New York City, N.Y., Mar 26, 2009 / 17:09 pm
Countering pessimism about the prospects for overturning Roe v. Wade, Catholic political writer Mark Stricherz has argued that there is still reason to work for the changes in American law because most Americans in fact disapprove of most abortions.
Stricherz, the author of the book Why the Democrats are Blue, made his case in a March 25 entry titled “Why Overturning Roe Would Save Lives and Be Popular” on the blog of the Jesuit-run America magazine.
Addressing arguments that overturning the pro-abortion rights Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade would be both ineffective and unpopular, he said there was little evidence that most states would preserve the permissive status quo in their abortion laws.
Reporting the results of a 2005 study from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Stricherz said about three-quarters of women seeking an abortion said they did so because having a baby would “dramatically” change their life or because they couldn’t afford the child. About half of the surveyed women cited relationship problems or a desire to avoid single motherhood as main factors driving them to seek an abortion.