Setup

library(pacman); p_load(DT, ggplot2, ggrepel, dplyr)

datatable(data, extensions = c("Buttons", "FixedColumns"), options = list(dom = 'Bfrtip', buttons = c('copy', 'csv', 'print'), scrollX = T, fixedColumns = list(leftColumns = 3)))

Rationale and Explanation

Laws regarding abortion are very common. There are few - if any - places where the practice is unregulated. Compared to Europe, the United States has lenient abortion laws, limited numbers of conscientiously objecting doctors, broad pro-choice support, and many alternative options for abortion providers. Importantly, individuals can get abortions far later in pregnancy in America than they can in Europe.

Currently, thanks to Roe v. Wade, abortion is not illegal in America. However, states still possess the ability to place limits and to personalize their regulation of abortion, albeit without outright bans. One of the most restrictive states, Oklahoma, has utilized this to effectively ban abortion with the introduction of four laws between 2021 and 2022 that had the effect of fully outlawing abortion. House Bills 1102, 2441, and 1904 were introduced and signed into Oklahoma state law in 2021 and have been described by news agency KGOU (2021); CNN (2022) has provided a description of the fourth, more recent bill. Similarly, in Ohio, abortions for viable fetuses are barred completely, and the definition of fetal viability is based on the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which is a misleading term, as it is something that can be detected before the heart is developed. NPR (2022) provided a description of this oddly used term for the case of Texas.

In Europe, some states have practically fully banned abortion. For example, Poland bars abortion excepting cases where pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest. More strongly, Andorra, San Marino, and Malta fully bar abortion. Across Europe, some countries allow, and others disallow, doctors to conscientiously object to abortions. Italy is one of the few states that maintains statistics on this phenomenon, and the data unambiguously support a few notions. Firstly, rates of conscientious objection are staggeringly high, at nearly 70% in Italy, with some provinces even more extreme, at over 80%. Additionally, people travel for abortions because of the unavailability by region, despite it being a nationally legal act. The analysis by the European Data Journalism Network (Tamma, 2018), linked in the references, is telling.

In both cases, laws vary, and direct comparisons can be difficult. In general, the number of steps required to get an abortion does seem to be related to the number of weeks a person is eligible to receive one, and as well, to the distance they have to travel to obtain it. In general, places where one can receive an abortion for fewer weeks of a pregnancy are more restrictive, both intra- and internationally. There is considerable empirical work on this topic, but I must digress and leave that to others to discuss.

Below, I have decided to plot the number of weeks a woman is eligible to receive an abortion across American states and European countries, at the broad level. There are several notes to make, and these are not comprehensive. My source for American laws was the Kaiser Family Foundation (2022); my principal sources for Europe were the Right to Life UK organization and the BBC. When states used fetal viability to define the eligible abortion time for an abortion, I used a time of 24 weeks, since that is typical (see University of Utah; Guttmacher Institute, 2022). Virginia’s law is based on the third trimester, which is typically defined as 28 weeks (see What to Expect). For states without legally proscribed limits, I used a 40 week average pregnancy time (see Better Health). Austria’s timing was three months, so I used 12 weeks. The Netherlands’ law says 24 weeks, but they use a margin of error of two weeks, so it is typically 22 weeks (see their government site). Data for San Marino and Andorra were provided by the Center for Reproductive Rights. Values are typically, but not always, based on time from the last menstrual period, which is self-reported. I named the group for European countries “EU”, despite all countries listed not being European Union members.

Lower values mean that abortions are available for fewer weeks of a woman’s pregnancy, and thus the abortion law is more restrictive, mutatis mutandis. Due to abbreviation collision, Delaware was abbreviated DW instead of DE (Germany), and Malta had to be changed to ML, from MT due to collision with Montana. All data is provided above and sources required to replicate it are provided below. For the bar plots, countries and states with bans were coded as 1, so they showed up on the chart, but none of them actually have a value of 1, their values are zero. If the data is viewed as incomplete due to changes since this went online or the dates of my listed sources, I welcome others to add more countries, up-to-date sources, etc.

Analysis

ggplot(data,
       aes(x = reorder(ShortName, -AbortionWeeks), y = AbortionWeeks, fill = Union)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") + scale_fill_manual(values = c("#004494", "#b32134")) + 
  theme_bw() +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1, vjust = .5), legend.position = c(.97, .94), legend.background = element_blank(), axis.title.x = element_text(vjust = -.5), plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) + 
  labs(x = "State or Country", y = "Final Week Abortions are Allowed", title = "A Comparison of European and American Abortion Law")

ggplot(data,
       aes(x = AbortionWeeks, y = reorder(StateOrCountry, -AbortionWeeks), fill = Union)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") + scale_fill_manual(values = c("#004494", "#b32134")) + 
  theme_bw() +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(hjust = 1, vjust = .5), legend.position = c(.93, .95), legend.background = element_blank(), axis.title.x = element_text(vjust = -.5), plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5)) + 
  labs(x = "Final Week Abortions are Allowed", y = "", title = "A Comparison of European and American Abortion Law") + 
  geom_vline(xintercept = 40, linetype = "longdash") #Typical end of pregnancy

I tried to make a plot of a number line with the country labels stacked atop one another. It would even be possible to do this with

set.seed(1)
data %>% arrange(CorrectWeeks, Union) %>% group_by(CorrectWeeks) %>% mutate(y = (row_number() - 1) * .6) %>%
  ggplot(aes(x = CorrectWeeks, y = y, fill = Union, label = StateOrCountry)) + 
  theme_bw() + 
  geom_point(aes(color = Union), size = 3) + 
  geom_text_repel() + 
  labs(x = "Final Week Abortions are Allowed", y = "", title = "A Comparison of European and American Abortion Law", fill = "Union") + 
  scale_color_manual(values = c("#004494", "#b32134")) +
  theme(legend.position = c(0.05, 0.97), axis.text.y = element_blank(), axis.ticks.y = element_blank(), 
        plot.title = element_text(hjust = .5), legend.title = element_blank(), legend.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(), panel.grid.minor = element_blank(), panel.border = element_blank())

Discussion

There is a sense in which Americans take for granted that Europe is more liberal. With many issues, that is a serious mistake. On the issue of abortion, at least with respect to the leeway pregnant women have to get one, they are, by and large, a more conservative place than America.