In This Dimension

Little question exists that the Roe v Wade decision of 1973 ignited a cultural firestorm that rages today, 35 years later, and that shows no sign of being extinguished.

The issue of abortion so polarizes voters that many who otherwise might support Republicans in Foreign Affairs, Defense, Education, Free Markets, Taxes and the Economy, will never vote Republican. This is especially true for young voters, the future of the country.

Democrats demand the freedom to have an abortion throughout a pregnancy – even up to the moment of birth. Cultural Conservatives want Roe overturned, and for abortion to be illegal or very close to it. 

The Conservative assumption is that taking abortion out of the hands of the judiciary and giving it to the voters and their representatives will somehow make abortion illegal again. Since there are no women of child-bearing age in America who ever have lacked access to legal abortion, and since all of these women can vote, those who ascribe to this line of thinking are deluding themselves.

But rather than argue opinion, let’s look at some facts and make some logical extrapolations.

According to an article published in May of 2005 by Finer and Henshaw, from Roe (1973) until the end of 2002, approximately 42 million abortions occurred in America. What has been the net result? Should Conservatives really be terminally angry?

The net result of these abortions has been, and will continue to be, millions fewer Democrat voters voting into office people with policies anathema to Republicans: socialist economic and tax policies, weak defense, protectionism, anti-gun-ownership, and the continued presence of unionized teachers, among others.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Given that Roe essentially defines the cultural and political divide in America, it is perhaps safe to assume that at least 75% of the parents who chose abortion were Democrats. Given that most, but not all, children follow in their parents’ political footsteps, let’s assume that 70% of those aborted would have become Democrat voters.

If these numbers are anywhere near correct, by the election of 2000, which was won by approximately three million votes, over four million Democrats had been removed from the voting booth. Voluntarily.

By the 2004 election, another close one, that number became six million. By 2006, seven million, and by the current presidential election, Democrats voluntarily have removed from the booth over eight million Democrat voters.

Assuming a normal male-to-female distribution at birth (51-49), and replacement fertility rate (2.1), by 2016 (25 years after the initial lost female voter was born), over 200,000 more voters begin to disappear annually from what would have been the second generation of the females aborted beginning in 1973.

By 2002, the year of birth for the youngest voters in the election of 2020, the annual second-generation Democrat voter disappearance had risen to over 700,000. By the date of that election Democrats will have removed 15 million voters from the voting booth.

Those supporting better schools, a freer economy, lower tax rates, open trade, strong defense and a return to the market capitalism that created all the wealth the Democrats want to redistribute might want to review the logical outcome of this ”Roe Effect.”

Republicans might want to consider the abortion of an unwanted child as less important than having well-educated citizens, a free-market economy and a strong defense.

It might be time for Republicans to accept that the voluntary loss of 50,000,000 unwanted children in order to properly educate hundreds of millions more wanted children (ultimately the only way to reduce abortion) and retain a recognizable America, is an acceptable trade-off.

Some may dismiss the above calculations as “inhuman” or “cold” or “cruel.” This is true, but they also are valid extrapolations of the effect of Roe on the American voter franchise. They may even be low.

Some Democrats may protest that showing the numbers of lost voters as being in the millions places the issue in the context of the “Holocaust.” It is good to remember that the Holocaust was involuntary, and the numbers above are strictly voluntary. No one is forcing Democrats to remove themselves from the gene pool or the voting booth.

But for Republicans it seems disingenuous  - and electorally dumb - to consider abortion necessarily a bad thing. With the capture of education and the media by liberal Democrats, abortion may be the only way back to Republican priorities.

Perhaps it is time to remove the anti-abortion plank from the platform of the GOP.

Something to think about.