Abortion rate = 2.06 + 1.71 * Poverty rate (R2= 0.37)

Equations aren't usually headlines, but this is an attention grabber. Vox Nova used data from a Guttmacher Institute study to see whether the abortion rate was lower when the rate of poverty was lower.

This idea isn't new: many pro-life progressives have been aware that abortion rates went down sharply during the Clinton administration, in spite of his pro-abortion stance. The change reversed in the current administration, in spite of Bush's anti-abortion stance.

The findings presented on Vox Nova, though, go further in two important ways.

First, the analysis spans 23 years of information, from 1980 to 2003, with only one Democratic president and another socially conservative one, Ronald Reagan. That longer time frame leads me to put more credence in the findings.

Second is the finding in parentheses: R²=0.37. Of all the variability, up and down, in the abortion rate over that 23 year period, 37% can be predicted - statisticians sometimes say "explained" - by the poverty rate. Social science rarely comes up with that degree of explanatory power from a single variable.

What does it mean? The single most effective anti-abortion activity in the last 23 years was the reduction of poverty; thousands of babies were born who might otherwise have been discarded. Legislative activism to provide a minimally adequate social safety net might save more unborn lives than decades of anti-abortion action.

Even more, it points to the importance of centers that provide help and support to pregnant women - the assurance of financial support, along with emotional encouragement, truly does make a difference.