The Roe Effect

“Missing Voters--through decisions made in the 1970s and early 1980s, encouraged and emboldened by the feminist movement at the height of its power--altered the outcome of the U.S. presidency a generation later, in a way proponents of legal abortion could not have imagined.”

“Examining these results through a partisan political lens, the Democrats have given the Republicans a decided advantage in electoral politics, one that grows with each election. Moreover, it is an advantage that they can never regain. Even if abortion were declared illegal today, and every single person complied with the decision, the advantage would continue to grow until the 2020 election, and would stay at that level throughout the voting lifetime of most Americans living today.”

“Abortion has caused missing Democrats--and missing liberals. For advocates so fundamentally committed to changing the face of conservative America, liberals have been remarkably blind to the fact that every day the abortions they advocate dramatically decrease their power to do so. Imagine the number of followers that their abortion policies eliminate who, over the next several decades, would have emerged as the new liberal thinkers, voters, adherents, fund-raisers and workers for their cause.”

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277

THE ROE EFFECT

The Empty Cradle Will Rock

How abortion is costing the Democrats voters--literally.

BY LARRY L. EASTLAND
Monday, June 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

More than 40 million legal abortions have been performed and documented in the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared abortion legal. The debate remains focused on the legality and morality of abortion. What's largely ignored is a factual analysis of the political consequences of 40 million abortions.

Consider:

• There were 12,274,368 in the Voting Age Population of 205,815,000 missing from the 2000 presidential election, because of abortions from 1973-82.

• In this year's election, there will be 18,336,576 in the Voting Age Population missing because of abortions between 1972 and 1986.

• In the 2008 election, 24,408,960 in the Voting Age Population will be missing because of abortions between 1973-90.

These numbers will not change. They are based on individual choices made--aggregated nationally--as long as 30 years ago. Look inside these numbers at where the political impact is felt most. Do Democrats realize that millions of Missing Voters--due to the abortion policies they advocate--gave George W. Bush the margin of victory in 2000?

The number of abortions accumulate in size and political impact as the years roll along. Like an avalanche that picks up speed, mass, and power as it thunders down a mountain, the number of Missing Voters from abortion changes the landscape of politics. The absence of the missing voters may not be noticed, but that doesn't mean its political impact disappears. As seen during a famine, what no longer exists becomes as relevant as what does.

Let's begin with the obvious: Children born in any given year arrive at voting age in 18 years; conversely, children not born in a given year are "Missing Voters" 18 years later. Permanently so, unless someone discovers a way to give birth to a teenager in a nine-month gestation period.

This table gives the number of Missing Voters from abortion and election years affected:

Table 1: Abortions in the U.S., 1973-90

Years Abortions Aggregated Election AffectedAbortions
1973-74 1,643,200 1,643,200 1992
1975-78 4,939,800 6,583,000 1996
1979-82 6,202,800 12,785,800 2000
1983-86 6,314,800 19,100,600 2004
1987-90 6,325,400 25,426,000 2008

The question arises: Who would these Missing Voters have been if they had reached voting age? What would their values have been? How would they have voted? What impact would they have had on the great debates in America, including the abortion debate? Here's what we know from several generations of social science research about children:

• They tend to absorb the values of their parents.

• They tend to have the same political views as their family (parents, siblings, immediate relatives) and share common views on political causes.

• They tend to develop the same lifestyle as their family.

I remember the guy at my 30th high school class reunion who looked over the people there and remarked, "I can't believe I came in person, while everyone else sent their parents!"

With these factors in mind, the internationally respected survey research firm Wirthlin Worldwide was commissioned to ask 2,000 respondents in a stratified random sample of adults the following question: "As far as you know, has anyone close to you had an abortion?" The emphasis here was on "close to you" in order to bring to mind only those people inside the respondents' circle of socio-demographically homogeneous family and friends.

Of the 2,000 respondents, 636 responded "yes." The various socio-demographic characteristics of these respondents were then imposed on the abortion statistics (Table 1, above), with a special emphasis on the 2000 and 2004 general elections to see what impact they likely would have made had the Missing Voters been present to vote in those two elections.

There were 105,405,100 votes cast for president in the 2000 general election, representing 51.2% of the Voting Age Population. The Missing Voters would have been 6,033,097 based on that portion of the 51.2% represented by (at their lower voting level) 18-24 year olds. This means that Missing Voters would have been 4.48% of all actual voters in 2000.

Given the extremely close result in 2000, these voters could have been a crucial factor in the outcome. This is borne out when viewed by political party as defined in the Wirthlin survey.

There is a significant difference between Republicans with someone close to them who have had an abortion, and Democrats with someone close to them who have had an abortion:

Table 2: Missing Republicans vs. Missing Democrats

Party % of total % of party Party as % Party loss/gain
abortions w/abortions of electorate

Republican 35% 28% 39% +4
Independent 16% 30% 17%
Democrat 49% 36% 44% -5


This tells us:

• Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population, Democrats have more than their proportion of the population. Democrats account for 30% more abortions than Republicans (49% vs. 35%).

• The more ideologically Democratic the voters are (self-identified liberals), the more abortions they have. The more ideologically Republican the voters are (self-identified conservatives), the fewer abortions they have.

This isn't particularly surprising given the core constituencies of both political parties. But translating percentages into numbers for the purpose of evaluating their impact on politics makes the importance of these numbers real. It's one thing to quote percentages and statistics, it's quite another to look at actual human beings.

For example:

• There are 19,748,000 Democrats who are not with us today. (49.37 percent of 40 million).

• There are 13,900,000 Republican who are not with us today. (34.75 percent of 40 million).

• By comparison, then, the Democrats have lost 5,848,000 more voters than the Republicans have.

These Missing Americans--and particularly the millions of Missing Voters--when compounded over time are of enormous political consequence:

Table 3: Missing voters by political party, 2000 general election

Republican 2,096,406
Independent 958,086
Democrat 2,978,605
Total 6,033,097

Let's look at the 2000 election to see what those 6,033,097 Missing Voters meant to its outcome. What would these Missing Voters have meant to the election in Florida?

Table 4: Florida 2000, with and without Missing Voters

Candidate Vote Missing voters Combined vote
Bush 2,912,790 107,799 3,020,589
Gore 2,912,253 153,163 3,065,416

In the actual popular vote for president in the 2000 general election in Florida, George W. Bush was declared the winner by 537 votes. But if the 260,962 Missing Voters of Florida had been present to vote, Al Gore would have won by 45,366 votes. Missing Voters--through decisions made in the 1970s and early 1980s, encouraged and emboldened by the feminist movement at the height of its power--altered the outcome of the U.S. presidency a generation later, in a way proponents of legal abortion could not have imagined.

Examining these results through a partisan political lens, the Democrats have given the Republicans a decided advantage in electoral politics, one that grows with each election. Moreover, it is an advantage that they can never regain. Even if abortion were declared illegal today, and every single person complied with the decision, the advantage would continue to grow until the 2020 election, and would stay at that level throughout the voting lifetime of most Americans living today.

The next question is: What do these numbers tell us about the 2004 election? If we use the seven closest states from the 2000 election as our guide, we can see what these Missing Voters would do to the vote in each state. This is important because most analysts today believe that the 2004 election is likely to be a replay of the 2000 election, except with an incumbent Republican president this time. Given the usual advantages of incumbency, the swing of marginal states from 2000--shoring up Republican victories and tipping the scales from Democrat to Republican in Democratic states--may very well determine the popular and electoral outcome in 2004.

The popular vote in these seven states, with 63 electoral votes in 2000, was less than 1% apart between the two candidates. By adding the votes of the Missing Voters, Democrats could have picked up Florida, and solidified their vote in the other six states (where election challenges could certainly have been seriously considered). The Democrats could have increased their popular and electoral count beyond the scrutiny of the courts and "the court of public opinion."

Table 5: The seven closest states from 2000, with Missing Voters added

State/EVs Bush 2000 Gore 2000 Missing voters 2000/revised 2004 totals
Florida 2,912,790 2,912,253 R: 107,799 '00: R by 537
25 (27) D: 153,163 '04: D by 45,366
Iowa 634,373 638,517 R: 23,556 '00: D by 4,144
7 D: 33,469 '04: D by 14,057
Nevada 301,575 279,978 R: 10,762 '00: R by 21,597
4 (5) D: 15,291 '04: R by 17,068
New Hamp. 273,559 266,348 R: 9,992 '00: R by 7,211
4 D: 14,196 '04: R by 3,006
New Mexico 286,417 286,783 R: 10,608 '00: D by 366
5 D: 15,072 '04: D by 4,830
Oregon 713,577 720,342 R: 26,536 '00: D by 6,765
7 D: 37,703 '04: D by 17,932
Wisconsin 1,237,279 1,242,987 R: 45,900 '00: D by 5,708
11 (10) D: 65,216 '04: D by 25,023

* This table shows the actual vote from 2000, then shows what the change would be in 2004 with all else remaining the same, except that the Missing Voters were added. Numbers in parentheses are 2004 electoral votes.



This table shows the actual vote from 2000, then shows what the change would be in 2004 with all else remaining the same, except that the Missing Voters were added. Numbers in parentheses are 2004 electoral votes.

A similar scenario can be constructed for the U.S. Senate races this fall. The Republican advantages are real: more Democrats (19) are up than Republicans (15), more Democrats are retiring than Republicans (and from advantageous states for Republicans), and Republicans usually do better in a presidential election year. Generally accepted "givens" are:

• Incumbents typically win. In fact, 96% of incumbent U. S. Senators win re-election. The McCain-Feingold legislation will not change this. No legislation passed in the name of reform--including the 1974 post-Watergate campaign finance reform legislation--has ever increased the challenger advantage or lessened the incumbent advantage, no matter what the intended goal.

* In open-seat contests, the party vacating the position cannot "hand over" the seat to the new party nominee. Traditional factors are far more important, such as a strong candidate, solid organization, appealing issues and sound finance. Still, long-term party allegiance is a major factor.

Consequently, the impact of Missing Voters could be considerable in states where the electorate is evenly divided between the two parties over a period of elections. Consider the open seats whose incumbents have chosen not to run for re-election. The following figures represent all votes cast in those states in 1996 and 2000 in the last two presidential year general elections for candidates to Congress--a traditional bellwether for predicting base federal candidate vote.

Table 6: Open Senate seats, 2004

State Incumbent Party GOP adv/disadv
Colorado Ben Nighthorse Campbell R (R) 1.122
Florida Bob Graham D (D) 1.202
Georgia Zell Miller D (R) 0.970
Illinois Peter Fitzgerald R (D) 0.941
Louisiana John Breaux D (D) 0.981
North Carolina John Edwards D (R) 1.050
Oklahoma Don Nickles R (R) 1.151
South Carolina Fritz Hollings D (R) 1.096

*The party of the retiring senator is listed first; the party of the state's other senator is in parentheses.

The party of the retiring senator is listed first; the party of the state's other senator is in parentheses.

If voting patterns in the past two presidential elections (combined) hold true for 2004, then five of these states should be an advantage for the GOP: Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Conversely, three states would lean Democratic: Georgia, Illinois and Louisiana.

What do the Missing Voters take away from the Democrats in each state?

Table 7: Missing Voters (net) in 2004 open Senate races

Colorado 12,013
Florida 37,783
Georgia 17,783
Illinois 78,845
Louisiana 15,520
North Carolina 48,980
Oklahoma 20,983
South Carolina 22,005

Most major reporting and analyzing institutions would rate each of the open seats, with the possible exception of Illinois, as "too close to call" at this stage of the campaign. When election time comes, these Missing Voters will be missed. The most expensive campaign a candidate will ever run, the adage goes, is the one he or she loses. For half of these candidates, this will be that most expensive campaign.

Abortion has caused missing Democrats--and missing liberals. For advocates so fundamentally committed to changing the face of conservative America, liberals have been remarkably blind to the fact that every day the abortions they advocate dramatically decrease their power to do so. Imagine the number of followers that their abortion policies eliminate who, over the next several decades, would have emerged as the new liberal thinkers, voters, adherents, fund-raisers and workers for their cause.

Table 8: Missing by ideology

Ideology % of pop % of total % of group having
abortions abortions
Liberal 37% 47% 41%
Moderate 5% 5% 31%
Conservative 59% 48% 26%


Look at the results:

• Six out of 10 Americans call themselves conservatives. Only a quarter of them are having abortions.

• A little more than one-third of Americans call themselves liberals. More than four in 10 are having abortions.

• This means that liberals are having one third more abortions than conservatives.

By combining party and ideology, an even sharper contrast comes into focus:

Table 9: Liberal Democrats vs. conservative Republicans

Ideology/party % of pop % of total % of group having
abortions abortions
Liberal/Democrat 40% 48% 38%
Moderate/Independent 11% 10% 30%
Conservative/Republican 49% 41% 27%


Liberal Democrats are having both more abortions--and more abortions as a percentage of their ideological and political group--than either of the other groupings.

As liberals and Democrats fervently seek new voters and supporters through events, fund-raisers, direct mail and every other form of communication available, they achieve results minuscule in comparison to the loss of voters they suffer from their own abortion policies. It is a grim irony lost on them, for which they will pay dearly in elections to come.

Mr. Eastland is managing director of LEA Management Group LLC, a public policy research organization. This article appears in the June issue of The American Spectator.