Incite to Abort

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The problem with social engineering is that it so often falls prey to the law of unintended consequences. Take welfare reform in New Jersey. Five years ago, the state became a conservative favorite thanks to a tough new law ensuring that any woman who became pregnant while on welfare would not be given additional cash assistance for her new child. Advocates of the law, known as the family cap, called it a strike for personal responsibility, one that would force welfare parents to make the same family-planning decisions that working-class families do. Twenty-three other states followed suit.

But last week New Jersey learned of the measure's unforeseen consequences. According to a draft study prepared for the state health department by Rutgers University, the cap boosted New Jersey's abortion rate by an estimated 240 procedures a year. This "small but nontrivial" effect seemed to prove what antiabortion groups like the Catholic Conference have long warned: that some women having to choose between raising a child without cash benefits and having an abortion paid for by Medicaid will pick abortion. And the report is likely to become exhibit A for the American Civil Liberties Union and the NOW Legal and Educational Defense Fund, which are suing to repeal the law. This strange sorority of opponents also contends that the cap unfairly penalizes the 25,000 children born without benefits and has a disproportionate effect on African Americans.

State health officials have kicked the report back to Rutgers, alleging faulty methodology in the $1 million study. Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who had promised to revisit the law if it increased abortions, now sidesteps that pledge, saying the report is "only a draft." Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council, which had lobbied for the cap to be made federal law despite the objections of other pro-life groups, avoided comment. But the hard questions aren't going away. Rutgers is reviewing its study, but researchers don't expect the results to change.

--By Tamala M. Edwards