From Professor Kyle Blanchette (excerpt):
many pro-choice advocates, especially among the rank-and-file, have a more moderate view. They concede that abortion is (at least usually) morally wrong or bad, perhaps even seriously so — even if women are often not blameworthy for having them. And yet they still believe that abortion should be legal. I would venture to say that this is the most common pro-choice position.
Pro-lifers are often baffled by this combination of beliefs, but some moderate pro-choicers have an explanation at the ready: Abortion restrictions don’t work. Instead of lowering the rate of abortion, they simply replace safe abortions with roughly the same number of unsafe “back alley” abortions. If a law does not reduce the incidence of the problematic behavior that it targets, and it also has costs attached to it — such as creating unsafe conditions for women seeking the procedure, or imposing unfair burdens on women in a society that often treats them unjustly — then that law is unjustified, even if abortion is morally wrong or bad.
The logic of this argument is above reproach. But the factual assertion at its heart — that abortion restrictions don’t work — does not stand up to scrutiny.
thereformedmind 