No, Abortion Does Not Reduce Birthrates
Some people believe that abortion lowers birth rates. I have heard European nationalists bemoan abortion for this reason. The argument never made sense to me because conception is not random. When a woman has an abortion, there is nothing preventing her from getting pregnant again the next month. If a woman knows the total number of children she wants to have, and she has an unintended child, this presumebly does not change her desired total number of children.
The idea that abortion reduces birthrates also does not make sense when you consider the different demographic groups of the US. Black Americans have high abortion rates, yet their birth rate is higher than the birth rate of Whites.
Some “New Right” figures make the repulsive argument that we ought to be pro-choice because black people have high abortion rates. But in addition to being wrong morally, they’re wrong on the facts. I looked up the birth rates by demographic group over time and the data doesn’t suggest Roe v. Wade had any effect on birth rates. The decline in birth rates (for all races) actually started 20 years before Roe v. Wade. Also, Hispanics have a higher abortion rate than Whites, but the Hispanic birth rate is higher than the rate for Whites.
I would argue abortion does ultimately reduce birthrates, but the effect is more indirect.
Abortion encourages a culture of transitory hook-ups which interferes with pair bonding which ultimately lowers the birthrate.
You’re correct that the abortion rate doesn’t impact total fertility. Moreover, most abortions are had by the lower classes and their fertility rate is higher.
Where abortion lowers birth rates is cultural. The entirety of the fertility shortfall amongst the middle and upper middle classes is due to ideology. Pro-choice people from the upper classes simply have fewer children because they don’t want them. This is rarely due to abortion, but to birth control. Their pro-choice view is simply a manifestation of their dislike of having children, and is seen as a backup form of birth control even if few will ever use it.
If all people on the right side of the bell curve had the same fertility rate as pro-life smart people we would have replacement fertility and the dysgenic bias in fertility rates would go away.