Evangelicals and the Republican Smoke Screen (excerpt)
To put it bluntly, the Republicans who campaign on so-called “family values” institute economic policies that are blatantly anti-family. Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, co authors of The War Against Parents, rightly point out the Republican-induced policies that put pressure on families:
Many conservatives refuse to recognize the ways in which market values destroy family values. In elemental ways, they do not get it. They fail to understand that we need to rein in free enterprise if we are going to create the conditions that support parents and nurture children. A free and unfettered labor market, for example, can seriously undermine family life by exerting enormous downward pressure on wage levels for young, child-raising adults. This is exactly what has happened over the last twenty years. Successive administrations, abandoning any notion of a social contract, have gotten out of the business of maintaining the value of the minimum wage, providing legal protections for labor unions, or placing limits on out-of-control corporate greed. (1)
For all those allegedly pro-family Republicans, we want to ask:
- Where are tax credits for stay at home moms (or dads)?
- Why don’t we have legislation about maternity—and paternity leave?
- What about the government backing flexible work schedules for moms and dads?
- What about just raising the minimum wage?
- If we want women to choose life, why don’t we work to build a society that makes the choice to carry a child to full-term an economically feasible option for single, working women?
- The American family is under such economic pressure that children are considered a sacrifice and an economic liability. What are we doing to reverse this?
Look at these statistics: under “pro-life” Reagan and George Bush Sr., the number of abortions in the U.S. rose steadily, peaking in 1990 with 1,608,600. In the decade from 1980—when Reagan was elected—until 1990, the total number of abortions never went below 1,553,900. In 1992, the year that “pro-choice” Clinton was elected, the numbers dropped to 1,528,900. By 1996, the number of abortions was down to 1,365,700. (2)
Here’s what all those numbers mean:
- Under “pro-life” Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr., the number of abortions performed rose.
- Under “pro-choice” President Clinton, the number went down, so that in 1996, nearly one-quarter-million fewer abortions were performed than in 1990 under George H.W. Bush! The statistics would seem to indicate that a more favorable economy helps decrease the number of abortions.
Voting for allegedly “pro-life” candidates hasn’t done a blessed thing to “save the unborn,” and we have the nearly 30 years of figures to prove it.
Note: this is an excerpt from an essay written prior to the 2004 election, which was recently revised. I intend to post the entire article after a thorough revision.
(1) The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America’s Beleaguered Moms and Dads, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Mariner Books, 1998 (currently out of print).
(2) Abortion statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The Guttmacher Institute also has statistics that indicate economic trends; e.g. poor women (below the poverty level) are four times more likely to have an abortion. For the sake of full disclosure, abortions have continued to trend downwards—albeit very slowly—at least through 2005. The trend downward was most dramatic during the Clinton years.
Tags: pro-choice, Pro-life, Republican tactics, Smoke Screen
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September 10, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Excellent post. Back in 2004 I did a quick internet search on abortion incidence in two countries with socialized medicine: Canada and Sweden. These countries both had PROPORTIONALLY way fewer abortions than the US (# of abortions relative to total population). I think we can infer that countries with universal healthcare do not burden the poor mother with “how can I afford healthcare for this baby?”
September 11, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Good point. We forget sometimes that everything is intertwined . . . social policies, economic principles, global relations, etc. All are influenced by the same collective values. It seems we give control of our government to the Republicans when our collective values slant toward protecting our wealth and demonstrating the alpha-maleness of our presence on earth. When such priorities surface, it is no wonder that there is more suffering among those whom society overlooks. The abortion statistics do not surprise me. What surprises me is the value system of “the majority” in this country . . . so out of touch with the value system of most of the individuals I know. I guess we must be missionaries of principle if we ever hope to sway collective values back toward human decency and dignity.
October 13, 2008 at 7:58 pm
[...] The members and leaders of the so-called “religious right” are rarely more vocal than in an election year. Yet to their everlasting shame, they are vocal about exactly the wrong things. One might argue that the unborn are marginalized and oppressed by abortion; I’ve already argued that the religious right’s endorsed candidates have paid nothing but lip service to this hot button issue in nearly 30 years. (See my post about the Republican smokescreen.) [...]
November 2, 2008 at 8:18 pm
[...] See my article “Evangelicals and the Republican Smokescreen” for the correlation between poverty, lack of social services, and number of abortions [...]