Pro-Life, Pro-Kerry - Part 2
Read it and weep ...
Why abortion rate is up in Bush years
The funny thing about those who make apologies for the GOP's inability to do anything substantive on this issue is that when it gets to those other issues that also go into being "Pro Life" there's no there there ... and the argument that "[l]egislatures can raise the amount of money spent on children's health care, but they can't raise the dead ..." really don't add up when a) you don't give a rat's behind about raising the money (witness the Texas GOP's intrasigence on CHIPs funding) and b) you end up with more dead partly as a result of a).
Brilliant going there.
On a sidenote, while I cast a raised eyebrow (and some due suspicion) to the reported doubling of abortions in Colorado, the rest of the column is rather validating. Copied in full due to the Chron's inability to archive ...
Oct. 17, 2004, 1:27AM
Why abortion rate is up in Bush years
By GLEN HAROLD STASSEN and GARY KRANE
I, Glen, am a Christian ethicist, and trained in statistical analysis. I am consistently pro-life. My son David is one witness. For my family, "pro-life" is personal. My wife caught rubella in the eighth week of her pregnancy. We decided not to terminate, to love and raise our baby. David is legally blind and severely handicapped; he also is a blessing to us and to the world. Gary Krane is an investigative journalist.
We look at the fruits of political policies more than words. We analyzed the data on abortion during the Bush presidency. There is no single source for this information -- federal reports go only to the year 2000, and many states do not report -- but we found enough data to identify trends. Our findings are disturbing.
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Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4 percent decline during the 1990s. This was a steady decrease averaging 1.7 percent per year. (The data come from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute's studies.)
Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.
We found four states that have posted three-year statistics: Kentucky's increased by 3.2 percent from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3 percent from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9 percent from 1999 to 2002. Colorado's rates skyrocketed 111 percent. We found 12 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6 percent average increase), and four saw a decrease (4.3 percent average).
Under Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.
For anyone familiar with why most women have abortions, this is no surprise:
Two-thirds of women who have abortions cite "inability to afford a child" as their primary reason (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). In the Bush presidency, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Herbert Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.
Half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate. And men who are jobless usually do not marry. In the 16 states, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.
Women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency -- with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million -- abortion increases.
My wife and I know -- as does my son David -- that doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical insurance, special schooling and parental employment are crucial for a special child. David attended the Kentucky School for the Blind, as well as schools for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. He was mainstreamed in public schools as well. We have two other sons and five grandchildren, and we know that every mother, every father and every child needs public and family support.
What does this tell us? Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, insurance, jobs, child care and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need a president who will do something about jobs, health insurance and support for mothers.
Glen Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, in Pasadena, Calif. He can be e-mailed at gstassen@fuller.edu.
Krane is an independent investigative journalist in Philadelphia.Readers can write to him at 151 Tulpehocken, Philadelphia, PA 19144 or Coordinator@FairElections.us.
Comments
Greg wrote
As another correspondent pointed out, the issue is one of political will, not of what the GOP (or any other party) can do. After all, the GOP managed to produce a law outlawing partial-birth abortion, a measure that enjoys widespread popular support, only to have a judge strike it down (a judge who will likely pull the lever for Kerry in November). With that in mind, it looks like only a constitutional amendment would be guaranteed to limit abortion, and right now abortion, like slavery in the 19th Century, is too convenient to too many people for such an amendment to be enacted. As long as this country is in a position where a judge can invalidate the will of the people, it's disingenuous to blame anyone for not making progress on this issue.
Hi.
Assumption a) is invalid, because the issue is not that the Texas GOP doesn't want to fund CHIP but rather that it feels there are better approaches that deserve funding. Assumption b) is unprovable. What I think is provable, and what you seem to think is provable, is that abortion kills. It seems odd to me that you're cutting slack for a party that is opposed to measures to restrict a procedure that certainly kills, while castigating a party that has tried to restrict that procedure that certainly kills.
Posted by: Jonathan Sadow | October 21, 2004 06:58 PM
"... while castigating a party that has tried to restrict that procedure that certainly kills"
Once more, you are absolutely off base. The Congressional GOP never took up Clinton's offer to end late term abortion despite the fact that it would have ended just as many abortions as partial birth. Meanwhile, the same GOP has yet to write a ban on partial birth that protects the life of the mother while ending the practice.
In short, they've done nothing and I offer them no slack for offering nothing but platitudes on the subject.
Your own slack for the party's intransigence to ackowledge quality of life issues AFTER birth, however, are abysmal in their logic. The Texas GOP cut CHIPs because they felt there was a better means of delivering health care? What the hell kind of bullcrap is that? "NOT" delivering health care is merely apologized as an "alternate"??? That's as close to an open ackowledgement as I've read that you simply don't give a rat's behind about life AFTER birth. Sadly, it fits with the party's M.O. as well. Look that stance a little harder in the mirror and we'll talk. Otherwise, you've got nothing to offer the debate except reflections on 24 years of failure on the part of the national GOP and so-called religious right.
Posted by: Greg Wythe | October 22, 2004 09:08 AM