States with higher numbers of adults who identify themselves as "pro-life" have lower rates of abortion among both teenage and adult women.
The chart below compares the percentage of pregnancies in each state that ended in abortion in 2005 to a SurveyUSA poll conducted in that same year that asked residents of all 50 states to identify themselves as pro-choice or pro-life. A couple of caveats about the abortion data: although it comes from the CDC (.pdf), it relies on voluntary reporting from each state health agency. Some states, like Florida and Louisiana, do not report their abortion statistics, and in other cases -- Kentucky's figures are suspiciously low when compared to Tennessee's, for instance -- it may be subject to various sorts of imperfections, as the reporting of abortion statistics can have some political implications. Also, there is some ambiguity about the number of abortions in a particular state versus the number by residents of that state; for instance, a lot of women in Idaho travel to Washington to get abortions, which has more liberal abortion laws (there appear to be similar flows from Mississippi into Alabama, South Dakota into North Dakota, and Missouri into Kansas, among others). We report the latter total, with a correction for those women whose state of residence was not identified. Nevertheless, those caveats aside, the relationship is pretty strong:
The modest outlier you see in the top left-hand corner is New York, which was one of four states (the others are Alaska, Hawaii and Washington) in which abortion was completely legal prior to the Roe v Wade decision and has particularly liberal abortion laws. It seems, however, that people do practice what they preach. For each increase of about 10 percent in the number of residents who identify themselves as pro-life, the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion is reduced by about 5 percent.
The pattern is slightly more profound when we look at teenage (girls aged 15-19) pregnancies, among whom a higher fraction of pregnancies (at least a quarter) end in abortion and where there is larger state-to-state variance: more than half of teenage pregnancies in New York end in abortion, for instance, versus less than 15 percent in some states like West Virginia, Arizona and South Dakota (and purportedly only 5 percent in Kentucky, but as we mentioned before we find that figure dubious). For teenagers, the CDC reports data based only on the number of abortions in a particular state and not by state of residence; we apply a correction for this to attempt to identify the latter figure.
The correlation there is quite strong -- about .77.
It might be objected that those states that have more pro-life residents may have more restrictive abortion laws; I ran a regression analysis to test for the impact of things like parental notification requirements and waiting periods and generally did not find any significant relationships, although it does appear that the four states in which abortion was legal before Roe maintain somewhat higher abortion rates today. I also tested for the impact of a few types of demographic variables and some were statistically significant in some formulations of the model (higher rates of teenage pregnancy, for instance, were correlated with higher abortion rates after controlling for other variables). None of these, however, invalidated the pro-life variable, which was highly statistically significant in all versions of the analysis.
One complication, however, is that of access. According to the Guttmacher Institute, approximately one-third of American women live in a county where there is no abortion provider. There is a very strong (inverse) relationship, additionally, between having access to an abortion provider in one's county, and the pro-life leanings of that state.
Do pro-life states have fewer abortion providers because there is less demand for abortions in those states? Or, alternatively, is there social stigma attached in these states to running an abortion clinic, meaning that less of the demand is met?
Undoubtedly the answer is some of both. The regression analysis hints that access is not a strong causal factor -- from what it can gather, the pro-life tendencies of a state drives both the lower number of abortions among its residence and the relative absence of abortion clinics, rather than access directly impacting the abortion figures. On the other hand, because all of these variables are so strongly correlated, it is hard for the model to disentangle them.
The Guttmacher institute data, however, suggests that abortion providers in pro-life states carry a larger caseload. Abortion clinics in the 15 most pro-life states performed an average of 949 abortions in 2005; those in pro-choice states performed an average of 576. (In this case, we are reverting back to using data based on the state in which the abortion was actually performed -- not the woman's state of residence). This may imply that there are either too few providers in pro-life states to meet the demand for abortion (or too many in pro-choice states) -- although clearly many women who want an abortion are willing to travel for one.State Clinics Abort. Ratio
What would be interesting for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers to know, however, is the relationship between access and abortion rates. If it's a three-hour drive to the nearest clinic, how many women will ultimately wind up forsaking an abortion (and how many will have an illegal abortion instead)? I'm not going to try and sum this up with a nice, sugary conclusion. This is a complicated issue and, appropriately enough, it has complicated answers, even when it comes to its statistics.
15 Most Pro-Life States
UT 6 3,630 605
LA 9 11,400 1,267
AR 3 4,710 1,570
ID 7 1,810 259
AL 13 11,340 872
MS 2 3,090 1,545
WV 4 2,360 590
KY 3 3,870 1,290
TN 13 18,140 1,395
IN 15 11,150 743
SD 2 790 395
MO 7 8,400 1,200
OK 6 6,950 1,158
NE 6 3,220 537
ND 1 1,230 1,230
TOTAL 97 92,090 949
State Clinics Abort. Ratio
15 Most Pro-Choice States
VT 12 1,490 124
CT 52 16,780 323
NY 261 155,960 598
MA 45 27,270 606
CA 424 208,430 492
NH 13 3,170 244
MD 41 37,590 917
NJ 85 61,150 719
DE 9 5,150 572
WA 49 23,260 475
RI 4 5,290 1,323
NV 8 13,530 1,691
OR 32 13,200 413
ME 13 2,770 213
IL 38 50,970 1,341
TOTAL 1086 626,010 576
6.02.2009
Pro-Life States Have Lower Abortion Rates
@ 8:54 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
54 comments
It would be interesting to know whether banning abortion decreases the number of abortions actually performed. This data, while interesting, does not seem to have any policy implications, except that pro-lifers should work on decreasing the number of abortion clinics if they want fewer abortions to be performed.
@Nate: Isn't New York likely to be a destination state for those women who want abortions "away from home" but not necessarily very far? Have you looked at some of the negative residuals to see if neighboring states are below the regression line (or below a line that you'd have if you omitted NY state)?
Terrible analysis. What people actually care about is the per capita absolute number of abortions.
Sweden for example has a higher percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion, but overall has a reduced absolute number of abortions (per capita) than the US. Pro-lifers are hardly practicing what they preach if they have more teenage abortions but "balance" that out by also having even more teenage pregnancies that don't end in abortion.
theonlysaneone
According to Dr. Sharon L. Camp, President and CEO of Guttmacher:
“This trend toward draconian abortion restrictions -- banning the procedure outright in places where it was already highly restricted -- ignores strong evidence from Latin America and other parts of the world showing that abortion rates are often as high, or higher, in countries where abortion is highly restricted as in those where it is broadly legal.
For example, Mexico's abortion rate increased by 33% (from 25 to 33 procedures per 1,000 women aged 15-44) between 1990 and 2006, despite highly restrictive policies. Further, Mexico's rate is more than 40% higher than the U.S. abortion rate (19 abortions per 1,000 women), even though the procedure is broadly legal in the United States. Another key difference between the two countries is that abortion is a very safe procedure for U.S. women, while it is often dangerous for Mexican women.
Global data likewise show that abortion restrictions do not lead to low abortion rates. A worldwide study on abortion conducted by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization (WHO) found that abortion rates are lower in regions such as Western Europe (12 abortions per 1,000 women), where abortion is largely legal, than in developing regions such as Latin America (31 abortions per 1,000 women), where abortion is largely illegal.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sharon-l-camp/a-dangerous-trend-dominic_b_203459.html includes links to sources
@Nate: To follow up my previous question, specifically I'd look at residuals for VT, MA, CT, NJ, PA -- and even OH (though it doesn't border NY) since the distance from NE Ohio to Buffalo is quite small. As far as that goes, RI is only 3 hrs. from NYC by car, train, or bus.
If it's a three-hour drive to the nearest clinicThe way that's stated, it makes it sound like people have cars and driving is their normal way of getting around. So if you can't be bothered to drive a few hours, it's not really important to you.
For many who are young or who live in cities and don't have money, that's not so. Which makes the impact of distance greater.
I'd agree with Adrian that the issue here is abortions per capita, not abortions per pregnancy. If you're going to talk about "practicing what you preach," then let's talk about the preaching: abstinence v. contraception. Anyone who really wants to reduce unwanted pregnancy per capita, rather than just moralize about sex and choice, needs the real facts.
I think the main thing missing in the post is the data that shows the states with the most teen pregnancies that are brought to full term, to the amount of single mothers who are having children. This would really show the accurate number of pregnancies and give a clear view of the situation that each state faces. Simply because a state or county is more "pro-life" and has less abortions does little if you don't present right next to it the correlating numbers on the amount of children born to teens and un-wed mother. These two groups are those most likely to seek an abortion, and without these numbers you aren't saying too much.
Nate:
The fact that clinics in pro-life states get more traffic may point to economies of scale.
Security is bound to be a bigger problem in such states. Securing a clinic with twice as many doctors that preforms twice as many abortions probably doesn't cost twice as much.
So the abortion clinics may be in fewer places, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are overworked.
Aren't women in more pro-life states more likely to lie and say they were never pregnant at all after getting an abortion? Maybe I'm overestimating this effect, but it seems like pro-life states would have fewer women who admit to having had abortions, not necessarily fewer women who actually had them.
The only clinic in North Dakota is in Fargo, on the Minnesota border in the middle of the state. Somebody from Bismarck drives 2.5 hours; further west, it's an even longer drive and might be shorter to go to South Dakota.
North Dakota's clinic gets a good amount of traffic from Minnesota as well as South Dakota, considering it's right on the border.
Time to stop using the term "pro-life" and deal in reality. Not only have these groups proven themselves to be "anti-life" as they would slander their opponents by implication, they nurture domestic terrorism and religious extremists. "Anti-choice" seems to understate the minority position but it is imminently more apporpriate than the false dichotomy presented by "pro-life".
I refuse to use the term "pro-life" to describe a group of thugs and assassins and I wish the media would stop coddling these criminals.
As has been mentioned before, not all people seeking an abortion get an abortion in their home state. If a state is particularly restrictive, or has few clinics, many people will seek abortions in neighboring states. I know this is true in the case South Dakota where many people go to Minnesota to get abortions. This is going to drive up abortion rates in states that provide better access to abortions.
Wouldn't it be relevant to observe, say, the average marriage age as a control in this analysis? I would imagine the age is much lower in states with high pro-life populations, and I would sure think fewer abortions happen in marriage than out of it.
How about tying in domestic adoption statistics? I was curious if pro-life states made adoptions more accessible.
Pro-choice states will perform more abortions because there are more abortion providers. Anti-choice states often place restrictions on providers that make it difficult for them to practice.
Consider South Dakota: there is only one abortion provider in the entire state, therefore there is an inherent limit on the number of abortions that can be performed in South Dakota, regardless of demand.
I don't know if a data set exists that takes into account resident v. non-resident abortion stats in each state, but it would be interesting to look at that data.
All these different suggestions for alternative indicators.
From a demographic analysis standpoint, what one might want is data on the outcomes of each pregnancy. Did the pregnancy end in a live birth, stillbirth, miscarriage (spontaneous abortion), or elective abortion? The "population at risk" of having an abortion is the women who are pregnant.
Then you would want additional statistics on the pregancy rate by age (or age and marital status).
If you had both of these types of statistics -- which do exist for many countries but probably not for many states of the United States, you can study both the relationship between the availability of abortion and pregnancy outcomes (including proportion that end in abortion), adjusted by age. (These data exist for countries not so much in official statistics as in surveys that have been done, e.g., in the Family and Fertility Studies in many European countries.)
And you can also study the relationship between the policy climate for abortions or (for that matter) birth control alternatives and the pregnancy rates -- as well as the abortion rates.
In the absent of such detailed data for the states, what Nate has done is perfectly fine, though one would hope for more detail by age (and perhaps marital status).
I did a quick Google of the populations of some of the states that Nate provides absolute numbers for at the end of the article:
The abortion rate per thousand in the first for four pro-life states is 1.33, 2.58, 1.65, and 1.19.
For the first four pro-choice states it's 2.40, 4.79, 8.08, 4.20.
It's very possible that women in pro-life states really are more likely to keep their babies when they are teenagers. "Red Sex, Blue Sex" by Margaret Talbot in the New Yorker describes the forces that create young (and hence fertile), relatively uneducated families in red states and older (and hence infertile), more educated families in blue states.
One thing about teenage pregnancies in rural areas, and I speak from having grown up in rural areas. You have to be careful how you treat those because being married as a teenager is fairly common. Whether it's shotgun or not. Part of this is the effect of having fewer people your own age, which pushes the envelop of how much further couples will wander outside their age range for "mates". Both in a "committed" relationship, including marriage, and recreational sex.
This effect is so strong that up in Canada the governments of more sparsely populated provinces have tended to be the lead on more lenient age of consent laws (those are national laws here) to avoid creating criminals in their small towns.
As Adrian and Dermott pointed out, this analysis is misleading and oversimplified. To get a better view of the whole picture, we need to use something other than self-reported abortion rates (of course anti-abortion people are more likely to lie and say they haven't had one), and more importantly look at other social factors. For instance, check if there is a correlation between the % anti-abortion and the per capita number of teenage mothers, teenage pregnancies, STD rates, infant mortality rates, murder rates, theft rates, and especially the educational level and income level. Simply, do anti-abortion people tend to be uneducated? As has been pointed out, putting this as a % of pregnancies allows high teen-pregnancy rates to make the abortion statistics look low.
Also, many of the correlations in this study:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
are very interesting and worth examining on the state to state scale.
* If a pro-choice state has higher abortion rates, how much does that reflect people coming from out of state to use the easier access?
** Since the rates given are per pregnancy, not per woman, if pro-choice states also have better use of birth control, that'd inflate figures further -- fewer domestic pregancies dividing a higher total abortion rate.
* Pro-choice states may also tend to have more urban blacks, and I've heard that for both economic and social reasons blacks use birth control less regularly, and abortions more.
** In fact, that seems to match MostlyAPragmatist's numbers within each category, though perhaps not between them: more abortions in LA and AR than UT and ID; more in NY than the other pro-choice, and fewer in Vermont.
Adrian, Equinox,
I think you are both completely missing the point in Nate's analysis with regard to per capita abortions vs. pregnancies ending in abortion.
What Nate is looking at is pro-life, not abstinence. A state is certainly "practicing what it preaches", when it comes to it's pro-life beliefs, if a significantly lower percentage of pregnancies end in abortion as opposed to other states.
Even more interesting would be the relation between abortions, unplanned pregnancies, children born in poverty, and children abused. We already know that abortions take place, and it's not surprising there is a relation between accessibility and procedures. But there is very little discussion -- or data -- on the larger implications of unplanned, unsupported and abused children, which may be the other side of the abortion issue.
Matthew is exactly right - percentage of pregnancies is certainly the correct metric to be looking at.
Nate, my only quibble here would be with your discussion of the prevalence of abortion providers. The second graph, that abortion providers are less common in pro-life states, seems a simple corollary of the first. Of course less demand for abortion means less abortion providers. Why would it mean anything else?
It's interesting that I've never seen studies that search for a correlation between number of unadopted children roaming through the foster care systems vs. percentage of "pro-lifers".
As someone who is adopted, I keep up with some of those statistics, and it pains me to know that there are so many children out there needing homes while the "pro-life" groups are now on an adoption-promotion kick.
I was lucky. Many others aren't. In my book, bringing a child into a home that can't provide decent support, or throwing a child to the wind because of religious beliefs, is a far more cruel thing to do than terminating a pregnancy.
I still fully support abortion in spite of being adopted myself. You "pro-lifers" don't want abortion? Fine. Go adopt enough unwanted children to make the foster care population ZERO, and then we'll talk.
Hypocrites, all of them.
Run these along teenage pregnancy numbers and you'll see some pretty interesting data.
Some of the more liberal in abortion have the least amount of teenage pregnancies.
HERE is some good historical trending data. It shows downward trends in both teenage abortion rates and abortions being performed which are both good trends. Looks like it took Bill Clinton the adulterer in office before the trend really turned around!!!
I'd like to see the other correlation numbers. I would assume that if people can be convinced not to have an abortion they won't have one, while making it very hard to get in one state will get them to search for an abortion provider in another state.
So the other correlation numbers would help to decide if there's really a connection between pro-life stance and a low abortion rate, or if it's just a connection between pro-life stance and driving people away from the providers in the state.
The former would suggest that a countrywide pro-life stance would really lower abortion rates, while the latter would suggest it would drive people to get illegal abortions.
If the analysis can't help to decide between these completely opposite conclusions, I don't think it is very meaningful at all.
Didn't some group do a survey on adolescent girls that attend christian schools and the result showed the opposite correlation than Nate's analysis? I seem to recall that it was released fairly recently.
Last night, Rachel Maddow had a guest on her show who lived in eastern Montana and ran a clinic that, among other things, provided abortions.
Her guest stated that many of the women the clinic provided services to were from North Dakota and South Dakota.
In Maryland, the western part of the state is much closer to Pittsburgh than it is to Baltimore or DC. Anyone needing specialized medical care of ANY type would first look to see if Pittsburgh (and southwestern Pennsylvania) can provide it rather than travel to Baltimore or DC.
The same situation in south east Indiana - much closer to Cincinnati than to Indy or Chicago, and parts of northern Kentucky are just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and Evansville, IN. Northwest Indiana is much closer to Chicago than to Indy or Detroit.
Bowling Green, Kentucky, is closer to Nashville than it is to any part of Illinois.
It becomes that old real estate mantra: Location, location, location.
Dvd Avins said...
The way that's stated, it makes it sound like people have cars and driving is their normal way of getting around. So if you can't be bothered to drive a few hours, it's not really important to you.
For many who are young or who live in cities and don't have money, that's not so. Which makes the impact of distance greater.
You don't know much about the ways that teenagers get money, do you? Or travel? Or the cost of travel?
Along the East Coast, it can cost as little as $35 to travel round-trip to NYC from Baltimore by certain buses. The cost of the travel is much less than the cost of the procedure.
Many teenagers will beg and 'borrow' money from friends and relatives for a 'vacation in NYC', with the intent of getting an abortion while in NYC (that intent withheld when begging and 'borrowing' the money, of course). Probably one of the reasons that the New York figures are much higher than other states.
And IF the teenager (or young 20s) got an abortion under such a scenario, do you think they would be eager to volunteer such information on a survey or poll? If you do, I've got ocean-front property in Kansas I'll sell to you at a real cheap price.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Scott L said...
Didn't some group do a survey on adolescent girls that attend christian schools and the result showed the opposite correlation than Nate's analysis? I seem to recall that it was released fairly recently.
Scott,
I also saw that - I was thinking an article on the study had been published this past weekend. I just spent a few minutes trying to find a link to the article and/or study. So far, no luck.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Chris Milroy posted:
"[...]I would sure think fewer abortions happen in marriage than out of it."
If you mean that a larger percentage of pregnancies out of wedlock would end in abortion, that does seem intuitive. If you mean that in absolute numbers, most abortions are to unwed mothers, I wouldn't assume so. I seem to recall at some point that pro-choice organizations actually marshalled data to the effect that most abortions were to married women, though I don't know if that used to be true and no longer is and would love to see current data. But there are, of course, many reasons for a married woman to have an abortion, including contraceptive failure (e.g., condom broke or came off inside), medical complications to her or/and the fetus, sudden divorce or/and loss of income, and rape.
Adrian:
"Terrible analysis. What people actually care about is the per capita absolute number of abortions.
translation: "This isn't the research I was interested in. "
I agree with you, judas. I thought the post was quite interesting, whatever its limitations.
I was lucky. Many others aren't. In my book, bringing a child into a home that can't provide decent support, or throwing a child to the wind because of religious beliefs, is a far more cruel thing to do than terminating a pregnancy.
I still fully support abortion in spite of being adopted myself. You "pro-lifers" don't want abortion? Fine. Go adopt enough unwanted children to make the foster care population ZERO, and then we'll talk.
Hypocrites, all of them.
You seriously believe that any child would rather be dead than live in foster care?
Nate,
Good analysis, and good caveats (which are often more important in quantitative literature than anything). You are starting to write more like Prof. Gelman: provide the evidence, state the caveats, and suggest an appropriate conclusion.
I have noticed that several people commenting have asked for a different analysis than the one you did. Perhaps you could provide your data to them so that they can do their own regressions with their own models and their own assumptions, so that they can publish their individual findings on this site (as opposed to you doing all their work).
Also, could you link to your .do file (if you use Stata), or your .R file (if you use R), or cetera. This would allow us to learn how best to do the analyses for ourselves. I am not sure how this would be best accomplished within the confines of the Blogger software.
When US anti-abortionists treat *all* life with the deference they purport to give american embryos I'll take them seriously enough to listen to their arguments. As it stands, they are just full of shit.
@ToddVierling: "it pains me to know that there are so many children out there needing homes while the "pro-life" groups are now on an adoption-promotion kick."
Except of course that these same people are out to forbid same-sex couples from adopting (same-sex couples are a small percentage of all couples, but disproportionately represented among couples seeking to adopt).
You have some serious flaws in your analysis, Nate.
1) The data does NOT represent the number or rate of pregnancies that end in abortion. Instead, you are looking at a) the reported number of abortions per 1,000 live births (a ratio) and b) the reported number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years. (an estimated population fertility measure.) This isn't even close to being what you describe as an "abortion rate." There is no way to measure the rate of pregnancies that end in abortion, because pregnancy is not a reportable condition thus there is no valid denominator for an "abortion rate." Live births is a reportable condition, so you are looking at the ratio of reported abortions to live births. And then they are reporting the population measure of reported abortions per population of women of childbearing age. Neither of those measures is anything like "number of pregnancies that end in abortion."
b) Under the Limitations section, it says "abortion data are compiled and reported to CDC by the central health department in the reporting area in which the abortion was performed rather than the area in which the woman resided." Therefore, any attempt to link that to state-based data is invalid on its face. You cannot correct for that with the available data. You need state of residence data for your analysis, and it isn't available.
I recommend that you read the entire Limitations section, Nate, and I think that you cannot support your opening thesis at all, i.e., "States with higher numbers of adults who identify themselves as "pro-life" have lower rates of abortion among both teenage and adult women." Indeed, the entire analysis is profoundly flawed and of very little use overall, even to look at trends over time, given that in some places the numbers provided are estimates in some years and reports in other years, some states don't report at all, the numbers have an acknowledged underreporting of anywhere from 12% to 20%.
I generally respect your work, Nate, but it isn't very helpful when you produce such a profoundly flawed analysis like this on such a hot-button topic. Please rethink. You don't want your flawed conclusions, I would hope, to be echoing around the blogosphere. Please consult a non-partisan epidemiologist to help you craft an analysis, preferably one who specializes in maternal child and perinatal health. Start with data from Guttmacher Institute. They have more consistent surveillance so their data may be helpful to look at trends, even with an underestimate in reporting. But I doubt even then you could do your analysis, because there is probably no valid state of residence data to be had.
@Tom:
1) ""The data does NOT represent the number or rate of pregnancies that end in abortion.""
The number of pregnancies equals the number of abortions plus the number of live births less the number of failed pregnancies (unless I am forgetting an alternate option). The US (per the CIA) has an IMR of 6.26 deaths/1,000 live births, which is small compared to both the number of abortions and the numbers of live births.
b) Nate is _very_ clear vis-a-vis the limitations of the data. Do you have a better source for the data that Nate should use? I could not locate a data set at the Guttmacher Institute website (except for the one that has four data points per state for a 15-year period, and a discussion of their data on page 7, which is as sound as the CDC data). Furthermore, Guttmacher Institute does not appear to correct for your objections, as it only covers 46 states, provides only the distance traveled, and does _not_ state the state of origin for the woman (for which you excoriate Nate): ""Many state health departments are able to obtain only incomplete data from abortion providers, and in some states, only 40–50% of abortions are reported. Nonetheless, we sometimes found the information useful even in states with incomplete reporting."" (Source: Page 7, footnote) Incomplete reporting?
Furthermore, ""Of the 2,310 facilities surveyed, 916 responded"" (Source: Page 8, top). Including the entire number of responses, 1552/2310 gives a return rate of 67% (which is actually _extremely_ good for surveys).
Nate has stated quite clearly that those US states with a higher rate of pro-life residents have a lower rate of abortions in the state. This is clearly supported by the caveats you (and Nate and the CDC and the Guttmacher Institute) provided.
If reality does not fit the Liberal paradigm, I'm sorry; it bothers me, too.
I am fascinated by the hypocrisy of some anti abortion campaigners (I refuse to call those peolpe I am talking about here pro-life). How can people claim to be pro-life whilst glorying in murder? That disgusts and offends me. Whatever you think about Dr Stiller's work, surely his murder is as abhorrent.
That said I wonder if the left wing talk shows, especially Olberman and Maddow, were pushing the 'terrorism that works' meme just a touch too hard. Is there much evidence of doctors who would like to perform abortions but are too scared to?
Personally on that issue I think its just as likely that the kind of person who wants to become a doctor may find it very difficult to reconcile that instinct with the act of abortion, in most cases of the procedure.
@Ole Forsberg
No.
1) there is no way to estimate the exact number of pregnancies. Live births are reportable by law, and infant deaths are reportable by law. Fetal deaths are reportable around 20-24 weeks in most places. There is no reported data on lost pregnancies before the reportable gestational age, and abortions are not reportable by law in most places. So we have no denominator available to calculate a rate with pregnancy as the denominator. Virginia tried to pass a law to make all lost pregnancies reportable by law regardless of gestational age a few years ago, but it wasn't passed.
b) Nate has _tried_ to be clear about the limitations of the data, but he doesn't understand the data that he has. Not only does he not have a valid denominator, but he cannot link the available data to mother's state of residency, and thus the whole premise is invalid.
An example: Kansas and Colorado, apparently have the only two clinics that provide late-term abortions. Women from all over the US go to Kansas for the procedure. (Andrew Sullivan has been incredibly generous to facilitate the discussion.) By Nate's analysis, he would say that Kansas, although one of the most pro-life states in the US has the highest "rate" of late term abortions in the country. Do you see the problem there?
Your other observations, and I am assuming you are sincere, are equally flawed. Guttmacher doesn't have the data because there is no data on state of residence. That analysis _can not_ be done. There _is no data on that_. Nate may be good, but he isn't a magician.
Your third to last paragraph isn't right. In order to calculate population measure, you must know the exact denominator. This isn't a survey, okay? but even surveys have a population as a denominator, based on the census or some other known measure. Bu
But neither pregnancy nor abortion are reportable conditions. So it is impossible to calculate an abortion "rate."
Finally, please argue with my points, which are based on biostatistics and methodology, instead of snide irrelevancies about "liberal paradigms" whatever that means.
"liberal paradigm": facts instead of ideology
Maybe pro-life states have lower rates of abortions because they make it MUCH harder to get an abortion.
As several people pointed out, what matters is the rate of teen and other pregnancies per thousand.
Even this data is suspect because it is self reported and in conservative (anti-abortion) states there is a tendency to cover up and hide teen pregnancies.
You should look for correlations in this data:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4823a3.htm
Frequently, maternal mortality is associated with botched abortions.
Wes, what botched abortions are you referring to? There is no reference to botched abortions or any other abortions in your 13-year old reference.
Some current United States statistics:
*Childbirth maternal mortality rate is about 110 dead women per million childbirths. United States maternal mortality rate is ranked at 41st in the world. Bosnia! Croatia! and most of Europe, and Canada, Japan, and Australia have lower maternal mortality rates than our wealthy nation and its state-of-the-art health care. [1]
*Abortion maternal mortality rate is about 1 dead woman per million first trimester legal abortions. 90% of all abortions are first trimester. 1% are third trimester and are virtually all due to fetal abnormality or grievous maternal/fetal health risk. [2]
Childbirth is 110 times more dangerous to women than first trimester abortion. This is one (but not the only) really good reason why a woman should have the final say concerning her own body and her own health decisions. And this is also a good reason why John McCain should stop making air-quotes around women’s “health” concerns. And why you should go give your mother a big hug.
If we were serious about reducing the incidence of abortion, cleaning up the childbirth maternal mortality rate would certainly be a good place to start. Unless… maternal mortality might be an acceptable risk since women are only walking incubators anyway and are expendable once their job is finished ; ). Which begs this statistic: United States ranks 45th in infant mortality worldwide. Cuba! Slovenia! Czech Republic! rank better than us. In fact, the US infant mortality is ranked *second worst* in developed nations. [3, 4]
OT Fun fact: Viagra mortality rate is 49 dead men per million Viagra prescriptions. Hey John McCain, air-quote this! [5]
-----
1 World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html
2 Guttmacher Institute, http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
3 Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
4 CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/
5 Journal of American Medical Association, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/283/5/590?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=viagra+mortality&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
Ole Forsberg -- you said "The number of pregnancies equals the number of abortions plus the number of live births less the number of failed pregnancies (unless I am forgetting an alternate option)."
First of all, you're of course forgetting miscarriages.
Secondly, you're forgetting that the births would be recorded in the state of birth, while the abortions would be recorded in the state of the abortion. That makes your whole calculation screwy.
I am pro-life so please don't take this the wrong way when I say that your analysis is flawed.
You have employed what is known as the "ecological fallacy". It is a common statistical fallacy in the social sciences. The wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy) does a fairly good job of explaining it, but the original paper explaining it (Robinson, W.S. (1950). "Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals". American Sociological Review 15: 351–357) is far more clear in my opinion.
The short version is this: when you plot "percentage of X" vs. "percentage of Y" you can't make any conclusions about individuals. Depending on how you group those individuals you will get different correlation coefficients (state, county, district, etc.). The correlation coefficients obtained from such plots are not meaningful in the context of testing hypotheses, as P-values for hypotheses such as "H0: m = 0" (for a proposed model Y = m*X + b) are erroneous. Drawing conclusions from such "correlations" is no more scientific than pure speculation.
There may in fact be something to your working theory, but your figures and Excel-calculated "correlations" do not substantiate it.
@theonlysaneone: "You seriously believe that any child would rather be dead than live in foster care?"
Generally, yes. Have you asked any?
I could recount three personal stories told to me by adults who were put into the system as infants and passed around in foster care before adoption at ages 5 (the youngest) to 12 (the oldest). All three consider their upbringing to be a black cloud over their lives. The two adopted at older ages said that they would have been better off not born, and that their upbringings were cruel. All three have notable psychological trouble dealing with careers and relationships.
Overpopulating the foster care system with, essentially, discarded children (because of inability to get an abortion, or instilled belief against it) is cruel to the children involved.
And I haven't even addressed the topic of pregnancies (teenage or otherwise) where the child is kept, but the financial burden of that choice ends up having dramatic negative repercussions. In situations where the family ends up falling [much further] below the poverty line (and the US's paltry government assistance can't pay the bills), where the parent(s) can't care properly for the child, where the parent(s) must depend on known-abusive family members to care for the child... those situations are not also cruel? (You can find plenty of cases like these in any inner city. Just drive on in to "those" neighborhoods you normally avoid, and talk to a few parents with young children. You might learn something.)
@Bob X: "these same people are out to forbid same-sex couples from adopting"
As part-time activist, I know this only too well.
Not a very responsible post Mr. Silver. The data caveats seriously implicate your conclusions, check it:
http://feministsforchoice.com/?p=649
theonlysaneone: This data, while interesting, does not seem to have any policy implications, except that pro-lifers should work on decreasing the number of abortion clinics if they want fewer abortions to be performed.
I think they're quite aware of that.
Theonlysaneone:
Making abortion illegal would effectively reduce the number of abortion clinics to zero. In any case, the legal abortion rate spiked over the first few years after abortion was legalized. And if defunding abortions reduces their incidence, imagine how much more effective making it illegal would be.
@Tom: Great post on the weaknesses of the data. I too was taken aback at the beginning, wondering if all doctors were really required to report how many abortions they perform in all of those states (which would seem necessary for the data to be unbiased enough to trust).
Considering the strong social stigma still attached and the lack of safe and anonymous reporting methods I think the null hypothesis is that people still underreport abortions (and more so where--surprise!-- it's more stigmatized).
Any true analysis would have to take account of -percent of all (unwanted) pregnancies-, which outside of a police state coming around, seems unlikely, especially with the new availability of the morning-after pill prescription-free.
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店經紀,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店工作,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
菲
梵,
Looks like some very fishy "science going on here between 2000 and 2001:
http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=528
Post a Comment