ACCESS BY MARK CRUTCHER |
3 EFFECT Marketing experts know that sales decisions are always dependent on something called the "marginality scale." This scale measures whether the motivation for a decision is based on want or need. For example, on one end of the scale would be a forklift. If a business owner learns that product shipments from his company have ceased because their forklift bit the dust, his decision to buy a new forklift is not marginal. If he heads out the door toward the nearest forklift company, the fact it is raining cats and dogs doesn’t matter. Comfort and convenience are irrelevant here. This guy is going to buy a new forklift because the alternative is to close the doors of his business. On the other end of the scale is an ice cream cone, This same business owner may suddenly have a craving for an ice cream cone and decide to go to the local Dairy Queen. Now the fact-it is raining cats and dogs does matter. He may very likely open the door, see the rain, and decide that getting an Ice cream cone is not all that crucial. The point is, decisions driven by need (a forklift purchase) rather than want are not marginal. Conversely, decisions driven by want (the purchase of an ice cream cone) rather than need are marginal. That’s why forklift companies don’t need convenient locations while ice cream stores can’t survive without them. Of course, some purchasing decisions can be either marginal or non-marginal. An example of that would be automobiles. If the engine blows up in your car, the decision to purchase a new car is not very marginal. However, if you have a perfectly good car, but a new model has caught your eye, the decision to buy is relatively marginal. This marginality scale is not just present in purchasing decisions, but in all human decision making. Since day one, pro-aborts have contended that the decision to abort is never a marginal one. That’s how they justify their claim that legislation prohibiting abortion wouldn’t really stop any abortions. Pro-aborts argue that when women can’t get legal abortions, they seek illegal abortions or self-abort. They like to paint this picture of a cruel and colorless world in which abortion has been outlawed and millions of pregnant women are forced to crawl through hell on broken glass in a desperate quest for an abortionist. This chapter examines that claim. Obviously, if access does not measurably affect the abortion rate, then their "women will-get-them-anyway" claim has validity. Equally obvious, however, is the fact that if access does affect the abortion rate, then they have been caught in yet another lie. And again, I won’t ask you to take my word for it. Just listen to the experts. ABORTION INDUSTRY-OBSERVATIONS " … [the abortion decision] is affected by the accessibility of abortion services ... The lack of an abortion provider within easy traveling distance is an Important barrier for many women ... The greater the distance a woman lives from an abortion provider, the less likely she is to be able to use the provider’s services." Stanley Henshaw. Deputy Director
of Research, "… the farther a woman has to travel to obtain an abortion, the less likely she is to obtain one." United States
District Court for the District "Recent declines in the proportion of all pregnancies-and of unintended pregnancies in particular-that end in abortions rather than births suggest that these barriers [distance to providers, cost, antiabortion harassment, length-of-gestation limits, HIV-positive women being unable to find a willing abortionist] may now be Insurmountable to more women than was the case a decade ago." Stanley Henshaw, Deputy Director of Research "Mifepristone [RU-4861, while offering a new choice to women, may not increase women's access to abortion ... The largest obstacle, the biggest problem that providers presented, was the amount of traveling that women had to do to access the service. So for us, you know, that means that we have to have more people providing the service." Barbara Radford, Former Director "You notice that the proportion [of abortions by gestational age] declines ... as gestation increases, but there's a fairly sharp drop after 20 weeks ... there aren't too many providers who offer the service at that point." Stanley Henshaw, Deputy Director of Research "... in private practice, if you raise your [abortion] fees $25 to meet the cost for having an ultrasound machine ... the patient load plummets." Warren Hern, Abortionist National Abortion Federation MEDIA OBSERVATIONS "The number of hospitals offering abortions dropped from 1,654 in 1977 to 1,040 in 1988, the latest year for which data are available. And from 1980 to 1988, the nation's abortion rate dropped 6 percent, to 27 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age, from 29 per 1,000." The New York Times, March 15, 1992 "… a substantial portion of women who would have obtained a publicly-funded abortion before the restriction are now more likely to continue their pregnancies to term." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 6, 1980 "One woman who was 12 weeks pregnant called the hospital nearest her home and was told it did not do abortions after I I weeks. Because she did not have the money or means to travel to another site, she continued the pregnancy ... A 1986 survey by an abortion-rights group found 1,000 women in western Massachusetts who reported being unable to get an abortion," The Boston Globe, March 22, 1993 [the] restriction of public funding for legal abortions has not markedly increased the number of illegal abortions, but has reduced the number of legal abortions, especially those at later gestational ages, which would have cost more and been at greater risk of complications." American Journal of Public Health. January 1981 |
