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Give Up Blog - for scientists like these!
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Maps and Figures "Hitler or Coulter?" QuizMap1 - Teen Pregnancy Map2 - Incarceration Map3 - Homicide Rates Map4 - Drop-out Rates Map5 - Bankruptcy Rates Map6 - Driving Distances Map7 - Energy Use Map8 - Gonorrhea! Map9 - Tax Burden Map10 - State GDP Map11 - DHS funding Map12 - Adult Illiteracy. Map13 - Abortion Bans: Map14 - ER Quality Map15 - Hospital Quality Map16 - Coal Burners Map 17 - Infant Mortality Map 18 - Toxic Waste Map 19 - Obesity Map 20 - Poverty Map 21 - Occupational safety Map 22 - Traffic deaths Map 23 - Divorce Figure 1 - Wages vs Right to work Figure 2 - Unemployment vs Right to work Give Up Shopping guide  
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Good Ol' Harry
So, the Washington Post reports that Harriet Miers has discounted reports she would overturn Roe. They write:
Trying to woo senators who will determine whether she is confirmed for the court, Miers aided the White House as it scrambled yesterday to quell controversy over a published report that two Texas judges said she opposes the 1973 decision that affirmed the right to an abortion in all 50 states. "She said, 'No one knows how I would rule on Roe v. Wade ,' " Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after their private meeting. No one knows? How about you lady? Anyway, despite the ostensibly reassuring news that she's still playing coy on Roe, an even more disturbing, but more subtle revelation follows: Meanwhile, Schumer said that he had asked Miers whether she believes Griswold is "settled law," and that "she said she was not ready to give an answer on that." Now, Griswold vs. Connecticut if anything is a more significant ruling than Roe considering it was the decision that established the right of women to use birth control on the basis of personal privacy. So, we don't know if she'll overturn Roe or even if she'll support Griswold! Not that it matters anyway, since there is still enough sanity on the court that it is unlikely anyone but Scalia would join her in a challenge to Griswold in the unlikely event a challenge would even come before the court. Now in terms of Giving Up. Three things are of note. 1. If Roe were overturned abortion would still be legal in 17 states and most of the Blue states that still have antiquated laws would quickly legislate a cure. 2. The whole idea that the Supreme court originally was acting anti-democratic in establishing a right to abortion is absurd, as at the time there was national disapproval of the abortion ban because it was only a socio-economic ban. Women could still obtain abortions if they had enough cash to say, fly to New York (which provided 1 million abortions a year, almost as many as are performed across the country nowadays). 3. This map, which shows that once again, the red states are just screwing themselves with this, and will just have to learn, again, the hard way.  Menacker F, Martin JA, MacDorman MF, Ventura SJ. Births to 10-14 year-old mothers, 1990-2002: Trends and health outcomes. National vital statistics reports; vol 53 no 7. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2004. |
15 Comments:
I'm curious about your first point. Even if abortion would still be legal in 17 states, wouldn't overturning R v W open the door for a big fat federal ban?
--Jeff
10:42 AM, October 18, 2005
That's a good point, but I don't think the federal congress is so stupid as to really go after abortion in any serious way. Abortion as an issue is a bit of a paper tiger. Given the chance to actually do something about it (like when you control all three branches) they continually back off and ignore their base because abortion is the best issue they've ever had. Why would they fix it? Republicans are smart, except for the fundies they know a real ban on abortion would be the end of their party.
Even with a total federal ban the wealthy might have to go all the way to Canada. But it still won't prevent a majority of abortions or illegal abortion. It also will be the end of the Republican party as all the soccer mom's who've been voting for security suddenly realize that their right to medical privacy really is at risk, and never vote Republican again. That's the point of Give Up. No matter what, they just can't win when their ideology is fundamentally flawed.
11:09 AM, October 18, 2005
A federal ban would be awesome!
It would--
(a) put to death the notion that Republicans are states' righters.
(b) make all the abortion related stories about little girls dying in back alleys. Bring out the coat hangers!
(c) be immediately subject to about 10,000 lawsuits challenging Congress' constitutional ability to pass such legislation over the states' heads. I smell a Federalism brawl!
Abortion only remains a good issue for the Republicans if they never win. If they win, then they've just handed all the cards to the pro-choice faction. They may chip away slightly at the rights of minors, or certain types of abortion, in order to appease their base but an all-out ban would be their death knell.
11:19 AM, October 18, 2005
You sir, understand the philosophy of Giving up.
I salute you
11:37 AM, October 18, 2005
First of all, overturning Roe would not result in a federal ban on abortion. It would return abortion regulation to the states, most of which would allow abortion in some manner. So any claim that overturning Roe would a be a blow to states' rights is rather strange.
Second, the relevance of the map to Roe isn't self-evident. The map is based on rates of LIVE BIRTH--not abortion--to 10-14-year-old girls. Perhaps what the map is telling us is that pregnant girls in those states are less likely to abort than in other states. It's not at all clear that the red states would be somehow "screwed" if Roe were overturned.
12:32 PM, December 04, 2005
Our latest poster is missing the point.
First, we are not saying this would be a blow to states rights, we are saying that states rights will ensure abortion rights will be maintained in blue states.
Second, this is not supposed to be a map of abortion, it is showing where in the country the young girls are getting knocked up. These are the girls that are going to be most desperate while lacking the resources to travel to a blue state with legal abortion.
A map of abortion would follow a different pattern, with rates highest mostly in Blue states.
You and I actually agree with eachother, I don't know how you managed to misread the post so, I'll go back and try to figure out what is confusing.
5:58 PM, January 26, 2006
Like most good progressives I hate the idea of a ban on abortion mainly because of what your map shows. We already have millions of poor ignorant Mexicans streaming in and it's only right that the poor ignorant Negroes and White Trash in the South keep killing themselves off. Our national average IQ must be maintained.
5:43 PM, June 23, 2006
Nice try anon.
We can always spot a conservative pretending to ascribe racism to progressives.
Sorry, but racism is the skeleton in the conservative closet, not the liberal one (our skeleton is oral sex with interns).
12:51 AM, June 26, 2006
Rev. Dr., I think it was you who missed Anon's point (12:32 PM, December 04, 2005 post). The map does not show rates of "getting knocked up." It shows, "Births to 10-14 year-old mothers", as in those who chose NOT to abort and therefore would not be affected by abortion rights one way or the other. Conceptions ending in abortion (and still births, etc) are not included. Therefore, it does not show actual pregnancy/conception rates or, as you so eloquently put it, "getting knocked up." You even admitted that abortion rates would probably be higher in blue states. Therefore, a blow to abortion rights would hurt the blue states. And a map showing rates of getting knocked up would have to add (among other things) abortions, which you admitted were higher in blue states, to the birth rate.
As to his first issue, you replied that, "we are not saying this would be a blow to states rights." However, Jeff posted, "wouldn't overturning R v W open the door for a big fat federal ban?" A previous Anon said, "A federal ban would be awesome!" So I presume what you mean is, "I am not saying this would be a blow to states rights." That would be true, but it also would not change his comment that it would in fact increase state power, something you have not specifically stated.
9:35 AM, June 26, 2006
That is an interesting point.
Let me summarize to see if I get it.
These are live birth rates, not conception, therefore you think it is probable that they are higher in these states because they don't obtain abortions as frequently.
That's an interesting hypothesis. But I don't buy it. The problem is that the difference between abortion rates between the states isn't that large, and in states where there are few providers, as many as 60% of abortions are then performed out of states, suggesting where the rates are low it is an artificial effect.
Now, you look at the spread of the teen pregnancy data and you see there are 10x as many births to 10-14 year old girls in Mississippi compared to a state like Massachusetts. With the variation in abortion rates showing the biggest difference, per capita at about 50% it doesn't explain 10-fold differences. I don't buy it, especially when Mass isn't exactly ranked #1 in per capita abortions (California is). I would have to crunch a bunch of numbers to get an exact picture, but just looking at the raw data, I don't think it explains it, not even close. There's just not enough of a difference between the abortion rates.
They're getting knocked up down there, big time. And it isn't the higher abortion rates that are responsible for the low blue state rates. An abortion effect might knock a few more states under the 0.8 threshold, but it doesn't explain such huge disparities in teen pregnancy.
Also, one could make the argument that if your point is true, the Give Up effect is already in place. They're the ones with pregnant teenagers giving birth at 10-14 years of age. If this is due to a lack of birth control, sex education, abortions, whatever, it isn't really relevant whether that preceeded an explicit ban. They're still the ones that are suffering from the problem worse than the blue states. A ban, combined with proven-ineffective abstinence education programs, will continue to make things worse.
11:50 PM, July 11, 2006
So, I can't help but wonder if this is a problem created by the republican politicians of the southern states. This poor little girls, who probably come from rather conservative families, suffer from a lack of education. They have been taught that sex is bad and that in turn has kept them from talking about it with an adult. Which inturn means that they get all their information from their friends. Sex is bad, so they are too embarressed to buy condoms or spermcide. They can't go to the doctor to get birth control, their parents would never drive them. So these poor little girls engage in unprotected sex, because their parents are too backwards to understand what the real world is like, because all the chips are stacked against them, because they are too young to work, too young to have money of their own to buy contrecptives, and because the conservative politicans would rather see these poor little girls suffer for their sins than actual emplement real sex education in southern schools. Now those are some evil bastards
4:55 PM, July 19, 2006
sex is awsome your gay if you think not
10:56 AM, January 15, 2007
the teenage birthrate differences is a function of demographics and they don't see it as a disadvantage.
5:02 AM, March 04, 2007
Teen pregnancy rates by state look very similar to teen live birth rates, see the link below:
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/america/statisticsDisplay.asp?ID=3&sID=18
11:07 PM, April 30, 2007
Sorry, the link above doesn't work, see:
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/america/
11:10 PM, April 30, 2007
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