No One Left To Gloat To

Here is some good news on abortion:

Abortions Hit Lowest Number Since 1976

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.

Regular readers with a long memory will recall that we have been tweaking the "reality based" community on this topic since shortly after the 2004 election, when we finally took notice of an absurd Bush-bashing study that gained credence amongst the reality based.  John Kerry and Howard Dean were prominent Dems who promoted the fact-free notion that abortions rose under Bush; Nick Kristof of the Times  recycled and defended the nonsense; and amongst bloggers I especially noticed that Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum were casually recycling misinformation in pursuit of some other point.

The WaPo is describing a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute; the same group did an earlier study which had (I thought) settled this issue.

And do I have a larger point?  Sure - the left is not immune to the promotion of junk science that overlaps with their agenda.

Comments

[Rick Ballard]

TM,

Why not tie the news to the Reverse of the Medal, just to drive some lefty eco and econo-nihilists deeper into despair?

[clarice]

Well, they'll just shift gears and claim that because of the right wing clamp down on abortions, the poor education(especially sex ed) of the young and the general idiocy of fundamentalists and immigrants we are having more children and polluting the pristine earth. See how easy it is?

[Porchlight]

Having a "baby bump" is the hot new celebrity trend, so it wouldn't surprise me that the population boomlet isn't just among Hispanics.

Maybe it's just that I and many of my friends have had kids in the last few years, but there does seem to be a noticeable trend. For example, the number of baby boutiques, parenting websites, hipster baby name books, etc. has skyrocketed recently, and the market demographic for these things is decidedly hip/educated/upscale. (You would think no one ever had kids before, to read this stuff.)

[Jane]

I blame Bush!

[Rick Ballard]

"but there does seem to be a noticeable trend."

Porchlight,

It's a trend that tracks very well with people's feeling about their own economic circumstances rather than their phony "but the economy in general is bad" response to pollsters. It's not a crystal clear rebuttal of the efficacy of the eco/econo-nihilist propaganda due to the increase in the size of the women of child bearing age (16-36) cohort but it's still a good sign that the nihilists aren't gaining.

[Porchlight]

Rick, I hadn't thought of it that way before, but I believe you're correct. Especially among couples in their 30s, there seems to be strong feeling that "the timing is right" AND "we can afford it."

Now, to be sure, nearly all of my conscientious liberal friends have stopped at two kids - mostly because they "want to maintain a certain lifestyle," but "too lazy" and "not wanting to overpopulate" would be a close second and third. (The only families I know with more than two children have at least one parent voting Republican.)

So anyway, I consider it my civic duty to make it to three kids (we're 2/3 of the way there) and surpass replication rate. ;)

[anduril]

This story tracks well with the demographic bump story yesterday--which was actually out there for a while. In the demographic story the author noted that Americans have a different attitude toward kids than other countries: they like them. He then went on to say that America is probably the only country where, when the economy is doing well, couples say: why don't we have another baby?

[anduril]

Porchlight, I live in a pretty upscale community (I'm on the downscale side) which has one of the most liberal representatives in the country. Three kids nowadays seems to be the norm, and four is no longer uncommon. It wasn't too long ago that 1-2 seemed to be the norm. This has to say something about the economy over the past decade or two. But it also makes a cultural statement, IMO.

[Porchlight]

That's good to hear, anduril. We're in an urban area of small houses/small lots, so lack of space may be a factor keeping families a little smaller. It could be that people are having their first kid or two in the city, then moving out to the suburbs to have the rest.

[anduril]

Frankly, I think kids have become a bit of a status symbol again.

[Porchlight]

Frankly, I think kids have become a bit of a status symbol again.

With the designer clothes some of them are wearing, I can well believe it. And the gear - $1000 baby strollers are not a rare sight in the local Whole Paycheck, oops, Whole Foods.

[Pofarmer]

the left is not immune to the promotion of junk science that overlaps with their agenda.

Immune to it? It's practically their stock and trade.

[sbw]

At the risk of repeating from previous threads, The abortion question (Yes! No!) misrepresents the important issue that neither party seems willing to address: How shall society deal with unwanted children?

Freakonomics, in Chapter 5 teases out of the data that wantedness is the most significant factor in a child's success in school.

If society (parents, surrogates, government, etc) will address how to deal with unwanted children, the abortion issue becomes moot.

[Crunchy Frog]

Mickey Kaus has been harping on this for a while now - the trend actually goes back to 1996. What happened in 1996? Welfare reform.

The irony is, everyone said that if you stopped paying teenage girls to pop out more kids, the abortion rate would skyrocket. Instead, they stopped getting pregnant in the first place.

[Mike]

Immune? It's metastasized.

[Pofarmer]

If society (parents, surrogates, government, etc) will address how to deal with unwanted children,

How long of an adoption backlog is there? It's kind of hard to prove there are any unwanted children. There are children that are abused, and unwanted, and unloved by their parents(if they are both around) and others, but that's a whole seperate set of problems.

[sbw]

Pofarmer: There are children that are abused, and unwanted, and unloved by their parents(if they are both around) and others, but that's a whole seperate set of problems.

You may see it that way. I don't. Unwanted comes in many flavors, all with the same result.

[Pofarmer]

So, did these people think they wanted a child and decided that they didn't? Should abortion be legal till the kids 18?

[sbw]

Pofarmer, I'm sorry, but I haven't a clue what you are suggesting. I am suggesting that people who want to outlaw abortion had best propose an alternative that will give a baby the opportunity to grow up in a home where he or she is wanted.

To outlaw abortion and ignore the next 18-20 years of that child's life displays a certain myopia.

I don't mind changing Roe v. Wade, when the full consequences of outlawing abortion have been dealt with.

[kim]

I haven't a clue why the same result must follow, despite protean antecedents.
===============

[Mark]

OK, I guess I am confused too. I can't remember the last time I picked up a paper that it didn't have an ad in it for people wanting to adopt a baby. Because I'm such a cynic, I'll say this too. Do you think you couldn't get the potential parents to pay you to give up your kid. I was in the airport in Chicago, and we were all waiting on the plane to Hong Kong. The folks next to us were on their way to Shanghai to adopt a baby. Do you think they wouldn't have preferred to adopt closer to home?

[Jacknut]

I live in one of the most liberal parts of the country and we're awash in kids. It's awesome. At least around here, "three is the new two." And in all honesty, people that either only have 1 child or no children tend not to cite "overpopulation","the environment" or some other liberal trope. Most of them cite age, finances, physical condition or simply not wanting to have kids. I'm sure someone around here thinks that way, but I don't know who.

[tonynoboloney]

The law of diminishing returns. The post 70's women who had abortions had fewer children to teach that abortion was ok. the pro life mothers taught their children the value of life. Fewer abortions.

[Protagonist]

In the 1950s and 60s there were a ton of kids who were inculcated with memories of the 30s and 40s. It was a thinkable and palatable notion, even to the relatively well-to-do, that you could be so poor that you'd starve to death and have no home, or that world-war and misuse of technology could make the world a hellhole. So when they reached maturity in the 70s and 80s, the hedged their bets and had few kids.

Kids who've reached maturity now have lived in the 70s and 80s, with the background of the 50s and 60s. Throughout their collective memory, modern media and technology have made the world a fun place to live.

"Poverty" has become a nebulous concept, loosely conceptualized as "driving a used car and living in the cheap side of town" or "not getting any windfalls, but also not working too hard to find any", or sometimes more cynically as "too stupid, lazy or criminal to take care of one's own affairs". The idea of someone dying from being too poor is a scenario for another time in another place.

So why not have kids? Doing so is not going to ruin your life anymore. In fact, it may give some of us in our 20s some comfort to have someone around who can drown out all the old farts who still are convinced the f&%$ing world's coming to an end.

[Jenn M.]

I credit "Knocked Up" and "Juno." Popular culture rules...

[kim]

Having children is social security.
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[Diggs]

Are we at all sure this baby bump isn't entire based on the Spears sisters?

[Eric]

SBW, you're a little confused. There's a long waiting list for healthy newborns. In fact, if you're looking to adopt it's almost impossible to get one. Dealing with unwanted babies is not an issue.

Now, it's pretty easy to get a kid who's older, after the parents have already messed him up. But that's a different problem.

[ic]

You are talking about "reality based" such as reality TVs. Everyone knows how much "reality" in those TV shows. Now we have TRU TV which shows "actuality" not "reality". "Reality" was snatched by word snatchers and its meaning was replaced with its opposite. Another example of snatched word and its new meaning: "liberals" = reactionaries.

[IGiveUp]

"ATLANTA (AP) — Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years."

"Experts believe there is a mix of reasons: a decline in contraceptive use, a drop in access to abortion, poor education and poverty."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5il3MRchwbmuBgzYUPgNwvcBVK1wD8U6OU100

It is depressing how thouroughly successful their "long march through the institutions" has been.

[Park Slope PUbby]

I live in Park Slope, without a doubt one of the most liberal areas of Brooklyn, and that's saying a lot. Two observations: 1) most of the church-goers, even here, have three kids. I go to a relatively liberal church, but they still believe in God and they still have three kids. And 2) My kids are grown up now (in their 20's), and I wish I had more. Breed while you can, people. There are lots of rewards even though the early years are hard.
I'm so proud that Americans have more children than Europeans.

[sbw]

Eric: SBW, you're a little confused. There's a long waiting list for healthy newborns. In fact, if you're looking to adopt it's almost impossible to get one. Dealing with unwanted babies is not an issue.

Assuming a long list for newborns, there should have been no problem placing the 1.2 million whose Moms (and presumably some Dads) decided to take the permanent solution to the temporary problem. But there were 1.2m abortions. So the parent(s) to be and society still have some work to do.

Work to encourage the reduction of abortion by adoption is far more preferable to the current politics where one side of the issue tries to establish an edict against abortion that will drive the other side back into back alleys and criminal activity. It is also far more preferable than kids growing up in a home of minimal toleration, if that, instead of love. The broken souls teachers have to deal with are intolerable.

Wantedness is the issue, not the political position of a candidate for or against abortion. The candidates, the press, and the people fail to parse this issue wisely and well.

[kim]

Progeny secure a society more fundamentally even than government. You want it, you got it.
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[Dave]

"To outlaw abortion and ignore the next 18-20 years of that child's life displays a certain myopia."

"Wantedness is the issue,"

I guess we'll leave it up to the kid then to decide, or have the freedom to, to kill themselves. My guess is a good number will choose to stay alive whenever it is they find out they were not wanted, or that the first 18-20 years of their life was a little rougher than others.

[kim]

What is wanted is self-esteem. Fulfill that deficit and its all comin' up roses on that well-intentioned path. Promise.
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[Reno Sepulveda]

1.2 million dead babies. If they were baby seals there would be Hell to pay.

[Tim]

Regarding the goodness of the news, I don't consider 1.2 million abortions per year to be good news, and Instapundit's link citing "safe, legal and rare" well, 1.2 million is not rare enough to suit me.

[newscaper]

"Safe, legal and rare" always strikes me as two-faced BS from the pro-choicers, because they have *always* fought tooth and nail against any policy which might affect the rate, at least at the margin.

I think abortion needs to be available within limits, but clearly framed in terms of sometimes being the lesser of two evils (in a moral calculus that people can reasonably disagree about). However, the hardcore choice bunch sticks to the line, at every turn, that abortion is no biggie when it comes down to it,a s far as the embryo/fetus/baby is concerned. That of course eliminates any reason for abortion to be preferred to be "rare", even voluntarily.

[Teri]

To really promote adoption over abortion, you have to work to convince women that it's valuable to go ahead and finish out the pregnancy. Nine months is 1% of a 75-year lifespan; can we convince women that a new life is worth 1% of theirs?

I hope so.

[Kelly]

I have two kids. I'm much older than my two sisters.

One sister has 3 children 6 and under. She and her husband are solidly middle class. Her husband wants 5 kids, he may have to settle for the 3.

My other sister lives in an upscale suburb of Chicago, she has two children 3 and under. She'll probably have at least one more. Her friends have 2 and 3 children a piece all under the age of 5.

[Paul Zrimsek]

If demand for adoptions already outstrips supply, I'm damned if I know what more it is that we're supposed to be doing while we wait for the Wantedness Fairy to wave her magic wand.

[steveaz]

Taking Tonynoboloney's comment to the races:

This study should be a Wake-up Call to the Democrats. It demonstrates that the Dem's have underestimated the size of their "Pro-abortion" constituency.

(BTW: they did the same thing with Gun "control" thru the nineties. The Dem's anti-gun rhetoric was way out of proportion to the real size of the urban, anti-gun constituency. And now it appears their overreach has returned to bite them in the butt!)

This recalls my Feminista-friend's penchant for speaking for "all women" on the Abortion-topic, as in, "All womyn" [sic] want "Choice." This study concludes that, if by "Choice" feminists mean "Abortions," then these self-appointed spokespersons for the "Women's Movement" WILL need to re-calibrate their rhetoric to better match the real appeal that Abortion holds for America's women.

I'm just an American dude on the Western prairie, but my gut tells me most American gals don't pine for the "choice" to scrape their babies out of their wombs. Just sayin's all.

[Porchlight]

My observations about "stopping at two" are mostly from where I live (blue city, red state) and the experience of my college classmates, now all 38-39 and living in mostly blue states. But I'm very glad to hear that larger families are thriving elsewhere.

[Sue]

I absolutely detest the term "pro-choice". The correct term should be pro-abortion. If someone is pro-choice they would object to the government regulating their life...period. And it is usually the pro-choice crowd that is for removing soda machines from the school, telling restaurant and bar owners that they can't allow smoking, and the list goes on and on. With little objections from the pro-choice crowd.

[Sue]

Larger families were the norm pre-contraceptives. And, larger families gave you more workers on the farms. ::grin:: Once contraceptives were invented and family farms became extinct, the large families began to disappear.

[kim]

Who has demeaned the power inherent in bearing and rearing children?
===============

[sbw]

Sue: and family farms became extinct

Ah! Estate Tax policy -- when they value property at its highest potential use and it has to be sold to pay the taxes.

[Sue]

and it has to be sold to pay the taxes.

Uh...no...these farms that are extinct barely made enough to pay the property taxes, let alone estate taxes.

[IGiveUP]

Property taxes are based on some kind of percieved value somewhere. If they don't pay the property taxes as farms, then politicians have decided that the land will not be used as a farm, intentionally or no. Liberals always look at intentions, seldom results.

As for wantedness. I am the youngest of nine children born into a family that really couldn't afford me.

--Signed Happy to be alive.

[Gino]

"the left is not immune to the promotion of junk science that overlaps with their agenda."

This is unsurprising to anyone following the gun control debate.

[submandave]

SBW: It seems to me you are mixing issues.

You use the assesment that "wantedness" is a deciding factor in school performance as ammunition to prove that abortion is a necessary option without answering the larger question of if not being wanted is indeed justification for removal from existence. Wanted by whom? Should the statistically poor state of the average "unwanted" child be sufficient grounds for the extermination of those who would otherwise have risen above their circumstances to achieve great things?

I agree that what Eric and others address as the shortage of adoptable infants and young children can, in part, be dealt with on a societal level, and has been addressed by the federal government (e.g. the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 signed by Pres. Bush 12/2/03). What you seem to be asking for, however, is a way for society to change the thinking of the birth parents, something that historically has been extremely difficult if not impossible for a variety of reasons. How to change the mind of a woman who choose to have an abortion to avoid being pregnant or to stay competitive at her job? Not to mention those who may not have a problem being a mother later (when it would apparently be more "convenient") but are unwilling to have another person raise "their" child. Or, more likely, those whose thought patterms concerning cause and effect, action and consequence are not as well developed as the average blog reader and proceed through preganancy and into parenthood with narry a though about how it's all going to work out.

I do believe more might be done in the area of addressing those who through actions of abuse or neglect demonstrate the "unwantedness" of their children, but this, too, has its pitfalls. One obvious step is to abandon the ridiculous idea that a child is always best placed with its natural mother, a premise that is too regularly demonstrated to be false and have more effective mechanisms to permanantly sever these negative influences as early in the child's life as possible. Unfortunately, though, such decissions would potentially be subject to suspect motives on behalf og those making them. For example, based only upon statistics concerning poverty, crime, single parents, environment and parental involvement one could make an argument for the removal of a significant percentage of black children and allowing them to be adopted into more advantageous familial situations. But would this be socially responsible?

These are heavy questions, but I heartilly disagree that "unwantedness" is as important to the issue as you seem to think. I see the central question is under which conditions and circumstances is the mother's right/desire to free her body of the child more important than that child's right to live. We can all come up with dozens of cases where this question is quite contentious (rape, incest, health, etc.), but I also think there are just as many cases where it is less so ("I don't want to get fat", etc.).

[IGiveUP]

Submandave,
Your problem is you think about these issues when the issue only requires that you answer in such a way as to affirm your membership in the group of cool kids. In order to be one of the cool kids, you only have to drink the kool-aid.

I will not go into my private childhood except to say that it is likely that the good hearted liberals on this thread who are so concerned with the welfare of children would likely have had me aborted, along with other siblings, had they known what was in store for us. Guess what? Behavioral therapy works, drugs work, and one can get past one's childhood and be grateful for a place in the Universe. I am, and those big hearted liberals can go to hell.

[Sue]

The human race will handle unwanted children just like they've handled it since becoming "civilized and smarter"...they'll ignore them except for the politicians every 2-4 years. Nothing's changed. Everything is still the same.

[Steve M]

So, I wonder, what happens after the abortion debate ends (if it ever does), and the pro-life side emerges triumphant? The Post article suggests that the use of contraceptives and the 'morning after' pill could be contributors to the decline in abortions. This suggests to me that the loudest on the pro-life side who occasionally suggest that contraception is just as bad as abortion need to reconsider that position. Readily available contraception is boon, I think, and allows families to wait until they are ready financially and emotionally until they are ready. But thats just what I think.

[myracle]

Let someone whose been there speak....Really want to know why abortion is better? Lets start with 9 months of pregnancy; weight gain, swelling, lower back and pelvic pain, splitting from asshole to assend or a nice long incision and to top it off your man splits ( if you doubt that check the welfare role statistics; 95% women and children in US) Then the baby arrives and Guess what one job and two don't even begin to cover the bills LA La LA now women and children become subjected to the constitutional violations of the welfare system that tells them who they can have live in their home and where and when they are too work and ANY job so long as they secure the job quickly If you are disabled too bad!! if yoy can't find daycare or evening care too bad, If you need foodstamps because you don't make enough to feed your child tooo bad..the same rules apply. You might be thinking well where's dad. SO Long Sucka because the USA is the greastest country in the world for deadbeat dads I', 41 and my dad still hasn't paid his child support. My son's 22 and he is just now getting 25$ a month in child support. What wonderful prospects await the women who choose to have their babies. Ever seen a white couple wish to adopt an african american or biracial baby or a teen. Bloggers get real you don't know the deal!!! till you.ve been there. I fought back and took the stste of Ks to court with no lawyer...but I am the rare single mother with children that had the presence of mind to do so and I am disabled. Sue was right..It's great cosmentics for a politician to preach but the numbers don't lie and by God let me know when a Man becomes a Woman then I will listen to his crap!!!!

[kim]

To your choices, myracle, l'Chaim.
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