A Guy in the Pew

I have argued several times on this blog that it is time for politicians on both sides of the abortion debate to get serious about abortion reduction. (You can find all of these posts collected here . Steve Waldman of Beliefnet has a very interesting essay that argues that a serious effort to reduce abortion would likely do more than efforts to overrule Roe v. Wade : Some Democrats are now making an unusual argument about abortion: that a Democratic administration might actually reduce abortions more than a Republican administration. On the surface, this seems preposterous. Republicans oppose abortion rights, Democrats support them. How could it possibly be that a Democratic approach would reduce abortion more? . . . When Democrats refer to an "abortion reduction strategy" they mostly mean efforts that keep abortion legal but help prevent pregnancy through family planning and/or making it easier for women who do get pregnant to carry the baby to term. (A few examples: Matthew...

The Guttmacher Institute released their annual study on abortion rates. I think the most stunning fact is that abortion rates are almost at the level they were in 1974 when Roe v. Wade was decided. good news in my view. There is also a host of other demographic information for anyone serious about abortion reduction. Here is the Washington Post report: In the first comprehensive analysis since 1974 of demographic characteristics of women who have abortions, researchers found that the overall drop in the abortion rate has been marked by a dramatic shift, declining more among white women and teenagers than among black and Hispanic and older women. "There's been a real change in the picture of women who get abortions," said Rachel Jones, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a private nonprofit reproductive health research organization considered to be one of the most authoritative sources on abortion trends. "This is the first time anyone has lo...

Ed Kilgore has a fascinating essay at Beliefnet about the fact that Evangelicals are foar more pro-Life than Catholics: There are variable measurements of this phenomenon, but no real doubt about the basics. A September 2007 Pew survey showed white evangelical Protestants agreeing that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases by a 65-31 magin; Catholics favored keeping abortion legal in all or most cases by a 51-44 margin (with no appreciable difference between Hispanic and non-Hispanic Catholics). On a related issue that helps measure the intensity of anti-abortion views, the same poll showed white evangelicals opposing embryonic stem cell research by 57-31, while white non-Hispanic Catholics favored it by 59-32. Moreover, the evangelical-Catholic gap on abortion looks likely to increase in the future. An April 2004 Pew survey providing generational breakdowns showed that white evangelicals under 35 favored abortion restrictions by more than a two-to-one margin (71% among t...

I wrote earlier about two voices on the pro-life left urging Obama to adopt an "abortion reduction" plank in the platform. In other words, while Obama would remain "pro-choice" on the issue of the legality of abortion, he would propose concrete efforts to reduce abortion. Steven Waldman reports that many pro-choice voices are not happy: An important split is emerging within the Democratic Party over abortion. Barack Obama’s reaction to it will tell us a great deal about how he intends to unify people of different views and manage key voting blocs. A group of progressive evangelicals, including the Rev. Jim Wallis, has urged Sen. Obama to embrace an “abortion reduction agenda” that focuses on improving economic support for women so they won’t feel financially pressured into having abortions. The Rev. Tony Campolo, a member of the Democratic Party platform committee, announced that he’s going to mobilize an effort get an abortion reduction plank into the party platfo...

There were two very interesting posts this week by voices from the pro-life left that argue for a focus on a real reduction in abortions rather than another round of the culture wars. First, Morning's Minion at the group Catholic blog, Vox Nova offers these thoughts: I think the answer is to engage the culture, to get one’s hands dirty. Promoting the gospel of life in the real world can be a messy business. Christ never promised otherwise. Christians are called to lead by example. Jesus himself socialized with some of the worst sinners in his society. His fellow Pharisees took him to task for it, but he did it. Staying above the fray is simply not an option. Look at some of the facts pertaining to abortion. A full 57% of women opting for abortion are economically disadvantaged. In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 ab...

Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver has published an essay that addresses the question: can a Roman Catholic support a pro-choice candidate such as Barak Obama. The essay is in First things, but he also relies on some previous remarks he made: In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be “personally opposed” to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse—exactly as it is today. In fact, I can’t name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life—not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there’s very little action. In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide. And it will remain that way until Catholics force their political parties ...

William Saletan has an article on Slate that discusss new evidence that the use of abortion for sex selection is happening in th eUnited States--at least anmong some populations: Two days ago, economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund published an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examining the ratio of male to female births in "U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian Indian parents." Among whites, the boy-girl ratio was essentially constant, regardless of the number of kids in a family or how many of them were girls. In the Asian-American sample, the boy-girl ratio started out at the same norm: 1.05 to 1. But among families whose first child was a girl, the boy-girl ratio among second kids went up to 1.17 to 1. And if the first two kids were girls, the boy-girl ratio among third kids went up to 1.5 to 1. This 50 percent increase in male probability is directly contrary to the trend among whites, who tend to produce a child of the same sex ...

The number of abortions in the United States hit the lowest level since 1976. Here is the Washington Post coverage: The number of abortions performed in the United States dropped to 1.2 million in 2005 -- the lowest level since 1976, according to a new report. The number of abortions fell at least in part because the proportion of women ending their pregnancies with an abortion dropped 9 percent between 2000 and 2005, hitting the lowest level since 1975, according to a nationwide survey. . . . The report did not identify reasons for the drop in abortions, but the researchers said it could be caused by a combination of factors. "It could be more women using contraception and not having as many unintended pregnancies. It could be more restrictions on abortions making it more difficult for women to obtain abortion services. It could be a combination of these and other dynamics," said Rachel K. Jones of the Guttmacher Institute , a reproductive-health research organization, which...

As I reported yesterday, there is a significant new development in stem cell research--the fact that skin cells can be used to creat stem cells. Much of the interest in this story is that it suggests that we need no longer research embryonic stems cells, and thus the bioethical problems are over. It is also offered as vindication of President Bush's policies on stem cell research. Well, the science bloggers have had time to reflect on the developments. While they agree that this is a significant scientific development worthy of front page coverage, they also caution that it does not solve the bioethical issues. Why? As PZ Myers explains, one reason is that while this new tehcnique is great for stem cell research, it has severe limitations in therapeutic uses: Another essential point is that scientists are excited about this work because it opens up avenues for basic research into development and differentiation. These cells are NOT useable for therapies…the immediate, practica...

For years th eissue of stem cell research has divided even the pro life community, and the bioethical concerns about the destruction of embryonic stem cells--and the attendant human cloning (even for therapeutic purposes) have slowed the pace of research on stem cells. The New York Times is reporting this morning that a new technique using skin cells may be a breakthrough that avoids the bioethical concerns altogether: Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo — a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field. All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such human universal cells was to pluck them fr...

Professor James McGrath has a very interesting post today on the abortion issue--and in particular how the moral issues are more complicated than either side wants to admit: There is a wonderful articulation of a serious and balanced pro-life position in Jonah Goldberg's most recent piece in the National Review Online , " Life Matters ". He says up front that there is much he does not know about the soul, its relationship to life, and what we mean by it in the case of a recently-fertilized egg. He also acknowledges that, if one is talking about consciousness, then life does not begin at conception. He thus has no passionate feelings about "Plan B" and other methods of terminating a pregnancy within a few hours or days of conception, but does feel strongly about other issues like partial-birth abortion. I think there is on this topic, like so many others, room for an alliance in the middle between those who reject both extremes. There are many people who are pro-...

A new study finds that abortion rates are similar in nations that outlaw it and nations that do not. This supports the view of many (including me) that criminal sanctions on abortion are not the answer to reducing the number of abortions. The New York Times has the details: A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it. Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said. The results of the study, a collaboration between scientists from the World Health Organization in Geneva and the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a reproductive rights...

Morning's Minion of the Catholic group blog Vox Nova is a devout Catholic and is anti-abortion. Nonetheless, he offers a cogent analysis of how the pro-life movement has become coopted by the Republican Party and is failing to deliver on its mission: the end of abortion: The political trends of the past quarter century have brought us to a place where pro-life Catholics have aligned themselves with the Republican party. Some hold their noses while doing so. Others inhale the fragrance with glee. And the institutional pro-life movement is boxed into the narrowest of strategies, one that places a premium on rhetoric, while not burdening politicians with the need to actually do anything. It begs the question: is the Republican party really serious about reducing abortion or is it a ploy for votes? The fact that Rudy Giuliani is currently that party's presidential forerunner speaks volumes. How easy it is to be pro-life! All you need do is talk about picking the kinds of judges ...

Sometimes we need to confront uncomfortable facts in the search for truth. I think that one such uncomfortable fact that progressives need to confront directly and honestly is that a combination of a focus on smaller families in the developing world, access to abortion, increased access to sonogram technology, and a preference for boys, is causing some significant changes in the sex ratios in many countries. Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D., executive vice president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) , has a post on the First Things blog that is well worth reading. I certainly don't agree with all that she says. For example, both she and C-FAM seem to oppose any efforts to increase contraception in the developing world. Nonetheless, she identifies and real issue that all of us--including the pro-choice community, need to confront: Right now, in almost any corner of the world, a baby girl is being killed just because she is a girl. Her mother may be rich or poor, educat...

In his weekly Washington Post column , former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson offers advice to Democrats on how to appeal to religious voters, and then offers more general advice to how Christians should look toward their faith on public policy issues. I think that his advice to Democrats is wrong. His advice to Christians, however, is spot on. First the bad advice. Gerson, using Obama's speech to the UCC as a starting point, offers this advice to Democrats: For Democrats, the speech was a class in remedial religion. But Obama still missed an opportunity. By speaking at a gathering of the United Church of Christ -- among the most excruciatingly progressive of Protestant denominations -- he was preaching to the liberal choir. And he did not effectively reach out to an evangelical movement in transition. John Green of the Pew Forum describes that transition in generational terms. Survey research shows that evangelicals under 30 tend to be more concerned about the environment than...

Without much doubt, the Democratic party is much more of a pro-choice party than the Republican party is a pro-life party. Melinda Henneberger has a provocative op-ed in today's New York Times that makes the case that Democrats need to recognize most voter's complicated beliefs about abortion. Here are highlights : Over 18 months, I traveled to 20 states listening to women of all ages, races, tax brackets and points of view speak at length on the issues they care about heading into ’08. They convinced me that the conventional wisdom was wrong about the last presidential contest, that Democrats did not lose support among women because “security moms” saw President Bush as the better protector against terrorism. What first-time defectors mentioned most often was abortion. Why would that be, given that Roe v. Wade was decided almost 35 years ago? Opponents of abortion rights saw 2004 as the chance of a lifetime to overturn Roe, with a movement favorite already in the Oval Office a...

Barak Obama is the "Guest Voice" at the WashingtonPost.com "On Faith" website. His commentary is well worth reading in full. It focuses on the issue of abortion and Obama's conversations with people who disagree with him on the issue. Here are highlights: Two days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School. “Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win,” the doctor wrote. “I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you.” The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be comprehensive and “totalizing.” His faith led him to strongly oppose abortion and gay marriage, but he said his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and the quick resort ...

Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter, has an op-ed in the Washington Post that argues that Giuliani's position on abortion is an illogical muddle. I am no fan of Giuliani. Indeed, he ranks rather low on my list of Republican candidates for President for a variety of reason. Nonetheless, I think Gerson's challenge is unfair. Here is what Gerson has to say : There is, however, a question that comes before politics: Does Giuliani's position on abortion actually make sense? In early debates and statements, he has set out his views on this topic with all the order and symmetry of a freeway pileup. His argument comes down to this: "I hate abortion," which is "morally wrong." But "people ultimately have to make that choice. If a woman chooses that, that's her choice, not mine. That's her morality, not mine." This is a variant of the position developed by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1985. In this view, the Catholic Church's belief i...

Vox Nova does it again. Today they have a very intriguing post on abortions statistics, with the goal of finding out how best to reduce the number of abortions in the United States. Here are highlights: What does abortion in the United States look like? The Guttmacher Institute explores this issue in some detail. For a start, it notes that 57% of women opting for abortion are economically disadvantaged. In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). And when asked to give reasons for abortion, three-quarters of women say that cannot afford a child. At the same time, black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two and a half life times as likely. Almost half of women terminating their pregnancies have had previous abortions, and 60 percent of ab...