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Text Box: The Biography of a Bad Statistic May 25, 2005 Updated: May 26, 2005 http://www.factcheck.org/ Abortions rising under Bush? Not true. How that false claim came to be - and lives on. Summary Politicians from Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Howard Dean have recently contended that abortions have increased since George W. Bush took office in 2001. This claim is false. It's based on an an opinion piece that used data from only 16 states. A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute of 43 states found that abortions have actually decreased. Update, May 26: The author of the original claim now concedes that the Guttmacher study is "significantly better" than his own. Analysis A number of politicians and organizations have been circulating an interesting and surprising idea: that abortions have gone up under George W. Bush’s watch. The claim is repeated by supporters of abortion rights as evidence that Bush's anti-abortion policies have backfired, or at least been ineffective. But the claim is untrue. In fact, according to the respected Alan Guttmacher Institute, a 20-year decline in abortion rates continued after Bush took office. Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute, "Trends in Abortion in the United States"

Text Box: Here's the story of how a false idea took hold. The Birth of a Bad Statistic The claim that abortions are rising again can be traced back to an opinion piece by Glen Harold Stassen, an ethics professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. His article originally appeared in a web and e-mail publication of Sojourners, a Christian magazine, in October 2004. Several other outlets, including the Houston Chronicle, also ran a similar piece co-authored by Stassen and journalist Gary Krane. The articles generated a good deal of discussion on a number of both liberal and conservative blogs. Describing himself as “consistently pro-life,” Stassen reported that he “analyzed the data on abortion during the Bush presidency” and reached some “disturbing” conclusions. "Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed," he said. "Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction." Stassen's broad conclusion wasn't justified by the sketchy information he cited, however. Furthermore, a primary organization he cited specifically as a source for historical data now contradicts him, saying abortions have continued to decline since Bush took office. More about that later. Hillary Clinton Uses It Stassen offered his article as evidence that Bush's economic policies were driving pregnant women to abortion. And although he opposes abortion, his claim was soon picked up and repeated uncritically by the other side – supporters of abortion rights. In a speech to family-planning providers in New York on January 24, 2005 , Sen. Hillary Clinton recounted decreases in the abortion rate that occurred in her husband's administration, then lamented that the situation had changed. She repeated exactly some of the figures that Stassen had given in his Houston

Text Box: Chronicle article. Clinton: But unfortunately, in the last few years, while we are engaged in an ideological debate instead of one that uses facts and evidence and common sense, the rate of abortion is on the rise in some states . In the three years since President Bush took office, 8 states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and four saw a decrease (4.3% average), so we have a lot of work still ahead of us. Clinton was careful not to state flatly that abortions were increasing nationally . She spoke only of "some states" in which the rate had increased. But she invited her listeners to conclude that the national trend to fewer abortions had reversed itself since Bush took office. And in fact a few days later, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on January 30, 2005 , Sen. John Kerry claimed that abortions were up, period: Kerry: And do you know that in fact abortion has gone up in these last few years with the draconian policies that Republicans have…. A Kerry spokesman confirmed at the time to FactCheck.org that Kerry was relying on the Stassen article for his information. Finally, as recently as May 22, 2005 , Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean also asserted on NBC News' Meet the Press: Dean:You know that abortions have gone up 25 percent since George Bush was President ? Dean's "statistic" went unchallenged by moderator Tim Russert, so millions of viewers probably got the impression that Dean's very specific 25 percent figure was correct. But Dean was wrong -- and by a wide margin. We asked the Democratic National Committee repeatedly where Dean got his 25 percent figure, but we got no response. Even if Stassen's estimate of

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