Forgive me for revisiting a topic. But, perhaps Jay or Rick or Linda could help me out with this: Is there a word — preferably something outlandishly German — for the unique pleasure that some people derive from the disgust they cultivate regarding the amusements of other people? If there is not such a word (“snobbery” is not quite it), somebody should coin one. It would be useful for royal-birth commentary.

It is a strange phenomenon. There are many entertainments the attraction of which escapes me — watching (but not playing) golf, reading celebrity magazines, enduring the State of the Union address — but I do not understand why people who do not enjoy, e.g., NASCAR, reality television, or news of the British royals get so scandalized over the fact that somebody else does. You would feel silly shouting: “How dare you have interests that do not coincide precisely with my own!” but it amounts to the same thing, with a heavy dose of smugness.

As a conservative, I am inclined to nod to tradition; as an American conservative, I sympathize with the feelings of British monarchists in the same way that I sympathize (apologies to H. L. Mencken) with a man’s belief that his wife is beautiful and his children intelligent. For those for small-r republicans inclined to mock our royalist cousins, ask yourselves this: If there were a beautiful young first lady in the White House giving birth, would our attention to the blessed event be any less unhinged than what is transpiring in the United Kingdom? 

Christine O’Donnell, the former Tea Party–backed Senate candidate from Delaware, was interviewed on Sean Hannity’s radio program today about the renewed investigation into whether she was targeted by the IRS during her 2010 campaign. She alleges that the IRS “set up a back door for people working in partisan offices to get into the IRS database” and use confidential tax information to influence elections.

On the day she announced her 2010 Senate bid, O’Donnell said, the IRS erroneously issued a tax lien against her on a home she didn’t own anymore, which held that she owed the government $12,000. While the IRS later admitted that the lien was an error, her flawed record was somehow accessed by an employee in the Delaware tax-collection office and released to the media.

As Politico explains, “the lien is significant because O’Donnell’s opponents cited it as evidence that she was financially irresponsible even though she espoused financial stability for the federal government.” She tried to find out who had accessed her records and why, but received no answer. In January 2013, investigators from the Treasury inspector general’s office notified O’Donnell that her tax information may have been illegally accessed, but they did not pursue the matter further. 

O’Donnell told Hannity that other candidates and donors had their records accessed and used inappropriately during the campaign season as well. She recently contacted Senator Chuck Grassley’s office asking that he request that the Treasury IG look into the 2010 events as it continues to investigate IRS abuses. The IG’s office has now reportedly scheduled an interview with the former candidate.

The IRS’s violations put “a handcuff on democracy,” O’Donnell said, arguing that the IRS’s corrupt practices will have a “long-term impact” on American freedom.

Charles Krauthammer gently chided fellow panelist Sally Kohn for predicting that “a number of folks are going to try to use Detroit falsely as an example to push more austerity, to really cram more austerity, down the throats of the United States.”

Krauthammer replied, “Sally, Detroit is not really an example of the failure of GOP economic policies. It’s been run by the Democrats for 60 years. And you can cite all the studies you want about how bad austerity is; all you have to do is look at Detroit and you get an idea of how bad the absence of austerity is: It’s a city in ruin.”

He went on to predict that President Obama will decline to offer the beleaguered Motor City a federal bailout:

I think the reason that the administration is hesitant to even talk about a bailout is, it understands that Detroit is a precedent. The minute you step into a bailout in Detroit, you’re going to get every city in the country lining up with a tin cup; and that’s why I think even this administration — even this administration — is going to hold back from doing this.

Over at Modeled Behavior, Adam Ozimek has an interesting piece about one way to save Detroit: Increase the city’s depleted tax base by letting hundred of thousands of immigrants in with Detroit-specific work visas. He writes: 

So how can we selectively allow in immigrants to Detroit? I and others have argued for regional visas. This would give states or regions their own visas to issue how they see fit. The state of Michigan could issue tens of thousands of worker visas for Detroit. The demand is there, all the government needs to do is find a way to let them in.

Importantly, immigrants who located in Detroit under this visa should be able to choose any employer in Detroit. This would provide compensating flexibility relative to existing employment visas that tie workers to a specific employer. Yes, an immigrant is made worse off by forcing them to go to Detroit rather than anywhere in the U.S. they want. But right now visas already only allow immigrants to go places where they can find an employer prior to moving here, and then they are effectively tied to that employer. And you don’t have to actually restrict the movement of these immigrants; they should be free to travel throughout the country. They will simply be restricted to working in Detroit. Again, visa holders are already effectively tied to working in a particular city as a result of being tied to an employer within that city. Paired with a plan to help regional visa workers who prove themselves get normal green cards also should help reduce concern about limiting mobility.

He notes that while it may sound like “a radical experiment in ‘foreignizing’ a city,” it really isn’t. Other cities have large foreign-born populations (New York, for instance, is over 36 percent immigrant). He concludes:

Immigration is an economic development policy that is currently largely ignored. A city like Detroit could be a symbol and demonstration project to show other cities the huge potential for this. If this works, it will mean more political demand for immigrants and ultimately raising our overall immigration levels, which is an important goal in and of itself. A regional visas should be created that let’s cities experiment and choose their own path in this way. It’s the only free market plan out there with any chance of making a serious impact in Detroit, and it’s consistent with America’s spirit of federalism. And unlike just about every other plan you see, like bailouts or tax cuts, this has the advantage that it doesn’t require other people’s money.

Being a big believer in the idea that immigrants create a lot of economic value, I like the suggestion. It’s not a completely new idea. For instance, a few months ago, the Wall Street Journal had a piece about how rust-belt cities were putting a lot of effort these days into trying to attract immigrants in the hope of reversing their long-term population declines. It was obviously missing the visa component of Ozimek’s policy recommendation, but relies on the same way of bringing more people to Detroit and other places. 

However, there is, I think, a limitation of this idea as explained by Ozimek: It seems to me that it won’t work if the city of Detroit and its government officials don’t address the reasons why people left  in the first place. Immigrants, even more than other people, are attracted to jobs, not high taxes and high unemployment. If Detroit’s natives are leaving for lack of jobs, it’s unlikely that immigrants will settle there. And if they do, they may not stay if they can’t find jobs (especially if other cities that are more appealing jobwise also put in a regional visa system). Therefore, a single policy of just bringing in more people won’t be enough (let’s not forget that the region has seen large waves of immigration, and most of those immigrants left). 

What is required here is immigration and fundamental labor-market reforms. That probably means getting rid of rules and regulations, various union requirements, cronyism and corruption of city officials, and all the things that get in the way of having a flexible labor market and dynamic economy. I would also argue that if and when such regional visas are created, which I hope they are for many cities in the U. S., Detroit city officials should refrain from putting in place public jobs programs and other government-created jobs. It would only add to the fiscal problems of the city without creating the kind of economic growth that the city needs to escape its current economic problems. Finally, bringing immigrants in, even if they can find jobs and create growth, shouldn’t distract city officials from addressing the city’s debt and pension system, since a new tax-paying workforce alone won’t be able to shoulder the current size of unfunded liabilities.

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir argued that the British people are excited over today’s birth of the royal baby because they need a morale boost to overcome the economic woes wrought by conservative fiscal policy.

Bashir even linked those woes to the Republicans in the U.S., arguing that the economic policies espoused by GOP congressmen Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy have been applied in the UK, resulting in high unemployment rates and low economic growth. “Part of the fascination with the royal baby has been because people have been so depressed by the economic circumstances in the United Kingdom that they’ve been looking up for some light relief,” Bashir said minutes after the birth was announced.

In the Aspen Times, Bob Ward reviews a speech that Justice Scalia gave on the related topics of constitutional originalism and the role of the courts in a republic. Inadvertently, he provides a gem, spelling out something that really shouldn’t need saying:

Scalia is widely regarded as a strident conservative on the nation’s high court, and he is known to deliver his legal and political opinions in blistering language. However, the words “conservative” and “liberal,” along with the party labels Republican and Democrat, hardly appeared in Saturday’s speech. Rather, he used mostly legal terminology to discuss politically charged issues.

Gosh. Really? “Legal terminology”? You’re not saying that a judge whose job it is to interpret the law used “mostly legal terminology to discuss politically charged issues”? Whatever next! Will the president be expected to faithfully execute even the laws he doesn’t like?

A federal judge has granted a temporary injunction blocking North Dakota’s law restricting abortions in cases where the fetus has a detectable heartbeat, the Associated Press reports.

U.S. district judge Daniel Hovland blocked the law, which was scheduled to take effect August 1, writing, “There is no question that [the law] is in direct contradiction to a litany of United States Supreme Court cases addressing restraints on abortion.” Hovland called the law “clearly an invalid and unconstitutional law based on the United States Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade from 1973 . . . and the progeny of cases that have followed.”

The legislation in question, which could outlaw abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, was passed by the North Dakota state house in February by a 63–28 vote. It passed the North Dakota senate in March by a 26–17 margin, and was signed by Republican governor Jack Dalrymple that same month.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit in June on behalf of the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, N.D., the state’s only abortion clinic.

I doubt that the federal government should be setting rules for how colleges should handle sexual-harassment cases, but if it is going to set them it ought to do so more wisely than it seems to be doing. The Departments of Justice and Education announced the new rules this spring in a letter to the University of Montana. I write about it today for Bloomberg View. 

The university also erred, according to the letter, in saying that conduct qualified as harassment only when “an objectively reasonable person” would find it “offensive.” Harassment may occur, then, when someone’s conduct triggers even an objectively unreasonable complaint. The federal government has put universities on notice that they need to take any complaint, however little merit it may seem to have, very seriously. 

The letter went on to instruct colleges that “taking disciplinary action against the harasser” may be appropriate, and even required, before the investigation into the complaint is finished — that is, before it is determined that the “harasser” is actually a harasser.

Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius is likening opponents of the Affordable Care Act to opponents of desegregation. “What we heard back then is what we’re hearing now, the same arguments against change, the same fear and misinformation that opponents used are the ones opponents are spreading now,” she said last week in a speech before the NAACP. 

Sebelius also tried to drew similarities between the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the enactment of civil-rights legislation from the same era, and urged the audience to be ready to do “the kind of work” on Obamacare that the NAACP “has done for more than a century to move us forward.” 

“You showed it in the early fights against lynching and the fight for desegregation . . . you showed it by supporting a health law 100 years in the making,” she said.

The Health and Human Services secretary also heralded “the voices of progress” that will mark the October 1 date on which the law’s health-care exchanges open, comparing the event to the Emancipation Proclamation. “They echo from church bells rung at midnight 150 years ago to educate our nation of a people’s emancipation,” she said.

Multiple news outlets are now reporting that the Duchess of Cambridge has given birth to a baby boy. 

UPDATE:

Fox News has got the boy’s particulars, but there’s nothing on a name as of yet. 

A little prince is born. Prince William’s wife, Kate has given birth to an 8-pound 6 oz baby boy. #RoyalBaby

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 22, 2013

It came to light today that George Zimmerman, acquitted a week ago in the death of Trayvon Martin, briefly emerged from hiding on Thursday to help rescue a family in an overturned SUV. But there’s an emerging trucking-truther crowd on Twitter that isn’t buying the story:

In all my life, I have never seen an overturned truck. How did #Zimmerman magically find one while in hiding? #PR stunt!

— iPublicityDiva (@iPublicityDiva) July 22, 2013

Did Fox News set that up? Zimmerman saved someone from a burning truck #Zimmerman

— wondermann5 (@wondermann5) July 22, 2013

There’s something fishy about this #Zimmerman Rescue ish….feels too perfectly timed and convenient….

— ? (@kbabaspeaks) July 22, 2013

That new #zimmerman story: I’m not buying it one bit…. Sorry #CNN

— Michael (@SweetSlimJones_) July 22, 2013

#Zimmerman anyone else notice quite the coincidence that the Same cops who Lied in court AND released him after murder, witnessed Heroics?

— Micheal Stinson (@Symbolman) July 22, 2013

We will be hearing many more stories about #Zimmerman being the “Good Samaritan “! Don’t you know that is what Guilty People due ?

— Xiantoni Ari Lynch (@Xiantoni) July 22, 2013

Lol at #Zimmerman supposedly pulling a family of 4 out of an overturned vehicle. Worst publicity stunt ever. Did he hit the gym recently?

— BlancTheBody (@blancthebody) July 22, 2013

It didn’t take long: On Thursday, Michigan governor Rick Snyder and Detroit emergency-city manager Kevyn Orr said the city would file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, and by Sunday, an MSNBC commentator blamed it on racial issues.

“Of course, it’s an 85 percent black city,” said Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson when host Ed Schultz asked him if race has been relevant to the city’s bankruptcy process. “We have to acknowledge that part of this has to be the racial animus that has characterized that city for the last 50-some-odd years.”

“It’s been perceived as a colony of black people who are ringed by suburban white areas that are now going into the city to plunder it,” Dyson explained, referring to the bankruptcy process, apparently, as “a massive takeover of resources and materials and properties, basically being occupied.”

(For even more questionable analysis of Detroit’s situation, make sure to read viewers’ tweets along the bottom of the screen.)

A reader has sent in a letter, making a point that I think should be aired here on the Corner. It has to do with the media and double standards. I know I’ve never addressed this before. (By the way, “the media” can be a shorthand for “the powers-that-be in America.”)

In Impromptus today, I say something about public figures and “cashing in.” Hillary Clinton is getting $200K per speech. I think that qualifies as “cashing in.” I also think it qualifies as “trading on one’s public office.”

I have used some pretty old-fashioned phrases here. We heard them in 1989, when Ronald Reagan went to Japan for a week and came back with $2 million. (An old Reagan hand described this as “the Reagans’ retirement fund.”) There was a storm of condemnation.

Has there been any storm over Hillary Clinton? Over Bill Clinton, and Al Gore? Haven’t they made tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars? I haven’t noticed any storm. Maybe some raindrops here and there.

Well, our aforementioned reader writes in to say this: When a Republican is caught in some kind of moral failure, he is hit hard. He gets a double portion of shame, because he’s not upholding “conservative values.” He is a stinking hypocrite.

How about when Bill Clinton used an intern for sex in the Oval Office? Well, he never claimed to be any better, did he? And then there’s the sainted JFK — who said to his own intern, “Mr. Powers looks a little tense.” (Dave Powers was his longtime aide and fixer.) “Would you take care of it?” She did, of course.

And JFK is still a national god.

Our reader goes on to say, “The Democrats are supposed to be against ‘greed’ and ‘profit-seeking.’” So when they cash in big, shouldn’t they get a double portion of shame? “Shouldn’t they be making appearances for free, out of the goodness of their hearts, because they’re not greedy like us Republicans?”

To a large extent, being on the left means never having to say you’re sorry.

P.S. The heading of this post leads me to quiz you: Quick, name a Reagan movie with the words “queen” and “cattle” in the title. You’re right: Cattle Queen of Montana, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

The U.S. Marshals Service has lost track of over 2,000 encrypted two-way radios and other devices worth millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

According to internal agency documents obtained by the Journal, the problem was brought to the attention of officials in 2011 by the service’s Office of Strategic Technology. 

Those looking into the unaccounted-for equipment estimate that the value of missing radios is at least $6 million – each radio costs a few thousand dollars. They suspect that employees often failed to report lost devices because it would require additional paperwork and could have lead to an internal investigation.

Though no incidents jeopardizing the public safety or the safety of those individuals under the agency’s protection have been reported, some marshals are concerned that criminals could get their hands on the missing radios and use them to monitor law-enforcement activities, according to Fox News.

A report by the technology office stated that “negligence and incompetence has resulted in a grievous mismanagement of millions of dollars of USMS property” and that “the entire system is broken and drastic measures need to be taken” in order to prevent such tools from being misplaced. The Marshals Service is planning to implement a new inventory-tracking system, a spokesman told the Journal.

The news has been particularly good of late for the pro-life movement. Governor Perry and the Texas legislature persevered through mob tactics and extremist grandstanding to pass a sensible bill supported by the vast majority of Texans. Planned Parenthood plans to close three clinics in Texas and four in Wisconsin (it’s not much, but it’s a start). Virginia’s busiest abortion clinic has closed, unable to meet new health and safety requirements. In Mississippi, the last abortion clinic in the state is one decent judicial decision away from extinction. Court after court has rejected the administration’s abortion-pill mandate. And that’s hardly the complete round-up of recent pro-life success.

Thank you, President Obama. Your pro-abortion extremism has brought the fight squarely onto ground where the pro-life movement is at its strongest. Your transition from the Clinton administration’s ”safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric to something more like “anytime, anyplace, anywhere” has not only repulsed Americans from coast to coast, it’s also helped shine a bright light on the radicals at Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Go ahead, keep calling Wendy Davis and Sandra Fluke, that just gives the pro-life movement more opportunity to go into state legislatures and talk about their extremism and devotion to the cult of death.

Oh, and the Todd Akin talking point is nearing its shelf-life. That worked for a while, but the longer you oppose protections for women in the post-Gosnell era, the more you isolate yourself with your friends on the fringe. Further, with our debt still spiraling out of control, your party’s recent willingness to shut down the government, if necessary, to preserve funding for Planned Parenthood, is far more offensive than one has-been politician’s expression of a misguided opinion. News flash: Neither the Huffington Post nor the New York Times dominate the news cycle in Texas, Tennessee, or any other red state considering sensible and legal restrictions designed to protect women and their babies.

Few things move public opinion in our direction better than honesty from the pro-abortion crowd. You really do want fewer restrictions on abortion than on ear piercings or tattoos. You really do want to override our faith — and our constitutional heritage of religious liberty — to subsidize your devotion to the large-scale killing of our nation’s most innocent and vulnerable citizens. Just keep talking, Mr. President. The citizens of Manhattan may love it, but out here in the hinterlands, you’re motivating us to save lives.

A new poll shows the country split right down the middle on the George Zimmerman acquittal. The Washington Post/ABC News poll found 41 percent of those surveyed approve of the verdict, with an equal number in opposition.

There are clear divisions. A full 86 percent of African Americans dislike the verdict; 51 percent of whites approved of it.

Sixty-two percent of Democrats disapproved of Zimmerman’s acquittal, while 65 percent of Republicans approved.

On some issues, common sense is prevailing: A new Pew poll found that, by 52 percent to 36 percent, the poll’s respondents said race was dominating the case more than it should. By a 46–39 margin, the Post found people didn’t think the Obama Justice Department should file civil-rights charges against Zimmerman.

An atheist group is agitating for the removal of the Star of David from a Holocaust memorial at the Ohio state house, reports the Columbus Dispatch.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) objects to the memorial’s inclusion of the Jewish symbol on the grounds that “permitting one permanent sectarian and exclusionary religious symbol . . . would create the legal precedent, for instance, to place an equally large or larger permanent Latin cross on Capitol grounds.”

In a letter to former Ohio state senator Richard Finan, chairman of the board that oversees the capitol’s grounds, FFRF suggests that “the monument could resemble numerous powerful war memorials across the U.S. which do not use any sectarian images, including the national World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Each is secular in nature and without religious reference, which offends no one and is respected by all.”

The lack of religious imagery on those monuments “neither diminishes their significance nor detracts from the respect and honor shown for the victims of those conflicts,” they argue.

The inclusion of the Star of David, FRFF explains in a press release, excludes 5 million victims of the Holocaust who were members of other persecuted groups, such as “gays, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma Gypsies, the disabled and many others.”

Allowing the Star of David on the state-house monument, they contend, would “dishonor the truest protection our country has against a similar Holocaust on our shores: the precious constitutional principle separating religion from government.”

The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, appears to be baffling doctors, those who ought to be most familiar with its implementation, as CNBC reports.

Vast majorities of doctors repeatedly indicated that they were only vaguely or completely unfamiliar with various aspects of the law, according to a new poll. Just over 54 percent indicated that they were not at all familiar with how insurance policies purchased from state exchanges would impact their business, and 65 percent were not familiar with the rates they will be paid by insurers on the exchanges. On top of that, over 67 percent were not familiar with the terms of a patient’s coverage and over 70 percent weren’t familiar with the claims process. Less than 3 percent of those polled indicated that they were “extremely familiar” on all of these questions.

It should come as no surprise, then, that only 11 percent believe the state health exchanges, which are scheduled to begin enrollment on October 1, will be open on time. Thirty-four percent don’t know if the exchanges will be open on time and a 55 percent believe they won’t open on time.

Shane Jackson, the president of Locum Tenens, the organization that conducted the survey, said the results bode ill for patients, who ”rely on their doctor for a lot of information.”

“They expect to a large degree that their doctors understand how this is all going to work,” said Jackson.

Unsurprisingly, the doctors also felt that consumers had not been adequately educated on the law, with a full 89 percent expressing skepticism. Another 9 percent didn’t know if consumers had received sufficient edification. Only 1.6 percent of the doctors who had been polled thought the public was well-informed. (Polling indicates that the majority of doctors are right on this question: A January Rasmussen poll found that only 32 percent of respondents knew if their state is going to establish an exchange.)

On the consumer side, people are similarly negative, albeit not to quite the same degree. Rasmussen’s latest poll reveals that 61 percent of likely voters expect health care in the United States to become worse over the next two years. Sixty-one percent is a recent high-water mark in Rasmussen’s polling on the matter; it’s up four points from a month ago and 13 points since February. The poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on July 20–21.

“We need fifty more of you,” Rush Limbaugh told newly-announced Wyoming Senate candidate Liz Cheney on Monday, then “we’ll be talking.”

Cheney said on Limbaugh’s radio show Monday that her 2014 bid is inspired in part by frustration that Republicans have failed to mount a real offensive against the Obama administration. The president is a “formidable communicator,” she said, but faulted Republicans for being intimidated by his ”skills and his talent” and concluding they cannot compete. Cheney praised her GOP primary challenger Mike Enzi’s eighteen years of service and emphasized that her decision to run against him is “not personal.” ”It’s about policy [and] the future” of Wyoming,” she said, but did not elaborate on her specific policy differences with Enzi. 

Limbaugh nonetheless had high praise for the GOP firebrand. “Liz Cheney might turn out to be one of [Dick Cheney’s] greatest contributions” to America, he concluded. 

Last Wednesday on the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog, David Leonhardt conducted an analysis of public-opinion data on the issue of abortion. Unlike many pundits who simply analyze one poll and spin the results to support their position, Leonhardt analyzes a range of recent surveys in an attempt to gauge public opinion accurately. Not surprisingly, he paints a mixed picture. In part that’s because, as political professionals and academics are well aware, survey results on life issues can be very sensitive to the specific way that questions are worded.

Leonhardt correctly states that many polls indicate that the Roe v. Wade decision enjoys broad public support, but he also acknowledges that many people still remain uncomfortable with unrestricted abortion access. According to a 2012 Pew research poll, fewer than 25 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all cases. Furthermore a 2013 New York Times/CBS poll finds that fewer than 45 percent of Americans think that abortion should be generally available, while a majority of respondents felt that abortion either should not be permitted or should be available under stricter limits. Leonhardt concludes that “by any objective measure the country is conflicted.”

To his credit, Leonhardt admits that the abortion issue does not benefit Democrats as much as some other high-profile issues do. He correctly notes that, despite common perception, men and women have fairly similar attitudes toward abortion — it can’t do much to explain the “gender gap.” Furthermore, Leonhardt acknowledges that the pro-life position has made some long-term gains in the court of public opinion — in the mid 1990s, Gallup surveys put pro-life sentiment under 40 percent, while in recent years the firm has found such sentiment at or over 50 percent.

My only complaint with Leonhardt’s analysis is that he should have extended it to examine particular geographic regions, because they’re of real political relevance. A substantial body of survey data finds that both the pro-life position and pro-life laws enjoy even more public support in the South and the Midwest. Since the 1990s, Republicans have won majority control of more legislative chambers in southern states, and every southern state is now enforcing a pro-life parental-involvement law and every southern state, except one, is enforcing an informed-consent law. Furthermore, this year, southern states such as Texas and North Carolina have taken a leading role in efforts to enact protective pro-life legislation.

Typically the New York Times’ coverage of sanctity-of-life issues is far more biased and partisan. For instance, the Times gives plenty of coverage to studies that find that abortion has a minimal impact on the health of women, but, in a near Orwellian fashion, they totally ignore peer-reviewed research which indicates that abortion leads to significant physical and mental-health problems. In 2006, they published a superficial analysis of six state parental-involvement laws which claimed that such laws were ineffective — while totally ignoring 17 peer-reviewed studies which show parental involvement laws reduce in-state abortion rates among minors. So especially given the outlet, Leonhardt deserves credit for his detailed and nuanced analysis of this issue’s public-opinion data.

— Michael J. New is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan–Dearborn, a fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, and an adjunct scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_J_New.