Abortion Has Been a Microeconomic Decision Since Humans Began



I've bored readers here before with the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics. I keep returning to the difference because of an inability to see the world in other ways. Macroeconomics is in the news constantly, unemployment numbers, inflation and average incomes. The actual world, however, is run by the less discussed microeconomic decisions each of us makes every day, every hour. Anti-abortion people think abortion is a macroeconomic issue when it is actually a micro one. Humans have been making life and death microeconomic decisions since they arrived on earth. We are here because our ancestors made good micro decisions, including abortion and euthanasia.

Early humans, and perhaps remote tribes today, lived in small clans. The decisions they made were for the survival of their group alone, not for societies across their region. They were microeconomies. From generations of experience, they knew how much food was available to them each year and the amount of labor it took to collect, hunt or fish it. They regulated their population size accordingly. Native populations in Alaska have been studied and found to kill baby girls. Older members committed suicide by walking out into the weather. This was all for the survival of the group. They had value systems. Their systems were different than ours but were good for them.

This came to mind when reading yet another article about the "sin" of abortion. It claimed more people are seeing abortion as "murder." The truth is every pregnant woman sizes up her own unique situation and then decides whether to give birth or have an abortion. That is a microeconomic decision having nothing to do with broader attitudes about "when a human life begins." She has to decide what is in her best interests. If her decision involves the values of the broader society it must step forward and take responsibility for financing the child until some age like eighteen. Anti-abortionists have never wanted to do this. Instead, they want to take change of someone else's microeconomy. 

The number of abortions has remained roughly unchanged for many decades including those when it was illegal in most states. Individuals in the own microeconomies run things.

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