(!) The pro-life movement and economic justice
• Ninure Saunders
by Glen Stassen
SojoMail 6-29-2005
When I wrote an opinion editorial last October (2004) on abortion numbers
for 2002, it was widely reprinted. I stated clearly that "federal reports
go only to 2000, and many states do not report." So, I explained, I had to
search for state departments of health that had reported their results for
2002. I found the data for 16 states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida,
Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Washington state, and Wisconsin. The
total number of abortions in those states increased by a little over 6,000
in 2002, in comparison with the previous year.
Seven months later, with more data now in and with their extensive
research staff, the Alan Guttmacher Institute has estimated - and they are
clear it is an estimate - the number of abortions in the 43 states for
which they have data. Nothing in their report contradicts the data I
reported for the 16 states whose data I had seven months ago. I have just
gone to Robert Johnston's Web site, where he reports the state-by-state
data that he collects
(www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/index.html#us), and, where he
lacks data, to state health department reports. Anyone can do the same by
going to www.cdc.gov/NCHS/about/major/natality/sites.htm, choosing each of
the states, and searching for their data. Some updating has occurred from
seven months ago, which slightly alters the numbers in a couple of states.
But my numbers hold up. The number of abortions reported by the health
departments in those 16 states increased by about 6,000 in 2002, in
comparison with 2001.
I made clear that neither I nor anyone had the results for all 50 states,
so I had to extrapolate from the 16 states whose data I had. This is what
you do in scientific research: you get the best data you can find, you use
a consistent method in reporting it, and you state the limits of your
method. Then you wait to see whether others confirm it. Guttmacher is now
able to estimate the results for 43 states. They estimate that abortions
in those 43 states probably declined slightly, but at a slower rate than
previously - what I call a stall.
I gave several pieces of evidence that one very important factor in a
women's decision to have an abortion was her belief that she could not
afford to raise the baby. Another major factor was whether or not she had
a reliable husband or mate. And when the unemployment rate is high, men
tend not to marry. Countries such as Belgium and Holland, where the
abortion ratio is only one-fourth as big as the United States, give
mothers and babies strong economic support as well as health insurance.
Other important factors include the mothers' own ethics, and support - or
lack of it - from churches, schools, friends, and family.
Had my estimate that abortions in the 50 states probably increased as they
did in the 16 states turned out to be right, it would have put significant
pressure on the Bush administration to give more support to mothers and
babies, and thus do much better in decreasing the abortion ratio. And it
would have urged Democratic politicians to shift toward advocating
policies that would decrease abortions. You would expect consistently
pro-life advocates to be concerned if I was right, and thus increase the
incentive and the pressure to reduce abortions.
Indeed, I received a lot of e-mail, and it was mostly supportive. But the
irony is that some who are officially pro-life worked hard to undermine my
results. That has the effect of removing pressure on the administration to
adopt policies that decrease abortions.
They happily used the Alan Guttmacher report to claim I had erred, while
pointing out that Guttmacher is connected with Planned Parenthood. So here
is the irony of advocates who claim to be pro-life cheering data from a
pro-choice source to say things are not as bad as I thought. They attack
my pro-life effort to push the Bush administration to adopt policies that
decrease abortions. It raises the question as to whether their real
loyalty is pro-life, or whether their priority is partisan politics. I
continue to seek to persuade Republicans and Democrats to adopt policies
that support mothers and children, which has proven to be the effective
way in other countries to reduce abortions dramatically. Pro-life would
mean you would support pressure to adopt policies that make a real
difference for reducing abortions.
Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com even claimed that I "sometimes used old
figures and even used the birth rate instead of the abortion rate in one
state to reach his conclusions." I believe this to be an irresponsible
charge without basis; I wonder where he got his claim. I just checked the
data again, and I certainly did not do that. I have written him asking him
what state he is referring to, and he has not responded. Had I used the
birth rate it would have put my number four times as high as reality. I
did use figures from the last 30 years to point out that the abortion rate
roughly correlated with the unemployment rate during that long period. And
I did point out that abortions decreased dramatically in the 1990s. But
the data for the 16 states come from 2002 compared with 2001.
In order to be as objective as possible, I set the criterion in advance
that I would include the data from every state where I could find the
state health department data on numbers of abortions. I would not reject
any states whose reports I found because that could introduce a subjective
bias. I did not "pick states"; I reported every state whose health
department data I could find. Guttmacher decided not to include two states
with large increases in the number of abortions -Arizona and Colorado -
because their reporting is inconsistent. That explains most of the
difference in our totals. They also omitted a few other states for which I
also did not have data. This decreased the total number of abortions that
they reported. I am not criticizing Guttmacher's method; each of us made
our method clear, and we stayed with our methods.
Here is what is widely agreed about abortion numbers:
1. The number of U.S. abortions dropped dramatically in the 1990s from 1.6
million abortions per year to about 1.3 million per year - a drop of
300,000 abortions per year.
2. Experts like to focus on the ratio of abortions per 100 pregnancies
that end either in live births or abortions. This makes sense because it
is not affected by how many women get pregnant; it focuses on how many
pregnant women have abortions. (Miscarriages, of course, are not counted.)
3. The dramatic drop of about 300,000 abortions per year during the 1990s
represents a drop in the ratio of abortions during the 1990s from 28.0 to
24.5.
4. From 1990 to 1995, the ratio dropped at the rate of .35 per year, with
the most dramatic drop coming in 1994 and 1995.
5. The U.S. Catholic bishops warned that if welfare was phased out, the
support for poor mothers contemplating whether they could afford to raise
their babies would erode, and the reduction in abortions would likely
stall or even increase. The bishops were right. Welfare was being phased
out in the late 1990s, and the drop in ratios slowed from .35 per year in
the first half of the decade (with the big drop coming in 1994 and 1995)
to a drop of only 0.15 per year from 1996-2000.
6. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that the ratio continued to drop
during the first two years of the Bush administration, but by a still
slower slow rate: "Between 1992 and 1996, the annualized decline was 3.4
per year, while between 1996 and 2000, it was 1.2% per year. The
annualized decline between 2000 and 2002 was 0.9% per year, suggesting
that the last two years reflect a continuation of the trend of the late
1990s, albeit at a slightly slower rate of decline."
7. The Guttmacher report wisely warns that their results are estimates,
not the final number. They extrapolated from the 2000 data by using
percentages reported by state health departments. They then tested the
accuracy of this method by applying it to 1996 and 1997, years for which
they do have the actual numbers. Their method was off by 1% for 1997. So
the decline of 0.9% is within the margin of error. They also warn that it
takes several years to discern the effects of Bush policies.
8. The Guttmacher report also confirms the thesis of the op ed I published
(and that the Catholic bishops warned about) - that removing economic
supports from women would be one factor causing more abortions. They
report: "While the abortion rate declined among most groups between 1994
and 2000, it increased among poor women and women on Medicaid."
9. The official report from the Centers for Disease Control indicates the
infant mortality rate increased in the year I focused on 2002 - for the
first time since their report begins, in 1940. This supports my contention
that mothers and babies have been undermined economically.
10. The official crime report indicates the homicide rate also increased
in 2002. It had been going down steadily in the 1990s, but has now also
reversed the trend. In Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary
Context (InterVarsity Press), chapter eight, I showed that unemployment is
one major factor influencing the homicide rate.
Two-thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota
Citizens Concerned for Life Web site); in the past four years,
unemployment rates increased half again and average real incomes
decreased, and for eight years the minimum wage has not been raised to
match inflation. 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. Women worry about health care for themselves and
their children; 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than
four years ago.
I reaffirm the conclusion I stated in my article in the February 22 issue
of Christian Century magazine: Taking $200 billion per year out of tax
income for the wealthy and therefore squeezing down justice programs for
children, schools, the CHIP health insurance program that should support
children, and jobs programs, and shifting income from the broad consumer
base to the wealthy has been bad for mothers and children. We need a
motherhood mandate - health insurance, accessible clinics, economic
support, parental leave with pay for a child's first year (as most every
other democracy except the U.S. has), jobs programs, and support for
schools such as my wife's, where teenagers can bring their babies and get
their clinic visits without either quitting school or having an abortion -
or getting someone else to parent their baby.
Glen Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at
Fuller Theological Seminar.
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Pax Christi,
• Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
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