In All Things
Why the Democratic Abortion Strategy is Worse
In his Wall Street Journal op-ed, David Gibson argued that the Democratic Party’s strategy to reduce abortion is more effective than that of the GOP’s:
[E]ven overturning Roe would not end abortion. It would only turn the matter back to the states, most of which are not likely to eliminate the right to abortion. Moreover, new research sponsored by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good shows that "social and economic supports for women and families dramatically reduce the number of abortions" -- a strong argument for a broad-based approach like Mr. Obama’s. As Mr. Kmiec told the New York Times, "the better question is how could a Catholic not support Barack Obama?"
On its face, Gibson’s claim is hard to believe: The party of NARAL, the National Abortion Federation, and NOW will reduce abortion more than the party of the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Coalition? It is an implausible claim -- and the closer you look at it, a false one. The GOP’s abortion strategy is better -- far better.
For one thing, the Democratic Party platform continues to support the expansion of taxpayer-financed abortions. This is not idle talk. Democrats are serious about it. On President Clinton’s first day in office, he issued an executive order overturning the Mexico City policy, which probihited U.S. dollars being spent on organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling; the policy was not rescinded until 2001 when President Bush took office. In addition, President Clinton signed into law the expansion of funding of abortion through Medicaid. Obama has pledged to do the same things.
Government funding of abortion increases rather than decreases the abortion rate. As the study commissioned by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good points out, which Gibson failed to mention, Medicaid funding of abortion is associated with an increase in the abortion rate by one-tenth.
Granted, government can promote economic policies to reduce abortion. The CACG study notes that removing the family cap on welfare and increasing welfare funding by $1,350 per person is correlated with a 31 percent reduction in the abortion rate. Now, I don’t doubt that Democrats would be far more likely than Republicans to remove the family cap, which would lower the abortion rate by 16 percent. But it is unlikely that Democrats would spend $1,350 more per peson on AFDC-TANF payments, the sum that the study’s authors say is necessary to realize a 20 percent drop in the abortion rate.
For another thing, as Rick Garnett notes, national Democrats oppose any real legal protections for unborn infants. This is a key point that both Gibson and the CACG study overlook. (It is also directly contrary to Catholic social thought. As the Catechism says, “From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.”)
If Roe were overturned, dozens of states would do more than ban partial-birth abortion or enact parental consent laws; they would ban abortion in the "easy" cases -- economic and familial circumstance, psychological and emotional reasons, etc. Banning abortion in these cases would not only be possible; more than three-fifths of Americans support banning abortion in the "easy" cases. It would also be desirable; more than 90 percent of abortions are performed for those reasons.
Just consider the chart below. When abortion was illegal in all but the hard cases, abortion was rare, or relatively so. Now it’s not. Indeed, the abortion rate is more than a quarter higher today than in 1973.
Number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44, by year
It is clever and counter-intuitive to argue that the Democratic Party’s abortion strategy is better than the GOP’s. But it is not true.
Mark Stricherz
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The issue of public funding of abortion is indeed a good place to begin a reality check, as Mr. Stricherz did. The Hyde Amendment cutting off almost all federal funding of abortion, and the comparable policies that most states have adopted, have resulted in major reductions in the number of abortions. Both sides agree that this is so. For example, a December "factsheet" issued by NARAL observes, "A study by The Guttmacher Institute shows that Medicaid-eligible women in states that exclude abortion coverage have abortion rates of about half of those women in states that fund abortion care with their own dollars." By even the most conservative estimates, over one million Americans are alive today who would have been aborted if the federal Hyde Amendment had not been enacted in 1976. So, here we have what both sides agree is a proven "abortion reduction" olicy (although one side thinks it is a good thing, and one side thinks it is a bad thing). Obama advocates the repeal of the Hyde Amendment and all other such restrictions on tax funding of abortions. Moreover, in 2007 Obama gave a speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in which he promised abortion would be covered in his national health care plan, which means that everybody would be required to pay for elective abortion through taxes, mandatory premiums, or
both. I am sure he means it.
Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
http://www.nrlc.org
Legfederal - at - aol.com
In 2007, Obama told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, ''The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do.'' More on this radical bill here: http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/index.html
In the past, Obama has gone to even further extremes in his zeal to defend ''abortion rights.'' In the Illinois state Senate in 2001-2003, Obama led the opposition to, and ultimately killed, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was a simple three-sentence bill to provide protection for babies who are born alive during abortions. The bill that Obama killed was virtually identical to a bill that passed Congress without a single dissenting vote in 2002. When the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) released recently uncovered documents to prove that this was so, Obama himself said that we were ''lying.'' After an investigation, Annenberg's independent FactCheck.org concluded: ''Obama's claim is wrong . . . The documents from NRLC support the group's claims that Obama is misrepresenting the contents of SB 1082 [the 2003 Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act].''
Obama's history on this legislation, and what it tells us about his thinking on abortion, is explored in a White Paper released by National Right to Life on August 28, 2008, which can be read or downloaded here: http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/WhitePaperAugust282008.html
It seems to me that NRLC rhetoric on this topic provides distorted interpretations of limited statistics in order to serve its political contributors.
But let's try to get away from the GOP talking points for just a moment and see if we can't address one simple question:
What would the Republican Party do to reduce/end abortions?
I know it's a very partisan atmosphere, but it seems that we can get so wrapped up in passionate pronouncements about supporting the unborn and attacking perceived) enemies that you actually forget to do anything about the unborn.
Take a deep breath... David
So a person is partisan if he concludes that one party's position on the issues is superior to that of another party?
In any event, I will use your questions as the basis of my next post: what has the GOP done to save the unborn?
Mark
(Not to speak of how would it reflect the Catholic vision of justice, but that's not the issue.)
Right off the bat, you can be confident that a President McCain would advocate extension of the Hyde Amendment, rather than demand its repeal as would a President Obama; would oppose imposition of government-mandated abortion insurance premiums for all Americans, rather than push Congress to enact such a requirement; and would stand against the "Freedom of Choice Act," rather than push for its enactment. Just for starters.
Obama has also made it clear that anyone who isn't committed to his expansive views on "abortion rights" would have no chance for appointment to the Supreme Court. You may recall that Obama criticized the Court for upholding (5-4) the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
Douglas Johnson
legislation (partial birth abortion or informed consent)
reduces abortions. And while we found that Medicaid funding increases abortion rates, the scale of this reduction in the abortion rate is smaller than the reduction resulting from increased economic assistance. All of the positive findings suggest that economic factors affect the abortion rate. The negative findings suggest that prohibitive strategies will have little effect on the abortion rate. These findings, we hope, should open up a discussion of what effective abortion reduction policy would look like.
In my opinion, a post-partisan abortion reduction strategy
would have three main elements: (1) abolish Medicaid funding for abortions (for conservatives); (2) abolish family caps on TANF (for progressives); (3) spend something on the order of 10-20 weeks of Iraq war money on well-targeted economic assistance to women in crisis pregnancies. (Congress could be persuaded on this scale of funding. They didn't flinch on giving half that much to Bear Stearns stock holders.) Symbolic legislation designed to attract (or is it distract?) voters, but which only affects a tiny fraction of abortions in the US each year will do little to reduce the tragedy of abortion.
Neither party is getting it done right now. Democrats
are moving in the right direction but have a long way to go. With the Republicans deliberately taking 'abortion reduction' language out of their platform, it appears that they may be moving in the wrong direction. And for what it's worth, both Palin and Biden support abolishing Medicaid funding for abortions and restricting third-trimester
abortions; and both Palin and Biden are on record saying they would NOT seek to overturn existing abortion laws.
Joseph Wright
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Penn State University
Visiting Fellow
University of Notre Dame
Again, too many folks just say overturn Roe v. Wade. That's a principle, not a policy.
Does anyone reading and writing here think that this woman should have been jubilating over how having another child in her family would enrich it? The kind of attitude change that would have been required for her to not choose abortion is not something that can be achieved by preventing her from choosing, but it could be achieved by making all the realities of abortion well known and by building a society in which money isn't everything.
I have never heard or read of anyone making this claim. You say "too many folks" do. It should, thus, be easy for you to name 3 or 2 or even 1. How about it?
I suspect you have combined a straw man with a red herring. You have gone and created a straw herring, and I sure take my hat off to you for that...
I am a registered Democrat and consider the New Deal Democratic Party the greatest in country history. So the charge that I am partisan is baloney.
Also, my post was hardly as one sided as you claim. I did write the following:
''Granted, government can promote economic policies to reduce abortion. The CACG study notes that removing the family cap on welfare and increasing welfare funding by $1,350 per person is correlated with a 31 percent reduction in the abortion rate. Now, I don't doubt that Democrats would be far more likely than Republicans to remove the family cap, which would lower the abortion rate by 16 percent. But it is unlikely that Democrats would spend $1,350 more per person on AFDC-TANF payments, the sum that the study's authors say is necessary to realize a 20 percent drop in the abortion rate.''
It would have been one thing if your story claimed that Democrats were making real strides to reduce the abortion rate. But your story did not make that claim.
I can only discuss the real issue here and that is the lives of millions of children AND women! I have seen and experienced for myself the kinds of diverse effects abortion has on women who have them.
For years these girls are left with emotional problems that start MOMENTS after this process has taken place!
They end up having problems with future children, marriages, sleeping, eating, and cold-hard depression.
If all we can get is "only" over 1/3 of abortions down by banning abortion in pro-life states- let's do it! That's got to be about 1 million a year!
Federally fund POST-abortion counseling and take the federal funds from pro-choice clinics and give it to clinics who are presenting MORE choices for these girls!
Give them counseling for the adoption choice (the choice I made and since have had NO regrets!)
There are people whom the good Lord hasn't given the op. of natural birth FOR A REASON! These people would cherish even one child, while we LET countless others throw life away like trash! There are open-adoption practices taking place today, to help with the grieving process of the bio-parents that would astound you. These people want children so bad, they will agree to letting the bio-parents visit and/or send letters and pictures as often as they want! Where's the federal funding for this?
We have clinics that will give the mothers cribs and clothes and everything else just for showing up there and letting them teach you how to balance a checkbook or look for an apartment or a job! These clinics are barely hanging on!! Why?
Not financial this or that. Not politics!! We make this a political choice, but the effects are so much more than that! This is not a political decision that these girls are making!! IT'S LIFE OR DEATH! Death to their children and their own spirit!! We give them political rights, and deny them moral judgment!!
So, until we can come up with something better if all we can do is eliminate up to 1/3 of abortions GET ON THE BALL! DO IT! And THEN try to come up with better solutions!
We have to start somewhere and if the best we can do right now is ''only'' 1/3 of the mass-THEN DO IT ALREADY!
Who cares who does it? It needs done. Who ever has the best plan for ENDING and/or reducing abortion will win my vote!!
Just get on it!! And be sincere about it. No one can deny this is a real and difficult issue that NEEDS attention.
Mr. Stricherz I commend your comments and agree we should be looking at the BEST and most sincere plan! Who cares how they go about it, as long as it gets done!
The CACG summary of Professor Wright's study has some interesting Figures and tables on abortion reduction projections. I would be interested in seeing any tables that the study may have assembled on the state-by-state data for total abortions, abortion rate, and abortion rate reduction over the study period; along with the state-by-state, year-by-year data for the variables of interest (Family Caps, Medicaid Funding, ADCF, TANF, WIC, Male employment, Partial Birth Abortion Ban, Parental Notification, Informed Consent).
On somewhat of a side note. It is being repeatedly contended now that reversal of Roe v. Wade would not significantly change abortion access or annual abortion numbers. Does Mr. Obama's campaign believe this, as it is being pressed as part of an argument in favor of his candidacy? If his campaign does believe it, why didn't his Democratic Platform go there at the convention. Why doesn't Mr. Obama, who is pro-choice and not pro-abortion, simply take abortion rights groups there, and put an end to the fuss? If his campaign doesn't believe it, why should any voter believe it?
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