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J_Taylor comments on Politics Discussion Thread August 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Birth control pills are only as reliable as the people who take them. This intervention could very well cause an increase in abortion.
That is a mechanism by which availability of birth control could theoretically increase abortion; do you have any empiricism handy?
Absolutely none whatsoever.
Edit: Confound these Lesswrongers, they drive me to research.
Anyways, to make a brief attempt using data from here, it seems that I was either overestimating p(oops|pill) or underestimating p(oops|condom). Of course, the hypothetical pragmatic pro-lifer really should be advocating for Dreaded_Anomaly's suggested methods as opposed to free pills.
Still, I give substantially more credence to the statement:
(Note: I was not giving much credence to begin with.)
Long lasting birth control exists and the various methods have much lower failure rates than the once-a-day pill.
Here's a large analysis from the Guttmacher Institute about rates of contraception use vs. rates of abortion. Increased contraception use along with improving methods dramatically reduces the abortion rate.