The Roe Effect

I came across an old article which my notes attributed to the The Washington Post (date and author unknown) that reported an interesting analysis by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. The “Campaign” documented that U.S. teen birthrates had fallen 30% between 1991 and 2002, and postulated that if those rates had instead remained constant, there would be 406,000 additional children living below the federally defined poverty line and 428,000 living in households with single mothers.

Since 1991 was exactly 18 years after Roe v. Wade, the article’s authors pondered if the “Roe Effect” might have had something to do with all this. The Roe effect would predict that the effect of a reduction in birthrates would be greatest in liberal states, where pregnant teenagers would be more likely to exercise their "right to privacy" and thus less likely to carry their babies to term. The numbers seem to bear this out.

The 10 states with the biggest percentage decline in teen birthrates were: California, Maine, Michigan, Alaska, New Hampshire, Washington, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Hawaii.

The 10 states with the greatest percentage improvement in child poverty rates were: Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, Michigan, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, and Massachusetts.

And the 10 states with the greatest reduction in the number of children living with single mothers were: Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont, California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Maine.

John Kerry carried nine of the top 10 states in each category, which is remarkable considering he won only 19 states overall. (The District of Columbia, if it were a state, would place 10th on the first list and first on the other two lists.)

Thus it would appear that there is a strong correlation between trends of reduced teen pregnancy and reduced child poverty rates, and the relatively slow population growth in Democratic-leaning states.

What does this all mean? Liberal birthrates are falling in all blue states, making liberals less likely to accumulate enough voters to prevail in future elections, unless of course their numbers are reinforced by illegal aliens who can vote without proof of citizenship by showing only a driver's license and fraudulent documents.

Who would have thought there was an un-American ulterior motive of corrupting the legitimate American democratic process by instutionalizing open borders, redistributing taxpayer wealth in the form of social services to illegal aliens, and issuing state driver’s licenses to illegal aliens to legitimize what would otherwise be illegal votes?

Red State Patriot

Posted September 28, 2005 11:34 PM
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