While we’re on the subject (or were a few days ago), here’s a reader’s comment on Ezra Klein’s blog:

In your recent post you mention that providing universal health care may make abortions go up or go down because “women have more access to birth control. Another answer is that there’s no change because abortions are related to pregnancy rather than health-care coverage, and most women don’t know that their insurance covers abortions anyway.”

You forgot a 3rd reason: the cost of childbirth. When an uninsured woman finds out she’s pregnant she also finds out she will need to spend about $25k to deliver the baby (assuming no complications), which she may not find fiscally palatable. In this case there’s a strong financial incentive to go through with a substantially cheaper option: having an abortion.

This isn’t just theory: a friend of our family faced this situation a couple years ago and she opted to have an abortion because she couldn’t afford to have the baby. Having health insurance would have prevented this.