An open letter to Sarah Palin.

Dear Sarah Palin,

Congratulations on rising from relative obscurity to the public spotlight in a span of merely five days! You've gone from the gun-totin' private-investigator-hirin' sweetheart of the Land of the Midnight Sun to the gun-totin' private-investigator-hirin' sweetheart of the entire Republican Party in record time!

I hear that Bristol, your 17-year-old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. Poor thing. Happens to the best of us. It's unfortunate that the timing is such that last week, she could have chosen whether or not to keep her baby on a local stage rather than a nation--

Oh, that's right. Your political views would forbid your child to pursue that choice. I very much hope that your daughter feels the same way that you do, and that you're not forcing her to keep this baby because of your politics. But that's between you and your daughter - it's not any of my business. Though I will say that it's lucky that this baby will be born (in the national spotlight!) into a family that has the means (and political pressure!) to love and cherish it.

There are lots of babies born whose mamas don't have that ability - either they aren't ready to be an effective parent, or there's another factor, like drugs, or an abusive situation, or a simple financial inability to support and care for a baby as it deserves.

A given woman’s ability to provide a nurturing environment to a child can fluctuate over time depending on the woman’s age, education, and income, as well as the presence of a father in the child’s life, whether the pregnancy is wanted, and any drug or alcohol abuse both in utero and after the birth. Consequently, legalized abortion provides a woman the opportunity to delay childbearing if the current conditions are suboptimal. (Donohoe & Levitt)

When those babies are born, those babies who aren't loved and cherished as Bristol's child will be, they can have a harder time navigating the murky waters of society. The truly lucky ones find their way through the system - they are the success stories. But the other babies? The babies born in suboptimal conditions? They are the children of the night - the children who have a high probability to turning to crime in the formative late-teenage years.

Have you ever read Donohue and Levitt's May '01 article on the statistical connection between legalized abortion and crime rates, Sarah? It's good old indesputible math. Here's a selection from the abstract.

We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly eighteen years after abortion legalization. The five states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime.

Good LORD.

I can't reconcile your logic, there, Sarah... you want to equip everyone with guns against the army of unwanted babies who become criminals who will surge in numbers approximately eighteen years beyond the outlawing of abortion? Is that the plan? Because you know that these criminals-in-training will have access to guns, too.

Not a particularly long-term thought process, there. It sounds to me that if you get your way, we'll be building more jails.

Best of luck.

Yvanka