The Roe Effect, Redux

James Taranto has written again on the Roe Effect, the collision of demographics and abortion views:

The Roe effect, however, refers specifically to the nexus between the practice of abortion and the politics of abortion. It seems self-evident that pro-choice women are more likely to have abortions than pro-life ones, and common sense suggests that children tend to gravitate toward their parents' values. This would seem to ensure that Americans born after Roe v. Wade have a greater propensity to vote for the pro-life party--that is, Republican--than they otherwise would have.

I find his analysis fascinating, as this is a real demographic trend that has yet to be seriously addressed. There are consequences to population reduction, especially targeted reduction. Taranto points out:

More than 40 million legal abortions have occurred in the United States since 1973, and these are not randomly distributed across the population. Black women, for example, have a higher abortion ratio (percentage of pregnancies aborted) than Hispanic women, whose abortion ratio in turn is higher than that of non-Hispanic whites. Since blacks vote Democratic in far greater proportions than Hispanics, and whites are more Republican than Hispanics or blacks, ethnic disparities in abortion ratios would be sufficient to give the GOP a significant boost--surely enough to account for George W. Bush's razor-thin Florida victory in 2000.

Here's a question. If an activist group came across these figures and decided to protest the fact that black and hispanic women have abortions at higher ratios than white women, how would they wage this campaign? Would they demand that abortion be marketed more to white women? Would they cry "Eugenics!" (And they'd be entitled to, in light of Margaret Sanger's positions. Check out this article from blackgenocide.org.) Would they demand restrictions on abortion? Stuff to ponder.

My Father's House

At one point in our vacation after a delightful visit with old friends in the east of Ohio, I took the late night drive back to Cincinnati (you can tell it's my home town and not Darwin's because I can spell it). And though it had been years since I had driven that route and this particular evening everything was shrouded in a dense fog, I remembered much of it from the signs I could see.

As we drew nearer to town and the way grew more and more familiar, I was surprised at how much my heart leapt to see even the mile markers with the name "Cincinnati" on them. Someone was celebrating early; as I drove over the Ohio River at 4:45 on the morning of the Fourth of July, I saw a single firework explode. From then on, I knew the way so well I could practically drive it in my sleep (as I was very close to doing): downtown past the stadium, onto 75, then my exit, past areas where even the urban decay has urban decay, then to the neighborhoods where the stately middle-class homes of the last century have been subdivided once and again and allowed to slowly rot. From there up the hill to the working-class neighborhoods of the West Side (never to be confused with the East Side!) -- my old stomping grounds. And though I've not lived there for many years -- not ever, really, since the house was bought after I went to college -- I felt such joy as I drew nearer to the auld homestead and the neighborhood that I knew and loved.

If I was so delighted to come home to a house in which I never even spent much time, how moved should I be to move closer to the house of my Heavenly Father, and by encountering the signposts that point me on the way? "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places; otherwise, how could I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? ... You know the way that leads where I go." (John 14:2,4)

The Wood of the Cross

We returned from vacation late last night, and so it wasn't until this morning that we noticed that a portion of the fence between our back yard and the back yard of the neighbors behind us was hanging askew (perhaps blown over by the heat wave?). And it wasn't until this evening that we went out to fix it. Fortunately, Darwin could simply step over the fence into the neighbors' yard, because a) they're never home, and b) they're the sort of renters who don't really care what the place looks like. The posts of the fence are on our side, and the boards on theirs, so it was my job to brace while Darwin hammered.

I pushed against the post and grasped the tops of the boards, and I steeled myself (cringed, rather) at the thought of the rough wood vibrating under the blow of the hammer. Thank goodness, I thought, that none of my fingers were remotely in the path of the hammer. Then, of course, I thought of Christ laying on the cross, waiting for the first hammer blow. How many times did the hammer slip and hit his hand? And I found that if I held the fence firmly, with no trepidation, that the vibrations were lessened and the task was completed sooner.

Questioning His Patriotism

IowaHawk brings us a guest editorial by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi who would like to remind us, on the 4th of July, to stop questioning the patriotism of others.

Reign Supreme

Amy Welborn's blog has a moderately interesting thread going today about the supreme court and constitutional law, which was touched off by Bishop Skylstad's letter to President Bush about the current Supreme Court vacancy.

I watched the news about this a bit from out hotel room on Friday night (right after O'Connor sent her letter of resignation) and I hope to have a good deal more content coming soon on the coming SCOTUS nomination fight -- as I'm sure it will be.

As seen in the the linked thread, the conflict won't be as simple as liberal vs. conservative, since there are rather more sides (even just to the pro-life question) than that. For instance, we will see at least rhetorical if not political friction between hard core originalists and hard core pro-lifers. A certain segment of the pro-life movement feels that since judicial fiat is how abortion was legalized, we might as well ban it by judicial fiat as well. They would like to see a reversal of Roe v. Wade that outright bans abortion by finding protection for unborn life in the constitution (generally sighting "penumbras and emanations" of the 14th amendment.) Strict originalists, on the other hand, (such as justice Scalia) would like someday to see Roe v. Wade struck down on the grounds that the constitution is currently silent on abortion, and regulation of abortion thus reverted to the states.

I think a state by state war would actually be best for the pro-life movement, both because it would result in a number of separate solutions to the abortion problem (and thus a chance for one state to learn from another) and also because it would present small, achievable objectives. Within a decade or two we would have abortion states and life state and ones that were fuzzy in between (not unlike the slave vs. free states before the civil war) and population/demographic trends would have a chance to re-align the balance of power in the House (at least) based on the relative populations of those states.

More to come.

Terror Blitz

Lots of good writing at National Review, both from the British writers and American about the attacks today in London.

Also watch The Belmont Club, which always has good analysis on the war on terror.

All prayers for the victims.

Landscape with Evil

Blogging while vacationing has proved more difficult than I had hoped, but here's a morsel to keep the top post from getting too old:

The folks over at Refracted Light sent me a link to their newest post, a piece on Michael O'Brien's Landscape With Dragons. I've always been leary of "Christian Ratings" sites, but Refracted Light is definately a good one, understanding the difference between stories in which bad things happen and stories that push corrupted worldviews.

I have yet to finish Landscape With Dragons, though I've started it a couple times. It seemed to me that O'Brien had some very real insights, while at the same time suffering from the difficulty with being far too simplistic in his interpretation of symbols. (Speaking of books in which dragons aren't utterly evil and dangerous, what does O'Brien make of Tokein's Farmer Giles of Ham?)