Utah lawyer says gay marriage will cause 900,000 abortions

A group of conservative lawyers and academics filed a Supreme Court brief arguing that the legalization of same sex marriage would result in 900,000 abortions over the next 30 years.

Leading the group is Gene Scharr, an attorney and former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who unsuccessfully argued Utah’s case against same-sex marriage. Scharr’s argument was summarized in The Daily Signal.

“A reduction in the opposite-sex marriage rate means an increase in the percentage of women who are unmarried and who, according to all available data, have much higher abortion rates than married women,” Scharr argues. “And based on past experience, institutionalizing same-sex marriage poses an enormous risk of reduced opposite-sex marriage rates.”

His argument has been met with a “causation vs. correlation” rebuttal, which he freely admitted in an explaination, according to Washington Post. Scharr said it’s “still too new” to do a rigorous causation analysis.

Scharr claims declining marriage rates in Massachusetts, Iowa and Vermont are proof of the “harmful” effects. He does not note marriage rates are declining in Texas and Utah, as well as the rest of the country.

Multiple studies have found that allowing same sex couples to wed has no affect on heterosexual marriage rates. A small, region-specific research paper from the Netherlands Scharr cites in her argument showed evidence of a small drop in heterosexual marriages, but the paper’s findings are presented beyond their scope — to speak for the entire United States.

The Washington Post reported Scharr “does generalize, plucking the finding about the drop in marriage while ignoring the equally important fact about increased partnership.”

Contact Kristen DeSilva at 702-477-3895 or kdesilva@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @kristendesilva