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News

New study shows how taxpayer-funding increases number of abortions

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From Life Site News.
Excerpt:

A major pro-life group is responding to the study released by a pro-abortion organization saying abortion rates have fallen for women as a whole but increased for women below the poverty line. The National Right to Life Committee blames taxpayer funding.

As LifeNews reported, the new study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology indicates the abortion rate has decreased in the United States — good news because it means more pregnant women are opting against having an abortion. However, the report presents news that should spark a drive to help more women below the poverty level find pregnancy resources and support because it indicates poor women are having abortions at a higher rate than before.

The new report was published by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group formerly affiliated with the Planned Parenthood abortion business. According to Guttmacher, poor women accounted for 42% of all abortions in 2008, and their abortion rate increased 18% between 2000 and 2008, from 44.4 to 52.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44. In comparison, the national abortion rate for 2008 was 19.6 per 1,000, reflecting an 8% decline from a rate of 21.3 in 2000.

NRLC officials disputed Guttmacher’s claims that restrictions on abortion “disproportionately affect” poor women.

“Data showing an eight percent drop in abortion rates across the board from 2000 to 2008 are encouraging,” said Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., National Right to Life director of education and research.

“Guttmacher suggests that higher abortion rates among poorer woman and abortion restrictions are somehow connected, yet it’s a thesis that goes undefended,” O’Bannon further noted.  “How common sense regulations like right-to-know laws, which tell women about abortion’s risks and alternatives which are better for both them and their unborn children, and similar protective measures, are supposed to hurt poor women is hard to fathom.”

The researcher says the overall downward trend seems to indicate that such laws, along with the assistance provided by pregnancy care centers, which provide lifesaving alternatives to abortion, are enabling more women to choose life for their unborn child. However, several states – California, New York and at least a dozen others – publicly fund abortion for poor women with taxpayer money, which O’Bannon blames for increasing the abortion rates for poor women receiving the free or reduced-cost abortions.

“While the abortion industry saw declines among most demographic groups, it just happened to see growth among women for whom states were covering abortion costs,” observed O’Bannon. “The fact is, when tax dollars pay for abortion, you get more abortion.”

[…]O’Bannon noted: “The abortion industry likes to argue that high abortion rates are due to insufficient government funding for ‘family planning,’ but the record seems at odds with that assertion.  As abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood has received hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year, abortions at their facilities have steadily increased at rates that very nearly match their increases in government funding.”

I really like when pro-lifers have thought about abortion as an economic problem, and are willing to embrace (in part) economic solutions. I know a lot of pro-lifers who will accept nothing less than a full ban on all abortions right now today. They do not understand incremental measures. The same pro-lifers who do not understand incremental pro-life policies usually don’t understand pro-life arguments either. They just haven’t thought about the issue as a problem to solve, but only as a hard-line pose to impress their friends.

These uninformed pro-lifers do not want to think about the causes of abortion, nor about the incentives to abort, nor about incremental measures that will reduce the number of abortions, such as parental notification laws, mandatory sonograms or waiting periods. Pro-life legislators can only legislate based on what the public opinion will support (and maybe a little bit over that line). In the meantime, there is a battle for public opinion that needs to be waged by each individual pro-lifer with his neighbors, using arguments and evidence that are convincing to the non-pro-life person (i.e. – not “The Bible says” or “The Pope says”, but “the statistics show” or “the science shows”).

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News

Jay Richards asks: what should Christians believe about global warming?

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From Boundless.

Excerpt:

The big environmental issue nowadays is global warming. Anyone who watches or reads the news even occasionally has been told that humans are causing global warming through all the fossil fuels we’re burning. They’ve also been told that this warming process eventually will prove catastrophic if we don’t reverse course as soon as possible.

As thinking Christians and good stewards, how should we respond?

The short answer is, we should respond thoughtfully. Thoughtless stewards are rarely good stewards.

Notice that my brief summary of the global warming controversy bundled together several distinct claims. To think clearly about this issue, we have to tease apart this bundle of claims and consider each one. For each claim, there is a corresponding question we need to answer. And it’s only after answering these questions that we can be in a position to determine what, if anything, we ought to do about global warming.

Here are the four central questions:

  1. Is the earth warming?
  2. If the earth is warming, is human activity (like carbon dioxide emissions) causing it?
  3. If the earth is warming, and we’re causing it, is that bad overall?
  4. If the earth is warming, we’re causing it, and that’s bad, would any of the proposed “solutions” (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol, legislative restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions) make any difference?

If you like this article, you download a video of a lecture on this same topic, or listen to the audio from the lecture. The lecture was delivered at the University of California, Davis.

Videos

Paul Ryan responds to his critics on Medicare reform

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Here’s an article from the liberal Washington Post that quotes Ryan explaining why he made the video.

Excerpt:

We can no longer let politicians in Washington deny the danger to Medicare – the danger is all too real, and the health of our nation’s seniors is far too important. We have to save Medicare to avoid disruptions in benefits for current seniors, and to strengthen the program for future generations. House Republicans have put forward a plan to do just that. Democratic leaders in Congress have failed to produce a plan – it has been 755 days since Senate Democrats even passed a budget. Meanwhile, the President’s plan would empower a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats to cut Medicare for current seniors, while failing to save the program for future retirees.

This video lays out the clear choice our nation faces on Medicare: Will Medicare become a program in which a board of bureaucrats manages its bankruptcy by denying care to seniors? Or will leaders work together to save and strengthen Medicare by empowering seniors to choose health care plans that work best for them, with less support for the wealthy and more help for the poor and the sick? House Republicans have advanced solutions to save Medicare. Instead of working with us, the leaders of the Democratic Party have opted to play politics with the health security of America’s seniors.

It’s probably the best video I’ve ever seen to explain the benefits of consumer-driven health care, as opposed to government-run rationing of health care by a board of unelected elites. Either we choose Paul Ryan’s plan or we pay our money and then wait in line for health care that someone else will approve, or not.

UPDATE: New video from Jennifer Rubin’s latest column:

I agree with him.