The Real Grown-up's Table: Predictions for Tonight's Debate

After enduring months of GOP un-hopefuls acting-out like a gang of middle children seeking media attention--sharing such enlightening comments as all Mexicans are rapists and the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if the Jews were all armed to the teeth like present day Americans--we get to hear from the grown-ups.

What to expect:

Bernie Sanders is still mostly unknown despite his nipping at Clinton's heels in the polls. A strong performance tonight could put him over the top. His advantage lies in the low expectations of his performance. Unless he falls asleep at the podium, a-la Obama in the first 2012 debate against Romney, he's going to gain some new followers and stand in stark contrast to Hillary's long history of flip-flopping, half-truths, and ties to the same wall street types Sanders wants to put in jail for destroying the economy.

On the other hand, Bernie is a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, which to most Americans just means Socialist. Here's a word that's been used on both sides of the aisle for decades to marry progressive politicians to the ideas of Stalin and Lenin and the like...and Bernie is using it to describe himself. If Hillary doesn't use this word at least a dozen times tonight it will show a great deal of self-restraint and perhaps a poor debate strategy. However, even if she does, Bernie is an incredibly articulate man and has been defending this title effectively for years. I'm sure he will have an educational response to any accusations that he somehow sides with hammer and sickle Socialism just because he promotes public benefits that people of other wealthy nations have enjoyed for decades. Still, that shouldn't stop Clinton from highlighting that America has historically been repulsed by all things Socialist, which limits his chances in the general election.

Whether Hillary will get to play offensive tonight depends a lot on the moderators. Based on the CNN GOP debate, it seems likely that we'll see the moderators stirring up petty arguments about emails and Benghazi accusations, and trying to pit Hillary against the politics of her husband. She will have to skillfully pivot out of these traps if she wants to compete with Bernie's big ideas for revolutionizing our social and economic way of life in the U.S. It would be greatly to Clinton's benefit to try to stay on offense, because, based on Sanders' campaign thus far, he is not going to go negative. He's brilliant at keeping interviewers on topic and rarely stoops to bashing other Democrats when there are so many real life institutions and broken policies to rail against--not to mention, Republicans. If Clinton spends the debate tearing down Sanders instead of talking up her own plans, she's going to come off as a bitch, which I assume she is desperately trying to avoid.

As for the other candidates, Joe Biden's empty podium has a better chance of getting the nomination. Why they were even invited I do not know. Hopefully, this will be the first and last time we hear from them; although, I'm sure Clinton and Sanders will be relieved to have some non-threatening candidates giving them a break from talking every once in awhile. The rest of us, barring some brilliant ideas that these candidates have that are simply not making their way into the media cycle, will be annoyed with them cutting into time we could all be sleeping. Which begs the question: Why the hell aren't these things done on the weekend? But hey, that's neither here nor there.

Happy viewing! Regardless of what happens tonight it will be good to hear from a few politicians who didn't spend 48 hours prior to the debate prepping themselves on Wikipedia about the issues facing our country. Clinton and Sanders are some powerhouse intellectuals with some stellar political skills. I imagine we're in for a treat.

Economic Inequality (Part One): Why We Hate Socialism but Use It Everyday

It’s safe to say, based on our political dialogue, the terms our candidates throw around with no explanation (or understanding) of their meaning, and Americans’ thirty-plus year record of voting against their own best interests, that we have forgotten Junior High-level social studies class. Let’s review.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Economics

Every country has choices to make based on allocating resources. As a country, we have certain natural resources within our borders--oil, gas, minerals, metals, lumber, water, etc. In order to use these, and service-based, resources in a way that benefits our country, we have to decide three things: 

1) What to produce with these resources? 
2) How to produce using these resources? 
3) For whom to produce with these resources?

How a country chooses to answer these questions is a reflection of that country’s values and places it somewhere on the economic spectrum between Laissez-faire Capitalism and Absolute Communism. The main choice to be made is who will own the means of producing goods and carrying out services.

In a Communist Economic System (also called a Planned Economic System or a Command Economic System) a public body, usually the federal government, owns all means of producing goods and providing services and decides based on the needs of the country, who will work in which industries and what goods they will produce, and who will get these goods. In Communism, all industries are nationalized, but here’s the catch. Karl Marx, who conceived Communism, envisioned a Utopian society in which people of higher thinking and high moral character created systems to share all necessary work and provide equal resources for everyone in the country. Such a society, in theory, would eliminate the need for currency and dissolve caste systems and social classes, making all people equal on a social and economic level. He laid out a progression to get to this point, which started with Socialism (which we'll get to) and led into a vanguard "government" that would basically keep things organized until they could dissolve completely. This, of course, has never occurred, though variations on Communism have been tried. Most of the industrialized world uses some form of Socialist Economic System (usually market socialism or democratic socialism, which combine principles of Communism and Capitalism).

The problems with Communism (Collectivism)

Here's the thing: Communism has never been practiced as it was envisioned by Marx. Rather, it has always been imposed by a dictator as a means of isolating power, which is why Communism is often associated with dictatorships and tyranny. In an absolute Communist society citizens must give-up nearly all personal freedoms in exchange (theoretically) for getting all of their needs met. Communism is often referred to as the belief that each person gives according to his ability and receives according to his needs. It is a very idealistic economic system based on the idea of putting the greater good before oneself, which is hard to argue isn't a very American value. We all know Kennedy's famous, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." 

However, it is not difficult to see where human nature causes problems in such a system. A highly intelligent, hard-working individual doing a time-consuming and laborsome job is not going to be happy with receiving the same financial and social payoff as a person putting in the minimum effort to receive the same financial and social rewards; i.e. Communism removes incentives to work harder and innovate for the betterment of society. It's hard to say what all the issues would be in a Communist society because we have yet to witness a true Communist Economic System in practice, though one would never know it based on how often this term is thrown around in American politics.

Now, let’s look at the opposite extreme: Laissez-faire (unregulated) Capitalism. In this economic system all means of production--everything from mining to creating social media websites--are owned and operated by private individuals and businesses. Unlike Communism, Capitalism cannot function as an Economic System under a dictator. Though, like Communism, in theory, centralized government does not exist in a truly free enterprise; rather, the needs of society are met and regulated by the market. That is, if a need arises in society, say, garbage is piling up everywhere, theoretically, an individual starts a business to fulfill this demand and charges customers accordingly. If a business charges too much for a service or product people refuse to buy the product and thus the company must lower its prices or go out of business. The market sets its own prices based on what people are willing to pay. This creates innovation and competition. If one business fulfills a need and another company can create a faster or cheaper or more effective way of fulfilling that need then customers will naturally gravitate to that company. In theory, when individuals and companies have a financial incentive to compete, society benefits, goods and services improve, and people work harder to create new ways to fill societal needs.

The problem with Capitalism is that personal freedoms are valued over financial and social equality. Such a system gives boundless incentives, but does not provide equal means to citizens to compete for resources. Thus, resources are allocated unfairly, a problem that, if unresolved, may lead to class warfare.

A less ominous, but equally troubling problem with Capitalism is that some needs of society, say, monitoring and regulating chemicals in our drinking water, are not marketable. In fact, they aren't even possible. One company cannot tell another company, “You must stop polluting our drinking water.” Such a command can only be given and enforced by a central agency of some kind, ideally, a government of elected officials. One may argue that customers would stop buying a product from a company who is polluting and thus the market would again solve this problem. However, if no one is making a company disclose this information, the people will never know who not to support.

Another problem is that resources are allocated based on who wins this free enterprise competition. He who comes up with the best/ cheapest way to fulfill a societal demand, gets more money, a more enjoyable lifestyle, and a higher social status. Thus, social classes form and the system creates a resource snowball effect. If one’s great-grandfather comes up with a brilliant idea for a product and makes a fortune from this product, not only is his company then able to draw all the best workers and innovators to continue dominating their industry, but the original creator will be able to pass his personal wealth, and his company, down to his children. Those children will then be able to afford the best education (remember, in a true Capitalist system, public education does not exist), the best healthcare, the best food, housing, etc and receive connections and assistance that people born to poorer families cannot access. After a couple generations, resources become isolated in the hands of a few families creating a large gap between those with the resources and those without. Many problems can arise from this division. One being that the economy will fail if customers cannot afford even the lowest prices available; and, two, the lower classes become, essentially, indentured servants to the higher class. Those with the means of production can work the lower class employees endless hours, pay them unlivable wages, abuse them, discriminate in their hiring processes based on societal biases, etc.

Many problems can and have arisen from unchecked Capitalism. To deal with these problems, the U.S. and other wealthy countries have adopted a third, and as of yet, more functional and fair economic system: Socialism.

I can hear the outrage exuding from my American readers: “We absolutely are not Socialists!” The problem is, we are Socialists. The reason we think we’re not (and why this term gets thrown around on the same level with sonofabitch) is because Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini called their political parties Socialist. What they actually practiced was some bastardized version of a Communist dictatorship. Regardless, Socialism, Communism, and Tyranny became interchangeable synonyms in the American political discourse. 

Socialism and Communism are different economic systems, especially with regard to how Socialism is practiced today. Socialism allows a central government to take control of some essential industries, such as education, healthcare, banking, energy, etc, while allowing other less essential industries to function on the free market system. While it is true that the United States has resisted nationalizing certain essential industries, like healthcare, that literally every other wealthy nation in the world has nationalized, the federal government does control a fair number of industries and competes in and/ or regulates nearly every industry in the U.S. Transportation (airports, roads, railways), education, social services, police, fire departments, EMTs, public health clinics, the postal service, etc are all nationalized industries. Thus, we practice Socialism in the U.S. everyday. Do we also practice Capitalism? Of course. In fact, we fall much closer to the Laissez-faire Capitalism end of the spectrum than we do to the Collectivism end. As a result, we both reap the financial benefits of free enterprise and suffer the consequences of an ever-widening economic gap and dearth of public benefits.

What we seem to have forgotten--or arguably have been bullied into not believing--is that we have a choice. Regardless of where we fall on the economic system spectrum, we are a democracy. The public gets to decide how we will allocate resources in this country and demand these allocations from our leaders. If they do not abide, we can vote them out. However, be it because of tradition, or lack of information, or fear of change, misinformation, or a collective idealistic hope that one day we too will be billionaires, we continue to vote in favor of allowing resources to be allocated to a handful of individuals. Most of these people inherited their wealth and are not using it to innovate or fulfill new societal needs, or provide more affordable options in essential areas of society. A significant majority of the wealthy are using their wealth to assure that the people in government are their people. They spend billions every election cycle making sure their taxes stay historically low and that funding of regulating agencies remains scant. They inject misinformation into our discourse through their privately owned media sources and they pay seven figure salaries to lobbyists to push laws that will make it even easier for them to make even more money. 

Meanwhile, for the lower classes, quality education is becoming more unaffordable; healthcare is either unattainable or unaffordable for tens of millions; it’s becoming more difficult to get a loan for a house, or a car, or a college education…And these are just the problems affecting the middle-class.

The problems we have are present because wealthy business owners use our federal government as an extension of their power as industry leaders. They have no problem with greater governmental control so long as it is benefiting their bottom line. They do not fear bigger government; we do. They are using the government to protect their resources from the people, rather than the people using the government to reallocate those resources to the middle-class in the form of healthcare, education, affordable housing, paid maternity/ paternity leave, etc. We have a choice. We should use it. A fear of the word Socialism is destroying our country. We’re already a Socialist Democracy. We already give up certain personal freedoms to gain certain essential resources. We give up many more to the wealthy when we let them play the role our government is meant to play.

I Love Bernie Too, but It Ain't Gonna Happen

It's as simple as, "Don't hate the player, hate the game." Bernie Sanders won't be the 45th President of the United States for the same reason that a basketball team can't walk on the court and start playing soccer and expect to win. It's the same reason that Wilco will never be as big as Justin Bieber, and why more people read John Grisham than Earnest Hemingway. There are games that must be played in every area of life and while these games are often demoralizing, dehumanizing, and focused entirely on something other than talent, intelligence, and discipline, they matter. At least until they don't. Bernie's not playing the game to win; he's playing a different game to highlight how stupid the game of running for President is and share ideas that are completely possible but ahead of their time.

In 2008, Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination saying many of the same things that Dennis Kucinch said in 2004. Kucinich was more or less laughed for his platform, which in 2004 was far too progressive (or, as Americans like to call it, Socialist) for the country. Just for years later, the very same ideas took Obama to the White House. So, why did Obama gain traction where Kucinich couldn't and Bernie Sanders won't?

One: Charisma and Charm

Obama is a handsome, clever, articulate, Harvard-educated black man with an oratorical style that moved the world to tears every time he gave a speech. His content was no different than Kucinich's, but his style was leaps and bounds beyond Kucinich's skill set. Bernie Sanders, while as passionate as Kucinich about his message, is about one step ahead of Dick Cheney on the charisma and charm scale. He comes across as very serious and angry, which is great for progressives in the primaries, but will not sway swing voters or moderate conservatives in the general election, nor will it get him the absolutely necessary free air time to make up for his righteous, though flailing fund-raising efforts. Let's be honest, Hillary's no Beyonce when it comes to charm and charisma, but if it's between the first woman President with no charisma and a cranky old white man with no charisma, who's going to win that fight?

Two: Money

This is that ugly part of the game that everyone, but progressives especially, believe shouldn't exist. I certainly agree it shouldn't exist the way it currently exists in a post-Citizen's United (the Supreme Court decision deeming corporations are people and can contribute to campaigns as though they are individual donors) world, but until this decision is overturned and real campaign finance reform occurs, money is perhaps the most important factor to winning a Presidential election in America. While Barack Obama did an amazing job of energizing young people and small donors to contribute, he became a real contender because he courted big donors as well. He played the money game and while Hillary Clinton won the money game in 2008, Obama hung in closely enough to remain a competitor in the media battle. Where he won the media battle was again with his moving speeches and charming personality, which brought reporters swooning every time he opened his mouth, thus giving him endless TV time for free. Bernie is not this magnetic, thus, he better find a way to get some big donors in his corner, or he's going to get crushed when the media battle heats up closer to Super Tuesday.

Three: Timing and Message

Obama was running at the end of one of the most failed presidencies of all time. The economy was in a tailspin, we were fighting two costly and senseless (if not illegal) wars with no exit strategies, we were torturing people with no evidence as to it making us safer, we felt our personal freedoms had been encroached upon with the Orwellian-esk Patriot Act, environmental regulations had been lifted everywhere and were having real effects on both industry and the environment, the financial sector had been deregulated to the point of...well, watch "The Wolf of Wall Street" if you want to see what a party they were having at the middle class' expense, and our infrastructure and social systems of care were being left to crumble. So, people were ready for Obama's message and he did a phenomenal job of delivering his message in a inspiring way. He could have easily drawn upon the public's frustrations and fears and presented his ideas in a serious, angry way. Instead he went with a lighter, sports' fan, Little Engine that Could message: "Yes we can!" Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have no "Yes we can!" They have "This shit sucks; let's eat the rich!" They are not running for President on the heals of a staggering failure of a president. They should be highlighting the progress Obama has made and re-energizing people to take his policies to the next level in the coming eight years. The public is very easily influenced. Obama's less-than-impressive favorability ratings could skyrocket tomorrow if Clinton and Sanders started reminding people how a Democratic president halted The Great Recession in mid-free fall by bailing out the car industry and passing a ginormous stimulus package, how he got tens of millions of people health care who have never had it, how he ended two wars that were costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives and doing nothing to make us safer, how he ended Don't Ask, Don't Tell, how he gave the DREAMers executive order to allow young immigrants here illegally some safety to come out of the shadows, how he gave an executive order to double gas mileage on all vehicles by 2025, how he gave the order not to crack down on the legalizing of marijuana in 5 states that are profiting hugely from it's tax revenue... I could go on all day, and they should too. Americans have a very short memory span and love to focus on the negative. They need constant reminders of what party is looking out for them. Bernie's plans are inspiring. His narrative is not.

Four: Polling

Polls this early in the game are not great predictors of who will win the primary, but trends from now until the end of the year will be. As of now, Hillary is polling, on average, 24% higher nationwide than Bernie Sanders (some polls have her as far as 35% higher). To put that in perspective, Sanders is only leading Joe Biden by 9% and Biden isn't even in the race (yet). In fact, Sanders is so far down that pollsters aren't even running head-to-head polls on how he would match-up against Republican candidates. By contrast, Clinton is ahead in match-ups with every Republican candidate in the race. Of course, this could all change if something damaging, or illegal, comes out of the Clinton email "scandal," or if Biden gets in the race (which seems likely at this point). A Bernie optimist might say, "Hillary's lead over Obama was very similar at this point in the 2008 primaries and Obama won." A pessimist might say, "Yeah, but the Obama/ Hillary match-up came down to superdelegate voting to break a virtual dead-heat by the country as a whole, and Bernie is no Obama." This pessimist may go on to say that Bernie is the only alternative to Clinton right now and if Biden gets in, that could change very quickly. There's also the fact that Clinton has a 75-80%  favorability rating among Democrats. So, it's really only the far left who don't feel she represents true progressive values, which Sanders champions, or that she has too much baggage and too many ties to Wall Street.

All of this being said, circumstances do change. None of the three most likely candidates are spring-chickens. Health could become an issue and shift things suddenly. Also, they have all been in politics a very long time and have lots of votes and deals and public records to sift through. Scandals are still possible. But, all things considered, I think Bernie is a long-shot candidate. I, personally, would love to see Bernie win. I agree with everything he's saying. However, if he gets close enough to Hillary and/ or Biden to start getting head-to-head polls run against Republicans and Hillary is up 10% over the field and Sanders is polling even or down 5% to Bush or Rubio, is anyone going to go with Sanders on principle? I doubt it. I would argue that it is much more likely that Hillary adopts some of Bernie's policy positions to get his constituency on-board and/ or considers him for VP. I also would not count-out talk of a Biden/ Warren ticket, which honestly sounds like a powerhouse to me. Between the two of them they cover the gambit of necessary skills, knowledge, and experience in the areas Americans care about most in a President.

Only time will tell...

Abortion: Supporting It is the Only Way to End It

A Brief History of an Ancient Issue

Abortions are nothing new. Not by a long shot. To give you some idea of how long we've been going round and round on this issue, Aristotle wrote in 325 BCE that "[T]he line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive."--a debate we're still having today about when human life begins.

Early, if not ancient, methods of aborting a fetus included physical activities like strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving. Additional methods included irritant leaves, fasting, bloodletting, pouring hot water onto the abdomen, sitting over a pot of steaming water, and lying on a heated coconut shell. Other physical means of inducing an abortion such as battery, exercise, and tightening of the girdle were still often used as late as the Early Modern Period among English women. After a wave of miscarriages in England were attributed to lead poisoning from the metal pipes carrying the water supply, women began using diachylon, a substance with a high concentration of lead, to intentionally cause a miscarriage. This substance was used up until WWI. Perhaps the more gruesome methods are recorded during the 19th century in the U.S. when relatively safe procedures actually existed, but were outlawed (more on this in a minute). During this time, the use of candles and other objects, such as glass rods, penholders, curling irons, spoons, sticks, knives, and catheters were used by women to abort their own pregnancies. 

In the early days of the United States, abortions were only mildly regulated. A post-quickening (feeling fetal movement) abortion was considered a misdemeanor, but very difficult to enforce due to the mother being the only one able to determine whether there was fetal movement. During the 19th century, surgery, anesthesia, and sanitation used in terminating a pregnancy improved significantly, however at the same time the laws prohibiting abortions became more harsh. In 1837 abortion became illegal completely in the U.S., and in 1861 simply obtaining poisons or instruments with the intent to have an abortion became a crime. Despite these laws, abortion services were still available in New York, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cleveland, Chicago, and Indianapolis; with estimates of one abortion for every 4 live births. 

In 1873, a guy named Anthony Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that same year, Comstock successfully influenced Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made it illegal to deliver by U.S. mail, or by other modes of transportation, "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material, including any methods of production or publication of information pertaining to the procurement of an abortion, prevention conception, or the prevention of venereal disease, even to medical students. These laws continued into the early 20th century and by 1909 the penalty for breaking these laws was $5000 and 5 years in prison. Writer George Bernard Shaw remarked at the time that "Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States. Europe likes to hear of such things. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all."

Meanwhile, in the early part of the 19th century in France, abortion was becoming more accepted as a last resort for pregnant unwed women. The ethos gradually evolved to see the modern medical procedure of abortion as a viable alternative to ineffectual contraception methods with regard to family planning. The thinking in France changed in large part because both medical and non-medical providers of abortions agreed upon the relative safety of the procedure. 

Abortion in the Modern Era

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th a movement began in support of birth control, which some would deem the beginning of the debate concerning a woman's body and her right to make choices concerning her body. A movement against contraceptives and abortion was, of course, launched in response. During this period, abortions were illegal in every U.S. state though some offered exceptions in the case of preserving the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. Despite its unlawfulness, licensed physicians in the 1930s performed an estimated 800,000 abortions per year.

It wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that the reproductive rights issue reached boiling point in the U.S. Women who were dying from illegal abortions became the poster-children for women's rights groups, who began learning to provide abortions themselves for women who could not receive them safely elsewhere. In 1965, the Supreme Court struck down one of the remaining contraception Comstock laws. This allowed married couples to begin legally using contraception and a free flow of information about contraception and abortion to the public. Following this decision the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a medical bulletin accepting a recommendation from 6 years earlier which clarified that conception is implantation, not fertilization; and consequently birth control methods that prevented implantation became classified as contraceptives, not abortifacients. The National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1968 to fight for the renewal and continuation of regulations on contraception and abortion. The National Abortion Rights Action League-Pro Choice America began in 1969 and called for extending access for contraception and abortion. In 1972, the Supreme Court extended the freedom of legally using contraception to unmarried couples as well. 

In 1973, the famous Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade occurred. In this decision the Supreme Court ruled that a Texas statute forbidding abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court arrived at its decision by concluding that the issue of abortion and abortion rights falls under the right to privacy (in the sense of the right of a person not to be encroached by the state). In its opinion it listed several landmark cases where the court had previously found a right to privacy implied by the Constitution. The court found that a mother had a right to abortion until viability, a point to be determined by the abortion doctor. After viability a woman can obtain an abortion for health reasons, which the Court defined broadly to include psychological well-being. 

Abortion Today

From 1973 to 2003 no further regulations were placed on abortion. It was in 2003 that Congress passed a bill banning what abortion opponents dubbed "partial-birth abortions." The bill was signed into law by President George W. Bush. The law was challenged though upheld by a narrow margin by the Supreme Court.  

Today, despite a plethora of safe and effective (and legal) contraceptive options for both males and females and sex education being taught starting in elementary school,  half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are still unplanned. Of these, 1 in 3 will be terminated by the mother. This sounds like a large number, but today we actually have the lowest rate of abortions since Roe v Wade made abortion legal in 1973 (which is when the U.S. started recording concrete numbers rather than estimates). From 2008 to 2011 abortion rates dropped 13%, something a Guttmacher Institute study attributes to new long-acting contraceptive methods. In 2011, there were 17 abortions for every 1000 women of child-bearing age, nearly half of what this number was in 1981 when abortion rates were at their highest (30 abortions for very 1000 women of reproductive age). This study also shows a long-term downward trend in abortions.

Why are women having abortions today? Guttmacher did a study in 2004 asking women this very question. These were the results:

• 74% Having a baby would dramatically change my life
• 73% Cannot afford a baby now
• 48% Do not want to be a single mother or having relationship problems
• 38% Have completed my childbearing
• 32% Not ready for another child
• 25% Do not want people to know I had sex or got pregnant
• 22% Do not feel mature enough to raise another child
• 14% Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion
• 13% Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus
• 12% Concerns about my health
• 6% Parents want me to have an abortion
• 1% Was a victim of rape
• less than 0.5% Became pregnant as a result of incest

How old are women/ teens having abortions? Nearly 75% of them are under the age of 30. 

• 18% percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are teenagers
• Teens aged 15–17 obtain 6% of all abortions 
• Women aged 18–19 obtain 11% of all abortions 
• Teens younger than 15 obtain 0.4% of all abortions
• Women aged 20–24 obtain 33% of all abortions
• Women aged 25–29 obtain 24% of all abortions

At what point in their pregnancies are women having abortions? According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2011 (the most recent data available): 

• 64.5% abortions were performed prior or equal to 8 weeks' gestation 
• 91.4% were performed prior or equal to 13 weeks' gestation
• 7.3% were performed between 14–20 weeks' gestation
• 1.4% were performed at or after 21 weeks' gestation

Why We're Still Talking About This? 

We're still having this debate in the 21st century--a debate that's literally been around since the first abortion laws were recorded in 1075 BCE--because no matter how long we debate it, no one is going to be able to codify when human life begins. It's a matter of opinion. Doctors disagree, theologians disagree, philosophers disagree, and the general public sways its beliefs on the matter from one election cycle to the next. Even the Supreme Court when passing Roe v Wade said, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."  Instead, it chose to point out that historically, under English and American common law unborn fetuses have never been protected as full humans and chose not to change that precedent. 

I agree with the Supreme Court of 1973. We don't need to answer the question of when life begins to address this problem. When an argument has occurred for thousands of years in societies all over the globe and reached no consensus, it's time to start focusing less on the morality and more on problem solving. No one likes the idea of abortion. No one is thrilled to get one. No one walks away from one without experiencing grief around their loss. And, we all want them to become unnecessary. So let's start there. How do we make them unnecessary? 

The answer to this question is: We do exactly what we've been doing, but on a much larger scale. If you're morally repulsed by abortion, you shouldn't be picketing in front of Planned Parenthood, you should be donating to them. They are a large part of the reason that abortions are happening with less frequency than ever before in history. Not only this, but their happening safely and can be regulated and measured. We can collect data and thus we can make informed decisions on who is having abortions and when and why and focus our efforts toward reducing unwanted pregnancies in these populations of people. If we go back to pre-Roe v Wade days, if we de-fund Planned Parenthood, as many republicans are now calling for, we aren't ending abortion, we're increasing it. We're shutting down the people disseminating information about contraception--the people who are educating youth and under-educated populations about how reproduction works and how to avoid ever needing to consider an abortion. Take away these resources and we will face increases in unwanted pregnancies, increases in abortions, and increases in mothers dying due to abortions carried out in unsafe conditions. We know this because it's exactly what was happening for thousands of years before 1973. 

Finally, this is not just an issue of when life begins and the morality surrounding this unanswerable question. Unintended pregnancies are many times unwanted pregnancies and just because a woman doesn't choose to terminate her pregnancy does not mean she intends to take care of the resulting offspring. The Brookings Institute estimates that American taxpayers pay $12 billion a year on publicly financed medical care for women who experience unintended pregnancies and on infants who were conceived unintentionally. They go on to say that though it is difficult to monetize the cost of increases in crime, higher high school drop-out rates, and dependency on public entitlements programs, these all have strong correlations with levels of unwanted pregnancies. Meaning, children being born into the world with parents who don't want them and/ or can't afford them are making us less safe and burdening our economy, not to mention living very difficult lives that often lead a person to a life of depression, addiction, and crime. Those who are given up for adoption may spend their entire childhood bouncing around foster homes before (if they ever) find an adoptive home. 30% of the U.S. homeless population and 25% of our prison population were once foster children. And, 28% of children in foster care will be abused by their foster parents (many believe this number is much higher). Is it not just as morally troubling to consider fates worse than death?  

So, I say, if you're against abortion, support it, because being pro-life means more than being pro-fetus. If you want higher taxes, bigger government, higher crime rates, higher rates of abortion, higher rates of mothers dying due to abortion complications, and children growing up in abusive foster situations, than reverse Roe v Wade and de-fund Planned Parenthood. It's not a black and white issue of when life begins. It's a problem that has an answer that we should all be focused on and supporting. We all want abortions to stop. 

Immigration Reform: Money, Hate, and Humanity

Donald Trump, the unbelievable front-runner of the GOP nomination for president, has in recent weeks brought immigration reform to the forefront of the presidential campaign season. With his offensive language and zen-like non-attachment to reality The Donald has used his rather large microphone for what can only be described as hate speech toward the Latino population living in the U.S. He has publicly and unapologetically said everything except, "Go home, Mexicans!" He's called them rapists and murderers. He's calling for a giant wall across the Mexican border (something he says he'll somehow get Mexico to pay for), and now he and his republican primary opponents are calling for the end to birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants. Finally, he wants to go on a witch hunt for illegal immigrants--calling to literally round them up and ship them to their home country, ignoring the major cost, logistical impossibility, and legal hurdles of this plan, not to mention the sociopathic lack of compassion this plan exhibits in a country created by what I'm sure our native brethren would call illegal immigrants.

So, where is all this coming from? I have to be honest, being a white man from an all white family with zero Latino relatives and very few Latino friends (not by choice, but simply from lack of intersecting life paths), I didn't understand the nuances of this issue until I started digging deeper to write this piece. I understood enough to know Donald Trump's plan was ridiculous, but that really requires very little information to understand (despite a huge conservative following who thinks he's on the money with these proposals). I found no shortage of resources out there about the issue of immigration reform. I'll link to some of these throughout, but what I really want to talk about is the motivation behind this debate. Is it about money? Is it about racism and xenophobia? Or, is it about wanting to find an easier road to legit citizenship for people who simply can't create the life they want in their home country? 

First, let's address the financial question. It's honestly the first thing that came to my mind on the topic. How is this sustainable? How can we allow 11.3 million people to live here using public resources that they are not paying into? But upon exploring this concern, I found the numbers, as blurry as they may be, assuaged my concerns on the money front. Illegal immigrants actually pay $12 billion (with a "b") in payroll taxes every year, using fake or expired social security numbers or what's called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number or ITIN. That's $12 billion going into our social security fund every year that these people will not be able to draw upon when they reach retirement age. 

"Well, good," you say. "Consider it the fee for living here illegally." To which I'd say, "Maybe." I say maybe because this $12 billion is not their only contribution. Not by a long-shot. Should all 11.3 million illegal immigrants be rounded up and deported, as Trump suggests--a feat that would cost $50.3 billion dollars, an average cost of $10,070 per person being deported--the workforce would drop by 6.4%, and the U.S. GDP would drop by $80 billion a year. This would be a significant hit to our economy. Also, there is more to the story. 

The law as it stands (i.e. how it stands prior to President Obama's DREAMers Executive Order, which can later be removed by a future president) if it were strictly enforced, would cost the U.S. between $300-400 billion over the next twenty years (the amount of time it will take to remove all current illegal immigrants and put systems in place to prevent future illegal immigrants from entering the country--if this is even possible). This is money I think we can all agree would be better spent in other areas of government, or better returned to the tax payer (depending on your political leanings). Basically, the current law is a law we simply can't afford to enforce, which means we're only partially enforcing it, which means it's costing a lot of money and doing nothing to solve the problems of illegal immigration. Thus, the absurdness of some people's attachment to this failed law simply because it's the law and the dire need to replace this law as soon as possible. 

Which brings me to these real problems of illegal immigration. What are these problems, if not financial? According to Trump, and many other republicans, crime is a major issue. Trump says Mexico is sending all their rapists and murderers to the U.S. Pretty scary, if it were true. But, it isn't. Out of the 11.3 million illegal immigrants living here, about 90,000 are in state or federal prisons. That's one-eighth of one percent (.oo8) of the illegal immigrant population who are in prison, and there are no good stats on how many of those are in prison due to being in the country illegally having committed no other harmful crimes. Non-citizens make up about 5% of our prison population. So, crime is not a major issue in this debate, despite the fear-mongering being presented. 

And if crime isn't the problem and the financial costs of enforcing the current law far outweigh the financial benefits of having these people living and working here, what are we left with? Some would argue that illegal immigrants are taking American jobs. This, I feel, is a legitimate debate. Progressives argue these are jobs no American wants--low-paying, physically demanding, no benefits, time-consuming, etc. Maybe that's true, but there's no real way to know so long as businesses are hiring non-citizens. Thus, making this a valid concern, especially following The Great Recession where people may be willing to take what they can get. Another concern is the cost of amnesty--the opposite extreme to mass deportation. What will 11.3 million new citizens suddenly gaining full access to public resources do to our entitlements programs? These programs are already expensive, though necessary and grossly underfunded. Some of this expense has been addressed above. These workers are already contributing $12 billion a year in tax revenue and as citizens will likely contribute much more, but how much more, and will it be enough as to not raise taxes on current citizens? Also, what will it do to the economy if the businesses hiring these 11.3 million people suddenly have to pay them a fair wage and provide benefits and pay higher taxes on their employees' behalf? These are things worth debating. 

However, these are not the debates we're having. The reason Donald Trump hasn't been shouted off the world stage as a kooky narcissist unabashedly spewing racism toward a vital population of people and their friends and family is because he's saying what many Americans are thinking. It's hate toward Mexicans that is driving the immigration debate. And the hate comes from fear and the fear comes from lack of or misinformation and the misinformation is coming from people like Trump trying to achieve political and/ or financial gain by tapping into the emotions of an uninformed population of the American public. 

This is the saddest part of this issue. These are real people. They have spouses and kids and parents and grandparents. They feel physical, emotional, psychological, and financial pain just like the rest of us, and as a country--a country that loves to go on-and-on about how Christian we are--rather than trying to understand their motivations for coming to the U.S. and find a compassionate and empathetic way to help them, we're talking about ways to split-up their families, to send them back to places they risked their lives to flee. We're talking about expensive walls and deportation methods instead of spending far less money integrating them into our society and benefiting from their being here. Can we take every person wanting to leave their home country? No. That's impossible. So, let's debate about that. Let's debate about who we let in and how many we can let in. Let's debate about the vetting process to become a citizen. Let's debate about why we really care who lives here if they're following our laws and paying taxes and doing everything else we as citizens do in the U.S. Let's debate what is an affordable, sustainable way of protecting our borders. We have to be smart about it. There are people in the world who want to do us harm, but historically and statistically speaking, those people are not coming from our neighboring countries. Thus, building a wall does nothing to keep us safer. 

In the end, our borders are just lines on a map that we carved out through war, treaties, and diplomacy. Our constitution deems anyone born inside these lines to be an American. Yet, socially, that's not all we require to be considered American, is it? Some of us have decided we're more important than other people living here and have become very entitled to our place in the majority. Is that what we're afraid of? Having to learn another language? Having to integrate other traditions into our current traditions? Haven't we been doing that since the beginning? And, frankly, hasn't it only enhanced our lives to do so? 

The people outside our lines are still people. They did nothing to deserve a lesser life. They didn't ask to be born where they were born, in the same way that people born into challenging circumstances in the U.S. didn't ask to be born with their situation. So, let's debate about how to safely and smartly help people live better lives, shall we? Let's ignore those trying to infuse hate and fear and misinformation into this very important debate and let the motivation be not just a more perfect union, but a more perfect humanity. That seems like a more inspiring place to start this conversation. As is stands, we're only talking about this because one crazy billionaire hates Mexicans and doesn't mind telling us about it. Can we ignore him? Can we turn away from his tabloid-esk antics and focus on the positive? That would be impressive America. Let's get real about this. People's lives (and our economy) depend on it. 

Introducing Yet Another Political Blog

This has been a long time coming, but after much encouragement (from, like, two or three people) I've decided to take my status updates, meme shares, and cynical sarcasm to the classiest, most well-respected medium in existence--the blogosphere. Now, I know what you're saying, "Jeff, aren't there about 4 million people out there already bloviating about American politics on blogs that no one reads? Shouldn't you do something better with your ever-decreasing free time?" And to you--hypothetical pessimist I created to express my own inner doubts--I say, no, this is important. I am a stay-at-home father of a two year old with one on the way, I have a degree in English, a novel that sold moderately well in my core demographic of people socially obligated to read my fiction, and I love stirring up social media debates with friends of friends and high school drop-outs on either side of the aisle. I think this more than qualifies me to write editorial pieces about issues that are of the utmost concern to my fellow Americans. Please share, comment, and cuss at your device of choice as I periodically find some topic to expand upon for your intermittent indignation.

This is The Hardesty Post.