Prof. Bardi, after Carlo Dolci (1616-1686), Italian
Madonna and Child, undated
Some well meaning individuals
support the RH Bill because they contend that a more widespread availability
of contraceptives will reduce illegal abortions in the Philippines. They sincerely bewail the thousands of
illegal abortions being performed yearly in the Philippines and they are of
the opinion that making pills, condoms and other contraceptive devices more
freely available, especially to the poor, will actually reduce these illegal
abortions.
Such an opinion is based on pure
speculation that is not based on empirical science. On the other hand, there is abundant
research in countries where contraceptive devices are freely available in
vending machines or the corner drug store demonstrating that abortions tend
to increase with the widespread use of contraception. I have lived in two countries where
contraception has been practiced for decades – the United States and Spain – where
hundreds of thousands of babies are being aborted every year. Even prescinding from the medical fact that
some so-called contraceptives (e.g. the “morning after pill” and the IUD) do
not prevent fertilization but kill the human life before implantation, the RH
Bill should not be passed because it will encourage the widespread use of
artificial contraceptives, which in turn will increase abortions.
Some of our economists who favor the
RH Bill are still too enamored with the sterile tool of econometrics. They
subject economic data to purely mathematical and statistical analysis without
having recourse to the behavioral sciences that can capture more completely
the very complex reality that the human being is. It is no surprise that a good number of “economists”
who have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in the last decade or so
come from other social sciences or make full use of the findings of such disciplines
as social psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, etc. One such Nobel laureate is George Arthur
Akerlof of the University of California (Berkeley). In 2001, Akerlof shared the Nobel Prize in
Economics with Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz.
From the psycho-sociological studies
of Akerlof, we find strong empirical evidence that the widespread use of
contraception has increased the rates of divorce, abortion, single motherhood
and psychologically disturbed children – which are not only social ills but
can lead to significant increases in public spending to address the
consequent social problems. Akerlof
described a phenomenon that he labeled “reproductive technology shock.” He demonstrated through empirical studies
in the U.S. that new technologies that had helped to spawn the late 20th
Century sexual revolution – modern contraceptive devices and legal abortion –
had not only failed to suppress the incidence of out-of-wedlock child bearing
but also had actively worked to increase it.
How can we explain the “reproductive
technology shock” from the viewpoint of behavioral science? For
women who had not been using contraceptives,
these technologies had transformed the old paradigm of socio-sexual
assumptions, expectations, and behaviors in ways that were especially
disadvantageous. For example, the availability of legal
abortion now allowed men to view their offspring as the deliberate product of
female choice rather than the chance product of sexual intercourse. Thus it encouraged biological fathers to
reject not only any supposed obligation to marry the mother but also the very
idea of paternal obligation.
Behavioral changes like these are what are completely ignored by those
advocating the RH Bill. They only
focus on the short-run problem of reducing illegal abortions or the number of
mothers dying at child birth.
Even their assumptions about the
short-term benefits of making contraceptives available to the poor can be
questioned for lack of empirical evidence.
I have seen no studies showing that those who procure illegal
abortions would have not become pregnant if they had access to
contraceptives. As demonstrated in
numerous studies in other countries, those who are frequent users of contraceptives
are the ones most prone to having abortions.
The explanation given here is that contraceptive users tend to take
more risks in instant gratification, either with the same partner or multiple
partners. The social norm of avoiding
pre-marital sex is more easily discarded when contraceptives are widely
available. This transformation of
behavior is explained by Akerlof's theory about “social identity.” He and co-author Rachel Kranton argued that
individuals do not have preferences only over different goods and
services. They also adhere to social
norms for how different people should behave.
The widespread use of contraceptives and the introduction of legal
abortion in the United States changed the social norms which kept abortions
at a low level in the past. I am
against the RH Bill because I take very seriously the findings of behavioral
sciences. The proponents of the RH
Bill show an abysmal ignorance of these findings.
Another assumption being made by
those who favor the RH Bill is that maternal mortality would decline with
greater access of the poor to contraceptives.
Once again, I find no empirical backing of this heroic
assumption. I still have to be
presented studies which prove that mothers who die while giving birth did not
want to be pregnant and would have avoided pregnancy if they had been given
access to artificial contraceptives.
Obviously, none of these mothers could have been interviewed after
death. It is very possible that these
unfortunate women wanted very much to be mothers. The solution, therefore, is not to increase
access to contraceptives but to do everything possible to put up more
maternity clinics and to make midwives available even in the most remote
regions of the country. It is beyond
me why there is an obsession to reduce maternal mortality by preventing women
to be mothers.
Advocates of the RH Bill will reply
to these objections by saying that some local surveys show that there are
many mothers among poor households who have had unwanted pregnancies. With all due respect to these survey companies and the groups financing
such surveys, I find both the methods and contents of these surveys highly
questionable from the scientific point of view. The questions are formulated to elicit the
desired answers, very much like polls predicting the results of elections
that are financed by the candidates themselves. These surveys on family planning are
frequently funded by inter-national organizations (especially from the U.S.)
that have a distinct bias in favor of birth control. More objective
studies by economists abroad (like Lant Princhett of Harvard University) have
scientifically demonstrated that mothers have the number of children that
they desire. The concept of “unwanted
pregnancy” is highly suspect except in extreme cases of rape and incest.
Finally, to the objection that all
the scientific studies I have cited only permit a rational person to talk
about probabilities, i.e. contraception “may” increase the rate of abortion,
I answer that all legislation is about probability. Speed limits are imposed because driving
beyond these limits “may” lead to accidents.
Monopolies are prohibited because monopolists “may” use their power to
abuse consumers. Cigarette
manufacturers are obliged to put a warning on their labels because cigarette
smoking “may” be dangerous to your health.
For an analogous reason, any rational person will object to a law promoting
the use of artificial contraceptives
among the masses because contraception may increase the rate of abortion,
marriage breakups, single motherhood,
and psychologically troubled teenagers and all the consequent economic and
social costs to Philippine society.
For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.
No comments:
Post a Comment