An odd column that reasons that because Democrats are more likely to have abortions, and Democrats’ children would be more likely to grow up to vote Democrat, a liberal abortion policy is costing Democrats votes.
It’s odd for a couple of reasons. First, consider the closing argument:
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. . . .
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.
It sounds like criticism of Democrats — but why isn’t it praise? Democrats are defending what they think (rightly or wrongly) is a fundamental human right, even at some cost to their political power. Sounds pretty noble to me. The opposite, which would be changing their views on what they used to think of as a human rights issue in order to get more voters in a couple of decades, would be pretty ignoble.
Second, I take it that the effects of not having an abortion are a bit more complex than just having one extra child, which as best I can tell is the author’s model. If a woman wants two children, and has an unexpected child early in life, she might well have just one more child later.
Third, the effects of a Democrat’s having an unwanted child might be one extra Democrat. Or perhaps the mother would end up being poorer, or less educated (if, for instance, having a child at age 18 leads her not to go to college). This may make it less likely that she’ll vote — as I understand it, poor people indeed tend to be less likely to vote. It may leave her with less time to volunteer as a “worker for [her] cause.” It may give her less education to be a “new liberal thinker[].” And it may leave her with less money to contribute to candidates and to causes.
So the simple model that the article suggests seems pretty vastly oversimplified, and the numbers only add a false sense of accuracy. But in any event, I keep going back to the first point: Even if the article is right, it is describing a laudable blindness to political consequences (or perhaps deliberate ignoring of political consequences) — not so much “grim[ly] iron[ic],” as a necessary and proper consequence of adherence to principle. And the only honorable thing that Democrats can do in response to the article is to resolutely ignore it.
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