Want to End Abortion? Vote Democratic!

[berni_mccoy]

Abortion Statistics Not Tracked During the Bush Administration

It's plain to anyone who searches for abortion statistics that the federal government stopped tracking this information in 2001 (http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_Stats/index.... ). There is only one reason for the Bush Administration not to track this data: they won't like the answer, or better yet, their voters and political base won't like the answer.

The plain and simple fact is that abortion rates rise among the poor (source: Washington Post, May 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20... ). And it makes sense. A woman living in poverty can barely feed herself, can't get medical coverage and can't afford doctor visits and hospitals.



The vast majority of abortions, especially among the poor are, are with girls 19 years and younger. And to the cause of an unwanted pregnancy? Lack of education, lack of access to birth control, those that would take advantage of a poor, young woman, and other causes that come about from living in poverty. What these poor woman do (still) have access to is free abortions. That is the only real option they perceive given their economic situation.

The plain and simple truth is that as poverty was on the decline during the Clinton Administration, so too was abortion. As we see in the chart below, abortion was on decline when our economy was booming, poverty was declining, and a pro-choice Democratic President was in charge.



And if the anti-choice voters could see where abortion really is today, they would see it was in a steep climb, despite all the empty rhetoric from the administration and republican congressmen. The fact is there are over 7 million more people in poverty today than when Bush took office (see chart below).


If there were fewer people in poverty, they had access to free medical care, and we actually did something to educate our population, then abortion would drop to levels never before seen in this country. And there is only one way to get there and it isn't through creating unenforceable laws that punish the poor. It's by initiating Democratically sponsored programs that will return us to the days of economic success, offer the state-of-the-art medical care to all, for free, and help the education system achieve its goals, not punish them when they are without the means to achieve them. If the anti-choicers, anti-abortionists or, as they like to call themselves, pro-lifers, really want to put an end to abortion, it will be through electing a Democratic Congress. And if they insist on calling themselves pro-lifers, they'll get one additional point of karma for doing so: they'll elect a Congress that won't allow Bush to go on murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of U.S. soldiers and that will put an end to the inhumane torture of prisoners.