lpetrich
25 Jan 2010, 10:21 AM
The blogger Cassandra has researched that question in Teller of Truths: July 2008 (http://goddesscassandra.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html), and I collected her statistics and did some additional number-crunching on them.
She looked at 29 of them: 40 Days for Life, Alliance Defense Fund, AAPLO&G, American Life League, Americans United for Life, Army of God, AAP&S, Care Net, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, Choose Life, Concerned Women for America, Democrats for Life of America, Feminists for Life, Focus on the Family, The Lambs of Christ, Libertarians for Life, Life Chain, Life Dynamics, Inc., Missionaries to the Preborn, Missionaries to the Unborn, National Right to Life Committee, Operation Rescue, Physicians for Life, Population Research Institute, Priests for Life, Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, Republican National Coalition for Life, Students for Life of America, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust
She scored them in a variety of fields, and here is how many scored as what:
Category | Which | How many groups
Leader | Man | 22
Leader | Woman | 7
Board of Directors | Mostly Men | 21
Board of Directors | Mostly Women | 4
Board of Directors | Even Split | 4
Religious vs. Secular | Explicitly Christian | 17
Religious vs. Secular | Ties to Christian Groups | 7
Religious vs. Secular | Secular | 5
Birth Control | Pro | 2
Birth Control | Limited | 1
Birth Control | Anti | 9
Birth Control | Not Addressed | 8
Birth Control | Opposes Emergency | 9
Sex Education | Comprehensive | 1
Sex Education | Abstinence only | 9
Sex Education | Not Addressed | 19
Welfare | Not Addressed | 20
Welfare | Pro | 2
Welfare | Anti | 5
Welfare | Pregnancy center | 2
Violence | Violent | 2
Violence | Ties to Violent Groups / Condones Violence | 4
Violence | Peaceful | 23
Perhaps the only reassuring thing about these numbers is that most of the groups are peaceful or at least relatively peaceful.
The rest are very unflattering. Most of the leadership is male, many of the groups don't even try to present themselves as secular, they are opposed to birth control and good sex education when they address those issues, and they seldom advocate doing anything to care for pregnant women.
I looked for correlations between the various categories, but there wasn't much. Here are the only ones that looked statistically significant:
There was the expected sort of correlation between the sexes of the leaders and the boards of directors -- male leaders with mostly-male BoD's and female leaders with mostly-female BoD's.
Abstinence-only ones tended to be anti-birth-control, anti-welfare, and religious.
The secular ones had the highest fraction of female leaders, while the religious ones had the lowest fraction.
Even more unflattering, it must be said.
The groups were weighted equally, but it would be interesting to see what the results would look like if their numbers were weighted by their numbers of members or their budgets or some other such measure of size or importance.
She looked at 29 of them: 40 Days for Life, Alliance Defense Fund, AAPLO&G, American Life League, Americans United for Life, Army of God, AAP&S, Care Net, Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, Choose Life, Concerned Women for America, Democrats for Life of America, Feminists for Life, Focus on the Family, The Lambs of Christ, Libertarians for Life, Life Chain, Life Dynamics, Inc., Missionaries to the Preborn, Missionaries to the Unborn, National Right to Life Committee, Operation Rescue, Physicians for Life, Population Research Institute, Priests for Life, Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, Republican National Coalition for Life, Students for Life of America, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust
She scored them in a variety of fields, and here is how many scored as what:
Category | Which | How many groups
Leader | Man | 22
Leader | Woman | 7
Board of Directors | Mostly Men | 21
Board of Directors | Mostly Women | 4
Board of Directors | Even Split | 4
Religious vs. Secular | Explicitly Christian | 17
Religious vs. Secular | Ties to Christian Groups | 7
Religious vs. Secular | Secular | 5
Birth Control | Pro | 2
Birth Control | Limited | 1
Birth Control | Anti | 9
Birth Control | Not Addressed | 8
Birth Control | Opposes Emergency | 9
Sex Education | Comprehensive | 1
Sex Education | Abstinence only | 9
Sex Education | Not Addressed | 19
Welfare | Not Addressed | 20
Welfare | Pro | 2
Welfare | Anti | 5
Welfare | Pregnancy center | 2
Violence | Violent | 2
Violence | Ties to Violent Groups / Condones Violence | 4
Violence | Peaceful | 23
Perhaps the only reassuring thing about these numbers is that most of the groups are peaceful or at least relatively peaceful.
The rest are very unflattering. Most of the leadership is male, many of the groups don't even try to present themselves as secular, they are opposed to birth control and good sex education when they address those issues, and they seldom advocate doing anything to care for pregnant women.
I looked for correlations between the various categories, but there wasn't much. Here are the only ones that looked statistically significant:
There was the expected sort of correlation between the sexes of the leaders and the boards of directors -- male leaders with mostly-male BoD's and female leaders with mostly-female BoD's.
Abstinence-only ones tended to be anti-birth-control, anti-welfare, and religious.
The secular ones had the highest fraction of female leaders, while the religious ones had the lowest fraction.
Even more unflattering, it must be said.
The groups were weighted equally, but it would be interesting to see what the results would look like if their numbers were weighted by their numbers of members or their budgets or some other such measure of size or importance.