The first thing that comes to my mind is that it’s just damn hard to be a parent, even as a committed couple. Needing to do it with less support as a single parent isn’t something many people will choose if they can avoid it.

That being said, there definitely is institutionalized and societal discrimination against single mothers, and much of it stems from misogyny. Just off the top of my head there’s the “slut shaming” aspect of initial judgment, a woman’s earning potential being less, the expectation that she directly cares for her child full time even though it’s also clear that she must work full-time if not more just to keep the child fed and housed. There’s the conservative/misogynist myth and social stigma that a single mother asking for social assistance is just freeloading and doesn’t deserve help from public funds - she should have been smarter and not gotten pregnant if she couldn’t handle motherhood after all.

There’s probably a bunch of facts and analysis I’m missing here but I’m not feeling too coherent and this isn’t my lived experience as a man.

I also wonder about the language in this quote. I get the sense that being in a committed long term relationship without getting married is becoming more common, so just because a woman isn’t married doesn’t necessarily mean she’s single. Including that nuance probably doesn’t change the overall story these numbers tell though.

To be fair married people aren’t known for having unprotected casual sex with strangers,

and typically when married they already have a plan for unprotected sex with each other whether it is birth control or trying to have a baby.

But of course there’s plenty of accidents with married couples, shout out to my siblings!

yeah I think something related worth remembering is that people who have abortions often don’t want to, and when it gets to the point that abortion is necessary (instead of other forms of contraception) it’s usually due to pretty serious circumstances.

financial being the biggest. if bigots and weirdo fundamentalist freaks genuinely wanted to lessen the amount of abortions that happen, they wouldn’t be calling for its criminalization. they’d be calling for financial stability for mothers and new parents, they’d be calling for easier access to other, less intrusive forms of contraception that can lead to less emotional and potentially physical harm to the would-be childbearer. abortion often is the last resort of a desperate person in desperate circumstances and no one is going around getting them willy-nilly, just-for-funsies like right wingers like to claim.

apologies if this got a little tangential. i believe there’s also a bit of an understandable if undesirable trend among choice-advocates to fetishize abortion as sort of a reaction to reaction if that makes sense. ‘We Love Abortion! ❤️’ etc. nonono, we should probably be pursuing less abortions via more accessible birth control (including studying more birth control techniques penis-wielders can use, ffs!) as well as financial security for people who would otherwise want children but view it (rightfully) as a debt-trap deathtrap under neoliberal capitalism.