Some facts

Yesterday, I was bloviating about having misapprehended Obama's re-election chances because I read too many reasonable Conservative writers, while tuning out the Right-wing fringe voices that are clearly not ignored by people who vote. But at least I am aware of them, what they're about, and cognizant of the peril of indulging their pathologies.

What always amazes me about my friends on the Left is their lack of interest in the facts about the bad behavior enabled by their politicians' policies. They have no idea about how bad the behavior really is, how at odds it is with their values.

I was reading Taranto's column the other other day, about some TV journalist named Nancy Giles who said that white people who hold an anti-abortion stance are trying to build up the race. Taranto comments:

But a look at the numbers shows this to be nonsense. According to U.S. Census estimates, the overall abortion rate in 2007 was 19.5 abortions for every thousand women between 15 and 44. But the rate is much lower for whites (13.8) than for blacks (48.2). For women classified as "other"--neither black nor white--the rate is slightly above the national average (21.6).
The census table goes back to 1990, and the same pattern holds, though the rates were considerably higher than for both whites (21.5) and blacks (63.9). If one wanted to slow the increase in minority populations, one would urge more, not less, abortion.
Have you noticed how abortion proponents always seem to come up with amazingly strained theories about opponents' motives--they hate sex, they want to control women, etc.? Abortion opponents say they believe that unborn children are human beings with the right to life. One may disagree, but that belief is an entirely straightforward and reasonable explanation for why someone would take an antiabortion position.
Apparently the pro-abortion side fears if it acknowledged that position is sincerely held, that would be tantamount to acknowledging it may be true.

 As a Republican who subscribes to Bill Clinton's formulation that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, I find the disparities in rates disheartening, as they indicate that abortion is not a last resort, but rather a form of birth control. Abortion as birth control is like using the emergency room for primary health care.

Why am I Republican? Because this outcome is exactly what the polices of the Left produce.