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Outlawing abortion will impose an unequal burden on poor women. Wealthy women will just go to other countries.
This nonsensical argument is like saying we should not have drug laws
since the rich can get them in other countries. Governments
cannot shirk their responsibilities on the basis of what other
governments do. If Canada legalizes cocaine use, or prostitution,
or incest, that does not mean we have to do so as well. If it
does, then we need to abolish our entire legislative process
since virtually everything we make illegal is legal somewhere else.
Also, we are not limited to passing only those laws that we know
beforehand will be evenly applied across all socio-economic
groups. We know that laws against robbery and drugs impact the
poor more than the rich, while insider trading, stock manipulation, and
tax evasion laws impact the rich more than the poor. Yet we
enforce all of them.
Now, if the point of this is that prohibiting abortion is
discriminatory, that is correct. When abortion is illegal, a
child is safer in the womb of a poor woman than a rich one, since
wealthy parents can afford to take their children outside the country
to be killed.
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