Ross Douthat writes today some further analysis of the provocative new book and Red and Blue families in America, on which I wrote last week.

Read it if interested, because what follows is not (with one exception) a summary.

Notable to me is that the Blue state approach does not produce lower teen pregnancy rates, just lower birth rates. In other words, the price of the “new equilibrium” of the professional classes is widespread abortion.

Some years back I read an arresting summary. Part of America thinks everything would be hunky-dory if every teenager in America was sexually active if they were all faithfully contracepting (and aborting when contraception failed). Another part thinks teens shouldn’t be sexually active and refuses to acquiesce (e.g., “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, but if you do, here’s a condom – wink! wink!”).

That may be an exaggeration, but it often seems only slight. The tacit assumption of the “pro choice” side is that the new economic arrangements, and the contraception and abortion that keep us competitive in that millieu, are good or at least neutral.