepresented among those who had abortions; their likelihood of having an abortion was one-third that of all women. Both never-married and previously married women were overrepresented among abortion patients and had relative abortion rates slightly above the national average. Cohabiting women were substantially overrepresented among women who had abortions; their relative abortion rate was more than three times that of all women.
Who’d a thunk it? Women who have sex with men who aren’t committed to them for life might feel a little skittish about having their boyfriend’s children.
Guttmacher points out that “the overwhelming majority of women having abortions (85%) were unmarried.”
Abortion is a sympton of a lack of love. The only thing that can truly stop abortion is love. Real committed love. Always has been. Always will be.
When marriage is weakened through easy divorce or the legalization of same-sex marriage, studies have shown that illegitimacy and abortion increase. So maybe one of the most pro-life actions one can take is defending marriage.
May 6, 2010 at 4:31 am
I think "who'd a thunk it" about says it all.
May 6, 2010 at 5:16 am
Sorry, with you all the way until the spurious implication of "gay marriage weakens (heterosexual) marriage which contributes to higher abortion rates".
Whatever else you might choose to say/believe about gays and gay marriage, there are *NO* data to support your contention that gay marriage (in states where it is legal) has led to an increase in heterosexual divorce (there are tentative data indicating that US states with gay marriage have seen a decline in divorce rates, but it would be a stretch to claim a causal reltationship to gay marriage). Equally, there are *NO* data, anywhere, to link gay marriages with abortion.
I know hectoring the gays and haranguing gay marriage is red meat to many of your readers, but maybe we can agree that the problems in many marriages across the US have little to do with the marriages of two lesbians in Hyannis, MA, or two gays in Derry, NH.
May 6, 2010 at 6:42 am
Like your insight about love… "Abortion is a symptom of a lack of love. The only thing that can truly stop abortion is love. Real committed love. Always has been. Always will be." Seems like something JPII or BXVI would say, except they'd use much bigger words 🙂
I also lost you on the causality between same-sex marriage, babies and abortion.
Joe K
May 6, 2010 at 10:58 am
Joe K and Matthew 16, I think you're misreading Matthew's post, although I admit that last paragraph isn't written very clearly. His general point is a philosophical one and is self-evidently true from a Catholic anthropological perspective.
In the eyes of the Church and God, marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman, and secular society has long perpetuated and supported marriage as a guarantor of a healthy and stable environment in which to raise the next generation of citizens of a society. Matthew's point is that easy divorces, as well as attempting to re-define marriage to include two people of the same sex as possible participants in it, are both tremendously damaging to the institution itself, not only as a sacrament in the eyes of the Church, but also to secular society overall. The evidence is clear as a bell, as more and more people in the West no longer view marriage as something to be aimed for, nor as something meant to be a lifelong commitment. All of these changes of view on marriage have happened throughout Western culture over the past few decades, leading to a total lack of understanding of, and appreciation for, lifelong committed marriage. This, in turn, contributes mightily to illegitimacy, and hence abortion. It's really not that hard to understand the chain of events, and only a lack of true understanding of the sacramental nature of marriage and a rejection of its long-standing purpose of rearing and protecting biological progeny can lead one to deny the obvious connections, I think.
May 6, 2010 at 1:09 pm
For the record, I'm against legal same-sex marriage and legal divorce-remarriage as well as legal polygamous marriage. But I don't believe two men or two women wanting to settle down and commit themselves to each other is at all behind abortion. What's behind it is promiscuity, exemplified by both fornication and adultery. Women get abortions when they get pregnant with men who are not committed to them, i.e., men with whom they have a one-night stand, men with whom they cohabitate, or men who call them, mistress. As the article says, 85% of women who have abortion are unmarried, i.e., having sex with a man who has not made her his wife. That's the real problem.
Gus
May 6, 2010 at 1:38 pm
While I think this information is very interesting in terms of figures, I'll say—"This ain't rocket science." Everyone who thinks about abortion for one single minute knows without a doubt, unless they watch too many movies, that it's the unmarried women who are having abortions. It always has been. The sad fact is this: Contraception leads to abortion. Some Dr's are starting to admit it. When single women are having "responsible" sex and their method fails, they abort. After all, they weren't planning on/were protecting against a baby. It's less likely to happen within a marriage because, even if the couple is contracepting, they already have a support mechanism in place. Rare is the case of a husband who is so hateful that he would insist his wife kill his own child. Not so with the man who is having sex with a contracepting woman–from his view, the child might not even be his in the first place…..
May 6, 2010 at 1:58 pm
It is still problematic to say "I'm against same-sex marriage, but I don't care what others do in the privacy of their homes," similar to how it is problematic to say "I'm against abortion, but I don't want to keep others from having the right to it."
The Church doesn't teach that homosexual acts are harmful only for believers. Sex in an uncontracepting, heterosexual marriage is beautiful because the self-gift of man to wife and wife to man brings forth new life in a way that a new person comes into being. It is both fulfilling and a positive addition to all of society, not just the two people having sex.
Homosexual acts, on the other hand, close those individuals off to a deeper understanding of self-gift and their role in pouring out self-sacrificial love for their "partner" and for society. An increase in the presence of cohabiting or "married" homosexual couples is a drain on society's ability to overcome a self-seeking pleasure for the sake of true caritas. A culture that falls further and further away from true caritas finds it increasingly difficult to remember that the point of marriage is a love that goes forward to the good of others and contributes to something bigger than the individual. When this happens, the life of new members of society can be viewed as burdensome because there is no underlying love.
Whether or not it is convenient to our worldview of "tolerance," there is an underlying link in all sin and we either have the potential to continue to spiral down as a society from one to the next, or we can wake up, see the connections, and begin to live our lives as if there are some things we know objectively through reason and Church teachings.
May 6, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I totally agree with Matthew on all the points- in particular the one about homosexuality leading to an increase in abortion rates. You'd be surprised to learn, perhaps, how much of a current trend it is for homosexual couples to decide that they have the right- just like a heterosexual, married couple – to have children. We are making children a commodity and perverting the Creator's plan of procreation resulting through the purity of marital love and the spousal embrace. Homosexual couples then use illicit means of doing what nature will not allow them to… they either use a man's body to get pregnant, or they buy into the sickening fertility treatments like IVF that result in the destruction of human life. Either way- it is the opposite of love: it is use. One of the characterizing symptoms of the abortion culture is use being pawned off as choice.
Great post.
May 6, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Beautiful this:
"Abortion is a sympton of a lack of love. The only thing that can truly stop abortion is love. Real committed love. Always has been. Always will be." Inpired maybe. Lovely.
Ah the problem with homosexual "marriage" it is another example of a cultural acceptance of sex outside of (real) marriage. And that IS a part of the culture of death – the culture of abortion.
May 6, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I'd say re: same-sex unions and abortion that it's more "symptoms of the same sickness unto death" rather than one thing causing another.
One thing that you didn't mention, Matt, that I think is pertinent here: not only are abortions hugely prevalent among the cohabitating, but children of those unions are in far more danger from their own fathers than kids from marriages. Not that child abuse doesn't happen in marriages, it's sadly all too real – but killing the kids or neglecting them until the state must intervene? All too easy when you're not the actual father, or the legitimate husband to the mother.
My co-blogger and I have had a long-running standing remark, whenever we hear in the news of a child beaten or starved or abandoned – "Live-in boyfriend, possibly not the actual father." We are correct probably 75-85% of the time. The father in an uncommited sexual relationship is far more likely to bail if the mother doesn't abort; if he stays he's more likely to visit his resentments on that child; if he leaves the next man in Mom's life is more likely to treat the child the way a new lion treats the cubs of the pride after taking it over – with violence. It ain't his brat, dig?
May 6, 2010 at 5:36 pm
But how can we put the toothpaste back in the tube with respect to the acceptance of fornication?
The culture in general regards the restriction of sex to marriage as absurd, impossible, ridiculous, unthinkable. Colleges have co-ed dorms and bowls of condoms in every bathroom.
We need single sex dorms, parietal rules, curfews, chaperoned parties….but most of all we need women who believe that it is their right to say no, that it is a sign of a healthy self image to say no, who believe they have a right to security in the love of the person they have sex with, the security only provided by marriage. How does one bring that back?
Susan Peterson
May 6, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Bottom line- anything the Culture of Death put out- homosexual marriage, fornication, cohabitation- just leads people not to understand the real meaning of sex. Its supposed to be unitative and procreative… not just any "hole" will do, and not just any partner will do. So, yes, the acceptance of homosexuality DOES cheapen the marriage act, and marriage itself, and cheapens the respect for the way we are created and the sanctity of how life begins.
May 7, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I believe that contraception has been the cause of the degradation of marriage. Sterile sex denies the essence of sexual union, which is life-giving love. Homosexual unions and abortion are natural progressions of the idea of sex divorced from its meaning.
May 7, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Therefore, one of the most pro-life actions you can take is not to contracept…
May 8, 2010 at 9:00 am
What a joke this article is! The Catholic Church itself is in the business of destroying marriage through its annulment mills.
The Catholic Church itself is more of a danger to marriage than either contraception or militant homosexuality are.
May 8, 2010 at 1:48 pm
?
May 8, 2010 at 4:28 pm
We can thank Ronald Regan for the explosion of "no fault divorce"–a seismic shift in the American marriage landscape resulted. And I tend to agree that the annulment mills of the Catholic Church have been no better for marriage than the civil courts.
May 8, 2010 at 10:34 pm
It is the choice of the individual Catholic to violate their vows. It is their "addiction".
The problem is encouraged mightily, however, when there are no seriously negative consequences to the adulterers, on the part of the Catholic Church(much less the government) and is manifestly worsened when said adultery is "excused" because "proof" for nullity is "discovered" by Canonists who can find "evidence" everywhere in support.
The demand/addiction must be reduced by our personal choices. But, the Church must help as well. As yet, and for two to three generations, the hierarchy, especially the Popes, who are in the position to make changes on their own even over the objection of their fellow adultery enablers(their fellow clergy/priets/bishops) have resisted helping troubled marriages(even those who have begged them for help directly), opting rather to find "excuses" to help the marital abandoners rather than their victims, including the scandalized children, friends and relatives.
It is time for Benedict to stop talking about things and act, or he should resign, as soon as possible. He fiddles while abandoned spouses are being destroyed and their innocent children are being abused.
His delaying is scandalous and inexcusable.
Still, it is the CHOICE of the transgressor, which drives this nightmare. This IS NOT Benedict's choice but he could do much to discourage such a choice……yet he just talks,
as does our American "Chief Justice" Raymond Burke, another crushing disappointment of a cleric.
May 10, 2010 at 7:27 pm
The saddest comment to make is that 1 in 7 MARRIED women see abortion as a solution.
May 10, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Even worse Scoutsigns, 1 in 4 women regardless of religion or marital status has had an abortion. That means the next time you're sitting in Church, look around and know that 1 in 4 women of bearing age has had an abortion. Yikes!