Reasons for Abortions: Lack of Male Support

By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.

Asked about it directly, only 14% of the women surveyed in 2004 by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) said that one of the reasons they had the abortion was that their husband or partner wanted them to. But men, or perhaps more accurately, the absence of men or their unwillingness or inability to take responsibility for their children, appear to play a major role in women's abortions.

Altogether, some 48% mention relationship problems or concerns about single motherhood as a factor. This includes those unsure about the relationship (19%), women with partners they can't or don't want to marry (12%), those concerned the relationship or marriage may break up soon (11%), those not currently in a relationship (11%), and those with an abusive husband or partner (2%).

Moreover, directly or indirectly, several reasons classified as economic also involve women's partners. Fourteen percent said they weren't receiving enough help from their husband or partner, while 12% said their husband or partner was unemployed.

Other factors, if not explicitly tied to a lack of male assistance, are certainly exacerbated by the lack of any reliable male breadwinner. These would include inability to afford a baby and childcare (28%), inability to afford the basic needs of life (23%), or currently being on welfare or public assistance (8%). Being unemployed (22%) is a bigger factor if there is no other source of income, and being unmarried itself (42%) was a significant reason for many.

Over 80% of abortions are to unmarried women and have been for some time, but the 2004 AGI survey of abortion reasons shows that more is involved than a desire not to have a child out of wedlock.

Being "unmarried" covers a large number of categories. Unmarried women include teens, young college coeds, young working women, unemployed dropouts, women who are co-habiting, women who are divorced, women who are widowed, women with children, women without children, etc.

Some, the survey shows, involve teens and college coeds who have abortions so as not to reveal their pregnancies or sexual activity, but the number that have abortions for this reason has been dropping. The embarrassment factor is not necessarily what is driving most of these abortions anymore.

Relevant to this discussion, and brought out by the survey and interviews, is that being unmarried means that a young woman does not have a committed male partner (at least in any legal sense) to help her provide and care for the child.

AGI's 2000 demographic analysis of abortion patients showed that nearly 61% of aborting women had already had one or more live births, so the issue for many of these women is not whether they want to marry and start a family, but how they will deal with the family situation they already have. A woman without a partner, or with a partner who will not or cannot take responsibility for the children already present, faces a complex web of challenges when she finds out she is pregnant.

Lawrence Finer and his coauthors say that more than half of the women who participated in the interview portion cited concerns about their relationship or single motherhood as a reason for their abortions. The report says, "These relationship problems included a partner's drinking, physical abuse, unfaithfulness, unreliability, immaturity, and absence (often due to incarceration or responsibilities to his other children). Many of these women were disappointed because their partner had reacted to the pregnancy by denying paternity, breaking off communication with them, or saying that they did not want the child."

Abortion is often framed as a woman's issue, but the net effect of abortion's legality and widespread availability has been to let men off the hook for the children they bring into being. Rather than grow up and take responsibility, find a job, accept the role of breadwinner, and commit to the mother and the family, abortion allows men to say that a woman brings such responsibilities on herself, rather than him, if she decides to go through with the pregnancy.

Abortion not only kills innocent children, but also breeds irresponsible men. Families, communities, and whole generations suffer.