Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen insists that without the ability to kill their unborn children, women cannot reach their full potential. It’s a claim that devalues women and motherhood. It’s also, in stark economic terms, simply false.
It was during her testimony a few years ago before the Senate Banking Committee that Yellen claimed the loss of abortion access would destabilize the economy and harm the economic wellbeing of women. Her remarks exemplified a common lie told by today’s culture: that to be successful, women must have access to abortion.
In that 2022 hearing about various risks to financial stability, Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez asked Yellen, “What impact will the loss of abortion access mean economically for women?” Her answer was that the pending Roe v. Wade reversal “would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”
No such economic collapse has happened since the Dobbs decision almost two years ago.
Her argument was that “abortion helped lead to increased labor force participation. It enabled many women to finish school, that increased their earning potential.” In sheer numerical terms, Yellen’s economic claims are misinformation. Prior to Roe, female labor force participation rates had been steadily climbing, undermining the claim that women must have access to abortion in order to further their careers. Those rates have continued to climb, despite the annual rate of abortions declining each year, according to the CDC. Fewer abortions should lead to fewer women in the workforce, according to this logic, but that isn’t what we’ve seen.
Another misleading assumption is that abortion is economically beneficial for women. If that were so, one would expect that the poverty rates for women with children would be higher than those without children. Yet the data tell a different story. In 2002, as abortions continued to decrease, unmarried women with children had a lower poverty rate than unmarried women without them. That rate has held firm every year since.
Other studies have proven that women with children are at least as capable of having successful careers as those who had gotten an abortion, with women over age 35 with children far more likely to have full-time jobs than their post-abortive peers. According to Yellen, increased abortion access should have improved women’s financial wellbeing and career status, yet the data does not seem to bear that out.
Even if abortion did help a woman move up the career ladder, that is only a positive good if a woman’s worth is found solely in her ability to contribute to the workforce. But women are too beautifully complex to tie their worth to whether or not they get to go to work away from their families and make money for corporations that don’t care about them.
Not every woman wants a formal career outside the home. Some find it more fulfilling to have children and remain home to raise them. Some decide not to choose between job and family, instead having children and then going on to have successful careers. But Yellen and those who parrot her talking points imply that women who value children and home life as more valuable and fulfilling than the corporate world are somehow inferior. Is the cultivating and raising of the next generation less important for our society than participation in the general labor force? Is time invested at home, raising the next generation of leaders, simply wasted?
Yet again, the economic numbers argue that that is not the case. Babies are critical to the health and wellbeing of the American economy, especially today when the United States is facing a birth rate crisis: between 2007-2022, the number of babies born in the U.S. declined by 22 percent.
Economic growth is directly tied to the sum total of what the people in the country are producing. Fewer Americans being born means less is being produced, and economic growth slows down. When there are fewer workers, fewer consumers, and fewer people to attend colleges, pay taxes, and purchase goods, the American economy inevitably suffers. It turns out that it is abortion, not having children, that hurts our economy.
What the numbers cannot quantify is the lost potential contribution of babies who are never born. Each person brings new innovations and ideas into the world. Yet the world will never know what each aborted child could have contributed to society. They could have created new humanitarian organizations or developed life-saving technologies, not to mention the numerous positive effects that children have on their families and communities. Abortion robs the world of all these unrealized contributions.
The economic arguments also assume that with abortion access, women will be able to make more money to better provide for future children than they would if they carried the unwanted ones to term. This completely ignores the emotional toll that an abortion takes on a woman and her family. Studies show that post-abortive women are more likely to struggle with mental health disorders, substance abuse, maintaining steady relationships, and providing a stable home for themselves and their children.
Abortion touches every aspect of life; the economic statistics are compelling, but they only show one small aspect of the damage done by abortion. Abortion is the inherent denial of the right to life given to us by our Creator, as the Declaration of Independence puts it. When that right is denied, the very fiber of our civilization is undermined. This is a moral truth that cannot be explained by mere numbers.
As the Senate once again considers the state of the economy, particularly the plight of women, they should remember that women are more than their paychecks. Congress should look to the needs of women as a whole. Instead of promoting abortion, Congress should look for more ways to support mothers, providing resources that make it easier for families to navigate this economy, rather than discouraging the formation of families. Providing for women as humans and not just economic assets will lead not just to better lives for women everywhere, but also to flourishing families, thriving communities, and a brighter future for America.
Maggie McKneely is a legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.