Fact-checker extraordinaire Ann Coulter weighs in on the Todd Akin train wreck by suggesting what he meant to say was that a bargain is in order:
The point I believe Akin was ultimately driving at was that this is a teeny-tiny percentage of all abortions, so why are we spending all our time taking about it? How about saying: “Yes, it’s still a life, but more people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chicago every year. You give us the 2 million abortions that aren’t a result of rape and incest and we’ll give you the few thousand that are.”
Ann fails. Miserably.
I'm a big believer in numbers. I love surveys and polls -- it's always useful to gauge what the public is thinking about this or that issue. I love this site and its many quantitative bits of data in this regard -- on the left we tend to be a data-driven, truth-centered bunch of folks.
But my favorite surveys are always the ones where people are asked whether or not they know something... and there's a right answer! And you get to see how many folks got it wrong!
For example this one, a paper called "Building a Better America One Wealth Quintile at a Time" by Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton. They asked people what they thought the wealth distribution in the US was, what they wished it was, and then provided the actual info. Fantastic!! People are morons!! If they weren't, they'd think differently.
Or this one, a Gallup survey called Most Americans Believe Crime in U.S. Is Worsening. It basically shows that most Americans think crime is worsening, when in fact it isn't. It's not even close -- since the mid-90s violent crime has dropped like crazy, yet most people think the opposite has happened. They're just wrong! What votes is this misinformation affecting?
Multiple examples exist related to the Affordable Care Act, where the public supports issue after issue after issue within the law, yet somehow reports that it is nonetheless unsupportive of the overall legislation. Why?
I also love the polls showing how misinformed Fox News viewers are. There actually are right answers to those "current events" questions, gang!
Now look -- I know the examples of elected officials (to say nothing of pundits, writers, talking heads and other cheap hires) getting basic facts wrong are many and varied. And that's fine.
But if we as a nation are going to have an informed discussion about pregnancies resulting from rapes, we have to at least have a basic and general understanding of quantity. We don't have to have pinpoint accuracy, but it would help to be within an order of magnitude or two of an actual estimate provided by Scientists Who Actually Know.
Wouldn't it?
So back to Ann:
The point I believe Akin was ultimately driving at was that this is a teeny-tiny percentage of all abortions, so why are we spending all our time taking about it? How about saying: “Yes, it’s still a life, but more people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chicago every year. You give us the 2 million abortions that aren’t a result of rape and incest and we’ll give you the few thousand that are.”
There are around a million legal abortions performed each year in the US; precise stats are difficult to gather because reporting varies. The NIH also estimates that just over
32,000 pregnancies result from rape each year (an appalling number, by the way). Of those, around 50% are terminated via legal abortion --
so around 16,000.
That's 16,000 women nationwide -- each year -- whose lady parts somehow lack the magic secretion to repel the rapist sperm and get pregnant instead, then opting to abort their pregnancies rather than carry them to term. (Another 12% miscarry, and 6% put babies up for adoption; fully 32% keep the infant -- a startling statistic if you ask me).
Meanwhile, there were an average of 442 murders annually in Chicago over the last three years. There is no national or Chicago data on the number of drive-by shootings over a trackable time period, although one estimate in 2006 suggested that perhaps 24 such crimes were committed in Illinois over a six-month time frame. So it might be reasonable to guess that perhaps 50 in a year take place in the state -- maybe even all in the city of Chicago. That would be roughly 11% of all murders in the city.
So bottom line: annually, around 16,000 women abort pregnancies caused by rape, while several dozen people are murdered in Chicago due to drive-by shootings.
Ann's off-the-cuff example is off by so much it's not just wrong -- it's supremely unhelpful to the discourse -- which of course is the point! There are something upwards of 300 times as many rape-related abortions performed than there are drive-by shootings in Chicago. To suggest merely dozens of women are affected by this issue is ludicrous; or to suggest that tens of thousands are gunned down from cars in our President's hometown is equally egregious.
(As an aside, she also throws in the
You give us the 2 million abortions that aren’t a result of rape and incest...
figure, which is, again, roughly double the best estimates available.)
If we can't understand the terms of the debate we're having, then we can't have any kind of discussion about it that will yield anything of use.
Ann goes on to say,
This is a politician who should have a clear, nonthreatening answer at the ready for the most cliched question in the MSM’s playbook.
But it's not just a "cliched question," Ann -- it's a relevant one. But you wouldn't know it if you don't have any facts at your disposal about volume -- nor will your readers.
Do I think that Ann knows better? Not that it matters, but I suspect so. I suspect she has a working knowledge of these issues sufficient to tell her that "1 million abortions a year" is a closer back-of-the-napkin way to talk about the issue than "2 million" -- but she chooses 2 million because it will cause more outrage, more indignation, more anger. She throws on the Chicago shooting comparison for the same reason.
In short, she (and her cohorts -- Ann Coulter is hardly the only guilty party on this tactic) thinks we're stupid, and that we don't have a working knowledge of the facts and figures of the debate. It's not entirely accurate to say "Ann Coulter is a liar" -- while that may be technically true, it's not descriptive enough. If a conservative presented me with a link to her article and tried to defend it, I would say that "Ann is deliberately using bad data her to fit her point, and appears you're too stupid to know it." Calling her a liar is only half the story.
So my suggestion for fellow Kossacks, in their diaries, discussions with friends and family, neighbors, Twitter and Facebook followers, etc., is to keep in mind this basic ignorance. Don't just tell people your opinions. Sometimes, just tell them the facts. Just cite statistics, and let them draw their own conclusions. Be content to disagree with the conclusions some draw, and be happy that facts are being spread. Ultimately the truth has a well-known liberal bias.
[bonus: if you're obsessed with data and quantity and haven't heard of him, the artist Chris Jordan has done truly amazing amazing things with the concept. No introduction is necessary -- just click and enjoy: http://www.chrisjordan.com/...)