There's a steady stream of folks who continue to perpetuate an urban legend about the abortion rates in the US. (Kept alive, no doubt, by the fact that Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and Barack Obama have all cited it.)The idea is that because of Bill Clinton's policies the abortion rate dropped under his administration, and because of George W. Bush's policies the abortion rate rose under his administration.If you break it down, there are actually four claims being made here:
Abortion rates dropped under Clinton.
Abortion rates dropped under Clinton because of Clinton.
Abortion rates rose under Bush.
Abortion rates rose under Bush because of Bush.
Only premise 1 is correct.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
abortion rates
Justin Taylor has the scoop on the abortion rates during the presidential administrations of William J. Clinton and George W. Bush.
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They're failing to take into account that PP vs. Casey was decided early in the Clinton administration, restoring to the states some ability to reign in abortion a bit.
ReplyDeleteAnd abortion rates continued to fall under Bush, but only in states that had taken advantage of the Casey court, so of course once the original rush to put laws in place passed, the drop would level off.