Conflict of interest
Jill Stanek reports on the Guttmacher Institute's most recent report indicating that by 2005 abortion had dropped 25% from its all time high of 1.6 million in 1990 to 1.2 million in 2005. Guttmacher is Planned Parenthoods research arm and I am highly skeptical of anything that comes out of them. I was a little surprised to see so many Catholic bloggers use the reported decline without the hefty barrels of salt that should be seen when coming out of them. It is in Planned Parenthood's best interest for there to be a reported decline in abortion. For one it helps to try to reduce it as a hot topic and to make it a seem that the number of abortions will decline by itself. Another point is that they can claim that there blanketing of contraception is working. In an election year they certainly want to make abortion less contentious among voters so that pro-abortion politicians can get elected and to secure Planned Parenthoods source of income as the largest abortion provider.
I surely want a decline in the number of abortions at a substantial rate to be true but it looks like in the case that Jill Stanek reports on that the statistics are quite questionable and while there has been some decrease it is not as much as they reported. Jill had also made an astute observation about the previously reported baby bump and the decline of some levels of abortion. Guttmacher claims that it is contraceptives and the lack of access to abortion clinics that is the cause of this reduction. No surprise that they don't see there is more of a move to embrace life than to kill it.
What really drives me crazy about mainstream reporting on the Guttmacher Institute is that they almost never mention there connection to Planned Parenthood. If an institute funded by a tobacco company released research that cigarettes were killing less people the media would laugh at such stories because of the massive conflict of interest. But they don't see this conflict of interest because of their own conflict of interest.
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Thank you, Jeff! If I had continued feeling like the only one who distrusted Guttmacher's numbers and was waiting for PP's spin to hit the media, my brain may have exploded! I'll be skipping off to that link, now.
On my way back, I'll try to find the stat site I once encountered that had two sets of numbers: one from Guttmacher and one from AGI. Months later I learned (duh)that AGI is an acronym for Alan Guttmacher Institute. We'll never get real numbers, though, no matter who is counting, until (ahem) abortion providers are honest.
The Washington Post reports that as abortion rates have dropped, the use of RU-486 has increased.
And just for the record, government funding of Planned Parenthood increased every year from 2001 until at least 2006, and this occured when Republicans dominated the White House and Congress.
I can't find those AGI vs Guttmacher stats I mentioned. Maybe it was a typo on the site and it should have been 'CDC'. Anyway, if it's not out there anymore, it can't confuse any other dummy. :)
Even if the numbers dropped to 1.2 million, that's still one million, two hundred thousand human lives destroyed via a legal process to get rid of the unwanted. The fact that they can even claim it declined to that number is an abysmal statement of how pervasive the problem has become.
I doubt that if the Guttmacher Institute announced that murders had declined from 1.6 million to 1.2 million that anyone would be saying, "Well, we've solved the problem of innocent people being murdered."
Good point, Jane.
The number of chemical abortions with Plan B and birth control pills is uncountable. It is just the tearing limb from limb kind that is 'down' but still in the millions.
CJ,
Sorry for some shamless self promotion here, but I blogged on this recently as well. While I was inclined to take the Guttmacher numbers at face value (though I can certainly understand why anyone would question them) what was really interesting was that this study saying abortions were down came out within days of another saying the fertillity rate for US women is up. In the Wash. Post the same reporter covered both studies and in one he said abortions are down because contraception use is up, while in the fertillity article he said contraception use is down.
I think it is possibile that some of the decline in abortions is due to abortion pills/chemical abortions which many pro-choicers don't really see as a true abortion anyway, but if that were the case for the bulk of the drop, that would have been the headline and PP would have made sure the world heard it.
What we are seeing, in my opinion is the "Roe Effect" in that with each generation, a smaller share of people in that generation consider abortion, combined with growing awareness as to exactly what abortion is, and the medical info on the devolpment of the fetus at very stages, plus our prayers and the efforts of the pro-life movement.
Anyway here was my post if you get a chance...
http://custosfidei.blogspot.com/2008/01/hi-all-i-am-back-from-long-hiatus-in.html
I accepted these numbers unconditionally, until I heard about the increase in plan B usage. I had forgotten all about the Roe Effect. Outwit, Outlast, Survive!
I still don't know if we track ru486 abortions. They must be easier to hide, in that no procedure is necessary unless they "fail". But are the prescriptions themselves tracked?