Republican Nightmares, Our Reality
Last night in a local pub quiz there was a true or false question: according to a recent study, who has more nightmares, Democrats or Republicans? My liberal friends all immediately wanted to write down Democrats, for reasons mostly dealing with how the country is currently governed. Makes sense: Bush is a nightmare for Democrats, right? However, I insisted that we put down Republicans, and I was right. My reasoning was that for many Republicans, much of their worldview is based on psychological drama, projection, and fear rather than reality. Exit polls show that Bush voters are far more concerned about terrorism than Kerry voters, even though the attacks that made them afraid occurred in that bastion of the liberal elite: New York City (and Northern Virginia isn't exactly anti-Democrat). Conservatives are the ones supposedly worried about a decline in marriage, even though red states have much higher divorce rates than blue states (MA has the lowest divorce rate of all!) Conservatives are the ones who supposedly are trying to stop teen pregnancy, even though red states have much higher rates of teen pregnancy than blue states. Conservatives are the ones who flee cities for suburbs, and eventually suburbs for exurbs, because they fear crime. By contrast, when cities are looking to rebuild neighborhoods, they seek artists, bohemians, young people and, in short, liberals to do so.
And conservatives like Bush are the ones who supposedly worry about increases in abortion, even though abortions have increased under anti-life Bush:
I look at the fruits of political policies more than words. I analyzed the data on abortion during the George W. Bush presidency. There is no single source for this information - federal reports go only to 2000, and many states do not report - but I found enough data to identify trends. My findings are counterintuitive and disturbing.
Democrats are actually the best of both worlds. If you want to support reproductive rights, vote Democrat. Also, if you want to reduce abortions, once again you should vote Democrat. Abortions tend to increase under conservative "pro-life" administrations because conservatives, who are the majority of the population that would call themselves "pro-life," enact social and economic policies that result in more abortions. Of course, as Thomas Frank points out, so called "values voters" could not possibly care less if Bush and other conservatives actually deliver on their promises to restore "morality." Republicans could control the entire country, the abortion rate could increase ten fold under their rule, and "values voters" will still probably vote for conservatives in order to "stop abortion." Reality has nothing to do with the worldview of a faith-based voter. They have nightmares about abortions, but they don't seem to care if they actually increase real abortions.Abortion was decreasing. When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute's studies).
Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.
I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).
Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.
Another example of this is the shocking rise in infant mortality in the United States under Bush:
Here's a wrenching fact: If the U.S. had an infant mortality rate as good as Cuba's, we would save an additional 2,212 American babies a year.
There are lots of progressive and liberal pro-lifers, including my father. The difference between my liberal pro-life father and conservative anti-choice, anti-life politicians such as Bush is that my father is actually pro-life: supportive of child health care, opposed to the death penalty, opposed to the war in Iraq, and in favor of social programs that reduce abortions. By contrast, Bush fosters a culture of death at almost every turn, both at home and worldwide. Infant mortality in the United States surpasses that of Cuba under Bush, and he is still considered "pro-life" by many of this followers.Yes, Cuba's. Babies are less likely to survive in America, with a health care system that we think is the best in the world, than in impoverished and autocratic Cuba. According to the latest C.I.A. World Factbook, Cuba is one of 41 countries that have better infant mortality rates than the U.S.
Even more troubling, the rate in the U.S. has worsened recently.
In every year since 1958, America's infant mortality rate improved, or at least held steady. But in 2002, it got worse: 7 babies died for each thousand live births, while that rate was 6.8 deaths the year before.
Those numbers, buried in a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, didn't get much attention. But they are part of a pattern of recent statistics dribbling out of the federal government suggesting that for those on the bottom in America, life in our new Gilded Age is getting crueler.
Republicans have more nightmares than Democrats, largely because Republicans have a difficult time facing reality. The problem is that their nightmares have become our reality.
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