I know what I said yesterday about the Pro-Life Industry “losing” will cause A LOT of consternation among pro-lifers who follow all the daily news put out by various pro-life news services.
For example, here’s an article posted on LifeNews.com on December 11, 2019 with the headline:
“One-Third of All Abortion Clinics Have Closed in the Last 5 Years, Saving Babies From Abortions”
Does The Conclusion Follow?
For those of you who took any philosophy classes where you covered logic, I would remind you that:
“If the conclusion does not follow from the premises (that is, the premises could be true, yet the conclusion false) the argument is invalid.”
There is a strong belief in the Pro-Life Movement that goes like this: “When an abortion facility closes, babies lives are saved from abortion.”
Premise: Abortion facility closes. Conclusion: Babies lives are saved.
If this were true, then couldn’t I say something like, “When my local liquor shop closed, people stopped drinking”?
Do you see the problem here?
Just because one location that supplies a product or service no longer supplies that product or service, it doesn’t necessarily follow that customers for that product or service are choosing the competing product or service.
In other words, just because an abortion facility closes, it does not necessarily follow that women experiencing unexpected pregnancies choose life for their babies.
They could just go to a different abortion facility to get an abortion.
Granted, it might be more inconvenient, and in some cases women may have to travel hundreds of miles to procure an abortion, but a reduction in access to the local supply of abortion services does not necessarily mean an increase in client wins for the competing alternative: choose life services (aka “babies saved).
If the demand for a product or service is very strong, then a customer will go to great lengths to find the supply of that product or service.
Does Closing It Mean It Failed?
Question: Is it possible that when Planned Parenthood closes one of its abortion facilities in a small town, it’s doing that as part of a strategic plan to open large abortion facilities in urban areas, with the expectation that women will travel from small towns to those urban facilities?
Of course, that’s possible.
Why might Planned Parenthood do this?
Perhaps they know that demand for abortion is so strong that women will, in fact, go to the trouble of travelling far distances to get an abortion.
Do you think that Planned Parenthood studied this issue in-depth before they made that strategic move?
Of course they did.
I am sure there are those in the Pro-Life Movement who can provide some anecdotal evidence of a handful of “saves” that resulted from a local abortion facility closing.
But I would say those women who chose life were probably not very determined to get an abortion.
The reason the PLM shouts with joy about abortion facilities closing is because it supports the narrative that the Pro-Life Movement is “winning.”
Again, this is why the Pro-Life Business Industry should operate outside of the Pro-Life Movement, because evaluating an abortion facility closing from a business perspective would not necessarily equate to a competitive win.
To draw the conclusion that it was a competitive win, you would have to show evidence that all, or most, of the potential clients of the closed abortion facility then availed themselves of “choose life services.”
Meaning, you have to show evidence using numbers, not make claims based on assumptions and emotional wishful thinking.
And, as I claimed yesterday, the market share numbers do NOT indicate that the PLBI is winning.
Regards,
Brett