These statistics are a bit numbing, though they should provoke a momentous sense of loss and they do illustrate a glaring difference between black and white abortion rates. Another statistical measure that drives home this point is the number of abortions as compared to live births. Again, relying on the CDC’s MMWR, we can determine the ratios by state of the now three- and four-year old black children born in 2005 as compared to those who did not survive. In 2005, for every three black babies born in Alabama, one was aborted. In North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, the ratio is two black babies born for each aborted. Tennessee, Michigan, Georgia, and Delaware come in at roughly 2.4. To put this another way, for every ten black boys and girls learning in a classroom in North Carolina, there are five who didn’t make it.
Gregory Kane on Obama's use of language regarding abortion.
What we have here, to paraphrase a quote from my favorite Paul Newman film, is not a failure to communicate; it's an attempt to hoodwink by smoothly communicating. By linking abortion rights to overall women's rights, Obama is attempting to elevate the pro-choice position to a moral high ground it in fact does not have. After all, no one — except maybe the most hardcore, diehard, sexist knucklehead — wants to be accused of being against equal rights for women. Obama slyly implies that if you're against abortion then that is precisely your position. And he does it in his nice, smarmy, bipartisan "we're all in this together" language.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has an article on the monetary problems at CIRM, California's embryonic stem cell funding agency.
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