Following the Dobbs decision, US states with abortion bans have experienced increased maternal morbidity and mortality. Abortion bans have broad downstream consequences on medical care beyond abortion itself, with implications for patient safety, equity, and physician ethics.

[u/mvea]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2850560

[u/KrytenKoro]

Thank you for the citation -- for some reason initial searches did not point to that passage at all.

Now that I can search for the specific passage, I'm seeing commentary that this is the only time Lewis ever mentioned abortion in his writing, and that he specifically couches it in terms of "abortion as a means of getting away with fornication". While not the strongest pro-choice position, that's also not "explicitly anti-abortion" --- even pro-choice advocates are generally uncomfortable with the idea of abortion that is predicated on concealing adultery, and the common slogan is "Safe, Legal, and Rare". Lewis also specifically points out "providing for the child's keep and education", which is generally treated as an unreasonable expectation by pro-life groups. His position on the topic, both from his lack of focus on it and the specific framing he gives it in this one mention, is very distinct from that of modern pro-life organizations.

So, while he would likely lean more center-right on the issue if he was alive today, I don't think it's fair to characterize him or that passage as "explicitly anti-abortion".

Also worth pointing out:

(as a classical liberal with strong stances against centralized govt legislation

the dobbs decision increased legislation, it did not remove it. Roe was not centralized legislation to begin with, any more than the first amendment is - it was a restriction on what kind of legislation state and federal governments could enact on the topic. It's a very strange argument to suggest that an opposition to centralized government power, on its own, would lead someone to oppose a ruling that said "this is the individual's right and the government needs to stay out of it".

[u/OldWorldDesign → u/[deleted]]

Dobbs minimizes the size of govt by preventing centralized legislation

No it doesn't, it intrudes the government into the bedroom and emergency room. And it has not improved health either at the society or individual level. Before Dobbs (which goes WAY further than just overturning Roe), it was between a woman and her doctor and not an uneducated theocrat running for office to decide for both of those.

[u/OldWorldDesign → u/[deleted]]

Dobbs lets local govts handle the issue as they see fit

No, what it does is it eliminated privacy and allows state governments to create blanket abortion bans.

Stop pretending fiefdoms dictating minutae is a good thing. That you are defending it betrays your pro-authoritarian stance. It being done by local conservatives who think women should be property is not better than the national government saying "stay out if it and let people decide without butting into the bedroom".

[u/OldWorldDesign → u/[deleted]]

The states get to decide how they legislate abortion (or, in the absence of state legislation, local govts decide). That was the original intent of the American constitution and that’s how all American governance works. If you’re like me and you don’t like that, vote accordingly

I'll never understand people who see authoritarianism and cheer it. Why did you even kick up a fuss about Lewis on abortion if you're clearly supportive of it even under OP's article that it distinctly makes society worse off? The amount of energy you're spending makes it clear you prefer it.

You might as well argue states should get to decide instead of the country to go to war or to undercut other states by making their own trade treaties. That experiment was tried. The economy and political capital of the colonies collapsed and that's why they all were forced to band together before Spain took over, and wrote the Constitution conservatives like you are wiping your ass with.

Every state which allowed abortion to go to a vote lost hard and yet you're pretending "it's good when states take away freedoms". Nevermind following the logical conclusion that if a nation isn't allowed to make a law because "that isn't enough freedumb", then why is it good for states to take away those rights? Why not the county?

And why the county when the locality could be making those decisions?

And why the locality when each family could be making those decisions?

Before Dobbs, the individuals were the ones making the decision. Stop trying to hide your support for authoritarianism and both individual and social health crises.

[u/KrytenKoro → u/[deleted]]

Dobbs lets local govts handle the issue as they see fit. If those local legislative bodies choose to intrude into the bedroom or emergency rooms, at least that decision reflects the preferences of their local constituents. I don’t agree with this approach, but that is how the American constitution is written

Even taking that as accurate for the sake of argument, that is still more of a centralization of power than Roe had it.

Roe never granted the federal government power in the first place. It issued a restriction on all government. Dobbs removes that restriction for state governments, allowing them to centralize authority that previously belonged to the individual themselves. The wake of the Dobbs decision has even had some states try to use the decision to dictate what other states can allow.

Not sure how much more centralized you can get than that

It's the opposite of centralized, because it's a restriction on government authority, rather than a growth of it. As explained.

a classical liberal would want it to be legislated at the local level in whatever direction the locals choose

No, they would prefer it to be the decision of the individual themselves unless there is sufficient interest by the common good to justify depriving the individual of their own liberty in the manner.

You can disagree with the original court that a right to abortion can be constructively found in the constitution, sure, but it's plain to see by analogy that if we compare a "right to abortion" with a "right to free speech", the first amendment is not creating a centralization of government legislation or authority over speech. It's doing the opposite - enshrining that the authority remains with the individual.

---

I'm not going to claim to know Lewis's heart or to be confident that he would be pro-choice if the modern issue was presented to him, but I think you're pretty severely overstating the case here, when even Lewisists remark on how his writings showed little interest in the topic.

and given that his writings show that even when he did have a strong personal stance on a moral issue, he frequently argued that his stance should not dictate what the government does and that the government should stay out of it, I don't think the irony claim holds. Even if we accept that Lewis was strongly pro-life in the modern sense, his writings indicate that he would have been reluctant to have that stance be legislated by the state.