Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Hmph. You're just buttering me up after making me do the wrong research project.
Since abortion was illegal in a lot of states, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were considerably lower. I imagine, also, that medically, abortions are easier to perform now than they were prior to 1973. Advances in modern medicine and all that. I guess we'd have to find a state that had legal abortions prior to 1973 and was tracking numbers. California maybe? Looking at the CDC report that I posted earlier, the big difference is from 1970 (193,491) to 1971 (485,816). From 1972 (586,760) to 1973 (615,831), there wasn't as a dramatic of a change. I wasn't alive then, but I imagine that the abortion debate must have alterted pregnant women to the option. Also, these numbers aren't tracking illegal abortions.
BTW, teen birth rates have steadily been declining since the 1950s. When was government aid made available?
Yes, I agree things are bad out there, and people are miserable. I'm not certain, though, that things are continuing to decline and some of the numbers have suggested a turnaround.
Also, you get a special place in hell for making me go and look at stuff like "Table 1.3—SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS(–) IN CURRENT DOLLARS, CONSTANT (FY 2000) DOLLARS, AND AS PERCENTAGES OF GDP: 1940–2009" today. (http://a255.g.akamaitech.net/7/255/2...5/pdf/hist.pdf) Your 1945 number was the wrong one to choose. 41.9 percent, though I guess it was better than the prior two years (43.6 percent). We're at about 20 percent right now, and the data doesn't go further back.
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A quick check shows that abortion was legal in CA for five years before Roe. At the time of Roe, abortion was legal in NY and KS also. I'd suggest the upward trajectory in CA started sometime after it became legal. Thus, 168K in 1970, 400K in 1971 (or something like the numbers you posted). If thats what CA wants, thats what CA gets.
On a slightly different note, the Georgia Right to Life Committee (GRLC.org) or something like that, notes that the Federal government was tracking deaths (of all types) in 1960 and even included numbers for legal and illegal abortion. 24 and 39 respectively, though I'd obviously concede that others may have died who were misreported.
I can't guarantee when gov't aid really swung into high-gear (teen-births), but I know public housing was available en-masse somewhere in that period. It didn't really get crazy until Johnson and Nixon though. At least, that's when people remember Chicago getting seriously crazy.
Hello
PS What is with that 1945 budget outlay? I'm willing to exempt the entire Roosevelt era as a comparitive marker in an effort not to completely misrepresent a fair comparison. But the % of the GDP that was budgeted federally? Holy Jesus is that ever not exactly a good marker for the Great Society.
