In my previous post I argued that there is nothing wrong with considering the social consequences of abortion despite the fact that the fundamental issue concerns the rights of individual human beings. Let me now put on my political scientist helmet and point out something encouraging about the issue in American politics. The Democratic Party is monolithically pro-choice on abortion. The Republican Party is largely pro-life, though the current lead of Rudy Giuliani in the presidential race suggests that that position if negotiable. What is interesting is that both sides are clearly acting against their political interests in taking this position.
Here are some fascinating facts from the Statistical Abstract of the United States. In 1972, just before Roe, there were 184 abortions per every thousand live births in the U.S. In the decade between 78 and 88 the number was more than 400 abortions per thousand births-almost one in three. The number dropped to 324 by 2000. This has had a significant effect on population growth.
But the abortion rate is not even across demographic groups. The abortion rate for Black women "and other" in 1972 was modestly larger than that for White women (175 vs. 223/1000 live births). By 1975 the ratio for Black and other had jumped to twice the rate of White women (276 v.565/1000 live births). That disproportion continued and in fact increased up to 2000, the last year for which my copy has statistics. In 2000 there were 230 abortions per 1000 live births to White women, and 676 abortions per thousand live births among Black and other women. Now I think there is something of a scandal here. But the facts are clear: every year from Roe to 2000, abortion took dramatically larger cuts out of the potential population of Black Americans. No KKK genius could have imagined a more effective device for reducing the number of black faces he had to bump into.
Black Americans are the most reliably Democratic of all voting blocks. They vote, when they vote, about nine to one for Democrats. Were it not for Roe v. Wade and universally legal abortion, Black Americans would constitute a much larger percentage of the population. To be sure, not all of those aborted pregnancies would have produced a Democratic voter. But to be equally sure, they would have produced enough to make a big difference. There is no way that George W. would have gained office in 2000 or been re-elected in 2004 without the abortion effect.
If the two parties pursued interest rather than principle, the Democrats would oppose abortion and the Republicans would be pro-choice champions. In fact, both chose principle. The pro-choice principle resulted in the facts I have described. The pro-life principle would have prevented this. But whatever you think the right principle is, it is important to know that human beings can choose principle over interests.
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