Conservatives posit many criticisms of raising the minimum wage, and this article intends to address the four most prominent: that a higher minimum wage only leads to firings, as businesses cannot afford as many workers if everyone earns more; that businesses also hike up prices to cover the costs of a higher minimum wage; that minimum wage jobs are “meant” for young people without families to support; and that unskilled workers don’t “deserve” as comfortable a wage as a skilled worker.

Does a higher minimum wage increase unemployment?

Studies and historical trends show that when the minimum wage has been raised nationally or at the state level, it has not meant an automatic rise in unemployment.

Comparing historic minimum wage rates and unemployment levels from the Department of Labor, one notes when minimum pay nearly doubled in 1950, increased throughout the 60s, or rose yearly from 1978-1981, unemployment remained steady or declined. In fact, from 1950 to 2009, the only time unemployment rose after a minimum wage increase was 1970-1975, which also happened to be during a deep recession.

In 1996, a minimum wage increase boosted wages for many millions, but did not decrease the number of jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Robert Reich writes, “When I was Labor Secretary in 1996 and we raised the minimum wage, business predicted millions of job losses; in fact, we had more job gains over the next four years than in any comparable period in American history.”

The National Employment Law Project provides a long list of studies showing fears of higher unemployment are baseless. Importantly, in 2009, their meta-analysis of over 60 studies on the U.S. minimum wage concluded there was “little or no evidence” of increased wages causing unemployment.

The NELP looked at the 22 times the national minimum wage was increased between 1938 and 2009, finding that after 68% of the raises employment actually increased, even higher in heavily impacted sectors like hospitality and retail. Declines in employment after an increased minimum wage tended to be in times of recession. There was “no correlation” between wage increases and lower employment levels.

Some interesting research from 2010, published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, examined two decades of data on counties on both sides of state borders across the country (i.e., adjacent counties that have different minimum wages) and found “no adverse employment effects” in counties with higher minimum wages. In April 2015, the Seattle minimum wage rose to $10-$11 an hour, and by the end of 2016 unemployment was lower than at the time of the raise. In 2016, the Council of Economic Advisors examined workers from the hospitality and leisure industry affected by minimum wage increases since 2014 (18 states plus D.C. enacted raises). It found no evidence that employment nor hours offered to workers were decreasing — in fact, this industry saw a bit more hiring compared to states without raises.

What’s going on here? Business large and small are supposedly unable to afford higher wages. Where is the apocalyptic mass unemployment?

A central contradiction of capitalism is that the business class keeps labor’s wages as low as possible to reap more profit, collectively creating a massive part of the citizenry with little purchasing power, resulting in under-consumption, which in turn negatively impacts those corporations’ profits.

But providing more purchasing power changes everything. Creating a stronger consumer base leads to greater profits for the capitalists, the business owners. Liberal economists wouldn’t argue for higher minimum wages if they did not understand that higher salaries means more spending, which reaps businesses more profits. The system balances out.

It seems reasonable to conclude higher minimum wages do not increase unemployment. Now, this does not mean that businesses aren’t seeking to replace human labor with machines to save money, as with self-checkout screens at retail stores and fast food joints. Indeed, this is a huge problem that may one day leave all of us jobless. But given this evidence, it seems likely higher minimum wages do not exacerbate the problem — under the profit motive, it seems sensible that businesses would be working on installing new technologies as quickly as possible, regardless of what happens to the minimum wage.

Further, to address another possible criticism, some claim higher minimum wages hurt the labor participation rate, the percentage of adults in the labor force (a bit different than unemployment, the percentage of those in the labor force without a job). The participation rate has gone down since 2000 by about 5%, after rising from 1962 to 2000 by about 9%. That 1960-1997 saw many minimum wage increases should perhaps cast suspicion on the idea that higher wages automatically kill the participation rate (as should the fact there wasn’t a federal minimum wage increase from 1997-2006, the time when participation actually went south). But more importantly, there may not be enough economic research yet to draw a correlation. Economists point to many factors that may be lowering the labor participation rate (but not necessarily unemployment, as they measure different things): more young people going to college and graduate school instead of right into the workforce, the mass retirement of the baby boomers, a large increase in disability claims, more women staying home with children than in past decades, and so on.

Does a higher minimum wage increase prices?

Perhaps where that argument fails, another will triumph. If workers receive higher wages, will prices rise (inflation)?

Actually, yes. But as Karl Marx noted a century ago, this is not the end of the economic story. The rise in prices will be all but insignificant, and “supply and demand” reveals why.

Higher wages lead to increased demand. Increased demand leads to higher prices. If an individual has an increased salary, he or she will spend more on commodities in a specific industry. Working-class people will spend more on “necessities,” wealthier people will spend more on “luxuries.” Wherever there is increased demand, prices will rise.

But then, as happens in capitalism, production follows demand. This is the part of “supply and demand” people forget. When working people start buying more X, the owners in that industry begin producing more X. The supply of the necessity increases, and when supply increases, what happens to price? It falls.

Marx wrote (Value, Price, and Profit) that when higher incomes for working people lead to a greater demand in an industry,

…capital and labour would be transferred from the less remunerative [financially rewarding] to the more remunerative branches [industries]; and this process of transfer would go on until the supply in the one department of industry would have risen proportionately to the increased demand…

As the whole derangement originally arose from a mere change in the proportion of the demand for, and the supply of, different commodities, the cause ceasing, the effect would cease, and prices would return to their former level and equilibrium.

Marx provided evidence from his day. He noted the U.S. agricultural worker made double the wage of an English worker, but both prices and productive output were lower in the U.S. He explained how from 1849 to 1859, agricultural workers in England saw wages rise 40%, while the price of wheat actually dropped, even despite wars abroad and unfavorable harvests.

One need not look far for current evidence. Research from 2001 showed a 10% rise in the minimum wage translated to a 0.4-0.7% hike in restaurant prices, a 1.5% hike at fast food joints.

A 2004 study in the Journal of Economic Surveys looked at 20 price effect studies and concluded a 10% increase in the minimum wage leads to a 4% rise in food prices, but a mere 0.4% increase in overall prices.

A colossal 26% increase in the minimum wage in San Francisco caused only a 2-3% increase in restaurant prices; restaurants still ended up hiring thousands more workers in the following decade, even with another 25% minimum wage raise on top of that.

A 2012 report from the Food Labor Research Center estimates upping the minimum wage to $9.80 would raise fast food prices less than 1.5% and grocery prices less than 3% over three years if the entire cost of the increase was passed on to the consumer (and not taken out of profits).

A University of Washington study found that one year after Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour, retail, rent, and grocery prices had remained the same — despite mass promises by employers to sharply raise prices.

Fortunately, the capitalist drive to keep prices down (to undercut competitors and seize a larger share of the market) makes it more sensible to take most of the cost of higher wages out of profits, rather than raise prices. And again, greater purchasing power for the consumer class helps offset the cost and balances out the system.

And, FYI, a moment’s thought makes one realize that rather than the minimum wage creating crippling inflation, it is inflation that devalues the minimum wage.

Since the wage is not indexed to inflation, if the cost of living rises, the power of $7.25 decreases. Adjusting for inflation, today’s minimum wage is lower than that of 1968 (it would be $10.52 an hour if it kept up with inflation, $21.72 if it kept up with worker productivity, which has massively enriched corporate owners).

But since 1978, the cost of college rose 1,000%, medical care 601%, food prices 244% (inflation is driven by factors independent of minimum wage raises). Very low wages and a very high cost of living is why it is difficult to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and “just get an education,” as conservatives demand of poorer people. Stagnant wages and a skyrocketing cost of living is a recipe for entrenched poverty, and that’s on top of the ways poverty perpetuates itself (see Beyond Bootstraps: Why Poverty is So Hard to Escape).

Are minimum wage jobs “designed” for young people without families?

“Fast food and other low-wage jobs were designed for teenagers, not to actually support a family!”

This is an interesting objection, and seems dubious, considering there’s no evidence for it. So allegedly businesses (or, vaguely, society?) have “designed” or “designated” certain low-skill, low-wage jobs for teenagers and therefore teenagers work there. Could it not be that low-skill jobs are only “designed” or “designated” for low-skill workers, and since teenagers have no training or degree that is where they are most likely to end up when working after class?

Regardless, in reality these jobs are designed to make a profit; capitalists care nothing about age, as long as you’re physically capable of doing the job. There exists a large pool of impoverished people viciously competing for jobs, taking what they can to avoid bankruptcy and homelessness. 48% of Americans live in poverty or make low wages, so (unsurprisingly) 88% of workers benefiting from a minimum wage increase would be over 20 (and 44% have some college education; half a million college graduates currently make minimum wage; in 2014, 46% of employed college graduates under 27 were working in a job that did not require a college degree, and about 15% had part-time work but wanted full-time work). 52% of fast food workers rely on welfare because they do not make enough money, costing taxpayers billions.

Let it also be said that some teenagers actually are supporting their families — or saving for college. Even though some teenagers have these jobs just to earn spending money, it is unjust to hold back other minimum wage workers struggling to pay the bills because of them.

Adults desperately need these jobs, and need a decent wage to provide for their families. This idea that minimum wage jobs are “designed” for young people, who “deserve” miserable wages — and if you’re an adult worker “you have failed” to make wise life choices — simply ignores economic realities, like how there’s not always enough high-paying jobs available (even for people with college degrees!), how the cycle of poverty limits opportunities, and how corporations keep wages as low as possible for as many people as possible to increase profits.

Working people haven’t “failed.” They are simply trying to provide for their families the best they can at the given moment — a moment in which people do not always have the test scores, time, or money to attend college, a moment where hard work may lead to a job promotion or a new job that pays a bit better, but no guarantees: for every person who “gets in,” there will be many hard-working competitors, many with families to feed, whom there simply isn’t room for. The management jobs are few, the non-management jobs are many. We should not pretend that if all workers at the bottom of society simply worked harder then they could all be managers — who would they manage?

As for the notion that the minimum wage law itself wasn’t intended for ordinary adult workers with families, this is easily revealed to be absurd upon reading the first minimum wage law of 1938 itself (wherein Congress declares its “power…to correct and as rapidly as practicable to eliminate the conditions” that are “detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers”) or the words of FDR, the president who signed the law (“Without question it starts us toward a better standard of living and increases purchasing power to buy the products of farm and factory”).

Do unskilled workers “deserve” a low wage because skilled workers are also paid little?

“How dare minimum wage workers ask for the same wages as higher-skilled workers! They don’t deserve it!”

Conservatives — not unreasonably — often draw attention to the fact that a higher minimum wage could elevate people who work in the fast food industry, retail stores, and so on to the pay level of higher-skilled workers like EMTs, military personnel, teachers, and so on.

It is baffling how the low wages of one group is used to justify the low wages of another, despite the fact one group requires extensive training or a college degree. Too many occupations, whether skilled or unskilled, make too little. Too many families — both military and civilian, led by parents in the public education and fast food industries — are struggling to make ends meet. 50% of all American jobs make $34,000 a year or less, some $24,000 after taxes in most states (making it unsurprising 48% of Americans would be poor or making low income).

Obviously, all sectors of industry exist in a capitalist society, where wages are kept low to keep profits high. This downward pressure on wages affects skilled workers, too. Capitalists could award workers a greater share of the wealth workers create, but they do not, because they operate under rules of frantic competition and the obsessive accumulation and increase of profit. So the few become wealthy off the labor of the many. The few grow rich and the many, whether skilled or unskilled, remain poor by comparison.

Talk of what workers “deserve” is absurd. Yes, you don’t “deserve” more, even though your wages are kept low purposefully by owners who wish to increase profits and who are wealthy largely because of your labor (without workers, Steve Jobs could not have produced on a scale larger than himself)! “Worth” need not be determined by whatever low wage a capitalist can get away with paying you, whether you’re skilled or unskilled. You’re not “supposed” to be making a miserable wage — that is simply the rule of the current game. From a more sensible viewpoint, workers deserve every penny a business earns, as nearly all wealth is created by their hands: they create the good or provide the service to be sold.

(Clearly, occupations like the military are a bit different, as workers are paid by the State, and therefore it is the State to blame for inadequate wages, not capitalists. One might wonder that if the State can spend trillions on weapons and war, why can it not pay an E1 private more than $18,000?)

The point is that saying a fast food worker shouldn’t push for a raise because a U.S. private also makes dismal wages simply leaves everyone poor. Let’s not justify low wages for some people using low wages of others.

Instead, could we not support a raise for both? Could we not look approvingly at multiple groups pushing for a better standard of living? It is perfectly fine to still believe skilled, educated workers should earn more (that didn’t go away with the previous minimum wage increases, and is unlikely to go away with future ones) — but surely one can, at the same time, believe that those forced to take a fast food or other minimum wage job to survive deserves an income that can keep them above water and out of poverty. Are not the children of those families as worthy of a decent life as the children of an EMT, a soldier, or a teacher?

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How do we explain the inability of poor Americans to earn a degree, find themselves a high-paying job, buy a fine house, and send their children to the best schools?

Were we to bother to study sociology and the economic realities of social class mobility (see Beyond Bootstraps: Why Poverty is So Hard to Escape), we’d see the problems are slightly more complex than a defect in poor people that better-off people simply don’t have. That is, we’d understand it’s not merely a lack of willpower, effort, ambition, common sense, or wisdom. This is not to say poverty doesn’t cause some people to lose hope, fall into depression, and give up, but this is an effect of social conditions, quite different from an alleged flaw in certain people that is somehow innate.

Yet, to many right-leaning Americans, those special defects are the sole cause of our poor neighbors’ plights. While this is a position largely rooted in a lack of knowledge and an ideology full of individualistic dogma, it is interesting to consider where such logic ends up if followed to its conclusion.

Note for a moment the obvious: Under conservative logic, even if 50% of jobs in the U.S. pay under $34,000 (some $24,000 after taxes) and if the cost of living is skyrocketing, and therefore 48% of Americans live in poverty or earn low-income, it still must be said that about half of Americans are lazy. Those are the current economic conditions in the U.S. (see The 56% of Americans With Under $1,000 in Savings: Poor Savers or Just Poor?), and if we are so eager to select an unwillingness to work hard as the root cause of unfavorable living conditions, there is no reason we couldn’t say half of Americans have some special defect. This would, of course, include many conservatives, likely many who engage in “blaming the victim.”

But there is no need to stop there. If one insists that a lower class person hasn’t made it to the middle class yet due to lack of effort, why would one not say the same of a middle class person who has yet to make it to the upper class? America has some economic mobility, but not enough to escape the conclusion that the vast majority of us are entirely lazy. Consider an excerpt from “Beyond Bootstraps” that discusses income levels (there are five, the “quintiles”):

A 2007 study found that a minority, 34% of Americans, manage to reach a higher quintile (for example, moving from the lowest to the second quintile). Yet “children of middle-income parents have a near-equal likelihood of ending up in any other quintile, presenting equal promise and peril for those born to middle-class parents.” 42% of people born into the lowest quintile die there, and the vast majority of those who escape the lowest quintile die in the second lowest. The very poorest and the very richest are those least likely to leave the social class in which they were born.

This is not a temporary problem. In 2014, economists found children have about the same chances of economic advancement that children had 50 years ago.

The majority of Americans will die in the social class in which they are born, because in many interesting ways social class perpetuates itself. If the mark of laziness is the inability to better one’s social condition to a substantial degree, it appears only 34% of Americans are without this innate defect. 66% of us, according to conservative logic, are not working hard enough — we are not rising to new income levels. (True, those in the top quintile can’t “escape” or rise into a higher quintile, so perhaps we can say the percentage of lazy Americans is a bit lower, but you understand what I’m getting at.)

If the majority of Americans do not advance to a higher social class, and the root cause of an inability to pull yourself up by your bootstraps is lack of effort, the only sensible conclusion is that the majority of Americans lack willpower and ambition. It couldn’t be that our neighbors in the lower class, the middle class, and the upper class work equally hard to better their lives in whatever ways are available to them, whether it’s taking a second job at a fast food joint or figuring out the best marketing strategy for your global corporation’s products.

This demonization of the poor as lazy and flawed is not only a poor substitute for explanations that consider economic realities, it logically must include both better-off people and countless conservatives who perpetuate this sort of nonsense.

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Democratic National Committee chairwoman and former co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign Debbie Wasserman Shultz, when asked by The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah if there was any merit to the accusation that the DNC was working to impede the Bernie Sanders campaign, replied, “As powerful as that makes me feel, I’m not doing a very good job of rigging the outcome or blocking anyone from being able to get their message out.”

She then explained her position required her to have “thick skin,” to deflect false accusations. “If I have to take a few punches in order for them to be able to make sure they get their message out, so be it.”

In this way, Wasserman Shultz deftly rearranged the cast of characters. All of a sudden, she was the one trying to “make sure” candidates could “get their message out” — not the liberals criticizing her for failing to do exactly that, liberals who in her view are the ones at fault (for throwing “punches,” false accusations, which somehow would silence candidate voices). Noah did not address this obvious evasion, nor the specific criticisms of Wasserman Shultz and the DNC.

The truth is that the DNC has, during Wasserman Shultz’s tenure, taken steps to make it harder for Bernie Sanders and other underdog Democratic candidates to get their messages out. And before her tenure, the DNC created a system that would indeed rig the outcome in favor of the politically well-connected and powerful.

While the DNC scheduling only six debates drew much criticism, it’s actually the same number they scheduled in 2004 and 2008. The difference in this election is a punishment was concocted to ensure the candidates couldn’t participate in unsanctioned debates, that is, debates not sponsored by the DNC. In 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ended up having over two dozen total debates because they were allowed to meet in unsanctioned debates.

But Wasserman Shultz said in September 2015: “The candidates will be uninvited from subsequent debates if they accept an invitation to anything outside of the six sanctioned debates.” Her reasoning? “If you don’t have the national party put a reasonable number of debates on the schedule and insist that the number is adhered to, it starts to spiral out of control and the entire contest becomes built around the debate schedule.” She said too many debates would eat up candidates’ resources and time, forcing them off the campaign trail.

In other words, candidates for the Democratic nomination can’t be trusted to decide for themselves how to spend their time and resources — more nationally-televised debates, exposing the views of candidates to millions, is a strategy so silly, ineffective, and wasteful it must be closely curtailed.

Whether or not the DNC meant to aid Clinton with this decision (this writer suspects the former), it did precisely that. Any candidate with as high name recognition as Clinton would be aided by limiting the national exposure of little-known rivals like Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley. The Clinton campaign pushed for fewer than eight debates.

In 2008, the candidates at least had the freedom to join unsanctioned debates if they so chose; they were able to respond to Americans calling for more debates and media outlets offering to host them, without a DNC stamp of approval. By punishing candidates who step out of line (banning them from DNC debates), the DNC tightly controlled the candidates — when the candidates should be influenced by the people and address their wishes. The DNC made a strike against freedom and republican democracy, and gave Clinton an edge, all at once. Later, the DNC yielded to pressure for more debates.

Perhaps this was all completely innocent. But there was another issue.

To some, the consistency of the debates falling on nights with massive television audiences distracted by other programs seems too remarkable to be coincidence. In November, the Iowa debate happened to fall on a night the University of Iowa was playing Minnesota in the highly popular Floyd of Rosedale trophy game — analysts predicted this would tank Iowa viewership. A debate in December took place while NFL teams from two of the five largest media markets in the U.S. met for a playoff game; it also happened to be six days away from Christmas, when many Americans travel, and the opening weekend of a highly-anticipated Star Wars sequel. A debate in January fell on a three-day weekend and the night of another big NFL playoff game.

Later, as the campaigns negotiated a debate in New York, the Clinton campaign pushed for a debate on April 4, the night of an NCAA tournament game that featured Syracuse, a New York university. A Sanders spokesman called the suggestion “ludicrous.”

Again, whether or not this was intentional, the effect is the same. It protects the well-known front-runner at the expense of the underdog. Had the DNC and Clinton been interested in getting as wide an audience as possible, they would have gladly rescheduled the debates around popular sporting events and holidays. Also, weekdays are well-understood to get more viewers than weekends.

Further, Bernie Sanders supporters will not soon forget the DNC voter data breach just before the Iowa contest. The DNC voter database temporarily allowed Sanders’ national data director to look at Clinton’s voter data. The DNC quickly barred Sanders from his own voter data. The Sanders campaign fired the data director (who only viewed the information, doing nothing nefarious with it), but the DNC maintained the restriction, causing an uproar. Liberal website U.S. Uncut wrote:

The move was unprecedented as a punishment for any campaign. Even Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, started a petition calling for Sanders’ file to be reinstated. David Axelrod, former adviser to President Obama, equated the DNC’s punishment to “putting the finger on the scale” for Clinton.

Massive pressure, including a federal lawsuit filed by Bernie Sanders himself against the DNC, forced Wasserman Shultz and her colleagues to back down and restore Sanders’ access.

Later, the Sanders campaign accused the Clinton campaign of using funds meant for the DNC.

[Update, 11/2/2017: According to Donna Brazile, who later replaced Wasserman Shultz, Clinton loaned a broke DNC millions in exchange for “control” over it almost a year before her nomination (the DNC is supposed to be neutral until after the nomination). According to Brazile, Clinton had control over DNC strategy, money, staff, communications, mailing, and so forth. This would have allowed Clinton to avoid donation limits to campaigns (instead fundraising through the party and then laundering it to her campaign, just as the Sanders campaign said) and influence the DNC’s work in each state in a way that favored her and hurt Sanders. Brazile is actually the one who leaked debate questions to Clinton during the campaign. 

The next day, NBC News published the agreement Brazile referred to, supporting her claim while adding some clarifications. “The arrangement pertained to only the general election, not the primary season, and it left open the possibility that it would sign similar agreements with other candidates. Still, it clearly allowed the Clinton campaign to influence DNC decisions made during an active primary, even if intended for preparations later [for the general election].” During the primary season, the Clinton campaign appeared to have “oversight over how its money was spent” (“joint authority,” to quote the agreement), and the DNC agreed to find a communications director “acceptable to HFA [Hillary For America]” by September 2015, long before Clinton was nominated.]

And of course, the controversial superdelegates (or “unpledged delegates”) might still hand the nomination to Clinton against the will of the voters. Superdelegates (delegates from each state that do not have to vote for candidates according to state election results, but can vote as they wish) have never given a nomination to a candidate that did not also win the majority of everyday voters. However, it is still possible disaster is on the horizon. This is an undemocratic system that without question must be abolished. The very possibility of such an outcome, the very fact that Democratic voters must worry whether their voice — and their voice alone, not 712 current and former Democratic politicians — will select their nominee for president is an embarrassment. Not even the GOP has such a system!

Debbie Wasserman Schultz said of the superdelegates, “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.” This statement is brutally honest, considering both the history of superdelegates and the potential for Bernie Sanders, the voters, and democracy itself to be simply dismissed in the near future.

There are other issues to consider: Wasserman Shultz’s fundraising failures, her leaving a DNC finance chair caught illegally raising money for Clinton unpunished, the DNC offering office space to the Clinton campaign but not to her rivals’, Wasserman Shultz filling convention committees with Clinton supporters, so on. All these things have caused deep divisions in the Democratic Party. Nearly 75,000 people signed a petition demanding Wasserman Shultz resign, 207,000 signed a petition to demand the superdelegates follow state election results. Serious reforms are needed.

Intelligent people cannot deny tactics like these mock the notion of fairness and the ideals of democracy (the fact that Clinton herself is hopelessly corrupt only makes this situation darker). Rewarding those actions would, in the view of this writer, be a grave mistake. It would be a wonderful way of preserving the status quo, encouraging a corrupt DNC to continue on this path. If the people do not tighten the leash, there is no reason why DNC methods of manipulation could not grow more extreme later on.

Because, dear reader, while you may plan to vote for Hillary Clinton this year, there is nothing to say four, eight, twelve, or sixteen years from now there will not come along a “grassroots activist,” an underdog, that you prefer to the establishment candidate the superdelegate system, and other systems, are designed to protect.

When that happens, you will look back at 2016 and realize where you could have taken a stand against said systems, you worked to preserve them.

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When addressing the complex and controversial issue of abortion, there are three central questions to consider: Will criminalizing abortion put an end to abortions?, How immoral is abortion?, and Are there effective ways of reducing the number of abortions that don’t relate to criminalization?

Answering such questions through a serious study of history and sociological research is key, because only through those methods can abortion be made a thing of the past. Despite the fact some conservatives are deeply offended by pro-choice people, and slander them as “baby killers,” it is of great importance, to this liberal and I’m sure to many others, to reduce the number of abortions — to save infant lives.

The answer to the first question is without question no. The choice between abortions and no abortions, at least predicated on the law, is a false choice. After all, there was a time in the U.S. when abortion was illegal. Many conservatives wish to return to this era of righteousness, a time free of the holocaust of the unborn.

Unfortunately, abortions occurred throughout the country despite their illegality. In 1967, for example, it was estimated 829,000 illegal abortions took place. In the decade before Roe v. Wade, the U.S. saw as many as 1 million illegal abortions a year. Over 330,000 women were hospitalized annually due to the unsafe nature of “back-alley abortions” (Zinn, A People’s History of the United States). Thousands died, particularly before certain medical advancements.

As Rachel Gold writes,

In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200, but illegal abortion still accounted for 17% of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth that year. And these are just the number that were officially reported; the actual number was likely much higher.

Poor women and their families were disproportionately impacted. A study of low-income women in New York City in the 1960s found that almost one in 10 (8%) had ever attempted to terminate a pregnancy by illegal abortion; almost four in 10 (38%) said that a friend, relative or acquaintance had attempted to obtain an abortion. Of the low-income women in that study who said they had had an abortion, eight in 10 (77%) said that they had attempted a self-induced procedure, with only 2% saying that a physician had been involved in any way.

The fact that modern medicine would mean fewer deaths if abortion was outlawed today does not necessarily justify its illegality, as abortions would still occur, some women would likely still be hospitalized and die, and State power over our personal decisions would still be increased, as discussed below. It may be tempting to think that sacrificing a few mothers a year would be worth it to save a far greater number of infants, but this may not be the reality — the holocaust of abortions would continue despite fewer maternal complications and deaths.

In Texas, which has slashed funds to abortion providers, ensuring that today fewer than 20 abortion clinics serve the entire state, women are buying a drug (misoprostol) smuggled in from Mexico to self-terminate their pregnancies, as documented in an important piece from The Atlantic. Dealers sell it illegally at flea markets in small Texas towns, and it is popular because it works. Misoprostol (combined with mifepristone) is prescribed by doctors for early pregnancy abortions. “In 2011, it accounted for 36 percent of all abortions before nine weeks of gestation” in the U.S.

The article also takes a look at the past conditions of women in Brazil who wanted an abortion but were barred due to the power of the conservative Catholic church over government policy: “They listened to old wives tails, ramming sharp objects into their uteruses and guzzling drug cocktails, and visiting clandestine, unsafe abortion clinics.” That is, until misoprostol came along; today half of Brazil’s 1 million annual abortions are due to the drug, which is sold on the black market, making drug dealers wild profits.

This is the story of many women in nations that restrict abortion rights. “More than 21 million women annually have unsafe abortions worldwide, which account for nearly 13 percent of all maternal deaths.”

This is not to say that some women won’t give birth because having an abortion is illegal. Criminalizing things, making things harder, can “work” to a degree, reducing abortions. But you have to think about the consequences of its failures, and weigh that in your moral calculus.

Pro-life individuals have very little to say in response to these facts. Take for example a Life News article entitled “Legalizing Abortion Did Not Stop Women From Dying in Abortions” (as if that somehow makes it acceptable to again criminalize it, which would increase maternal deaths). The author writes:

Pro-choice advocates would have you believe [the death toll from illegal abortions was] a monumental figure; some claim that prior to Roe, a whopping 17 percent of maternal deaths were related to unsafe abortions. Surely we would want to avoid this tragic loss of life, wouldn’t we? But those figures are inaccurate and misleading. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1972, the last year before Roe, 39 women died in illegal abortions.

That is literally the only attempt in the article to refute the historical information presented by pro-choice advocates. Simply call it wrong, then offer additional knowledge (39 deceased women) and pretend it somehow contradicts the fact thousands more died before those 39.

Not only will outlawing abortion not stop abortion, only endangering women, neither will it stop natural abortions. 70% of conceptions are lost prior to live birth, in a natural way. Most of the failures, which include both early failures to implant and later miscarriages, occur before a woman misses her period and even knows she is pregnant. Even after she is aware she is with child, she has a 10-20% chance of losing her pregnancy before week 20. True, this is not the same as the willful destruction of a fetus by conscious adults, nor is it meant to say nothing should be done to reduce the number of abortions, but it does provide perspective. Nature, evolution, and our imperfect reproductive systems are responsible (or is it God who is responsible?) for a holocaust far greater than our own.

How immoral is abortion? That is a far more complex question than it seems. You have to ask a lot of questions. Mull over various factors and wrestle with many of them; I certainly do. It’s not enough to say “It’s the same as if I murdered you right now.” Obviously, those are not identical things. They’re not literally the same. All ethics are situational. If a situation changes, even slightly, the ethics of an action may change too. A lie is unethical, unless a killer is asking where your family is hiding. Perhaps you think killing is wrong, unless it’s for your country or in self-defense. And so forth. Right and wrong are not black and white; they exist on a spectrum, where the same action can be less moral or more moral dependent upon the situation. Abortion, no matter where you fall on it, is an exceptionally unique issue with unique, complex moral questions.

For example, is it less immoral to commit abortion if the pregnancy was the product of rape? Is it right to force someone to give birth to a child that was forced upon her through sexual violence? Even many conservatives find it more morally acceptable to terminate a pregnancy in this case. Likewise, what if giving birth puts the mother at serious risk of death (still an issue even in more advanced nations like ours)? Is it then less immoral to commit abortion than it might be otherwise? Shouldn’t the person who already exists have the preeminent right to life in that case? Personally, I think abortion is in fact less immoral in these contexts, among others. Should 11-year-olds be forced to give birth by the State?

If abortion is more morally acceptable in some circumstances, what about others? Is it more unethical to abort as time goes on and birth draws closer? Does age, developmental stage, matter at all in the moral equation? Many people think it does, and only consider abortion in the first or second trimester to be morally permissible. Fortunately for them, in 2014, “91.5% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions [7.2%] were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer [1.3%] were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation,” to quote the CDC. Personally, I tend to agree that it’s less ethical to commit abortion later on. Note that one can believe this while holding that all abortions, regardless of developmental stage, are either morally acceptable (somewhere on the right side of the spectrum) or morally unacceptable (somewhere on the wrong of the spectrum). I fall more in the latter category; I don’t view abortion as a moral thing to do, as it is taking a human life, and likely wouldn’t have one if men could give birth. But while I do not judge it to be as moral (or ethically neutral) as the Left often does, I do not believe it to be quite as immoral as the Right suggests — and ethics and law are at times divorced for good reason. There are various factors you have to take into account when 1) deciding if it should be criminalized and 2) deciding just how immoral it really is.

Regarding the first point, we’ve already seen how criminalization is ineffective. Terminating a pregnancy may be unethical, but surely the termination of a pregnancy with lower risk to a woman’s life and health is less unethical than the termination of a pregnancy with a higher risk to a woman’s life and health. Yes, I think it would be most ethical to give birth to the child. But that is simply not a choice I, you, or the government can make. It is the woman’s choice; it always has been and always will be, regardless of the law. That’s just the reality in which we live, so you have to go from that starting point. While it is compelling to argue that anything unethical must be made illegal, there are some unethical actions we do not outlaw (lying to hurt someone, cheating on a spouse, even suicide, and so on), for various reasons. Not all unethical things are or should be illegal; you have to weigh a lot of unique factors for each case, which may result in different conclusions. It isn’t necessarily hypocritical to believe an unethical act should be legal — you may feel that way about a host of issues (being rude is wrong, but should you be hauled off to prison?). Conversely, it’s sometimes said, “Well, if abortion should be legal because a ban doesn’t work, why not make murder legal? The ban on that doesn’t work either.” This is a good point, but again the situations aren’t precisely the same — there may be important reasons to keep abortion legal that don’t apply to making murder legal. If you’re a conservative who makes that point, consider that you already believe avoiding bans on war, firearms, torture, the death penalty, or other things that end up killing innocent people may not justify lifting a ban on murder. (See more here.)

As for the second point, while abortion in my view is immoral, I do not consider it as immoral as infanticide or the killing of an innocent person who’s been born. That’s not meant to celebrate abortion or advocate for having one! It’s simply to say that ethics are on a spectrum and not all scenarios sit on top of each other. A thought scenario that is sometimes raised has merit: if a fetus in a tube and a baby in a nursery were both about to die but you could only save one, which should you choose? Surely the moral choice would be to save the baby. Which would you choose? Letting a fetus in a tube die does not have the same moral weight as letting a baby die, in my view. Ethics are situational, so, likewise, abortion and murder (or infanticide) are not identical situations and do not carry the same moral weight. They each have unique moral questions and answers. Circling back to whether the age of the baby in the womb has any sway over the moral equation, the idea that infanticide is less moral than abortion fits with the idea that later abortions are less moral than earlier ones. You could even revise the thought experiment: if you had to choose between saving a fetus the size of a finger and a fetus at eight months, which would you choose? If you choose the latter, you’re accepting the idea that some innocent deaths are simply worse, simply less ethically tolerable, than others. And that others are more tolerable.

We’ve mostly covered this, but another moral decision to make: should the government force you to give birth against your will? For many conservatives, if the alternative is killing a baby in the womb then yes. Not exactly “small government” and keeping Big Brother out of our lives, but it’s understandable. The State outlaws theft, murder, rape, and so on, to curb or punish behavior. Liberals and conservatives tend to agree on these things. But personally, while I view abortion as wrong, I don’t believe giving the State the power to force women to give birth is desirable. It’s certainly not something I would wish upon myself. (And, again, it simply fails as a policy: women have dangerous black market abortions.) And to reject such a disturbing State compulsion, such tyranny, is to invite punishment! Some women who’ve illegally had abortions will be arrested and — what? How should we punish women who break the law and commit abortion? A fine and community service? Prison time? A life sentence? Execution?    

As for the final question posed in the beginning, we already know the most effective means of reducing abortions: preventing accidental pregnancies.

Research overwhelmingly shows safe-sex education prevents accidental pregnancies and abortions. Abstinence-only education simply does not work: students in such programs begin exploring their sexuality just as early (often earlier) and with as much enthusiasm as control groups. But, unsurprisingly, they are one-third less likely to use contraceptives. Thus, one recent study showed teens who received safe-sex education were 50% less likely to become pregnant than teens who received abstinence-only education.

Studies show sex education accomplishes what conservatives, and many liberals, most desire: a longer delay in becoming sexually active, fewer partners, less unprotected sex, lower pregnancy and STD rates, and fewer abortions. This is why those who hate abortion the most should also be the most vocal supporters of safe-sex education. To make abortion history, the Right must put aside its hysteria over sex and join the Left on this issue, broadening sex education in the home, at school, in healthcare clinics, etc.

Even while the U.S. has over 3 million unintended pregnancies a year (teen girls are double the rate of women, due to lack of sex education and access to contraception), the rate of abortions has declined dramatically since Roe v. Wade. Today it’s under 700,000 a year. Planned Parenthood, and groups like it, are central to this reduction effort, because they provide safe-sex information and contraceptives (in 2009, 35% of patient care at Planned Parenthood had to do with contraceptives; compare this to its abortion services: in 2011, only about one in every 10 clients received an abortion).

In 2009, the Guttmacher Institute estimated federal funds given to places like Planned Parenthood in 2006 prevented 1.9 million unintended pregnancies, thus preventing some 810,000 abortions. 2013 research told a similar story, 345,000 abortions prevented. Planned Parenthood estimates it helps prevent a half-million unintended pregnancies, and thus 216,000 abortions, a year. As a writer for the New Yorker said with a heavy dose of sarcasm:

If only we could find an organization that educates young girls, and boys, about the dangers of early and unwanted pregnancies; a group that distributes contraceptives but also stresses the fact that sexual abstinence is safe, free, and, when used continuously, always prevents pregnancies. That group could really lower the abortion and teen-age pregnancy rates in this country. Oh. Wait. We have that organization.

Yet because Planned Parenthood and other healthcare organizations also perform abortions, they are rightwing targets that must be protested, defunded, shut down, slandered with deceptively edited videos, or terrorized with violence like destruction of property and the murder of doctors.

Planned Parenthood receives $500 million a year from the Federal government, yet since it is illegal (due to conservative activism) to use those funds for abortions except in cases of rape or to protect the mother’s life, that money is used for other health care services, like STD testing, cancer screening, contraception, safe-sex education. Things that prevent the spread of diseases, death by cancer, and abortion itself.

Americans serious about ending abortions should be the most enthusiastic supporters of such groups, maybe even cutting a check themselves.

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When Bernie Sanders proposed using American tax wealth to cover all citizen medical and college tuition expenses, debates exploded over how much this would cost and how it could theoretically be paid for.      

Covering all state university tuition fees would cost the government an estimated $63 billion a year, which is actually far less than the State currently spends on Pell Grants, loans, and other financial assistance for higher education. Universal healthcare would cost $1-2 trillion a year, not too different from what the government currently spends ($1.3 trillion annually) to cover Medicare and Medicaid.

Sanders plans to enact a tax on Wall Street speculation, increase income taxes on the wealthy by 5-7%, on everyday citizens by 2%, increase capital gains, dividend, and estate taxes, and close tax loopholes for the wealthy (the wealthiest Americans are supposed to pay a tax rate of nearly 40%, but in reality some only pay 18%, sometimes 15%).

Sanders would also close corporate tax loopholes. Many large corporations don’t pay federal taxes.

Corporations employ armies of lobbyists to bribe politicians with campaign funds or promises of future executive positions to deregulate industries and place tax exemptions in the U.S. tax code, while armies of lawyers and accountants make sure companies are using the loopholes most effectively to whittle down their taxes (see Nader, The Seventeen Solutions for a detailed look at this topic).

This has been underway for decades, and now the largest companies pay no federal taxes — and sometimes even get tax refunds.

For instance, “From 2008 to 2010, GE made $7.72 billion in profit in the United States, paid no federal income tax, and got $4.73 billion back from the U.S. treasury” (Nader). In 2011, the nonprofit research group Citizens for Tax Justice released a report showing 30 major U.S. companies (like GE, Verizon, and Wells Fargo) paid no net federal income taxes from 2008 to 2010. 26 of them enjoyed negative tax rates. Instead of paying 35% of their income (that’s supposed to be the corporate rate), they got a refund. These companies alone left the government short $78 billion in revenue over the course of 3 years.

In 2014, 13 major Fortune 500 companies, including Time Warner, Ryder, Priceline, Prudential, Mattel, and CBS, paid $0 in federal taxes, instead receiving rebates. Two others, GE and JetBlue Airways, paid less than 1% in taxes. These companies made $23 billion in profits in 2014, but tax loopholes left these fortunes untouched.

In the second quarter of 2014, 20 large companies, such as GM, Merck, and News Corp., paid $0 in federal taxes or got a government check, despite all making huge profits. Merck’s income soared 52% during the quarter.  

Of 258 top U.S. companies, 18 paid no federal taxes from 2008-2015, with 100 companies enjoying at least one tax-free year. Averaged, the actual rate was closer to 21%, and the loopholes and subsidies amounted to over half a trillion dollars in lost revenue for the country. Amazon made nearly $6 billion in 2017 but paid no federal income taxes.

Amazon made nearly $6 billion in 2017 but paid no federal income taxes.

Over the years, corporate tax revenue has not kept up with economic output, a huge favor to wealthy corporate owners and their firms. According to the Tax Policy Center, 60 years ago, revenue from corporations was 5 to 6% of the GDP, but by 2010 it was a mere 1.3%. 

The tax burden rests heaviest on individuals. The Federal government collected $2.2 trillion in revenue in 2010. 82% came from individual income taxes and payroll taxes, while only 9% came from corporate taxes. In 2015, the government collected nearly $4 trillion in revenues and borrowed funds, taking $1.5 trillion in individual income taxes and $1 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes, but only $342 billion from corporate taxes.

(Naturally, the burden of taxes on wealthy individuals has also lightened. In the 2013 tax bracket, any income you made over $400,000 was taxed at 39.6%, down from 70% in the 1960s and 94% during World War II, averaging 81% from 1932-1980, according to Thomas Piketty in Capital. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. In 2008, the IRS reported the 400 richest Americans only paid 18%. A third of these 400 paid less than 15%, the same rate as someone making $36,000 a year. At the same time tax rates fell, the richest 1% saw its share of the national income double since 1979; the share of the richest 0.1% almost tripled.)

The government hands out $1.3 trillion a year in tax breaks and subsidies, the majority of which benefit the top 20% of Americans and their businesses. $250 billion a year goes to the richest 1%. The Socialist Appeal reports, “It has been estimated that between subsidies, corporate tax underpayments and deductions, offshore tax havens, and various corporate tax loopholes, the wealthiest Americans avoid as much as $3 trillion in taxes every year. This is 3 times the U.S. annual budget deficit.” Oxfam found in April 2016 that the top 50 U.S. companies alone had $1.4 trillion hidden in tax havens.

Clearly, while free college tuition and healthcare are expensive endeavors, the possibility of cracking down on tax dodgers, rewriting tax laws to benefit ordinary working people instead of corporations, and ending the corporate welfare comprised of subsidies, deductions, and refunds, very much exists.

Doing so would go a long way toward funding programs that serve human needs.

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