by Dr. Randy O'Bannon, Laura Hussey
October 20, 2004
LifeNews.com Note: Randall O'Bannon, Ph.D., is the dirctor of education
and research for the National Right to Life Committee. Laura Hussey,
M.P.M., is a special research assistant at the National Right to Life
Educational Trust Fund.
IN AN OPINION PIECE spreading over local newspapers and the internet,
Glen Harold Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics
at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, claims that
after years of decline, abortions have increased under the watch of
pro-life President George W. Bush.
Attributing the alleged abortion increase to an economic downturn, Stassen
argues that the way to reduce abortions is to elect a president who
will "do something about jobs and health insurance and support
for prospective mothers" rather than one who merely offers pro-life
"rhetoric." His intended implication is that pro-lifers should
vote for Kerry, the "pro-choice" candidate, to reduce the
number of abortions.
While this twist of sense and logic is breathtaking, Stassen has a bigger
problem – neither his data nor his argument hold up under scrutiny.
Misreading the National Trend
Stassen's thesis rests on two basic claims: one, that state abortion
data from 2001, 2002, and 2003 show a clear pattern of increase over
figures from 2000 and earlier, when Bill Clinton was in power; and two,
that there is an inverse relationship between abortion and jobs, wages,
health insurance, and other economic factors — i.e., if jobs are lost,
abortion increases, and so on. From the data, the first claim is false,
while the second is at best speculation.
Stassen makes his first mistake when he looks at abortion figures for
1990 and 2000 to establish the rate of decline. He notes, correctly,
that there were about 1,610,00 abortions in 1990 and 1,330,000 (actually
closer to 1,313,000) in 2000, representing an overall decline of 17.4%
for the decade. Pretty much on the mark. But then he extrapolates that
figure for an average decline of 1.7% per year and reasons that abortions
should have been that much lower in each year of the Bush presidency
if the trend continued.
One problem. The decline was strongest in the first half of the decade,
which began with George H.W. Bush in office, but slowed during Bill
Clinton's term, and even reversed itself one year. In Clinton's last
year in office, the decline was not 1.7%, but just 0.1%.
Stassen uses the faulty 1.7% figure to argue that abortions should have
declined by some 28,000 in George W. Bush's first year in office, but
if the figure of 0.1% is used, the expected decline would have been
more modest, around 1,313 abortions. If the downward trend itself was
in the process of petering out, even this figure would be too high.
Insufficient Data
Since no national abortion data have been reported since 2000, Stassen
looks at abortion figures for 16 states over 2001, 2002, and in some
cases, 2003.
Stassen confidently claims that abortions increased in 11 of those 16
states during the Bush administration and asserts that this reflects
a larger national upward trend in abortions. Yet Stassen never demonstrates
that his 16 states are representative of the 50 states. Even worse for
Stassen's case is that some of his statistics are just flat wrong, while
others are of ambiguous origin.
Some of the states Stassen cites showed increases or decreases of a
couple of percent or less over the two to three year period. This is
to be expected. Even when overall trends are up or down, there are fluctuations
that go a couple of percentage points above or below the curve in any
given couple of years. Figures have to be followed for a number of years
to identify a clear directional pattern. Seven of the 16 states Stassen
cites, Pennsylvania (+1.9%), Illinois (+0.9%), Missouri (+2.5%), South
Dakota (+2.1%), Wisconsin (+0.6%), Florida (-0.7%), and Washington (-2.1%),
appear to fall into this category. These smaller short term fluctuations
are not be sufficient for us to establish a trend.
Illinois provides a case in point. While published counts do show the
number of abortions increasing from 46,546 in 2001 to 46,945 in 2002,
accounting for the 0.9% increase Stassen mentions, more recent figures
show a substantial decrease for 2003, down to 42,228. That represents
a drop of 10%, and the lowest full-year figure Illinois has seen since
1973. Taken as a whole, this latest drop appears to be part of a larger
long term downward trend, with 2002 being a short term deviation.
Sometimes, Stassen's figures are just plain wrong. Stassen says abortions
in Wisconsin increased by 0.6% from 2001 to 2002. The Wisconsin Department
of Health and Family Services says there were 436 fewer abortions performed
in Wisconsin in 2002 that in 2001. Stassen counts South Dakota as one
of the states in which abortions have increased since George W. Bush
became president, pointing to what he says is a 2.1% increase from 2001
to 2002. In fact, figures from the state health agency for that period
show a decrease of 9.7% during that time frame. Stassen appears to have
been looking at the number of births, which did increase by 2.1 percent
over these years.
When one shifts Wisconsin and South Dakota to the decrease column, and
adds in Illinois after its dramatic 2003 drop in abortions, Stassen's
claim that abortions have increased in 11 out of 16 states now turns
into a 8 to 8 tie, with as many states decreasing as increasing. Hardly
anything definitive.
The large increases that Stassen cites for four of the 16 states – Colorado,
Arizona, Idaho, and Michigan – raise other questions. Do these really
represent sudden, big one-time increases or is some other explanation
more plausible? There is reason to believe these may be unrepresentative
aberrations attributable to changes in the gathering of statistics rather
than to massive behavioral changes.
Look at Arizona, where Stassen reports a 26.4% increase occurring in
a single year between 2001 and 2002. While admitting that its figures
did show abortions increasing from 8,226 in 2001 to 10,397 in 2002,
yielding the enormous 26.4% increase Stassen cites, Arizona's Department
of Health Services cautioned in its report that "It is unclear
whether this increase in the number of reported abortions represents
a true increase in the actual number of abortions performed, or, perhaps,
a better response rate of providers of non-surgical (so called medical)
terminations of pregnancy."
It was, of course, Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, who was responsible
for the approval of RU486, the abortion pill, which went on the market
in late 2000. While the impact of that decision, and the massive marketing
campaign mounted by the abortion industry, has yet to be fully determined,
increases triggered by that decision surely lay at the doorstep of that
administration rather than the current one.
Other local factors may be at play. New clinics may open, release of
state funds may pump fresh cash into "family planning" agencies
which offer abortion "on the side" (Missouri), state health
departments may get numbers from clinics which did not previously report
(reporting is often voluntary, not required).
The upshot of all this is that there really aren't enough data to clearly
determine where the national trend is going at this point, and certainly
no evidence of an nationwide abortion increase to lay at the doorstep
of the Bush administration.
The Relation of Economics and Abortion
The discussion could end right here, as the available data do not support
Stassen's claims about an upward trend in abortions. His larger claim,
however, that abortion increases may be linked to economic declines,
or specifically, to job losses in the early years of George W. Bush's
presidency, bears further examination.
To support his claim, Stassen, at minimum, would need to show that abortions
have increased and that increases have coincided with declines in the
economy. He would also need to rule out alternative explanations for
any such relationship. Stassen doesn't do this. Not only do the data
fail to indicate a nationwide upsurge in abortions, but Stassen provides
no economic data whatsoever, much less the kind of statistical analysis
one would need to show that abortions and economic factors such as unemployment
are linked. Nor does he make clear, in any economic analysis, what effect
Bush's policies had on the economy or how John Kerry's proposed policies
would guarantee different results.
The only support Stassen offers for his case is the claim that about
two thirds of aborting women say they cannot afford the child. Stassen
cites Wisconsin Right to Life as the source of this statistic, but it
actually comes from a survey published by the Alan Guttmacher Institute,
abortion giant Planned Parenthood's "special research affiliate,"
in 1988. In that survey, women were able to subjectively identify any
number of factors that they felt contributed to their abortion decision,
so the financial aspect was only one among many others (the top was
that the baby would interfere with work, school, or other responsibilities;
close behind finances were relationship issues with the father and concerns
about single parenthood). When asked which was their primary reason,
only 21% listed inability to afford the baby. This is still a significant
and sad factor, and one which many pro-lifers are rightly and diligently
working to address, but hardly the controlling variable that Stassen
implies.
If Stassen's argument held true, one would expect the largest abortion
increases to be in states where the economic decline was the greatest.
Conversely, one would anticipate abortion decreases in states where
the economy improved.
While some states where Stassen said abortions increased also saw increases
in their unemployment rates over those same years, there are also plenty
of counter-examples. Illinois's abortions dropped substantially between
2002 and 2003, in spite of its unemployment rate being stuck at 6.7%,
among the worst in the nation. Ohio's unemployment rate rose considerably
relative to most other states, but abortions there declined. If the
economic determinism Stassen assumes was valid, those state results
would be reversed.
The truth is that most couples going through their first pregnancy have
questions about how the baby will change their lives and how they'll
financially handle the responsibilities of parenthood. However, couples
find out, once the baby is born, that they do get by, and the human
race continues.
Some fearmongers publicize scientific-sounding estimates of how many
tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to raise a child,
but there is no objective income figure that officially designates one
as able or unable to "afford a child." This is important because
there is, in Stassen's argument, an unspoken implication that there
is such a threshold and that economic circumstances or presidential
policies at some point push mothers over the line. If there is such
a relation, Stassen has a long way to go to prove it, since his data
do not lend themselves to this conclusion.
Even if economics were a causative factor, it still wouldn't be clear
that Bush's policies were at fault. There is a great deal of debate
among economists on just how much presidential actions affect the economy
or how long it takes for ordinary people to feel the any consequences
of economic policies. Stassen has not ruled out alternative explanations
for the job losses that occurred early on Bush's watch, such as the
corporate scandals that began brewing in the 1990s, the recession Bush
inherited, and the devastating impact of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.
economy. Further, Stassen has ignored the more recent economic recovery
that has added jobs in the latter part of Bush's term and that is proceeding
in spite of ongoing terror threats.
John Kerry has promised more jobs and more government programs, but
Stassen offers no real evidence that should lead us to expect that these
will be realized or will improve the economy, much less that they will
reduce abortions. One thing we do know is that John Kerry advocates
policies that will fund and facilitate abortions. It has been conclusively
demonstrated in research too extensive to discuss here, that this is
one surefire way to increase abortions.
Stassen's Pro-Life Credentials
Stassen presents himself as someone sympathetic to the pro-life cause
who was shocked and saddened to find out that our pro-life president's
policies were not having the pro-life effects he anticipated. We have
already shown that Stassen's data was flawed. But this persona that
he adopts is somewhat misleading as well.
Stassen identifies himself as "consistently pro-life," and
talks touchingly of his love for his blind and disabled son, who he
and his wife chose to bear after his wife contacted rubella in her eighth
week of pregnancy. But Stassen fails to mention that he was one of the
original signatories of "A Call to Concern," a 1977 document
that expressed support for the Roe v. Wade decision and affirmed that
"abortion in some instances may be the most loving act possible."
If his view has changed, or if he sees this original stance as somehow
compatible with his current "consistent pro-life position,"
he does not say.
One may also get the impression that Stassen had previously supported
the president, but this is not the case. Stassen, for example, signed
an August 30, 2004 advertisement that appeared in the New York Times
on the eve of the GOP convention challenging the view that Christians
should support Bush. The striking similarity of Stassen's rhetoric ("Not
since Hoover has there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency,"
etc.) to that of the Kerry campaign also raises questions about whether
there was a predetermined outcome to this "investigation"
of abortion trends.
The data Stassen has trotted out, however, do not support his conclusion.
At this point, it is too early to determine a clear trend telling us
whether abortions have increased or decreased during the Bush administration.
Neither is it clear that Bush's policies were responsible for the economic
downturn experienced in 2001 and 2002. Does this mean that Bush can
now count on Stassen's vote.
