The Red and Blue Map 

The Red and Blue Map

Kevin Drum points out that the U.S. map showing Bush states and Kerry states matches up well with the old 1860 map showing slave states and free states. Drum is kind of joking and kind of venting, but this is still pretty nasty. I believe the slavery issue in the U.S. was taken care of some time ago--in fact, shortly after that 1860 election. If you want to trace the lingering influence of racism, and wonder, for example, where the worst public schools are for African-American children, I believe many of those schools would be in Kerry states.

But let's look at some other issues--especially the "social" ones.

In 2002, 38 states as well as the federal government had "capital statutes"; I think that means the death penalty. But in that year, only 13 states actually carried out executions. Do I have your attention?

In 2002, 71 persons in 13 States were executed -- 33 in Texas; 7 in Oklahoma, 6 in Missouri; 4 each in Georgia and Virginia, 3 each in Florida, South Carolina, and Ohio; 2 each in Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina; and 1 each in Louisiana and California.

The process of granting increased legal approval to the practice of abortion began in 1967 when the states of California, Colorado and North Carolina enacted laws modeled on the American Law Institute (ALI) proposal (abortion is allowable if it is believed that there would be grave impairment to the physical or mental health of the mother, or that the child would be born with grave physical or mental defect, or that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest).3 In 1968 and 1969 seven more states enacted ALI type laws: Georgia, Maryland, Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oregon.4

Before the U.S. Supreme Court radically altered legal abortion policy for the states through its abortion decisions of January 22, 1973, an additional three states were to choose to enact laws based on the ALI model -- South Carolina and Virginia in 1970 and Florida in 1972. A total of thirteen states opted for this moderately restrictive policy.

In 1970, a new legal phenomenon appeared in the United States: abortion on request. The thrust of this new legal policy was to remove the practice of abortion from the specific contexts that are normally associated with law and medicine. Four states adopted laws of this type: Alaska, Hawaii, New York and Washington. In some jurisdictions the courts interpreted the traditional laws designed to safeguard the welfare of the mother in a permissive fashion7 or they declared such laws unconstitutional.8 Elsewhere a permissive climate engendered by the new policy of non-regulation led to the de facto interpretation of moderate ALI type laws as allowing abortion on requests

With the onset of abortion on request a full national debate was begun on the merits of such a policy. The general reaction of the American people was negative. After 1970 no further states enacted abortion on request laws, and only one state enacted a comparatively restrictive ALI type law. In 1972 the New York legislature repealed the abortion on request law that it had passed in 1970.10 The potential import of this action is highlighted by the fact that in 1971 and 1972 the state of New York accounted, respectively, for 55% and 51% of all abortions performed in the United States.11

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinions holding the laws of Texas and Georgia unconstitutional, thereby effectively negating the laws of nearly all the other states. In general terms the Court determined the constitutionally permissible elements of any state abortion law. The legislative policy envisioned by the Court was more permissive than any then in effect in any of the various states, and probably more permissive than any in the world.14

By the end of 1972, 13 states had a law similar to that of Colorado, while Mississippi allowed abortion in cases of rape or incest only and Alabama allowed abortions in cases of the mother's physical health. Thirty-one states still allowed abortion to protect the mother's life only.