ACCESS BY MARK CRUTCHER |
4 POLITICS Chapter 3 makes it clear that, whether it is caused by a shortage of providers or an increased cost for the procedure, the abortion rate falls like a blind roofer when access to abortion is reduced. That reality explains something many in the abortion industry have long lamented: the cost of an abortion has not significantly changed since Roe vs. Wade. At a September 1997, National Abortion Federation Seminar, Colorado abortionist Warren Hern pointed out that he can only charge $15 more for an abortion today than fellow abortionist Milan Vuitch was charging in 1972. At another National Abortion Federation meeting held earlier in 1997, Hern was quoted as saying, "... if you raise your [abortion] fees $25 to meet the cost for having an ultrasound machine ... the patient load plummets." Hern is not alone in his concern over artificially low and unchanging abortion prices. Many of his colleagues in the abortion industry have observed the same thing. The question is why they haven't done anything to correct the situation. The answer is found in the reason prices are low, not just in the fact that they are. This pricing phenomenon can't be attributed to normal competitive pressures. After all, the abortion industry openly admits that there is a critical shortage of abortionists, and as anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows, when the supply of something is short, the cost is supposed to go up. The exception is when there is some outside influence that is powerful enough to neutralize price increases that would have otherwise occurred due to short supply. Where it exists, the marginality of the decision to buy can be such an outside influence, having the ability to easily trump a shortage-driven increase in cost. And that's the key here. As Chapter 3 clearly demonstrates, the cost of an abortion has remained flat for the last 25 years only because the women who have them won't pay more. In some abortion-industry conferences, speakers have tried to attribute abortion price stagnation to competition between clinics. However, the fact that prices don't rise when the number of clinics decrease exposes that argument as a lie. Even in areas where there is only one abortion clinic, prices don't increase appreciably. That leads to an obvious conclusion: contrary to what the abortion industry has always claimed, the decision to abort Is profoundly marginal. The data suggests that abortion decisions are more often driven by access issues (price and location) than desperation. And not only has the abortion industry always known that access controls the abortion rate, they have also figured out that the abortion rate controls the legal status of abortion. To understand why this is true, you need to recognize that every abortion creates two ripple-effects in the political arena. One is financial and the other is philosophical. The following is an abbreviated analysis of each. FINANCIAL When a pro-life organization attempts to pass legislation, it is inevitable that they will be dramatically outspent by the pro-aborts. Of course, this often proves disastrous since the American political system tends to be driven by money rather than ideology, It may sound cynical, but the reality is that if one throws enough money at any battle in American politics, victory is virtually assured regardless of merit. The question is where the pro-aborts get this money. They will tell you it comes from the "pro-choice majority" which simply outnumbers our people. That is pure garbage. This "pro-choice majority" rhetoric is a lie and the abortion industry's own actions prove it. If they really believe that their viewpoint is shared by the majority of the American people, their strategy would be to fight their battles within the political arena. After all, that is where the majority rules. On the other hand, if they believe that they do not have the support of the majority, their best strategy is to keep their issue out of politics and contest it in the judicial system. With that in mind, look at what their strategy has been for the last twenty-five years. These people have done everything within their power to keep the abortion issue out of the legislatures and in the courts. Clearly, they realize this "pro-choice majority" rhetoric is nothing more than wishful thinking. I suspect that if an independent analysis were done, it would reveal that political contributions from advocates for the two sides are roughly equal. If either side has an edge, it would more likely be the pro-life side - not necessarily because there are more of us, but because we appear more likely to be single-issue voters. In recent national elections, polls have shown that among people who say that the abortion issue alone drives their voting decisions, twice as many vote pro-life as vote pro-choice. It would not be unreasonable to assume that contributions mirror voting-at least to some degree. That still doesn't answer the question of where the abortion industry gets the money to consistently outspend us in the political arena. The answer is that they get it from the women who have abortions. Let's say that a fifteen-year-old girl goes into an abortion clinic and gives the abortionist $350 to kill her baby. Most of that money goes to pay salaries, taxes, overhead, profit, etc. However, every abortionist knows that if his political defenders are not successful, the pro-lifers will put him out of business. Therefore, he is going to pour some of that girl's money into the political machine that's trying to keep abortion legal. That way, the next girl can come in and give him money to kill her baby, and so on, and so on. In effect, pro-abortion political activists function as a trade organization for the abortion industry. Although we don't really know how much money goes from the nation's abortionists into their political machine, we can come up with a reasonable estimate of how much goes from American women into abortion clinics. If you take all the abortions that occur in the US, separate them out by gestational age, and apply the average cost for abortions at those gestational ages, the result comes out to approximately $64,000 per hour. That's how much money American women take into the abortion industry-every hour of the day, 365 days a year. Obviously, even if only a small percentage of that money eventually reaches the pro-abortion political machine, the dollars could add up fast. Making matters worse, there is no off-setting source of funds for the pro-life political effort. All of our political funds come from direct contributions. This is what creates the great disparity between the amount of campaign money available to the two sides. PHILOSOPHICAL When someone participates in an activity that they feel is morally justifiable, they are generally comfortable defending it to others who may believe it Is wrong. However, when someone does something in spite of a belief that it is wrong, they are often extremely defensive about it. They can be so hypersensitive about it that they become unreasonably belligerent anytime the subject is brought up. And the greater the sense that one has violated his own moral belief system, the more strongly this sensitivity is felt. If someone-in spite of a deeply held sense of right and wrong-steals a 25-cent pack of gum from a convenience store, he is not likely to suffer many long, sleepless nights over it. On the other hand, if that same person murders someone he will probably be haunted by it for the rest of his life. This phenomenon affects us all, since every one of us has done things that we knew were wrong when we did them. It certainly affects the people who participate in abortions. Let's say we could wave a magic wand, stop time, and be transported to the side of a woman who is about to submit to an abortion. We tell her that we are not there to judge or criticize her for what she is about to do. In fact, we're not even going to try to talk her out of it. We simply want her to answer the following question and then we'll leave: Does she honestly believe in her heart that what she is doing is right? It's always been my opinion that among the 4,000 American women who have abortions every day, virtually none would answer yes to that question. Pro-life feminist writer Frederica Mathewes-Green gave what, I believe, is the best description of this situation: "For the question remains, do women want abortion? Not like she wants a Porsche or an ice cream cone. Like an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw off its own leg, a woman who seeks abortion is trying to escape a desperate situation by an act of violence and self-loss. Abortion is not a sign that women are free, but a sign that they are desperate." It is reasonable to believe that for the vast majority of women, the decision to destroy their children is a direct violation of their most deeply held sense of right and wrong. When that occurs, the defensiveness and sensitivity discussed earlier is inevitable. Pro-lifers experience a manifestation of this all the time, probably without even realizing it. We've all been in a situation where our pro-life view was made known, only to have someone nearby go ballistic often attacking us personally. When this happens, let there be no doubt about it, you are dealing with someone who has participated in an abortion. This person could be a woman who had one, a man who wanted out of a trap and forced one on a girlfriend, a parent or grandparent who paid for one, or a school counselor who pushes abortion on pregnant students. Whoever it is, anytime you see people become belligerent simply upon hearing the pro-life viewpoint expressed, it is almost certain that those people have a personal abortion experience somewhere in their backgrounds. The internal conflict created by having violated their own moral values causes them to perceive the pro-life viewpoint as a personal attack. When someone says, "Abortion is murder," what they hear is, "You are a murderer." This same dynamic also impacts the political arena. When a candidate for office takes a pro-life position, voters with abortion experiences hear the candidate calling them murderers. So does that make them more likely or less likely to vote for that candidate? Of course, the answer is obvious. I'm not suggesting that every single person who participates in an abortion automatically turns into a rock-ribbed pro-abortion voter. What I'm saying is that since the vast majority of elections are decided by slim margins, anything which influences even a small percentage of voters can be a powerful political force. To understand the ramifications of this, consider that by the most conservative estimates about 40 percent of all American women of childbearing age have had at least one abortion. Some studies have put the number at more like 60 percent. Making matters worse, whatever the percentage of post-aborted women, there is a comparable percentage of post-aborted men as well. And that doesn’t count the untold numbers of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and counselors who may be involved. The point is that the potential impact on the American political system is staggering. Moreover, this force grows considerably more powerful every day as another 4,000 abortions are racked up. POLITICAL CONCLUSION If you think I am suggesting that we abandon the political or public influence arenas, let me put that misconception to rest. Our ultimate goal must always be to return legal protection to every unborn child, from the moment of conception and in every circumstance. With that said, It’s time for the pro-life movement to accept certain realities. First, neither the church nor the Republican party is going to help us. More often than not, they are part of the problem, not the solution. Every measure of effort we spend trying to make them do the right thing represents an equal measure of effort we don’t spend trying to stop abortion. That sort of waste is not good stewardship. Second, this is a war and the rules of war apply. And the first rule of war is that the goal is not to kill your opponents, but to destroy their ability to continue the fight. Hopefully, this publication makes it clear that in the war over abortion our opponents’ ability to continue fighting comes from a high abortion rate. That is what fuels their political machine. As long as they have $64,000 an hour to draw on, and the potential for at least 4,000 new pro-abortion voters every day, the legal status of abortion will never change. That is simply too much inertia for us to overcome. Compound that with their absolute stranglehold on the American media, and the idea that we can return legal protection to the unborn without first lowering the abortion rate is seen for what it really is ... utterly laughable. Recognizing that access determines the abortion rate, it naturally follows that the political battle over abortion is now a battle over access. Look at the issue from any angle, and it’s impossible not to see that access doesn’t just influence abortion politics; it is now the determining factor in which side wins and which side loses. |
