How Problematic Will Liberal Abortion Policies Be for Pronatalist Countries?

Abstract

Those concerned with fostering both women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights need to monitor closely the interplay between abortion and population policies. Currently the majority of countries with policies aimed at altering their fertility levels have abortion policies that are not in harmony with their fertility goals. Most antinatalist countries restrict women’s access to abortion and most pronatalist countries permit women an easy access to abortion. In both cases this lack of harmony allows critics of a country’s abortion policy to attack that policy with demographic arguments. Since the UN projects that 69 % of the world’s population by 2035 will be living in countries with below replacement fertility, demographic arguments for restricting a woman’s easy access to abortion are likely to proliferate, to become more salient and to constitute a real threat to women’s reproductive rights in particular countries.