The Great Liberal Baby Drought

Arthur. C. Brooks, writing in the Opinion Journal has an interesting article entitled, The Fertility Gap, "Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply". In it, Mr. Brooks explains that American liberals are getting few and far between due to the fact that liberals aren't producing enough babies compared to the evil Conservatives.

Here are a few statistics that back up Mr. Brooks theory:

According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections.

How does this translate politically, you ask?

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.

So there you have it.

The question that comes to my mind is; Why?

One big reason, and I know this has been said on the internets a few times, is abortion. If there are 1 million abortions every year in the States, I guarantee you it isn't Conservative women who make up the majority of them. I'm thinking it's closer to 90% of abortions are performed on liberal women. It makes sense, Conservatives generally don't believe in abortion. Liberals lap abortion up, it's one of their 5 pillars of happiness.

If my guess is anywhere near the mark, that's an 800,000 kid difference. If 80% of American kids grow up and have the same party affiliation as their parents, then that's 640,000 Conservative kids compared to 160,000 liberals, a 480,000 a year Conservative advantage. Multiply that by 20 or so years, that's 50 billion Conservative kids. Okay, fine, it's about 10 million.

I know there are other mitigating factors involved, but I bet you I'm not too far off the mark. A future America might be much more Conservative than anyone thinks.

Who would have thought that I may actually be pro-abortion after all?