Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: YOU FAIL

Hat tip goes to Pro Ecclesia for this report from CNA:

Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2009 / 04:09 am (CNA).- Until recently, a Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good study of abortion data claimed that increased spending on welfare programs results in substantial reductions in state abortion rates but many pro-life laws do not. However, the study’s results have been revised following the discovery that incorrect abortion data was used and after criticism from a professor that the group’s conclusions did not follow from the data.

In August 2008, the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good announced the release of a study on the effects of public policy on abortion rates over a 20-year period. The group had commissioned Joseph Wright, who is a political science professor at Penn State University, and Michael Bailey, who is a professor of American government at Georgetown University, to conduct the study.

“The study of all U.S. states from 1982-2000 finds that benefits for pregnant women and mothers, employment, economic assistance to low-income families, quality child care for working mothers and removal of state caps on the number of children eligible for economic assistance in low-income families has reduced abortions,” the group reported in an August 28 press release. “In contrast, permitting Medicaid payments for abortions increased the abortion rate.”

Emphasis mine. Excuse me, but DUH, of course it increases the rate. People on the left are truly ignorant of human nature to think that government checks make everybody feel so good about life that they become instantly converted from wanting to kill their unborn babies.


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More excerpts:

In an essay at MoralAccountability.com, New accused Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good of misleading the public and referred to “plenty of peer reviewed studies” which find that public funding restrictions and parental involvement laws reduce the incident of abortion.

He claimed the study had a “substantial impact” on the pro-life debate in the 2008 Presidential election and gave “intellectual legitimacy” to those such as Doug Kmiec and Nicholas Cafardi who argued that pro-life voters should vote for Democrats to advance the pro-life cause.

There's usually, if not always, an ideological reason for faked research.

In a Tuesday e-mail to CNA, Prof. New said that the research produced by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seems unwilling to acknowledge the “positive effect of pro-life laws such as parental involvement and informed consent laws.”

Of course not; CACG is effectively a Democrat front group, and these policies are not on the Democrat's agenda.

CNA asked New to speculate why welfare spending generally does not decrease the abortion rate.

He suggested that welfare “undermines societal mores against premarital sex” by enabling women to have more children out of wedlock. Welfare may result in more unplanned pregnancies and possibly more abortions, New said.

“Regardless of how generous welfare benefits are, women facing crisis pregnancies can find financial and medical resources at one of the thousands of crisis pregnancy centers across the country,” he added.

Yes, crisis pregnancy centers are places where people help people, not mechanically send out welfare checks and flyers that say "Put this rubber thing on your wing ding."

“Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good continues to miss opportunities with their abortion research,” New told CNA.

“I think that they would be more effective if they would be more willing to publicly acknowledge the positive impact of pro-life legislation and try to constructively work with pro-life groups to promote social policies that will further reduce abortion rates. Instead Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seems primarily interested in providing moral, political, and theological cover for supporters of Barack Obama and other Democrats who support ‘abortion rights.’”

CACG are champions of the kind of "eithor/or" thinking which excludes conservatives and any of their policy ideas. I don't know any conservatives that think that parental notification and other restrictive policies are all that is needed to end abortion. That's why we start crisis pregnancy centers. My mother worked at several, and she has a photo of a woman she talked out of an abortion with her child. Those people are worth more than 10 of Obama's retarded stimulus packages.