The declaration to “respect life” was behind the successful repeal of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court’s decades-old ruling to protect the right to abortion. Many states are quickly mandating prohibitions against terminating pregnancies, even in the early stages.

When we think about what respecting life really means, it’s clear that we need more than laws requiring women to bear children. This three-part series presents the bigger picture.

We Must Be as Concerned with Raising these Children as We are About Birthing Them

There were approximately 930,000 abortions in 2020 in the U.S. Almost a million women made the difficult decision to terminate their pregnancies – for health reasons, economic reasons, or other situations that made them decide they could not raise a child at this time.

If abortion is not an option and this same number of pregnancies came to term, that means an additional 930,000 children could be born. We certainly want all of them to have a loving home and the economic support to grow up and become productive members of society. However, when a woman has already made the hard decision that she cannot offer the love and support that a child needs, then  what?

Some people have argued that all these babies could be adopted. Yes, some could be adopted. Currently only 9% of women who were denied an abortion chose to relinquish their children for adoption. Based on this historical data, approximately 90,000 of these children could be adopted. However, we need to keep in mind that many would-be adoptive parents are holding out for a child that meets their unique qualifiers, such as race, age, sex and health status. These children may not fit those requirements.

However, let’s be optimistic and assume that these babies will find good homes. What about the thousands of children already waiting for parents? There are approximately 407,000 children in foster care in the U.S. that are currently awaiting adoption. Couples who want to adopt are not taking in these children, who also deserve the stability of a loving, caring family environment. It’s reasonable to assume that with more births to parents who cannot support them, the number of foster children will increase.

So, it’s questionable if more adoptions will solve the problem of providing loving homes for children who need them.

What now? Read Part 2, coming next week.

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