Obama's Policies Ranked Better for Women by Group of Economists

By Amanda Ruggeri

October 24, 2008 RSS Feed Print

Throughout the election, polls have shown that women tend to prefer Barack Obama over his Republican rival John McCain, with Gallup's most recent numbers showing a 54 percent to 39 percent split. A new report shows that reasons for the split might extend beyond traditional gender-gap trends.

When 43 economists graded each candidate on 10 issues seen as particularly significant for women, including child care, domestic violence, and reproductive rights, Obama came out firmly in the lead. McCain lagged behind in every issue and was given an F—reserved for when the group thought that policies actually would do harm—on two of them.

The issue of reproductive rights was one area where the two candidates were diametrically opposed, in both position and grade, in the report by the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues.

For his statements in favor of Roe v. Wade, votes to increase access to family-planning services, and support for United Nations efforts to provide family planning, Obama did well, earning an A by the group's criteria. McCain failed, thanks to his votes against a federal program that provided health services like birth control and breast cancer screenings, support of "abstinence only" sex education, and support for repealing Roe v. Wade.

The issue of pay and employment equity also saw big differences between the candidates. "Senator McCain's past votes and present positions reveal no serious commitment to pay equity," says Nancy Folbre, the group's chair and a staff economist at the Center for Popular Economics. "We give him an F." Obama's score of a B on the issue wasn't perfect, but it was higher than any of the scores McCain had received.

As well as showing how the candidates fare on the issues, the group also hopes that the report might return some focus onto the topics important to women, who are the majority of the electorate.

"We're tired of hearing about the Joes—as in 'Six Pack' and 'Plumber'—and want more attention to the Joannes," Folbre says.

Tags:
economics,
presidential election 2008,
Barack Obama,
female voters

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Dan of AZ lies about Obama's views on abortion. Obama voted against the bill he cites because already-existing law covered the requirement that babies surviving abortion attempts be given the necessary medical treatment in order to survive.

Dan of AZ also attributes an "Abortion is good" mindset to feminists when the actual position is that CHOICE is good---that does include access to abortion, but choice also includes the choice to give birth as well and pro-choice supporters also stand behind fair access to good prenatal care, childcare AFTER birth (funny how the so-called "Right to Life" people are quick to abandon mothers after they give birth, since they almost never champion access to good childcare for working mothers and fathers.) and improved education for their children.

Dan of AZ lies when he offers the assumption that pro-choice people find the elderly or the disabled as "inconvenient" and he all but states that pro-choice people would favor euthanasia for the elderly and disabled. Why not come right out and make this claim, Dan?

You place the term "reproductive rights" in quotation marks as if to ridicule the very phrase and to pretend that it means something else. Well, Dan: it means what it says, unlike you and your ilk. Why not come right out and say what you mean? In short, what you apparently are saying is that you and the State on your behalf have the right to tell total strangers---especially if they are female, what they can do with their bodies?

Why don't you and your other "Right to Lie" cohorts just come right out and say this? Stop hiding behind your bogus "life is sacred" morality? We all know that you don't mean it.

James Kenny of NY 3:38PM October 27, 2008

This group obviously has a liberal feminist agenda, and I suspect that Amanda Ruggeri does to. Her use of the term "reproductive rights" gives her away. The fact that people calling themselves an "economic policy group" are focusing on abortion as an economic issue reveals that they consider the economic cost of having an unplanned child more important than the life of the child, and that they consider convenience as a valid reason for an abortion. Taken to its logical conclusions, handicapped children are inconvenient to have around and do not deserve to live. Elderly parents with Alzheimer's or other requiring care for other severe health problems are inconvenient and do not deserve to live. The only view that doesn't violate our natural morality is to value all human life from conception.

This group also does not count the very real costs to women from abortion. These include depression and guilt, surgical "errors" including death of the mother, and the high rate of infertility following abortions. Even when women get pregnant from rape, those that give birth tend to do better emotionally than those who abort, because they have something good out of that horrible experience. Feminists have fought laws requiring the same medical standards in abortion clinics that other surgical facilities are required to follow. And they claim they are helping women?

Obama's views on abortion are the extreme of the extreme. He voted 4 times in the Illinois legislature against a bill to save the lives of babies born alive after an attempted abortion, and he was the only one to speak publicly against the bill. This bill he killed was virtually identical to one that the US Congress passed unanimously. Even the most rabid pro-abortion congressmen voted for it. Now, Obama wants to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which would nullify virtually all state and federal restrictions on abortion that currently exist.

Families are important to women (not feminists), and McCain's proposal to double the tax exemption for dependents will help families.

Dan of AZ 11:44AM October 27, 2008

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