Abortion and 2000 Election

Supporters of Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president in 2000, have blamed his defeat on several
things: the U.S. Supreme Court, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, “uncounted votes”, etc.
A researcher has now come up with what he implies is the real reason for Gore’s defeat—the Democratic
position on abortion.

In an article from The American Spectator and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, Larry Eastland carefully
documents how their abortion stance has been hurting the Dem.'s prospects and will continue to do so.
Eastland’s figures show there were 12,274,368 people missing from the Voting Age Population of 205,815,000
in the 2000 presidential election. The reason these potential voters weren’t around is because they were
aborted between 1973 (when abortion became legal) and 1982 (the latest a 2000 potential voter could have
been born)

Eastland says that social science research about children indicates that they tend to adopt the values and
political views of their parents.

Eastland then goes on to show that Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population
while Democrats have more, 35% of the total number of abortions for the GOP compared to 49% for the
Democrats.

Considering that 51.2% of all Americans of voting age actually voted for president in 2000, Eastland’s figures
show Democrats lost 2,978,605 potential voters in 2000, Republicans 2,096,406, a difference of almost a million.

As we know, Florida decided the 2000 presidential election. In Florida, Gore and the Democrats lost about
45,000 more votes than Bush and the Republicans because of the absent voters. President Bush ended up
winning that state by a mere 537 votes.

The “Roe factor” will cost the Democrats even more in the future. By the year 2008 there will be 25,426,000
missing voters.

Does this mean Republicans should now support abortion—for Democratic mothers only? Of course, not. Except
to save the mother’s life, abortion is still a sin no matter how it affects an election. May this regrettable practice
end for people of all political persuasions.

—Warren Krug, editor