In this morning’s Assorted Links, we note Michael Barone’s interesting piece on abortion and voting behaviour and I encourage everyone to read it, the key point being that abortion seems to be a leading indicator of cultural liberalism and that there is a strong correlation between high abortion rates and voting Democrat. Anyway, this paragraph was worth highlighting, which provides a lot perspective on the oft-trotted out notion that Americans lack abortion access:
The New York-based Guttmacher Institute notes also that the number of abortion providers has dropped precipitously, from 2,380 in 1992 to 1,787 in 2005. It makes much of the fact that 87 percent of America’s 3.141 counties have no abortion provider. Some advocates of abortion rights see this as a dire trend, preventing women in need of an abortion from being able to obtain one. That may come naturally to Manhattanites accustomed to walking not more than a block to take their clothes to the cleaners. But the fact that there is only one abortion provider in North Dakota and only two in Wyoming is, in my view, less of a problem for those seeking abortions. People in North Dakota are used to driving 200 miles to go to a shopping mall and high school football teams are commonly driven 150 miles in Wyoming to play weekly games. Abortion remains available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia for those who really want one, and the median cost of $523 is within reach of just about all of them.
