What do you think would happen...?

Question

If abortion was criminalized again?

Immediate results... long term results... whatever you like, but I'd enjoy thorough answers.

Answer 1

will create many unhappy people and women going to do it illegally,which will make them a criminals

Answer 2

Immediate results? Women would take to the streets in outrage. It would be ugly. Long-term? Some women would wise up and realize that if they get pregnant they're stuck with the baby, and would start making better choices about their s*x lives. Other women would not wise up. They would end up either being c**p mothers, or getting back-alley abortions and risking their lives. I don't know if society would be better or worse for criminalizing abortion. Has it gotten better since it was legalized? Are there less abused/neglected kids? Are there fewer children in the foster care system? Are there fewer teen moms than before? I don't think these things have gotten better - abortion isn't preventing what it's supposed to be preventing.

Answer 3

Women might start to be more careful about how they used contraception if they were really anxious not to get pregnant.  It isn't that difficult to avoid getting pregnant if you really don't want to be.

Answer 4

immediate result - big protests, media overage.  gloating by the religious right.

mid range result -  with the exeption of a handful of "whakos" and "liberal extremists", the sheepish american people move on with the lives.  

long term result - zero enforcement of the ban in blue states, vigorous enforement in red states.  women from red states running to blue states to get abortions - women getting hurt from trying give themselves an abortion.  the rise of a black market for abortion services.  more hildren being born to mothers who can't support them.

Answer 5

oh wow, you know what would happen? women would start dying. they would perform at home abortions on themselves (or get someone else to do it). and of course it would go wrong, and the woman would bleed to death.

there would be protests like you wouldn't imagine.

Answer 6

Poor women would die.  Orphanages would fill up with lonely, unwanted children who might be abused by their keepers.   There would be more mothers on welfare.  The rich would just fly to another country to get them.

Same as it used to be.

Answer 7

Same thing that happened before, women would go to "some guy" with a folding table and a knife.

Answer 8

Criminalizing something doesn't always mean that it'll stop happening. Women have been having abortions, legal or illegal, since the dawn of civilization. Despite what one may think about it, the state has no place in making the decision to have one.

Answer 9

Women would get together and make abortion legal again.  In the short term, many women would suffer.

Answer 10

First off, some clinics would continue practicing illicitly, and others would shut down.

Women's rights groups would attempt to appeal the decision and have it reversed. There would be legal action and solidary for those who continue to practice it.

Opposing groups, including religious groups, the political right and other anti-abortion groups would move to prosecute those who continue to practice abortions, as well as the women who obtain them. Some extreme factions would move to criminalizing contraception.

Some women would fear being criminalized and seek abortions elsewhere, either by performing it themselves, paying for it on the black market or fleeing to another jurisdiction to obtain one, depending on their economic status.

Other women would carry the pregnancy to term. More children would be raised "unwanted" (in quotations here becuase I believe it is not the children who are unwanted but rather that their lives and the pregnancy is simply unsustainable). Crime rates related to abortions would immediately increase. Crime rates related to other crimes would increase in the following 15 years or more.

The health system would be strained by the consequences of unsustainable pregnancies, failed abortion attempts and the excess population of children living in poverty with increasing health problems.

Adoption services and child services would see an increase in their workload.

More people would be incarcerated as a result of criminalizing abortions, and serve to overrun the already strained prison industrial complex.

More children will grow up without fathers, and would blame women and feminists for holding them responsible for raising these children.

Women would be blamed for their plight. Women would be blamed for the plight of their children.

On the bright side, there will be more poor children available for low wage jobs that no one wants as well as for military recruitment.

Answer 11

There would be a lot of protests (probably a few violent ones), illegal abortions that cause harm, even death, an increase in the number of children needing to be adopted, and surge...yes surge, in poverty as well as child abuse and an decrease of children developing at the appropriate rate.

This is just to name a few, it does not even go it to the effects these results would have on society.