The man isn't kidding. Here's the clip."How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years?" Miller asked. "Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed."
Miller claimed that 45 million babies have been "killed" since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973.
"If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security," he asserted.
March 12, 2007
Zell Miller's Got A Handle on The Problem
From Raw Story:
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Before you necessarily pooh-pooh, what he's saying, I would just point out that just a few hundred more living, breathing, and non-aborted voters in Florida in November of 2000 would have been enough to prevent one hell of a lot of harm from taking place.
I wonder if anyone has ever done predictive modelling of what political views aborting children would have held, 18 years later, if they had been allowed to have been born. I'm betting that their would-have-been families typically lean Democratic, but I have no evidence to back that up. It's kind of a fascinating question for geeky people like me.
Admiral;
A similar point as already been make in the book "Freakonomics."
I can't remember the authors - but I am sure the book can be found at Amazon.com.
If I remember correctly, the point they make in the book is that Roe v Wade caused the huge drop in urban crime in the early 90s.
For whatever that's worth.
Yeah, I know about the crime-modelling stuff. It's a very contentious argument in criminology at the moment; a lot of people aren't happy with the statistial methods used to make that prediction, and especially with the assumptions of which kinds of babies would be most crime-prone.
But do you know if the authors also modelled political preferences, or did they only look at future criminal behavior?
Before you necessarily pooh-pooh the idea that all meatballs are actually eggs laid by Flying Spaghetti Monsters, I would just point out that there has never been documented evidence of a FSM or FSM damage occuring anywhere outside a Chef Boy-Ar-Dee factory.
I wonder if anyone has ever done predictive modelling of what music preferences un-eaten Flying Spaghetty Monsters would have held? I'm betting that their would-have-been families typically listen to Brittany Speers, but I have no evidence to back that up. It's kind a fascinating question for pasta-oriented people like me.
Admiral;
It's been a year or so since I read the book, so I can't say for sure. I don't remember any discussion of politics as it refers to the abortion chapter.
What's the debate over there in criminologyland?
It's been a while for me as well (um, reading Freakonomics, ahem), and I barely staggered through econometrics 25 years ago, so I am hardly qualified to critique the statistical methodology of Freakonomics. As I remember, Levine’s argument about why these children might be more inclined towards criminal behavior ran something like this: that a parent or parents have a rational reason for not wanting a child at that time, that their finances are such they can not reasonably support a child then. If they had the child, it would receive a poorer level of support. I don’t think any assumption can be made about these children’s political orientation based on Levine’s premises. Except to say that if they were felons, I believe Florida would not allow them to vote. Heh.
Ed
...and so we await the results of a runoff between Zell Miller and the Admiral to determine which will receive Loony Statement of the Day award. As you know, they both received more than 45% of the vote, with the rest of the vote going to the Fixed Earthers.
Miller, known for expressing his desire to challenge Chris Matthews of MSNBC to a duel, is the obvious favorite; but recent exit polls indicate that the Admiral has gained quite a bit of support from delusional whackos...a very influential block in the voting for this award.
OK, here it is. The latest results from the State of Confusion are in, and the winner is...the Admiral! Congratulations Admiral!
Apparently swing voters said that they went with Turner because, quoting now, "You know, Zell just lies and twists stuff around a lot; but you can't beat the Admiral for zany stuff out of right field."
The criminological debate, which I haven't been paying rapt attention to, largely focuses upon the who does and does not seek an abortion. One problem is that getting really good data on who obtains abortions is pretty difficult due to the obvious privacy problems.
We know that Anerican crime is concetrated amoung young urban (often black) males. There is apparently some question as to whether abortion rates were adequately high enough among the would-be mothers of such boys to explain the drop in crime.
If urban black women weren't taking advantage of legalized abortion to the extent of other women whose children would not have been as likely to offend, then the Freakenomics argument begins to wear a bit thin.
All of the analysis is complicated by the inherrent time lag between cause and effect. It's not really all that important what is happeneing today, but what was happeneing 14-18 years ago. And also because one key variable -- residence in a concentrated area of urban povety -- can change as a child ages (or would have aged). And, of couse, it's basically impossible to know how the presence of an aborted child, had he (or she) been carried to term, would have affected his (or her) mother's residency and financial circumstances.
Those who have tried to examine this hypothesis tend to have problems estimating anything like an adequate statistical model, due in part to problems with the data (which would have had to have been collected back in the early and mid 1970s).
I wish I could give you a better explanation of the debate, but that's about all I recall from talking to a few of the people who have attempted to examine the hypothesis.
Buth this 45 million is nothing compared with how many would be around if so many women of child-bearing age had not engaged in abstinence for many years.
Well, Ad-mir-al (can't resist that Ricardo Montelban's Khan from Star Trek II), the one question I would raise is what is the black population in the US? If a portion of 15% of the population were not taking full advantage of their right to have abortions, might the overall abortion rate still have the effect described in Freakonomics? This also extends to crime statistics. Even if crime is higher percentage wise in black neighborhoods (and I say *even* because a quick Google on drug use by race suggested similar percentages), numerically blacks are a small enough percentage in the country that the behavior of other races is likely to have a bigger impact on overall rates.
I would also disagree with the statement "And, of couse (sic), it's basically impossible to know how the presence of an aborted child, had he (or she) been carried to term, would have affected his (or her) mother's residency and financial circumstances." I think the rigors of raising children are, in fact, knowable. Any job the mother takes is constricted by her ability to find affordable childcare, for example, even given the willingness of other family members to sacrifice their own career paths to provide the childcare.
Certainly there may be problems with the analysis in Freakonomics. I was impressed with the book and the analyses therein, but then I watch cartoons on Saturday nights with my step-daughter (I think that Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is the new Rocky and Bullwinkle, if Rocky and Bullwinkle grew up in Japan).
Oh yeah, that Zell sure is a jerk, hunh.
Ed... there is no Ricardo Montoban way of saying "Ed", unfortuneately... the economics of raising a child are well known, to a certain extent. But the pressence or absence of a child from the home has effects that go beyond economic. Much of the life-history longitudinal analysis of crime notes that some things are strongly associated with desistence from criminal behavior. Among these major life events are (for men) marriage (defacto or actual) to what some researchers refer to as a "good woman", and having children.
If a drug-addicted mother goes into rehab and gets a regular job because she is in danger of having her child taken away by social services, then her own criminal behavior will be hugely reduced. If dad "marries" the mother of his child, and settles down on his own offending, that's a plus for everyone in the family, not to mention everyone in the neighborhood.
What always floors me by some of the high-poverty-neighborhood research is the amazing extent to which even a really menial job can change the circumstances of the people who live there. To you and me, a part-time gig at a fast food restaurant may seem like no way to support a family. But compared to not working at all, it has an astonishing effect. For some people, even a basic job like these provides enough to get them out of their neighborhood and into a much better one.
So that's why I say that the absence of an aborted child has unknowable effects on the life that they would have led had they been born. There are a huge number of things that their pressence might have caused -- this is starting to feel like "It's a Wonderful Life", for which I apologize -- both good and bad.
Ad, I suppose you could try “Eduarrrrdo”, but only if you get the right roll on the rrrr’s.
I have a vague memory that Levine/Dubner suggested that at least some women who did have abortions also did have children later. Levine/Dubner’s speculation, I believe, was that the women were having the children in their twenties, when they were more settled into a life path, instead of in their teens.
Not to take away from your scenario, that people sometimes rise to meet the challenges thrown at them because they are affected by the new responsibilities. But people sometimes don’t.
Levine, being an economist, is looking at rational behavior, albeit from an atypical perspective. I think he is thinking that the (would-be) mothers who abort unborn children do so mostly from a rational perspective. They are doing it because they believe themselves unready and unwilling at that time to have a child. I think the pro-life perspective is that this is a selfish view held by the mother, but it may also be a realistic one, which has as much to do with the welfare of the child as with the selfishness of the mother. I personally believe that having an abortion is pretty difficult decision for a woman, despite the stereotypes, and one that women do not enter into that lightly. I believe it can have the same sort of wake up call effect you describe menial jobs or marriages having.
I do taxes in the evening, previously at a commercial site and this year at a VITA site. I see that wide variety of people, many with kids, some clearly working to improve themselves, some clearly not. I don’t get the impression that having children is a motivator for a majority of people as much as just time, experience and the maturity most of us pick up. That is, of course, just my opinion, and if it should be a question, I have step kids, some one else’s, not my own (and I met them when they were teenagers, or “Just getting interesting” as Sean Connery put it in “The Last Crusade”)
By the way, if the women who have abortions go on to have children later, isn’t there a pretty good chance they will still have all the children they would have wanted? Take that, Zell.
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