We determined in this week’s series of articles that the path that has the best potential to reduce abortions is not the path of restricting supply of the abortion pill, but the path of influencing demand, and specifically influencing demand by focusing on the abortion decision maker, the woman herself.
But as we start our walk down the path of influencing demand, we have two options.
We can try to decrease demand for abortion, or we can try to increase demand for choosing life.
Which is the best option, and why?
Let’s look at the option of decreasing demand for abortion.
Put in plain terms, for this path we want to influence women to believe that the product of abortion is not attractive to them.
For example, we could bring forward scientific studies showing the psychological harm abortion does to many women, as well as case studies of women who have died after ingesting the abortion pill, and a host of other facts revealing that abortion is dangerous to women.
Let’s call this a “scare tactics” approach.
A scare tactics approach can certainly be effective.
Anti-smoking and drunk driving campaigns have used scare tactics to great effect and have been very effective at massively reducing demand for both of these products, cigarettes and alcohol, and have reduced behaviors associated with consumption of them.
And this has been achieved without restricting supply of the cigarettes and alcohol.
And I think scare tactics do have a place in reducing demand for abortion, if done a specific way, which I will get to in a minute.
But I think the problem with using scare tactics to reduce demand for abortion is twofold.
First, many women who have abortions will then years later claim to be satisfied with their abortion decisions (https://brettattebery.com/does-a-womans-satisfaction-with-an-abortion-uphold-her-dignity/).
Remember that about 40% are satisfied, and that means about 400,000 per year, or over a 10-year period, 4 million women.
That is a large number of satisfied customers, and I think that such a large number of satisfied customers serves to blunt much of the effectiveness of a scare tactics program because in the face of such a large number of women satisfied with their abortions, scare tactics can be labeled as fear-mongering or manipulative.
Second, and I think more impactful, is that as scary as some of the case studies may be about the consequences of the abortion pill, to be successful a scare tactics strategy has to overcome the very strong psychological factors that drive abortion demand.
For example, at a personal level for many women, abortion eliminates the fear of an unexpected pregnancy that borders on being terrified.
Also, for many women enjoys general cultural acceptance as an issue founded on the strong positive psychological emotions of women’s freedom and rights.
But I think scare tactics still have a place if positioned in a way that’s not put forward with the express purpose of only trying to scare a woman away from abortion, but instead presented in a way that abortion steals something from her that she and every other woman value greatly – their dignity.
Remember that a woman can never uphold her dignity by taking away the dignity of another human being.
And so while I think scare tactics do have a place in influencing demand if done the right way, I think they should be used sparingly compared to the other path we have for influencing demand: increasing the demand for choosing life.
And I draw this conclusion simply based on what research tells us about what most women facing the fear of unexpected pregnancies tell us they want.
Recall from the study, “The Effects of Abortion Decision Rightness and Decision Type on Women’s Satisfaction and Mental Health (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37303450/),” that 60% of women who had had abortions said that they would have preferred to choose life if they had received more emotional support and financial security.
For anyone who wants to increase the demand for choosing life, this research result is absolute gold.
Why?
Because the majority of women who had abortions are telling us that they would have preferred to choose life, but they didn’t because they were lacking something they needed from us, in this case emotional support and financial security.
So what’s the secret to increasing demand for choosing life?
Give the women what they want!
They want emotional support and financial security.
As I wrote in my book Your Pro-Life Bottom Line (https://www.amazon.com/Your-Pro-Life-Bottom-Brett-Attebery/dp/1667825267/), the simple secret to successful sales is this two-part formula:
1) Ask Customers what they want
2) Give it to them
So exactly how do we effectively increase the demand for choosing life by giving women what they asked for?
We’ll look at that next week.
Regards,
Brett Attebery