100 "Scholars" To SCOTUS: Same-Sex Marriage Will Increase Abortion Rate

Over 100 alleged scholars have a filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in which they argue that the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage will lead to an increase in the abortion rate. The brief's author writes for the Heritage Foundation:

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. And based on past experience, institutionalizing same-sex marriage poses an enormous risk of reduced opposite-sex marriage rates. As the amicus brief explains in detail, redefining marriage in genderless terms—which is legally necessary to permit marriage by same-sex couples—undermines the existing social norms of marriage in ways that are likely over time to reduce opposite-sex marriage rates. For example, an “any-two-adults” model of marriage implicitly tells men (and women) that a child doesn’t need a father (or mother), thereby weakening the norm of gender-diverse parenting. Other norms, such as the value of biological bonding, partner exclusivity, and reproductive postponement until marriage, will likewise crumble. It is thus not surprising that, even in the short time that same-sex marriage has been officially recognized in some states at home and abroad, man-woman marriage rates have declined—even as marriage rates in other jurisdictions have remained relatively stable.

The brief, which cites such authorities as anti-gay crackpot Jennifer Roback Morse and discredited researcher Mark Regnerus, goes on at great length on the divorce and marriage rates in states that have legalized same-sex marriage. Many of the brief's signees are professors at religious universities.