Pro-life? Look at the fruits

[Mister K]

Pro-life? Look at the fruits
by Dr. Glen Harold Stassen

I 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.

I look at the fruits of political policies more than words. I analyzed the data on abortion during the George W. Bush presidency. There is no single source for this information - federal reports go only to 2000, and many states do not report - but I found enough data to identify trends. My findings are counterintuitive and disturbing.

Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes 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.

I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).

Under President 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.

How could this be? I see three contributing factors:

First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since 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.

Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.

Third, 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.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops warned of this likely outcome if support for families with children was cut back. 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 several 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, father, and 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, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and support for prospective mothers.

Glen Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the co-author of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, Christianity Today's Book of the Year in theology or ethics.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=041013#5

[RubyDuby in GA]

1. I think he should have also discussed...

the woeful state of sex education in today's schools. Abstinence obviously isn't working George.

[wildeyed]

2. thanks, I can use this. n/t

[kikiek]

3. There was a NYT Editorial posted a couple days ago that addressed

this. Abortions down during Clinton years because of safety nets, and up for Reagan when many programs were eliminated. This country is 35th on the infant mortality list. 34 countries have lower infant death rates than we do. We are rated 10th in the world for education now. They don't see the sin in leaving them to die and suffer after their born.

[wildeyed]

7. Do you have a link?

I am working on converting several anti-choice christian to the Kerry camp. They are anti-war, already. Abortion is the big sticking point. If I can demonstrate that abortion has risen during Bush's administration, I think they will commit to voting Kerry.

[bloom]

15. links

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=78529

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/opinion/11roche.html?...

[fugue]

4. Great!

Sent it to everyone I know on the left. Hopefully this will convert some pro-lifers.

[Mister K]

5. As I have always suspected,

that Bush is part of the problem and not the solution.

I we were to look at abortion from this perspective, the amount of people on welfare and the number of children born into broken homes and without any form of health insurance would be astounding.

Think of this. There are no longer any abortions in this country. Many teens will be bearing kids with no means of supporting them. I guess they could sue for child support from the father, another teen. This now places more burden on their household and if it is a single parent, it would probably bring them into poverty. Another family on the welfare and the teen would probably have to drop our of school to support the child and have no chance at any real future in our society.

I don't mean to sound naive and have people think that it is just a 'teen' problem. I am sure many single (unwed) people get 'accidentally' pregnant because of a lack of 'protection'. Some of these people, as mentioned in the article, could not afford to raise a child. A single parent raising a child in today's economy is difficult if not impossible. With child care and heath care costs increasing, I think that a woman has a right to chose if they feel that they cannot 'afford' to have a child. Epically if having the child would place them into poverty.

I also do not feel that I, let alone the government, has any say in what another person can do to their body weather it is an abortion, tattoos, or body piercing.

[TexasBushwhacker]

14. 49% women who have abortions are married.

and 48% are over age 25. When someone says the majority of abortions are done on young single women, they're right, but just barely.

[Ilsa]

6. Thanks. I'm sharing this with pro-Bush pro-lifers.

Even pro-choice people like me would like to see unwanted pregnancies minimized and the need for abortion minimized.

[sybylla]

8. I've passed it on.

This subject would make a great letter to the editor.

[German-Lefty]

9. Too bad you didn't come up with this for the debate

That would have taken a lot of pressure off of Kerry. Bush babbled on about a "culture of life". Kerry could have come back with "he his 'culture' is responsible for an increase in abortions!".

Hey all for reducing the social issues that lead to abortion.

[scarletlib]

10. If you are really pro-life then you must

support programs that give that life meaning and a chance. This means universal heath care so that moms (and dads if in the picture) can stay healthy and keep their children healthy. This means a living wage so the child can be taken care of by the parent. This means affordable, safe and plentiful aftercare and daycare programs for working parents.

I strongly support a woman's right to choose for political reasons: A woman must have the same total and complete control over her body that a man does. She must have the same right to determine her personal destiny as a man.

That said however, I believe most women choose abortion because they think that they have no other choice because the resources needed to properly rear a child are not available to her.

[Mister K]

11. The problem is that many pro-lifers do not get the big picture

I know of two people who are conservative and pro-life. They go to church every Sunday and pray for the President.

I has a long-winded discussion with one of them today. He believes that Bush is guided by his faith. I asked him, what would happen if he was misguided by faith. He replied that he had not seen that yet and that all of Bush's decisions are good. It must be me.

At the end of the day, I sent him this post. We will see what brews.

[raifield]

12. A blessing to us and the world...just not him.

David is legally blind and severely handicapped; he also is a blessing to us and to the world.

I wonder how David feels about the whole situation. Personally, I'd resent the fact I was ever born, if my parents knew what would happen.

Article doesn't mention how old David is though. A few years? When will people learn that it's not just about them? That choosing to love and raise your baby can be selfish if it means your baby will be severely handicapped his or her entire life.

[Maeve]

13. Please

You do not know the details of David's life; please do not judge it. He "has attended several schools" and is an uncle, not a baby. No one on the outside can say how blessed or cursed his life is. But then, that is true of all of us, no matter what our circumstances.

It is not a life he chose, nor one wished on him, but that does not mean it isn't a rich and valuable one just because he does not have the physical advantages most of us take for granted.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I once asked a blind college classmate if she ever wished she could see

She told me not to project my own feelings onto her. In her words, being blind was all she had ever known, so it was natural for her. Sure, there were things she couldn't do, but everyone had things they couldn't do, and for the most part, didn't spend a lot of time fretting about them.

Since then, I've met other people with disabilities, and none of them sit around moping about what they can't do. In particular, those who have had the disability all their lives simply grow up making adjustments.

They have problems with people who are cruel or indifferent, but so do those of us who are not disabled.

[eridani]

17. Please pass this to the Kerry campaign, pronto n/t

[DuaneBidoux]

18. I'm printing these up and distributing them at Catholic churches during

mass (especially the ones with "W" stickers). Direct action like this in a swing state could do something.

The article emphasizes that Catholics have traditionally been greatly concerned with social justice, and it is only in the last few years that they began to become framed around the single issue of abortion.

We need, en masse, go to Catholic churches in swing states during masses and place these papers on cars in the parking lots.