Stassen: I Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts!

Glen Stassen's fifteen minutes of fame appears to be just about over.  Stassen argued that President Bush's policies have caused the abortion rate to increase during his presidency (previous post here).  His conclusion was mindlessly parroted by Democrats Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean.

Unfortunately for Stassen, the Alan Guttmacher Institute has released a study that contradicts his data. It seems the abortion rate has continued its steady decline from the 1990's. Even Stassen, in a statement, acknowledges his error:

I believe their results are significantly better than what I could have obtained seven months ago.

Usually, when one bases an argument on data, and that data is found to be wrong, you consider changing the conclusion of the argument.  However, it appears that Stassen doesn't need any pesky facts to support his conclusion. I can't let him get away with that...

Lets take a close look at Stassen's response:

On May 19, 2005, the Alan Guttmacher Institute released a study of abortion rates in 2002, apparently in response to the opinion editorial that I published seven months ago in numerous papers in October, 2004, and the widespread interest that it has stimulated. That op ed has called forth widespread national attention to the stall that has occurred in what was the dramatic reductions of abortions in the United States in the 1990s.

Actually Glen, you never mentioned a "stall" in the decline of abortions in your pieces.  The word stall never appears in your op-eds.  You stated that:

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.

The opposite of continuing a downward course is not a stall, but a reversal. They should have taught you that wherever you were trained in statistical analysis.  Did you think no one would notice?

I am pleased that we were able to draw national attention to focus on the actual results of the policies. As AGI rightly says, it will take a few years to be sure what the impact of Bush administration policies will be on numbers of abortions. Now the nation will be watching to see what the policies actually produce in the next few years.

Yes, I agree its good to focus on the actual results of the Bush policies.  Especially since the data supports a conclusion diametrically opposed to Stassen's.

It is clear to me that undermining the financial support for mothers, undermining the availability of medical insurance, and increasing the jobless rate for prospective mates so that they are less likely to marry, has a bad influence on abortion rates and infant mortality rates.

Check out Stassen doggedly holding on to his conclusion despite having no evidence to support it. Thanks for your opinion, Glen, now if you could support it with some evidence you may actually be able to make an argument.

The data show that the dramatic decline in number of abortions of the '90s to 300,000 fewer abortions per year has now stalled almost to a stop. My initial study thought it had actually reversed. We will watch to see what happens in the next few years.

Lets take a look at the data from AGI.  Factcheck.org provided a graph for us:

Do you see the rapid stall in the decrease of abortion rates in 2001 when Bush took office?  Come on, look closely now...  there simply is none. The stalling of the rapid decline in abortion rates took place around 1994, in the first term of the Clinton administration. The decline in abortion rate has continues its steady decline.  Once again, someone claiming to be trained in statistical analysis is unable to see a straight line on a graph. If Stassen closes his eyes, he may see a stall, but it is not present in the data.

It is tragic that a Christian ethicist goes on record with bad data, and even worse that Democrats mindlessly picked up on that theme. Abortions are not predominately an economical issue, it is predominately a moral issue. It is sad that he cannot see this regardless of what the data shows.

HT: Michelle Malkin