Matt Y. claims that the number of abortions went up in the 1970s (a decade starting from 01/01/1971 to 12/31/1980). Hogwash. After Roe, number of abortions went down, NOT up. Before Roe, all abortions were illegal in all 50 states (even in states like New York and California) and all US territories.

And Matt needs a reality check and look at what is happening in Nicaragua. Eighty-two women, at least confirmed, are dead. And I suspect that the government in that country is blatantly covering up the maternal deaths, because if they are not trying to cover up the maternal deaths, then the number of women who died from pregnancy-related complications in the 11 months since their total ban on abortion went into effect would be much higher.

It seems to me that Yglesias rather than his detractors is the one who is assuming women behave rationally by responding to relevant incentives.

The problem is that he can’t see the full range of incentives that are relevant, so he thinks that women would respond more to illegality than they do. Because, again, he’s never going to know the sheer terror that a pregnancy scare can produce. He’s never going to have to worry about having another mouth to feed, or whether this will destroy his health, or being tied to an abusive husband, or what have you.

Women *are* rational actors. Risking your life to get an illegal abortion is a perfectly rational choice when the consequences of a pregnancy are great enough. Illegality is, really, far down the on the list of many women’s considerations in having an abortion. Mostly, illegality presents a problem of supply, not of demand.

by matttbastard
Even when mired in the depths of illness and ennui, love reign o’er me! (Once again, Melissa McEwen gets the lion’s share of props.  Rawr, etc.)
First Draft: ‘Not My Job’ and Those darn hurricanes are never ther…

The stats in the study demonstrates that the legality of abortion does not drive abortion rates.

He gives no real reason for why he thinks that these stats are “questionable”. The only opposing stat he gives is generally considered to me an anomaly, and it turns out actually is highly questionable. He also waves his hands around and makes some comments about “correlating variables” – as if the the correlation between such variables and the legality of abortion wasn’t the study’s, and Jessica’s, point to begin with.

Plus, please note that he called the stats themselves questionable, not just the conclusions being drawn from them. Which means that he not only finds it questionable that there could be a link between all those “correlating variables” and whether or not abortion is legal, he also seems to find it questionable that that the correlation be anything other than so strongly the opposite from what is being proposed that it is inconceivable that legality does anything but trump all other considerations.

It would be one thing if he said the conclusions being drawn from the data were wrong, but he is also asserting that the data must be incorrect. (If that’s not what he meant, he needs to learn to write better.)

In the absense of any other reason given as to why this data is questionable, what other conculsion can a rational person draw expect that Matt believes either that

a) women only consider the legality of abortion

or

b) the other considerations are routinely drawfed by the legality of abortion

both of which can be sarcastically summarized with ““you mean there are usually considerations other than legality? Does not compute!”

“Not to point out the obvious, but when one claims that something is a “sound consideration” for not doing X, while also expressing skepticism over how often X is chosen in situations where “that something” would be an issue….”

That is just a silly interpretation of Matt’s claim insofar as there is any coherent interpretation at all. It is obvious that there are other reasons besides the legality and danger of the procedure why one might or might not get an abortion. And this decision might or might not be rational (though obviously the rationality of the decision shouldn’t be used as a reason for governmental intervention).

The idea that Matt doesn’t understand that is ludicrous. It is deliberately and perniciously uncharitable (as he points out in his more recent post) to think otherwise. His claim is that legalizing abortion, thus making it safer, socially more acceptable, and less likely to result in prosecution will tend to increase the number of abortions while decreasing the number of people dying due to abortions.

This is a plausible claim. One that is not directly contradicted by the study (though it does disconfirm it a bit). And Matt then provided a data point to support his claim.

You can:
1) Say the study truly contradicts Matt’s claim
2) Say his data point is erroneous or questionable

and conclude that he is wrong. It is simply careless to the point of negligence to ascribe the immensely stupid view to him that legality (and safety) are the only factors that people consider while deciding whether to have abortions.

But when the results of a study conflict with “what one would expect,” we expect him to recognize it.

Which is exactly what he did.

Josh, read what I wrote above about standpoint theory. If you don’t know all of the variables in someone’s calculation, you’re going to have a hard time assessing if it’s rational.

I did. I don’t see the relevance of standpoint theory. However many variables go into a person’s calculation, if you remove one variable that weighs against taking a particular action, one would expect that, in the aggregate, more people will take that particular action. It seems to me that Yglesias rather than his detractors is the one who is assuming women behave rationally by responding to relevant incentives.

As people have pointed out, it includes a lot of presuppositions. The biggest one is that the primary reason for abortion is convenience.

I don’t see how it presupposes that. It simply presupposes that removing one barrier to obtaining an abortion will result in some women having abortions who otherwise wouldn’t have.

Well, yes, they probably came from THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION, this being fiction and all.