State abortion laws will destroy women’s autonomy and Kentucky’s economy

NPR’s Emily Feng’s June 2021 article “China’s Former 1-Child Policy Continues to Haunt Families” explains in 1979, China moved to manage spiraling economic problems caused by its massive, growing population by limiting couples to only one child. “Family planning officials” subjected “offenders” to kidnapping, torture, forced sterilization or abortions, debilitating financial fines, and even imprisonment to enforce the law. They gradually increased the number to three children but ultimately the plan failed, and as of 2016, they abandoned the practice, primarily for economic reasons.

The US has started down that same road now that the Supreme Court has upheld state legislatures’ right to interfere with, and dictate a woman’s family planning decisions. Legislatures are financing bounties to hunt down “offenders”, prohibiting mail order prescriptions used to terminate a pregnancy, criminalizing doctors for doing their job and threatening to jail them, considering prohibiting access to birth control, and even condemning a 10-year-old rape victim for crossing state lines to seek a legal abortion.

Kentucky’s new abortion laws are just as draconian and create personal and negative consequences no one has begun to imagine. Current demographics compiled by World Population Review, a non partisan data-gathering/reporting organization, show the state’s population is 86.25% white and 8.10% African American, and the average family size is only 3.04, indicating the state could benefit from a higher birth rate. Recent data reports women over age 18 compose 50.77% of the state’s population and men 49.23%, with 18.17% of those women living in poverty compared to 14.97% of men. Married households reflect 48% of the state’s population, while 12.2% are headed by single females, and 5% are led by males. On average, a female in Kentucky with a 4-year college degree makes $42, 641 and a male makes $60,070. Women are the majority in Kentucky, but appear to already face greater financial, educational and career challenges than men.

Given these statistics, what are the consequences in Kentucky of being forced to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term? A woman risks falling either into, or further into poverty due to job/parenting conflicts and added unaffordable childcare expenses. Her health and life are subject to greater risk, especially if she has limited or no access to affordable prenatal healthcare. She can ultimately be forced to leave a workforce that currently has an unemployment rate of 3.8% according to the investment research firm of Ycharts. This reduction in her purchasing power will have a negative “trickle down” effect on the economy, reducing industry productivity and profits. Just ask any merchant with a “Now Hiring” sign posted on their business premises what they think about a further reduction in the labor market. Career and educational opportunities will be harder to pursue, affecting college and trade school enrollments and graduation rates.

Also, will female lawyers, doctors, CEOs, teachers, nurses, manufacturing supervisors and service industry and manufacturing workers want to live in a state that represses women and sees them as chattels? Or will those professional women move to a blue state and reclaim their autonomy and be free to pursue their dreams?

Rita Osborn is a retired nonprofit executive director and community activist who advocates for those marginalized and challenged by society’s injustices.