Did the Abortion Rate Decline under Clinton?/Jennifer Roback Morse

In yesterday's post, Cristina asks rhetorically why pro-lifers didn't call Clinton and congratulate him for the decline in the abortion rate that took place during his term. I suspect the reason they didn't is that they didn't believe his policies particularly deserved credit for the decline.

During the 2004 election cycle, a claim circulated that abortions decreased under Clinton and increased during Bush's first term.
That claim has been debunked. The downward trend in the abortion rate continued, even during the Bush years.
The trend is more likely caused, not by increased contraception, but by a combination of abstinence "pledge" programs and parental involvement requirements.
Among non-pledgers, the median age for beginning sexual intercourse was 16 years and 11 months. By contrast, the median age for the onset of sexual activity among all pledging teens was 21 months later, at 18 years and 8 months.
Also, just to anticipate a possible criticism: the "pledgers" who do later have sex, are no less likely to use contraception. So, the delaying sexual activity through these programs has no serious down-side that I can see.
There are other reasons for wanting to delay the initiation of sexual experience, which I'll go into in a later post.
posted by Dr J Roback Morse at 6:06 PM | link

1 Comments:

At 4/28/2006 11:48 AM,  David said...

Besides parental involvment laws, we can also credit other laws passed by pro-life state legislatures and governors. These include informed consent laws, partial birth abortion bans/restrictions, and restricting Medicaid funding of abortion. As well, the work of abortion alternative clinics esp. the increased use of ultrasounds by them has contributing to the decline.

 

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