>Access to abortion has been shrinking despite the fact that it's
>still legal. I want to hear a good explanation of why the decline in
>the abortion rate accelerated during the Clinton years over the
>Reaganbush years. I suspect it's financing and the shrinking number
>of providers - about which Clinton has done nothing.
I agree that neither Clinton nor Congressional Dems have done anything to improve the number of abortion providers, financing, etc. I'm not sure if the decline in the abortion rate can be chalked up to the decline in access alone, since the numbers you offered are ratio per 1.000 births & ratio per 1,000 women 15-44. Shouldn't we take into account the decline in the teenage pregnancy rate, etc.?
>So despite the rhetorical differences, access to abortion has been
>dwindling, and I think the differences between the two parties is
>exaggerated to scare women into voting for Gore.
Are you concerned that the abortion issue may scare the women who might otherwise vote for Nader into voting for Gore? But you said yourself that the polling figures had not shown a gender gap for Nader. What you should be worrying about is race & education gaps:
At 1:01 PM -0400 9/14/00, Doug Henwood wrote:
>There does seem to be a class and race gap; he's got 7% of college
>grads, and 2% of those with no college; 4% of whites, and 1% of
>"non-whites."
Yoshie