Republican States Are Not as Lively as Their Officials Make Them Seem
Republicans talk a lot about protecting life.
Beyond endlessly complaining about workplace safety rules, unions, environmental protections, corporate tax rates, the border and immigrants, it’s their schtick.
“We cherish the sacred dignity of every human life,” then-President Donald Trump proclaimed in 2018.
“I want to save as many lives and help as many moms as possible,” Nikki Haley says on her — still-born — campaign’s site.
On his official blog, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote in 2021, “Every life, born and unborn, is worthy of protection.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America gives Senator Cotton an “A+” rating. But if that anti-abortion political group factored protecting the lives of mothers or workers into its grading system, then Cotton and his home state might get D’s or F’s.
That’s because mothers die more often in Arkansas — named the most “pro-life” state by another national anti-abortion group — than any other state. Per federal data, in 2021, Arkansas’ maternal mortality rate was 85% higher than the national average and more than four times higher than California’s — a state widely derided for its pro-choice policies in the “pro-life” movement.
And workers? Arkansas’ workplace fatality rate is higher than 43 other states and twice as high as California’s.
But this glaring contradiction between “pro-life” platitudes and pro-life results goes way beyond Cotton and Arkansas, or Haley and Trump.
There’s a clear, disturbing and, quite literally, morbid pattern across American political geography:
Republican states have a dying problem. They’re pro-life in name only.
Over a wide range of indicators providing data-based insight into the health and safety of Americans, the most Republican states consistently emerge as the sickest and deadliest; and the most Democratic states, as the healthiest and safest — quantitatively, objectively the most pro-life.
Consider these official age-adjusted death rates, meaning these differences aren’t the result of some states having older or younger residents:
Of the 10 states with the highest rates of death from influenza, suicide and murder, seven are Republican.
Of the 10 states with the highest rates of death from heart disease, kidney disease and Alzheimer’s, eight are Republican.
Of the 10 states with the lowest life expectancies and the highest rates of firearms deaths, workplace fatalities, motor vehicle deaths and premature mortality — that is, dying before 75 — nine are Republican.
Of the 10 states with the highest rates of cancer deaths and overall mortality — think dying from any and all causes in a given year — 10 are Republican.
Notably, it’s not just that Republicans comprise the states with the highest rates of death. What’s equally illuminating is that Democratic states make up the overwhelming majority of states with the lowest rates of death from these same causes.
Republican politicians can talk all they want about how pro-life they are, but these data defy and belie their rhetoric. Facts are stubborn things.
So what does it say about a political party which incessantly promotes its respect for life and yet whose states’ policies overwhelmingly and repeatedly produce the highest rates of death from cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s, influenza, diabetes, traffic accidents, guns, workplace accidents, suicides and murders?
How pro-life can Republican states be when their own constituents literally get less life?
If the GOP cares about truth in advertising, it should consider a new slogan: Live Free, Die Early.