Divorce and the abortion link

When the Bishop of Gozo recently stated that divorcees were statistically more likely to have an abortion than married women, he was widely mocked. The mockery was perhaps justified but not the reason generally given (or implied) - that the link was spurious. For the link, in Western countries where such correlations have been explored, is real.

It is not difficult to see why. In our kind of society, people who are sexually active outside marriage (or a stable relationship leading to it) are more likely to see an unplanned pregnancy as a personally-disastrous disruption.

If abortion is considered a legitimate option, then it is also more likely to be chosen.

One could go further. It is not just a correlation. There is a causal link. No-fault divorce laws, in themselves, demonstrably push rates of marriage breakdown higher than they would be without them.

By contributing to a greater pool of divorcees, who naturally continue to be sexually active, such laws make abortions more probable.

The problem with such arguments is not what they include but what they leave out. Widows, single and separated women have roughly as much chance as divorcees to have unplanned pregnancies outside a stable relationship. And, yes, in the US the abortion statistics reflect this.

To be fair, Mgr Mario Grech linked abortion to unstable families, only highlighting divorcees as an example. But his office has not exactly rushed to correct the media's near exclusive focus on divorce. In any case, why highlight that?

The statistics also show a middle-class link, almost certainly a causal one. In the US, having a baby is sometimes the only apparent way a poor woman can enter the world of adult responsibilities; too little money, education and ambition make other paths remote.

The middle class, blessed with more resources, education and ambition, has other options, which having an unplanned baby can destroy. The statistics show that the poor are less likely to have an abortion than the middle-class.

But, of course, no one is going to say that this is an argument for not instilling ambition in young women and giving them as good an education as possible. If nothing else because, in the US, the more education you have, the less likely you are to divorce. Which just goes to show how tangled is the real world's relationship between divorce and abortion.

Therefore, the proper answer to Mgr Grech should have been something along these lines: Do you seriously imagine that one can reduce the chances of abortion being legalised in Malta, some time down the line, by combating the introduction of a divorce law?

Malta, without a divorce law, might still go the way of Spain, which, until recently, had a comparatively low rate of divorce that coexisted with a comparatively high rate of non-marriage by sexually active adults.

We have already, very quickly, gone Spain's way in terms of family planning and low birth rates. It will not be blocking divorce that will stop abortion being widely considered legitimate here, too.

Indeed, given that in Spain - and Italy - the support for abortion laws sometimes appears to have had more to do with people reacting against what they considered an overbearing Catholic Church, the current leadership style and manner of the Maltese Church may possibly help bring about what it is trying to avoid.

As I said, that would have been the proper answer. It would not have denied the statistically undeniable.

It would have addressed the Church's likely true fears, instead of being content with accusing the Church of stoking fear. So why was it not given?

Among the many possible reasons, I would underline one. The divorce debate in Malta is not dominated by a "progressive" side against a socially conservative one.

Rather, it is pitting two different strands of conservatism against each other: An economically liberal conservatism against social conservatism.

Replying properly to the Church's concerns requires recognising that divorce laws are correlated to certain negative social-economic impacts.

The correlations are neither as simple nor as wholly negative as the Church makes them out to be. But they are there. Yet, the vast majority of pro-divorce pro-ponents have so far refused to acknowledge this dimension.

Given the explicitly libertarian or economically-liberal convictions of some of them, the admission would not draw them into any contradiction.

However, the admission would make a significant difference to those who see the legalisation of divorce as part of a centre-left project.

Mitigating the social and economic consequences of divorce - as the continental and Scandinavian countries have gone farthest in doing - requires welfare spending on a continental and Scandinavian scale.

That cannot happen when Malta's major political parties are promising tax cuts. Unless Malta is living in a world of its own, for Swedish-style public provision of childcare centres, healthcare and state education, you need Swedish-style mainstream tax-bands going from roughly 30 to 60 per cent.

With our current tax promises, by the Nationalists and Labour, we are more likely to go the economically liberal way of the US and UK - high economic hardship for divorcees (we're already there with single mothers).

Yes, on divorce, the social conservatives are selective with some choice statistics and in denial of others.

But the economic conservatism of many of their opponents also needs to be blamed for the immature state in which the debate, and our appraisal of the real choices, are mired.

ranierfsadni@europe.com