Category — Supreme Court

Sometimes I just shake my head wondering how I voted twice for George Bush.  Those were some really bad Democratic candidates.  Fortunately, the president’s Supreme Court appointments saved him from committing a miscarriage of justice.  Chief Roberts and Justice Alito joined a 6-3 vote against his attempted intervention in the death penalty case of Jose E. Medellin.

Mr. Medellin, human refuse, gang member, and rapist/murderer of 2 Texas teenage girls wasn’t informed that he could seek help from the Mexican embassy.  The International Court ruled this was a violation of the Vienna Convention.  The president, siding with Mexico and the IC, asked the Texas judiciary to reconsider the case.  God Bless Texas, they refused, and after today’s decision, prosecutors are pushing for an execution date. 

Why would the president try to interfere with the Texas judiciary on behalf of a murderer?  And, not being satisfied with no, drive it to the Supreme Court?  I simply don’t buy the excuse he was trying to fulfill our international obligations.  He ignored every international body conceivable to start the Iraq War.  As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, it was his duty to do the same here.

A bite from the reality dragon is lethal

Stephen Bainbridge believes John McCain will appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court if elected. He pledged to do so at CPAC last week, and presidents are easier to pressure these days. Remember Harriet Miers?

McCain pledged to uphold the Constitution too. How did that turn out?

[snip]
To be sure, Presidents all too often break campaign promises. Remember George Bush 41’s “read my lips” pledge on taxes?

In the new media environment, however, it’s getting easier to hold a President’s feet to the fire. Remember George Bush 43’s aborted nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court?

Those of us who waged war against Miers succeeded in part because in the 2000 campaign Bush had explicitly promised to nominate justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. We demanded that Bush keep that promise and, as it became clear that Miers was made from a different mold, we kept up a stead drum beat of criticism. In the end, we won. Miers was forced to withdraw and Samuel Alito became the newest member of the Supreme Court.

If a President McCain were to nominate a David Souter clone, the right’s netroots would have a collective conniption fit that would make the Miers fight look like pattycake. We might not win, but we’d at least bleed McCain of enough political capital to give even Warren Rudman second thoughts.

Remember McCain-Feingold? What was that bit of cheese for the conservative voices. Do you think he’ll flip-flop on that posture. At the first agitation from talk radio and the blogs, he’ll reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine to stifle any enmity. He may even do that beforehand to steal a march on the conservatives. Smart aggressive move, isn’t it?

How about the McCain-Kennedy fiasco, a highly destructive multicultural program packaged in a “We’re so diverse” wrapper. Call it another Mariel boatlift sans boats! It achieves the goal as well as the diversity agenda in the Balkan States, which has become a PC word for ethnic cleansing.

Who can overlook the McCain-Lieberman bill, the “Climate Stewardship Act of 2004” which was the most regressive tax on energy. All promoted by a person who never held a real job in business.

If you are buying McCain’s rhetoric, you’ll conclude Obama will join the Marines to get Osama.

Fortunately the thin blue line is protecting us from all manner of miscreants…

A few DWI-related stories from the past few weeks…

• As more and more states are now allowing police officers to forcibly extract blood of DWI suspects, the New Jersey State Supreme Court recently took the practice a step further. The court ruled that not only may police forcibly draw blood, they may use extreme force in doing so, including force that inflicts permanent physical damage on the suspect.

A smart rap across the bridge of the nose with the baton should ease the officer’s sample collecting. Then he can blot it up with the towel used to wipe down the squad car after the automatic car wash. Tests will come back 0.0% alcohol and 15% hot wax in the blood test. Second charge filed: Abusing a commercial product.

• The California Highway Patrol was recently forced to turn over the largely pre-written police reports officers use in DWI cases. The templates come already completed with boilerplate language like, “As I spoke with the driver I smelled the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from his/her breath. I noticed that the driver had red watery eyes, as well as slow and slurred speech,” and “eyes showed lack of smooth pursuit, distinct nystagmus at the extremes and an onset prior to 45 degrees.”

Every cop you know speaks this way, right? “I impeded the perpetrator’s forward progress. Upon dismounting my official police conveyance, I noticed some distinct nystagmus and I acquired some of it on me in extremis.”

• When James Bludsworth began to have a diabetic episode while driving, he pulled his truck over to the side of the road, and passed out behind the wheel. Police in Ozark, Alabama were called to the scene and, when Bludsworth didn’t respond to orders to get out of the car, they used a Taser on him. They then arrested him and threw him in a jail cell on charges of resisting arrest and driving under the influence. Though Bludsworth blew 0.0 on a breath test and had no prior criminal record, those charges against him remain. The arresting officer will not be disciplined.

After the tasing, Bludsworth’s pancreas immediately surrendered and produced the contraband insulin.

An epileptic will go down in a hail of “defensive” gunfire during a grand mal.

Rather files $70 million lawsuit against CBS

Newsman alleges network made him ‘scapegoat’ for discredited story

Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit Wednesday against CBS, alleging that the network made him a “scapegoat” for a discredited story about President Bush’s National Guard service.

The 75-year-old Rather, whose final months were clouded by controversy over the report, says the complaint stems from “CBS’ intentional mishandling” of the aftermath of the story.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, also names CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves, Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone, and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. [snip]

But an independent review for the network determined the story was neither fair nor accurate. CBS fired three news executives and a producer for airing it.

Rather has a enhanced chance of winning if he spills hot coffee on…well at 75 that’s not going to go far with a jury. Buy a Power Ball Dan; your odds are better.

The Illiberal College
Elite academia doesn’t like oversight.Sunday, September 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

One of the more momentous cases in Supreme Court history, Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), involved an attempt by the state of New Hampshire to wrest control of the privately chartered school from its board of trustees. But a corporate charter like Dartmouth’s, the Marshall Court ruled, is the same as a private contract; the state could not simply annex the school.
The sanctity of contract has preserved the independence of not a few colleges and universities. But institutions of higher learning now shy from the same oversight their faculties have demanded of the corporate world, and some of the lessons learned in that 1819 case are being unlearned. [snip]

The candidates for elected trusteeships have traditionally been vetted by a small committee, ensuring quiescence. Over the last four years, however, no fewer than four reform-minded candidates won seats on the board using a provision allowing nomination by petition. They include Silicon Valley CEO T.J. Rodgers and Virginia law professor Stephen Smith, who have raised the profile of such issues as academic standards, bureaucratic bloat and free speech.

Their presence has proven to be a tremendous offense to Dartmouth’s inner circles. Like administrators at most universities, these academic elites expect only money–not opinion and oversight–from their alumni donors. A year ago, the administration worked with a small committee of alumni to alter the petition process to make it less likely that outsiders could win. They lost in a rout in an alumni referendum. [snip]

Should the board decide to vitiate Dartmouth’s own experiment in democracy, it…will be one more sign of a widening crevice between the real world and life on the nation’s campuses.

The endowments of the 25 wealthiest institutions of higher learning total $178 billion, and a college education is one of the largest investments a person will ever make (in tuition and donations as an alumnus). It isn’t a surprise that alumni stakeholders have begun to show interest and exert influence. The only surprise is the lengths to which academic elites will go in order to keep out the light of day.

The pointy-heads feel they are exempt from any of the strictures controlling mortal individuals.

With the sniffing pomposity of a cart pushing baglady, they’re offended when the secular see them for what they are, not as they see themselves. Comeuppances discombobulate the nobility when the serfs divulge they’re sans culottes.

Having the faculty’s caskets open when the sunlight of outside governance streams into council chambers produces the ambiance of a Vermont outhouse seat in February.

If only they freeze it off!

From the Free Press column My Turn

A new way to pay for education

The supreme courts of several states have ordered state legislators to try to find a way to equalize educational expenditures throughout their states. The reliance of local towns upon their property tax to fund schools was not acceptable. [snip]

So, many towns rebel at any increase in school budgets. Legislatures seek to establish ceilings on school expenditures. Federal monies for local schools are still negligible. Educational expenditures have been placed at this false ceiling for generations now as a consequence. [snip]

The consequences are clear in the social dysfunction caused by inadequate education. Over 2 million of our citizens are incarcerated. We have a do-nothing government. Our health system is a farce. Television is a wasteland. Our newspapers are disappearing. The military budget is monstrously swollen. Our foreign policy hurts many and inspires none. Our railroads are defunct while road traffic is gridlocked. These are a few of the proper benchmarks of the adequacy of school budgets. To solve these problems requires supplanting state and local funding for education entirely with federal monies. It is time for a domestic Marshall Plan.

Dick Rapacz of Essex Junction is professor emeritus of comparative education at Boston University.

I had no idea inadequate education causes such damage. Let us examine each point in order.

• 2 million jailed for not doing their homework seems excessive. Perhaps a look at destructive social engineering is more important. Prior to 1965, one didn’t find kids acting out in classes and getting away with it. If the school couldn’t control the student, their parents were brought in to rectify their darling’s aberrant behavior. They did or the school expelled the tyke.
• A do nothing government has no bearing on how the parents rear their kids except to totally erode parental responsibility. No one tells the “students” NO; everybody is a victim. Lay this directly to the disastrous social engineering of the “it takes a village” mentality. At one time the village delivered a hard lesson to the miscreant, then informed his parents so he received proper instruction.
• Whatever our health care system has to do with stupid kids is beyond understanding.
• Television is a wasteland. School kids are not producing, programming or buying up the airwaves. Observe how many of the programs such as “The Alcoa Theater” or “GE Playhouse” air today. Nothing is stopping any station from broadcasting shows of this type, except the parents will not watch them. No company is advertising on an unwatched show.
• Ibid newspapers. What passes for news is spun like a top or consists of Hollywood soft-core porn stories featuring execrable activities by the oh-so self-important.
• The military budget is leaner than ever before.
• Our foreign policy consists of much dithering and no substantive action.
• As for the railroads, more train sets puts the kiddies on the “right track.” If they knew what a train actually meant, perhaps more would consider being engineers. That’s called enjoyable employment. Or we can look to how the government subsidies to the airlines destroyed rail travel. If the airlines paid a per mile fee for the air passage rights, paid for their own security and make it work, paid for their own controllers and finally their airports, flying would have the proper cost attached like the railroads.
• Again the plaintive wail for more public funding for books, classrooms and computers fills the air. Most of this money goes into the pockets of teachers and union goons.

It has been proven conclusively that attentive parents make good students; not money tossed into the maw of public education.

It is easy to see why this gentlemen isn’t an economics professor.

Risky Business

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus believes that the biggest competitors for capital that business has are America’s plaintiff trial lawyers. They siphon off billions of dollars that would be invested in R&D, growth, and jobs creation, or would be returned to shareholders. Trial lawyers also increase the cost of capital for those companies whose ratings are downgraded as a direct result of trial lawyer briefings to financial analysts or press conferences about their litigation portfolios—all part of the trial bar’s new business model. [snip]

State Rankings

NEW HAMPSHIRE-17

New Hampshire’s liability climate encourages growth and job creation. The state has enacted some reforms, including the elimination of punitive damages, medical malpractice reform, and modest joint liability reform. New Hampshire juries are not known for excessive, unwarranted verdicts. Having said this, the state’s insurance loss ratios are in the bottom 30 percent of all states, which explains the 24 ranking in the HWV Index. The Supreme Court majority is activist and the AJP partner that helped with this profile suggests the state’s liability climate could deteriorate as the New Hampshire Legislature considers a bill to reverse reform legislation.

CONNECTICUT-24

While Connecticut’s composite ranking is 24, there is a significant variance among the three indices. The HWV Index and the Harris Poll rank the state at 16 and 14 while the PRI Index ranks it at 44. Despite some liability reform legislation in the mid-1980s, including reasonable limits on punitive damages and elimination of joint liability, the AJP partner that helped prepare this profile rated the state’s liability climate as discouraging growth and job creation.

Supporting this assessment are insurance loss ratios (especially for product liability, medical malpractice and auto, and selfinsurance), which rank Connecticut in the bottom half of all states. The absence of reasonable limits on non-economic damages may help explain the poor ranking on insurance loss ratios. Another negative factor is activist Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who, along with former New York Attorney General (now Governor) Eliot Spitzer, led the movement for regulation through litigation. Connecticut’s liability climate may be trending downward.

MAINE-26

There is a significant variance among the three national rankings with the two econometric studies ranking Maine at 36 and 34 and the Harris Poll ranking the state at 5. Insurance loss ratios in Maine rank 26th in the nation. The Supreme Court majority and Attorney General Steven Rowe are viewed as activists. The Maine Legislature has not enacted any significant liability reform legislation. The state’s liability climate is, at best, neutral to growth and job creation. Maine may well become a “red light” state in the next ranking.

MASSACHUSETTS-29

There is a significant variance in the PRI Index ranking of 41 and the Harris Poll ranking of 18 for the “Bay State.” Although total insurance loss ratios in the state are in the top 40 percent of all states, the product and general liability insurance loss ratios are in the bottom 20 percent. Instead of fairly balancing the interests of consumers and business, the Commonwealth’s liability climate is decidedly antibusiness. With the election of Governor Deval Patrick and an anti-reform legislature, the prospects for improving the liability laws of Massachusetts are dim.

VERMONT-43

With insurance loss ratios among the five worst in the nation, Vermont’s liability climate discourages growth and job creation. The Legislature has enacted some modest liability reforms, such as reasonable limits on punitive and non-economic damages in wrongful death cases. The Supreme Court majority and Attorney General William Sorrell are regarded as activists.

RHODE ISLAND-49

While Rhode Island juries are not known for excessive verdicts, and punitive damage awards are rare, the AJP partner that helped with this profile reports a noticeable upward trend in recent jury awards. The state’s lawsuit against four lead paint manufacturers under a public nuisance theory was the first attempt by a state to hold the industry responsible for the dangers of lead paint in old buildings. Three of the four companies were found liable by a Rhode Island jury—a verdict that could cost the companies billions of dollars unless it is reversed on appeal. The Supreme Court has an activist majority and Attorney General Patrick Lynch is regarded as an activist. Its liability climate is not conducive to growth and job creation.

Enacting tort reform is impossible as long as jurors believe large settlements are apple pie. Lawyers will not vote to slaughter this cash cow; many are in our state offices. The ablility to afford a run for these positions by self-funding makes change difficult. Neither party turns down fresh loot.

Corporations were complacent when years ago the impact of litigation was confined to paying legal fees and enduring the occasional adverse verdict. Corporations could survive this competitive disadvantage against the trial bar. That is no longer true. Today, verdicts reflect an anti-business sentiment and many juries have a lottery mentality when doling out awards. Now, a company’s share value, brand equity, and even its very solvency are at risk. That’s why successful companies must study the trial bar’s new business model, and develop sound, effective, and preemptive opposition strategies.

Outsourcing and foreign manufacturing costs companies less; foreign operations provide an extra shield against lawsuits too. Next, this country will see our major companies incorporating in corporate friendly tax and litigation havens. Halliburton didn’t move to the UAE because of the physical climate.

New England lost its manufacturing base, now we rely on service industries. With the Internet, they are even more mobile; they hire fewer employees.

In a conflict, a fixed position is a losing tactical situation. A legal confrontation is no different. Since there is always some state that sooner or later will alter it’s business laws, an ability to incorporate anywhere provides immunity from high tax addicted governments. Only a Marxist/Socialist believes otherwise. For their position to maintain, they must control all government. Capitalism, being the normal human condition, exists on its own.

Judicial Action heads off ACLU Suit

SCHIP tax cost requires 22 Million New Smokers in the US

In a rare weekend convening, the Supreme Court of VT (SCOVT) issued a ruling that will equalize children’s healthcare. Stealing a march on Washington, SCOVT coerces VT to implement the Federal schema, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) covering trust fund children from wealthy families and find a vehicle to pay for it.

“Big Tobacco will pay for this,” declared the very liberal Speaker of the House. We’ll raise the per pack tax to fund this expansion. Sharply reversing previously held position, she averred it was time to stop ostracizing rich kids.

“The politics of inclusion is not a Vermont tradition now; change is mandated,” claimed the Governor. Congress wants to spend $35 billion; our share is merely $7 billion. The tobacco tax is the method of funding; overcoming the tax’s shortcomings is not difficult.
Here are the obstacles:

1. Low-income Americans inequitably pay the tobacco encumbrance, ultimately significantly shifting of health care costs onto the offspring of the rich.
2. A declining number of smokers further reduces the tobacco tax; raising the tax would further reduce erode the funding source.
3. Producing the revenues that Vermont needs to fund SCHIP expansion through such a tax requires 440,000 new smokers by 2017.

Here are the solutions:

1. Cigarette subsidies for low-income smokers prevents shifting costs onto the rich children. Illegal aliens must join the program in order to broaden the base, since they pay insufficient taxes.
2. Handing out purchase vouchers through the school lunch program insures a growing supply of smokers, while preventing anyone below the 4^th grade from acquiring tobacco. Acclimation of 3^rd graders mandates they sit in the smoking section.
3. To insure adequate addiction, the state may have to provide reduced cost tobacco to high school students. Funds for this section of the program are part of the Tobacco Settlement lawsuit.

The legislature will make up any shortfall in the Junior Smoking program via the transportation fund as per usual.

The liberal implosion over the Supreme Court’s conservative direction continues unabated. Liberals lament Chief Justice Roberts’ lack of “consensus” building and note the proliferation of 5-4 opinions. However, Justice Breyer provides the liberal definition of “consensus” when he says Chief Roberts can “do better” by joining “his dissents.” In simpler terms, the liberal wing wants agreement and could care less about unifying the Court. A 5-4 decision upholding race based school admission policies would have been lauded by liberals with little thought given to the 4 dissenters or past precedent.

Although liberal hypocrisy is unsurprising, Justice Breyer’s thoughts on discrimination are:

“I think the color-blind view is very wrong, I think it’s never been in the law, it’s never been accepted by a majority of this Court, and, my goodness, if ever there was a decision that should be made locally, it’s this one.”

Does Breyer think the Equal Protection Clause only applies to minorities? Or is it just when the Court decides to engage in a little social engineering? I don’t see anything in the Constitution that remotely empowers the Supreme Court to impose its social mores on the country.

Of course, not everyone agrees with Justice Breyer. Justice Harlan, as the only dissenting justice in Plessy v. Ferguson, provides an excellent counter argument:

“Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law….”

That means everyone Justice Breyer and not just the groups you feel worthy of the Court’s protection.

Helen Thomas laments the recent rightward tilt at the Supreme Court. Swami Thomas foresees a parade of horribles that will result from this “mean” Court. It didn’t hold up equal protection under the law; it reinstituted segregation. It didn’t stop “partial birth abortion”; it struck at the heart of Roe vs. Wade. It didn’t restore discipline to schools; it put serious constraints on free speech. But has someone who refers to President Bush as a “conservative” considered the issues or really paid attention?

Just like she missed the bruising battles between President Bush and conservatives, her analysis misses the mark here. Thomas bemoans the dismantling of the “humane society” leftist jurists produced, but she offers very little in actual legal analysis. For example, is “diversity” so compelling that we should suspend equal protection? The 5-4 majority didn’t find that answer as self-explanatory as Helen does.

[Read more →]

The liberal media is all lathered up over Supreme Court limits on the use of race in K-12 admissions policies.  But is the Court’s ruling a dangerous new direction for the country?  I argue no.

There’s been a subtle shift in the argument since the days of Brown v. Board of Education.  During Brown, the issue was segregation.  The Court correctly ruled that children living next door to each other shouldn’t attend different schools based on skin color.

However, today’s argument is over integration, which is to say how liberals will engineer the “right” outcomes.  In order to “help” victims of discrimination, the Court held that not allowing neighbor children to attend the same school is ok if they reverse roles—i.e. the white child is discriminated against.  All the Court said was reverse discrimination is not justified.  It’s not making white only schools, or returning us to the days of segregation. 

Justice is allowing every child that lives within a school district to attend its schools.  It’s not making children who live there attend different or inferior schools because liberals want to atone for past discrimination.

Here’s another fantastic ruling today from the “Fab 5″.  The Supreme Court struck down race based school admission policies in Seattle and Louisville today.  Chief Justice Roberts provides the salient quote: 

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts said.

How you justify making up for past discrimination by discriminating against a new generation of people is beyond me.  Nobody can deny that African Americans and others suffered a great injustice through discrimination, but it can’t be “fixed” after the fact.  It’s too bad that Justice Kennedy wouldn’t go further in outlawing race as an admissions factor, but I’ll take it.

The other major thing Uncle Teddy was pandering to his Hispanic audience with today besides his poor Spanish skills was the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act. The DREAM Act would give illegal immigrant children in-state tuition rates. If you’re a NH resident working in MA and paying state taxes, that’s just too darn bad because your child will pay out-of-state rates at MA public universities. No taxpayer sacrifice is too large to make for illegal immigrants.

Of course, there’s also the fact that very few of these students will pay anything given that most universities distribute grant dollars based upon parental income. Guess who gets the limited grant dollars when most illegal immigrants are showing no legal income while you dutifully file your taxes every year? Again, it doesn’t matter to Teddy that your child will take out a lot of extra loans when those limited dollars flow to illegal immigrant lawbreakers.

This law clearly violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution by extending rights to noncitizens that citizens clearly do not have. Although originally targeted at state discrimination, the Supreme Court has extended it to discriminatory Federal practices too.

Is it any wonder illegal immigrants are flowing across our borders when our politicians can’t stop throwing our tax dollars at them? We don’t need talk radio to tell us our politicians aren’t serious about border security. Their actions send that message loud and clear.

The Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito look like they’ll be one of the few bright spots in President Bush’s legacy. The Court issued several very good 5-4 rulings today. (See excerpts here.) First up, it struck down McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform restrictions on advocacy group issue ads during the later stages of an election, which clearly violated our 1^st Amendment rights. 2^nd, it ruled that public schools could limit student’s free speech. This case is distinguishable from the 1^st instance because public schools are educational institutions where appropriate limitations on disruptive behavior are valid. The student in question even admitted he wasn’t exercising free speech as much as he was looking for attention.

Last, it upheld the Bush administration’s decision to give money to faith based charities. Although I don’t believe this is necessarily unconstitutional, I’ve changed my position this type of funding. One of the fundamental reasons these organizations were successful was because they weren’t government organizations. Long-term they may regret their government ties if they integrate into the bloated and ineffective government bureaucracy that’s incapable of performing even the most basic task. Next, is creating another special interest group with designs on our tax dollars a good idea? There are already enough people with their hands in our pockets without creating another group of them.

But all in all, these were pretty good decisions. I have a feeling this 5-4 voting block will decide a number of cases provided the composition of the court doesn’t shift in the immediate future. Conservatives made the correct call on forcing the president to back down on Harriet Miers because Alito looks like a keeper.

It’s Not Enough to Be ‘Wanted’

Illegitimacy has risen despite–indeed, because of–legal abortion.

BY JOHN R. LOTT JR.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The abortion debate usually centers on the morality of the act itself. But liberalizing abortion rules from 1969 to 1973 ignited vast social changes in America. With the perennial political debate over abortion again consuming the presidential campaign and the Supreme Court, it might be time to evaluate what Roe v. Wade has meant in practical terms.

One often misunderstood fact: Legal abortions just didn’t start with Roe, or even with the five states that liberalized abortion laws in 1969 and 1970. Prior to Roe, women could have abortions when their lives or health were endangered. Doctors in some states, such as Kansas, had very liberal interpretations of what constituted danger to health. Nevertheless, Roe did substantially increase abortions, more than doubling the rate per live birth in the five years from 1972 to 1977. But many other changes occurred at the same time:

1. A sharp increase in pre-marital sex.
2. A sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births.
3. A drop in the number of children placed for adoption.
4. A decline in marriages that occur after the woman is pregnant.

Some of this might seem contradictory. Why would both the number of abortions and of out-of-wedlock births go up? If there were more illegitimate births, why were fewer children available for adoption?

As to the first puzzle, part of the answer lies in attitudes to premarital sex. [snip]

In the United States from the early 1970s, when abortion was liberalized, through the late 1980s, there was a tremendous increase in the rate of out-of-wedlock births, rising from an average of 5% of all births in 1965-69 to more than 16% two decades later (1985-1989). For blacks, the numbers soared from 35% to 62%. While not all of this rise can be attributed to liberalized abortion rules, it was nevertheless a key contributing factor. [snip]

The evidence shows that the greater availability of abortion largely ended “shotgun” marriages…[snip]

The mothers often end up raising the child on their own. Even as abortion has led to more out-of-wedlock births, it has also dramatically reduced adoptions of children born in America by two-parent families. [snip] After Roe, women who turned down an abortion were also the type who wanted to keep the child. [snip]

With work and other demands on their time, single parents, no matter how “wanted” their child may be, tend to devote less attention to their children than do married couples; after all, it’s difficult for one person to spend as much time with a child as two people can.

From the beginning of the abortion debate, those favoring abortion have pointed to the social costs of “unwanted” children who simply won’t get the attention of “wanted” ones. [snip]

Unintended consequences are the companion of all legislation. Forethought mitigates but never eliminates the unexpected “gotcha.”