Posted on 05/31/2005 11:56:52 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
Man, is there anything that George Bush isn't to blame for?
Ping to a good article.
Good post! Thanks.
"Man, is there anything that George Bush isn't to blame for?"
The Lindberg baby kidnapping. That was his dad.
I've always liked Factcheck.org, even if I don't always completely agree with them.
I saw Howard Dean say that on Tim Russert's show and pretty much figured it wasn't true. Did Russert question the assertion? Of course not. He sucks.
Yes.
High Levels of Home Ownership.
Low unemployment
A Good Economy
Two Totalitarian regimes replaced with nascent democracy....
/sarcasm.
Hey, don't forget all that Tsunami aid!
Same here.
New Government Figures Actually Show National Decline for 2001
Hillary Clinton Perpetuates Urban Myth of Abortion Increase Under Bush
By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
Director of Education and Research
In a widely touted speech, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) revived the recently coined myth that abortions decreased while her husband was President and increased under the stewardship of President George W. Bush.
Addressing what the Los Angeles Times (1/25/05) called "about 1,000 fellow abortion rights supporters," Sen. Clinton told the 28th annual conference of Family Planning Advocates of New York State in Albany that during her husband's administration, "we saw the rate of abortion consistently fall."
After claiming that the abortion rate fell by one quarter between 1990 and 1995, and another 11% between 1994 and 2000, she launched a broadside at the Bush administration. "But unfortunately in the last few years, while we are engaged in ideological debate instead of one that uses facts and evidence and common sense, the rate of abortion is on the rise in some states."
Naming neither the states nor her sources, she continued with her diatribe. "In the [first] three years since President Bush took office, eight states have seen an increase in abortion rates and four saw a decrease."
While the Times asked Clinton if she felt Bush's policies were directly responsible for the increase (Clinton told the paper she did not know), the newspaper does not appear to have checked her facts or challenged her assertion. Neither did other papers who printed the story.
The facts are not on Senator Clinton's side. The abortion rate did not decline by 25% from 1990 to 1995. In addition, the only "study" known to have been published claiming since 2000 that abortions are up in more states than down was based on serious statistical flaws and just plain false assertions.
Tall Tales of Declines Under Bill Clinton
Sen. Clinton didn't say where she got her numbers to back up her assertion that the abortion rate dropped significantly under her husband but went up again under Bush. But either by accident or by intent, she appears to have bought into a variation of the urban myth which has been perpetrated by a couple of amateur statisticians: California seminary professor Glen Harold Stassen and University of Notre Dame Dean Mark Roche.
Writing in the October 11, 2004, New York Times, Dean Roche argued that the number of abortions increased during Republican and decreased during Democratic administrations. Roche argued that abortion totals had dropped a whopping 36% during Bill Clinton's eight years in office.
Abortions did decline during Clinton's two terms, but not nearly as much as Roche reported. Moreover, it was a decline that started while the first George Bush was President and petered out to a crawl by the time Clinton left office.
Roche appears to have started with a 1992 figure of 1,359,145 abortions from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and then compared it with the 2000 CDC figure of 857,475. On its face, that represents a gigantic decline in the number of abortions - - 36.9%.
If we grant that Roche is sincere, his error is embarrassingly rudimentary. He ignores that four states - - Alaska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and California, the nation's most populous state - - stopped sending the CDC abortion numbers for 1998. In 1997, the last year in which all states reported, those four states accounted for 285,868 abortions.1
Roche does not appear to have recognized the loss of those states from the data set and gave Bill Clinton undeserved credit for significant abortion reductions.
Roche mentions the 11% drop in the abortion rate that Hillary Clinton says occurred from 1995 to 2000, but this excludes California and the other missing states from the calculation for both the 1995 and 2000 rates. Whether the decline for the whole United States was greater or less than 11% is unknown.
Clinton's earlier claim about the reduced abortion rate between 1990 and 1995 is seriously exaggerated. According to the CDC, the abortion rate was 24 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-44) in 1990 and 20 in 1995. That represents a 16.7% decrease, not the 25% decrease Hillary Clinton claimed. Moreover, this fails to acknowledge both that the rate began declining while George H.W. Bush was still in office,2 and that it increased again in 1996 (to 21) at the midway point of Bill Clinton's first term.
The CDC has reported lower rates since then, but these are believed to be artificially lower due to the continued absence of Alaska, New Hampshire, and California from the rate calculations.
Legends of the Rise
The only national report on the number of abortions occurring since George W. Bush took office - - the CDC's report for 2001 - - came out after the election, not before. But this didn't stop partisans from pushing the urban myth that abortions had gone up under Bush.
The claim that abortions had gone up under Bush appeared in an article by Glen Harold Stassen, a seminary professor from California, which appeared in several newspapers and on several web sites about the same time as Roche's piece ran in the New York Times. Stassen had no national data, but claimed that data he gathered from state reports showed abortion increasing in 11 out of 16 states.
Stassen claimed to have some training as a statistician, but made several serious mistakes with the state data.3 In two states where he reported increases (Wisconsin and South Dakota), official state reports showed decreases.
There was a small, short-term increase in Illinois during the period he examined (less than 1%), but he missed a drop of 10% that occurred the next year.
He made much of 26.4% and 67.4% increases reported by Arizona and Colorado, respectively. But he ignored explicit cautions by health departments in those states warning that those figures were likely to have reflected improved reporting rather than actual increases.
Corrected, the data showed decreases, not increases, in 8 out of the 14 states with reliable numbers.
Confronted by NRLC with his errors, Stassen tried to argue that aggregate state numbers still showed an overall increase, but this included the statistically suspicious jumps in Colorado and Arizona that state officials were reluctant to endorse as accurate. Once those figures are removed from the total, and Illinois' decline from 2003 is factored in, the 14 states remaining in Stassen's study show a net decrease in the number of abortions.
Stats vs. Stories
With the release of the CDC's 2001 Abortion Surveillance report, there is finally some hard data, and it shows a decrease in the number of abortions under President Bush. According to the CDC, there were 3,990 fewer abortions in the United States in 2001 than in 2000.
What about the abortion rate, the number of abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-44)? It stayed at 16. The abortion ratio, which the CDC identifies as the number of abortions per 1,000 live births, rose slightly, from 246 in 2000 to 247 in 2001, but that represents a lower figure than any other year since 1974.4
Given that figures for California, Alaska, and New Hampshire are missing from the data set, actual abortion rates and totals for the country in 2001 are thought to be higher.5 However, the trends are considered reliable, because those same states were missing from both the 2000 and 2001 totals as well.
The CDC has no figures on maternal deaths for 2001, but does report that there were 11 deaths due to legal induced abortion in 2000.
Bill Clinton's "Legacy" to George W. Bush
In September of 2000, in the waning months of the Clinton Administration, the Food and Drug Administration fulfilled the mandate of that president and approved the sale of RU486, the French abortion pill. It took some months to begin full-scale distribution, but it had reached the market by the time George W. Bush took the oath of office and was being heavily promoted by the media and the abortion industry.
According to the CDC, there were 20,093 "medical" (chemical abortions) for 2001 in the states it tracked, representing about 2.9% of the total abortions from those states. If usage figures given by the U.S. distributor of the drug are correct, that number is expected to explode in subsequent years leading to an overall increase in the number of abortions. That tide could turn, however, as more women hear of deaths and other problems with the abortion pill.
Three deaths have already been associated with the use of RU486 in the United States, and five others are known about from other countries.
No matter how she spins the numbers, the legacy of Sen. Clinton's husband is not a world in which abortion is increasingly rare, but one in which it is increasingly dangerous. Are those the footsteps in which she plans to follow?
NOTES:
1. Oklahoma began reporting again in 2000, but the other states did not.
2. The abortion ratio, which measures abortions relative to live births, is probably a better measure of changing attitudes regarding abortion. It began declining in the 1980s, while Reagan was still president, shattering Roche's contention that abortion indicators trend upward in Republican administrations.
3. See the November 2004 issue of NRL News or find more detailed analysis at http://www.nrlc.org/rko/index.html.
4. By way of comparison, the CDC says the abortion rate for 1984 was 364 per thousand live births.
5. Figures from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), which surveys clinics directly, have always been substantially higher than those from the CDC, which relies on state health departments. AGI, however, does not conduct its surveys every year, and has published no new national abortion data since 2000.
Thanks for the add-in. The urban legends propogated by the looneyleft need to be nipped in the bud...and the sooner the better!
All I see is a fall in abortions since Reagan and continuuing through (despite) the Clinton years, and into the Bush II years.
My guess would be that a stronger economy reduces the number of abortions being sought. The downward RATE OF CHANGE of abortions has slowed under Bush - this has nothing to do with his policies but instead the somewhat of a rough economic spot the US just went through (9/11, bubble burst, etc).
Better economy = fewer murdered babies. Not an excuse or anything, that is just what the data shows.
I'm not impressed by them, even though I agree with them from time to time. They were not fair during the campaign cycle. They can be as fair as they need to be during other time periods, but it's the election cycle when their reputation is formed. They blew it with their summer of 2004 new hires.
OCTOBER 26, 2004
Mark Roche, dean of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame
($500 to Kerry)
Notre Dame Dean Mark Roche writes (LIES):
During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, the number of legal abortions increased by more than 5 percent; during the eight years of the Clinton presidency, the number dropped by 36 percent. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent.
There are many reasons for this shift. Yet surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net makes it easier for pregnant women to make responsible decisions and for young life to flourish; among the most economically disadvantaged, abortion rates have always been and remain the highest. The world's lowest abortion rates are in Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal but where the welfare state is strong. Latin America, where almost all abortions are illegal, has one of the highest rates in the world.
Voting Our Conscience, Not Our Religion
October 11, 2004 | New York Times
by MARK W. ROCHE
South Bend, Ind. — For more than a century, from the wave of immigrants in the 19th century to the election of the first Catholic president in 1960, American Catholics overwhelmingly identified with the Democratic Party. In the past few decades, however, that allegiance has largely faded. Now Catholics are prototypical "swing voters": in 2000, they split almost evenly between Al Gore and George W. Bush, and recent polls show Mr. Bush ahead of Senator John Kerry, himself a Catholic, among white Catholics.
There are compelling reasons - cultural, socioeconomic and political - for this shift. But if Catholic voters honestly examine the issues of consequence in this election, they may find themselves returning to their Democratic roots in 2004.
The parties appeal to Catholics in different ways. The Republican Party opposes abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research, both positions in accord with Catholic doctrine. Also, Republican support of various faith-based initiatives, including school vouchers, tends to resonate with Catholic voters.
Members of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more likely to criticize the handling of the war in Iraq, to oppose capital punishment and to support universal heath care, environmental stewardship, a just welfare state and more equitable taxes. These stances are also in harmony with Catholic teachings, even if they may be less popular among individual Catholics.
When values come into conflict, it is useful to develop principles that help place those values in a hierarchy. One reasonable principle is that issues of life and death are more important than other issues. This seems to be the strategy of some Catholic and church leaders, who directly or indirectly support the Republican Party because of its unambiguous critique of abortion. Indeed, many Catholics seem to think that if they are truly religious, they must cast their ballots for Republicans.
This position has two problems. First, abortion is not the only life-and-death issue in this election. While the Republicans line up with the Catholic stance on abortion and stem-cell research, the Democrats are closer to the Catholic position on the death penalty, universal health care and environmental protection.
More important, given the most distinctive issue of the current election, Catholics who support President Bush must reckon with the Catholic doctrine of "just war." This doctrine stipulates that a war is just only if all possible alternative strategies have been pursued to their ultimate conclusion; the war is conducted in accordance with moral principles (for example, the avoidance of unnecessary civilian casualties and the treatment of prisoners with dignity); and the war leads to a more moral state of affairs than existed before it began. While Mr. Kerry, like many other Democrats, voted for the war, he has since objected to the way it was planned and waged.
Second, politics is the art of the possible. During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, the number of legal abortions increased by more than 5 percent; during the eight years of the Clinton presidency, the number dropped by 36 percent. The overall abortion rate (calculated as the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44) was more or less stable during the Reagan years, but during the Clinton presidency it dropped by 11 percent.
There are many reasons for this shift. Yet surely the traditional Democratic concern with the social safety net makes it easier for pregnant women to make responsible decisions and for young life to flourish; among the most economically disadvantaged, abortion rates have always been and remain the highest. The world's lowest abortion rates are in Belgium and the Netherlands, where abortion is legal but where the welfare state is strong. Latin America, where almost all abortions are illegal, has one of the highest rates in the world.
None of this is to argue that abortion should be acceptable. History will judge our society's support of abortion in much the same way we view earlier generations' support of torture and slavery - it will be universally condemned. The moral condemnation of abortion, however, need not lead to the conclusion that criminal prosecution is the best way to limit the number of abortions. Those who view abortion as the most significant issue in this campaign may well want to supplement their abstract desire for moral rectitude with a more realistic focus on how best to ensure that fewer abortions take place.
In many ways, Catholic voters' growing political independence has led to a profusion of moral dilemmas: they often feel they must abandon one good for the sake of another. But while they may be dismayed at John Kerry's position on abortion and stem-cell research, they should be no less troubled by George W. Bush's stance on the death penalty, health care, the environment and just war. Given the recent history of higher rates of abortion with Republicans in the White House, along with the tradition of Democratic support of equitable taxes and greater integration into the world community, more Catholics may want to reaffirm their tradition of allegiance to the Democratic Party in 2004.
Mark W. Roche is dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame.
Religion/Theology
Ooh, that was badly written. Let me clarify. My guess, independent of this, is that a better economy = fewer murdered babies. This is for sure a bias on my part, that I would interpret the data this particular way.
What did Clinton do during his 8 years to reduce availability of abortions? They still dropped. Why?
I think it's more that the ME generation of the 60's is past menopause and the Gen X'rs who were the victims of the genocide of abortion are more pro-life than the MSM portrays.
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