Iowans for LIFE responds to the Des Moines Register
By Maggie DeWitte
Contrary to Danielle Burmeister’s October 2nd guest editorial, evidence does NOT suggest that abortion rates are reduced under Democratic presidents. Just the contrary. Let’s clear the air on several issues she touched upon.
She points out that NBC News reports that 30% of Republicans vote on a single issue: abortion. However, abortion is at least six issues, not one. For starters, Democrats want to federalize abortion and make it available for all nine months of a pregnancy in all fifty states. In Iowa, restrictions apply after 20 weeks.
The Hyde Amendment
The Biden ticket makes it clear they want to abolish the Hyde Amendment and make taxpayers pay for abortions in the U.S., even faithful Catholics, who consider abortion a grave sin. This is the second Life issue at stake this election. The third: a Biden presidency would quickly negate the Mexico City policy which prevents the U.S. government from using taxpayer dollars to export abortion to other countries.
Born-alive legislation
The fourth life issue is one-party’s refusal to support born-alive legislation. Hundreds of babies survive abortion every year. This law would require doctors to treat these survivors like any other baby instead of letting them die. It would sanction doctors who don’t. How could anyone oppose such compassionate legislation? And yet Democrats have blocked it more than 80 times.
A fifth: if the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has their way, they’d impose Medicare for All on the country. If it passes, it requires Catholic doctors and nurses to violate their consciences and participate in abortions, or lose their jobs.
The racism of abortion
And perhaps the worst part of this whole conversation, considering the times in which we live, is the sixth life issue. Abortion is racist.
The African-American community is disproportionately impacted by human abortion, because nearly half of all black babies in the womb are aborted. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, actively called for the reduction of undesirable populations, whom she called “human weeds.” But even Sanger opposed abortion. Today, blacks represent only 13% of our population, but 35% of all abortions. One party calls for more funding of Planned Parenthood, even though they know it affects blacks far more than any other group. The African-American birth rate is already below-replacement level because of abortion.
Do they actually want it to plunge even further?
So you can see that abortion is far more than a single issue. I haven’t even touched upon Kamala Harris’ plan to require “pre-clearance” on any pro-life legislation passed at the state level.
Snopes weighs in
As to Ms. Burmeister’s assertion that abortion rates drop more under Democratic presidents than Republican, even Snopes calls this false:
“At most, one can argue that the rate of decline appeared to slow during the presidency of George W. Bush before increasing under President Barack Obama’s administration, but such an observation would be based on a comparison between only two administrations and would do nothing to demonstrate causation.”
The real cause of the drop in the abortion rate
So what is the cause of the decline of abortion rates between 2008 and 2016? In fact, the cause is specific. Most of the pro-life strides come at the state level.
During Obama’s two terms, the Democrats suffered their largest drop of power since the Eisenhower years. When he came into power, his party controlled both chambers of 27 state legislatures, but only 13 when he left, including Iowa. In all they lost 816 state legislative seats, plus 13 Governorships.
Mr. Obama’s lack of coattails allowed pro-life representation to soar at the state level, resulting in a smorgasbord of life-saving legislation. In other words, any honest assessment of the data, as Snopes makes clear, needs to look at cause and effect, not just effect. The cause: more pro-life legislators elected at state levels; the effect: a decline in human abortion.