America’s high rate of abortion can be directly attributed to conservative Christianity’s obsession with controlling and suppressing sexuality.

The most effective way to reduce abortion is to de-stigmatize sexuality, improve sexual education, and ensure broad access to excellent contraceptives. In the highly secular Netherlands, this formula has knocked abortion down to 7 per 1000 women annually, one third the U.S. rate.

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So why does the anti-abortion movement keep their focus on restrictive laws instead of contraceptive access? Why do they oppose medically accurate sex ed? Why do they pledge to defund Title X family planning? Why are they having fits about programs that provide top tier contraceptives to pregnant teens in Colorado and Washington (and virtually eliminate abortion among participating teens)? Because abortion isn’t really what interests them. They want purity. They want righteousness. They want traditional gender roles with women as designated breeders who defer to male authority. They want these things so badly that they are willing even to drive up the abortion rate in order to get them.

Four aspects of conservative Christianity promote accidental pregnancy: pro-natalism, an obsession with sexual sin, an emphasis on righteousness over compassion, and a determination to structure social rules and programs around some fantasy ideal rather than how the real world actually works). As a consequence they promote abortion.

The world is on the cusp of a contraceptive revolution (which actually has bonus health benefits). State of the art long-acting contraceptives are 50 times as effective as the Pill at preventing accidental pregnancy. Each year almost 1 in 10 women on the Pill gets pregnant. Over a lifetime, that’s two or three extra pregnancies per woman – unsought children or abortions. With a hormonal IUD or implant, that drops below 1 in 500! If that wasn’t enough, some top tier contraceptives also reduce that monthly uncleanness and pain (Leviticus 15:19-24) brought on by Eve’s curse.

Someone who really wanted to reduce abortions would showcase better birth control in every teen health class in the country. They would make sure that the most effective contraceptives available were available to all women regardless of age or income, as a program in Washington State does. They would be more focused on promoting wise childbearing than virginity. Those who claim they want to end abortion don’t succeed because that’s not really what they are after.