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Pro-life backlash against abortion in Mexico, South Korea and China

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Mexico

Story from the Philadelphia Inquirer. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Abortion-rights activists dreamed of legislative victories across Mexico after its Supreme Court last year upheld a Mexico City law allowing abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Instead, the opposite has happened. In state after state, antiabortion forces have won changes to local constitutions declaring that life begins at conception and explicitly granting legal rights to the unborn. In all, 17 state legislatures have approved such measures, often with minimal debate, since the August 2008 court decision validating Mexico City’s law. The Gulf Coast state of Veracruz in November became the latest state to do so. Its measure also called on the Mexican Congress to consider a similar amendment to the nation’s constitution.

[…]After the Mexico City rule was approved, lawmakers in many states “began to debate it and concluded that abortion goes against the rights of the person, against the woman,” said Jorge Serrano Limon, who leads an antiabortion group called Pro Vida.

The drive for stricter abortion laws has featured the Roman Catholic Church and the National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon. The party, known as the PAN, has a strong religious tilt and favors conservative social policies.

I’m a strong supporter of Felipe Calderon, especially his strong opposition to criminal gangs and unions. Good behavior doesn’t just “happen”, government needs to make sure that no law that is passed discourages people from working hard, following the rules and attending to their own families and communities.

South Korea

Story from Bio Edge. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For perhaps the first time, South Korea is debating abortion, to the great discomfiture of its gynaecologists. Unlike the US and other Western countries, abortion has not been framed as a moral issue in Korea, despite the growing number of Christians. And with a vigorous government campaign to reduce the birth rate, the number of abortions annually is about 340,000. Yet paradoxically, nearly all of them are technically illegal. Abortion is only permitted when the mother’s health is in serious danger, or in cases of rape, incest or severe hereditary disorders. All abortion over 24 weeks are illegal.

The problem is that the government’s campaign has been too successful. Liberal attitudes towards abortion have helped the South Korean birth rate to plunge to 1.19 children per woman. Now the government is desperate to boost it, lest the rapidly ageing population drag down the economy. President Lee Myung-bak has called for “bold” steps to increase the nation’s birthrate. Amongst these, apparently, is a crack-down on illegal abortions. “Even if we don’t intend to hold anyone accountable for all those illegal abortions in the past, we must crack down on them from now on,” the minister for health, welfare and family affairs, Jeon Jae-hee, told the New York Times.

The government is even sponsoring public service announcements and billboards. “With abortion, you are aborting the future,” says one of them.

Totally apart from the moral argument against abortion, there is a prudential argument that has more force the more the state forces retired people to depend on younger workers for pensions and/or health care benefits.

China

Story from the UK Telegraph. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

More than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, with sex-specific abortions a major factor.

A study by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences named the gender imbalance among newborns as the most serious demographic problem for the country’s population of 1.3 billion.

“Sex-specific abortions remained extremely commonplace, especially in rural areas,” where the cultural preference for boys over girls is strongest, the study said, noting the reasons for the gender imbalance were “complex”.

[…]The study said the key contributing factors to the phenomenon included the nation’s family-planning policy, which restricts the number of children citizens may have, as well as an insufficient social security system.

The situation influenced people to seek male offspring, who are preferred for their greater earning potential as adults and thus their ability to care for their elderly parents.

The Global Times said abductions and trafficking of women were “rampant” in areas with excess numbers of men, citing the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Illegal marriages and forced prostitution were also problems in those areas, it said.

More on this story here from LifeSiteNews. (H/T Andrew)

News

Indian auto sales surge 71.9% while free trade vaults Chile into the first world

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Map of India
Map of India

Before, I wrote about India’s election results and the decision of the ruling Congress Party to drastically cut income taxes. And I also wrote about China’s decision to cut taxes on purchases of new automobiles. So did those tax cuts work out for India and China?

Story from the Associated Press

Excerpt:

China extended its lead over the U.S. as the world’s biggest auto market in November, with production and sales both surpassing 1 million vehicles, and India saw sales jump 71.9-percent.

[…]China’s auto market is sizzling, thanks largely to tax cuts and subsidies aimed at supporting the industry and encouraging use of more fuel-efficient vehicles. The boom has clinched China’s status as the world’s biggest vehicle market due to languishing sales in the U.S.

[…]The surge is also a sign of how the Indian consumer — encouraged by government tax cuts, a big disbursement of back pay for government employees and falling interest rates — is fueling economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

As everyone knows, the Democrats chose to bail out auto companies with taxpayer money and reward people with taxpayer money for destroying fully functional vehicles. And we all know how well that has worked out.

Chile poised to jump from the third world to the first world

Check out this editorial from Investors Business Daily. (podcast here)

Excerpt:

Chile is expected to win entry to OECD’s club of developed countries by Dec. 15 — a great affirmation for a once-poor nation that pulled itself up by trusting markets. One thing that stands out here is free trade.

[…]It’s not like Chile was born lucky. Only 30 years ago, it was an impoverished country with per capita GDP of $1,300. Its distant geography, irresponsible neighbors and tiny population were significant obstacles to investment and growth. And its economy, dominated by labor unions, wasn’t just closed, but sealed tight.

In the Cato Institute’s 1975 Economic Freedom of the World Report it ranked a wretched 71 out of 72 countries evaluated.

Today it’s a different country altogether. Embracing markets has made it one of the most open economies in the world, ranking third on Cato’s index, just behind Hong Kong and Singapore. Per capita GDP has soared to $15,000.

Besides its embrace of free trade, other reforms — including pension privatization, tax cuts, respect for property rights and cutting of red tape helped the country grow not only richer but more democratic, says Cato Institute trade expert Daniel Griswold.

But the main thing, Griswold says, is that the country didn’t shift course. “Chile’s economy is set apart from its neighbors, because they have pursued market policies consistently over a long period,” he said. “Free trade has been a central part of Chile’s success.”

Democrats oppose free trade, and their hostility to free trade angers many other countries in the world.

What does it take for a country to succeed?

I gave my Dad my copy of “Money, Greed and God” by Jay Richards, and although he thought that it started out slow, he’s warmed up to it. He calls me on the phone at least twice a day, and last night he alerted me to this web site, where you can track each countries average citizen’s life span and per-capita GDP over time. My Dad was pretty liberal on economics before, so naturally I’ve been working on him with lots of introductory books on economics. He’s read about a dozen now, and Thomas Sowell is his favorite.

Anyway, my Dad says that this is what a country needs to succeed:

  • free trade with other nations
  • the rule of law
  • low judicial activism
  • low tax rates
  • private property protections
  • currency not threatened by inflation
  • low government spending
  • minimal regulation of commerce

And at that web site, you can track the success of countries like Singapore and Hong Kong, which embrace conservative small government free market fiscal policies, and compare them with countries like Zimbabwe and North Korea, which embrace big government protectionist fiscal policies. Countries fail because they adopt the wrong policies. They succeed when they adopt the right policies. It doesn’t matter how poor they start, if they have the right policies, they grow rich over time.

Why are the Democrats so incompetent on economic policy?

Well, it’s because there is almost no one in the Obama socialist regime who has ever run a business or worked in a business. Check out this graphic. (H/T Flopping Aces)

You can read more about the Obama administration’s ignorance of business and economics here in Forbes magazine.

This Reuters article discusses the price of economic ignorance: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Excerpt:

Hunger is spreading while the number of homeless families is increasing as a result of the recession and other factors, according to a report on Tuesday.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors said cities reported a 26 percent jump in demand for hunger assistance over the past year, the largest average increase since 1991.

Middle-class families as well as the uninsured, elderly, working poor and homeless increasingly looked for help with hunger, which was mainly fueled by unemployment, high housing costs and low wages.

Democrats really don’t know what they are doing. It’s like putting pre-schoolers in charge of Amazon.com. It doesn’t work. Their ivory tower, silver-spoon worldview cannot comprehend real-world, grown-up complexities. So long as the Democrats continue to attack the businesses that employ citizens while redistributing wealth from people who produce to people who vote Democrat, our economic troubles will continue.

Related Cato Institute podcasts

News

What will the Copenhagen conference mean to ordinary Americans?

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Article from Forbes magazine. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

Whatever the results of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, one thing is for sure: Draconian reductions on carbon emissions will be tacitly accepted by the most developed economies and sloughed off by many developing ones. In essence, emerging economies get to cut their “carbon” intensity–a natural product of their economic evolution–while we get to cut our throats.

[…]Our leaders will dutifully accept cuts in our carbon emissions–up to 80% by 2050–while developing countries increasetheirs, albeit at a lower rate. Oh, we also pledge to send billions in aid to help them achieve this goal.The media shills, scientists, bureaucrats and corporate rent-seekers gathered at Copenhagen won’t give much thought to what this means to the industrialized world’s middle and working class. For many of them the new carbon regime means a gradual decline in living standards. Huge increases in energy costs, taxes and a spate of regulatory mandates will restrict their access to everything from single-family housing and personal mobility to employment in carbon-intensive industries like construction, manufacturing, warehousing and agriculture.

You can get a glimpse of this future in high-unemployment California. Here a burgeoning regulatory regime tied to global warming threatens to turn the state into a total “no go” economic development zone. Not only do companies have to deal with high taxes, cascading energy prices and regulations, they now face audits of their impact on global warming. Far easier to move your project to Texas–or if necessary, China.

Now consider this Wall Street Journal article regarding the EPA decision to call carbon dioxide a threat to public health.

Excerpt:

An endangerment finding would allow the EPA to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which are produced whenever fossil fuel is burned. Under that law, the EPA could require emitters of as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year to install new technology to curb their emissions starting as soon as 2012.

The EPA has said it will only require permits from big emitters — facilities that put out 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. But that effort to tailor the regulations to avoid slamming small businesses with new costs is expected to be challenged in court.

Legislators are aware that polls show the public appetite for action that would raise energy prices to protect the environment has fallen precipitously amid the recession.

Congressional legislation also faces plenty of U.S. industry opposition. Under the legislation, which has been passed by the House but is now stuck in the Senate, the federal government would set a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas the economy could emit every year. The government would distribute a set number of emission permits to various industries. Companies that wanted to be able to emit more than their quota could buy extra permits from those that had figured out how to emit less.

Proponents of the cap-and-trade approach say emission-permit trading will encourage industries to find the least-expensive ways to curb greenhouse-gas output. But opponents say it will saddle key industries with high costs not borne by rivals in China or India, and potentially cost the U.S. jobs.

There will be an economic impact on ordinary Americans from the Democrats trying to “do something” about global warming. The economic impact will not be felt primarily by liberal elites in government.