Because healthy/happy people tend to be less reliant on religion as a source of comfort – see Western Europe in the past fifty years.

At least it’s a step in the right direction. I’m all for positive steps. They always lead somewhere.

Poverty and irregular access to birth control also do a great deal to inflate the number of abortions and related health issues. But basically, what we have it a dormant situation in which no party wants to raise the issue: conservatives becasue it’s a current win for their side, and yet they don’t want to come off as intolerant fossils by being strident about it. Liberals, because they tend to be allied with moderately open-minded churches (Liberation Theology was big here) and often don’t feel like threatening that relationship.