Late Essay Fails to Mislead Pro-Life Voters

California Seminary Prof. Pushes Unsubstantiated Claim that Abortions Increased under Bush

By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D.
National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund

In mid-October, just before the election, an opinion piece by a California seminary professor began to circulate on the Internet and show up in major newspapers across the country. Glenn Stassen's "counterintuitive and disturbing" result (as the author described it) was that abortions had increased under George W. Bush.

The clear implication of Professor Stassen's piece was to argue that pro-lifers who truly wanted to reduce abortions should feel no qualms about voting for the pro-abortion candidate, John Kerry.

While trotting out what appeared to be detailed statistics from several states, the professor had one basic problem: his numbers didn't hold up. NRLC carefully pointed out, chapter and verse, where Prof. Stassen had gone astray.

In his piece, "Pro-Life? Look at the Fruits," Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, claimed that while national statistics from 1990 to 2000 showed abortion declining, figures from 11 out of 16 states showed abortion increasing since Bush took office. This was both mistaken and misleading.

At the time, there were no national abortion statistics after 2000. In order to advance the thesis of a national abortion increase, Stassen relied heavily upon data from a limited number of states as a representation of a supposed national trend. In some cases he flummoxed the data. In other cases he misused or misinterpreted other data.

For example, Stassen lists South Dakota and Wisconsin as two of the 16 states where he said abortions increased from 2001 to 2002. Figures from those state health departments show that abortions decreased during that time frame. Stassen correctly lists Illinois as a state where abortions increased from 2001 to 2002. However, he missed the drop of 10% that occurred in the following year, yielding a net decrease. The proper conclusion is that 2002 was probably just an aberration in a long-term downward trend.

With those three states shifting from the increase to the decrease column, Stassen's assertion that abortions increased in 11 out of 16 states turned into an 8-8 tie - - with as many states decreasing as increasing. This was hardly definitive. (In truth, as we shall see, the difficulties for Stassen go much deeper.)

In a response to NRLC, Stassen admitted he had made a mistake with the Wisconsin and South Dakota data. He maintained that aggregate numbers - - tallies of all the increases and decreases from the states he looked at - - still showed an net increase of 6,849 abortions. But Stassen's "corrected" increase depended greatly on extraordinary single-year jumps from just two states, Colorado and Arizona, where state officials specifically cautioned that their numbers might not reflect real increases.

In Arizona, where statistics showed what appeared to be a one-time 26.4% increase, the Department of Health Services stated this directly in its report, "It is unclear whether this increase in the number of reported abortions represents a true increase in the actual number of abortions performed, or, perhaps, as better response rate of providers of non-surgical (so-called medical) terminations of pregnancy."

State officials in Colorado, where Stassen reported a stunning 67.4% one-year increase, told NRLC they recently revamped their reporting regimen to address underreporting. They'd sent a note to abortion providers reminding them that reporting was required in Colorado. State officials said it expected an increase in reports, and declared in its official tally, "No one could or should conclude that this anticipated increase in the rate of reported terminations reflects an increase in the true rate."

Stassen did not share either of these cautions with his readers. If we subtract those suspect increases, the aggregate increase drops to just 1,554, a difference easily made up by a single state going significantly in the other direction. Illinois (one of the states Stassen originally had on his list of increasers) dropped 4,717 abortions in 2003, more than enough to offset the supposed increase. And there was other state data available when Stassen wrote his piece which argued against his thesis.

If, as Stassen originally believed, increases were seen in a clear majority of the sample states, it might have been plausible to argue that early indicators pointed to an overall increase. But with states with increases running about even with states whose abortion numbers had decreased (and with some of the increasers' numbers in question), the idea that one could give a credible estimate of additional national abortions on the basis of this limited and sometimes ambiguous data was simply unwarranted.

Further, Stassen not only argued that abortions increased, but also that abortion increases could be linked to job losses and other economic factors, which he said were Bush's responsibility. However, this conclusion, too, is, at best, inconclusive.

Stassen never explains why Bush and his economic policies can properly be held responsible for the economic downturn early in his term, which may owe more to the recession he inherited, corporate scandals that began brewing in the 1990s, and the devastating attacks of 9/11. Or why, conversely, Mr. Bush should not also be given credit for economic expansion and job creation that occurred in the latter half of his first term. More directly, however, Stassen's own data undercuts his thesis.

Abortions in Illinois dropped substantially between 2002 and 2003, in spite of its unemployment rate being stuck at 6.7% - - among the worst in the nation. Ohio's unemployment rate also rose, but abortions there declined. If the economic determinism Stassen assumes was valid, those state results would be reversed.

Other states not part of Stassen's original 16-state sample also provided possible evidence showing he was wrong. In 2001, Pennsylvania's jobless rate and abortion rate both increased, but in 2002, the unemployment rate increased while the number of abortions decreased. The reverse occurred in 2003, with the unemployment rate declining while the abortion rate increased. No correlation follows from that data set.

Let us be clear: NRLC does not challenge the idea that economic circumstances may have some impact on abortion rates. But to say precisely what those factors are and how they are or are not related to specific economic policies or philosophies is a determination requiring substantially more data and analysis than Stassen provides in this attack piece. The data presented in his piece neither show that there was an abortion increase under Bush nor that Bush's economic policies were responsible for any increase.

It appears that Stassen had his conclusion in mind before he checked his facts.

There is one other major consideration to bear in mind in weighing the objectivity of his argument. Stassen identified himself as "consistently pro-life" in his original piece. He wrote touchingly of his love and care for his blind and disabled son, whom he and his wife chose to bear after his wife contracted rubella in her eighth week of pregnancy.

He failed to mention, however, that he was one of the original signatories of "A Call to Concern," a 1977 document that expressed support for the Roe v. Wade decision and affirmed that "abortion in some instances may be the most loving act possible."

Once this was pointed out, Stassen called this a "personal attack," and said he did not sign a statement supporting Roe, but one supporting "academic freedom." Let's consider his comeback.

The words "academic freedom" do not appear anywhere in "A Call to Concern." There is a great deal about challenging the "absolutist position" of those who equate abortion with murder, concern about the "inappropriate" involvement of the Roman Catholic church in the issue, and a call for taxpayer funding of abortion.

About Roe (and its companion Doe v. Bolton case), the document says. "We support the Supreme Court decisions of 1973 which had the effect of removing abortion from the criminal law codes. The Court did not appeal to religion or ethics in arriving at its judgment, but we believe the decision to have been in accord with sound ethical judgment."1

Whatever the explanation, Stassen employed half-baked statistics and incautious economic analysis to try to convince pro-life voters to support John Kerry, a candidate who opposed pro-life legislation at every turn. It makes one wonder why a person of Stassen's experience, faith, training, and professed pro-life leanings would advance such a problematic thesis.

Whatever the reason, Stassen's ploy was unsuccessful. Mr. Bush gained the vast majority of people who based their vote on the single issue of abortion. The President also carried 52% of the Catholic vote, and 78% of the Evangelical "born again" vote, those who were obviously Stassen's target audience.

It was with those votes, the pro-life candidate, George W. Bush, won the election.

For a more detailed analysis of Stassen's claims and counterclaims, go to the NRLC web site and read http://www.nrlc.org/ abortion/stassenpart1.html and http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/stassenpart3.html.

NOTE

1. Read "Call to Concern" at http://theologica.blogspot.com/2004/10/stassen-and-call-to-concern.html.