Important notice: Due to the cold, the rally on January 20th has been moved to Broadway United Methodist Church, 609 E 29th St, Indianapolis. Indoors.
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I have lived in Indiana almost all of my life. I was born in Indianapolis and raised in a small Indiana town (Anderson). After a brief hiatus in college, I returned to the state and have spent my adult life here. I’ve participated in the state’s civic and political affairs, and been part of Indianapolis’ government. During my stint as Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, I sued the state on more than one occasion.
Given that history, I think I’ve earned the right to comment on the state’s deficits–deficits that have grown more concerning over that timespan.
On this platform, I frequently criticize what former NUVO editor Harrison Ullmann called “The World’s Worst Legislature.” Thanks to extreme gerrymandering, that body is controlled by extremists–culture warriors pandering to the White Christian Nationalists who want to eviscerate the very notion of a diverse “public” entitled to a government that serves the common good rather than the interests of political donors and fundamentalist churches.
The most vivid example of the General Assembly’s misplaced emphases–but most definitely not the only example–was the legislature’s unseemly rush to impose a ban on abortion in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. That ban ignored medical science, endangered the lives of pregnant women, and rode roughshod over the rights of women whose religious commitments differ from those of fundamentalist Christians.
Indiana is now reaping the negative consequences of that ban.
We’ve already seen reports that the state has growing ob/gyn “deserts,” where women–including but not limited to pregnant women–must travel long distances to access a wide range of care. (The legislature’s decades-long effort to shut down Planned Parenthood clinics had already made it difficult for poor women in much of the state to get birth control or mammograms.)
We’ve already seen reports that doctors of all specialties are leaving the state, and that fewer medical students are choosing to intern in Indiana’s hospitals.
Now we are seeing evidence that others are joining those medical refugees–that people are choosing not to live in Red states with abortion bans.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the majority of justices decided that the right to an abortion should be left up to individual states. Two years later, thousands of Americans in parts of the U.S. with strict abortion bans are deciding to leave those states, new research finds.
Following the Dobbs decision, the 13 states with strict abortion bans, from Alabama to West Virginia, collectively lost a net 36,000 residents per quarter, meaning the difference between the number of people leaving the states versus those migrating in, according to the analysis from economists at Georgia Institute of Technology and The College of Wooster and published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The analysis, which is based on change-of-address data from the U.S. Postal Service, found that the state impact is larger among single-person households, which may suggest that younger people are moving out of abortion-banning states at a higher rate than families. That could be due to the greater challenges for families in trying to move, given the need to change schools or uproot careers for parents.
The freedom of young people to choose where they will live carries significant implications for states’ economies. States with bans are already having difficulty attracting and retaining workers, especially younger workers. Indiana companies are reporting such difficulties, which will likely have a negative impact on the state’s already struggling economic development.
“Younger Americans are paying attention to a state’s access to reproductive care. In a 2022 Axios poll, about 6 in 10 people 18- to 29-years-old said a state’s abortion laws would sway their decision on where to live from “somewhat” to “a lot.”
Surprise!! It turns out that things like quality of life and respect for individual liberty have a greater impact on young people’s residential choices than low tax rates.
Researchers found that most states with strict abortion bans also fail to provide adequate social safety nets. They make it difficult to access programs such as food stamps, and have growing numbers of maternal care deserts. That is certainly true of Indiana, where our legislature routinely imposes punitive measures on–and erects barriers to– people needing public assistance.
People who claim to be pro-life, who advocated for these abortion bans, often suggest that these policies are designed to protect children, women and families,” said Dr. Nigel Madden, lead author of the study. But weakness in the safety net shows “the hypocrisy of that argument.”
The kindest thing one can say about the culture warriors who dominate Indiana’s legislature is that they are incapable of connecting the dots.
Professor-your words are on point. I believe at a vast majority of Hoosiers agree. How do we get our neighbors to understand that they day they vote?
D
Indiana’s new old governor is claiming lower property taxes…but for who…or whom? And when? Realtors were successful in their wildly increased house prices, even in low- and middle-income neighborhoods which are obviously declining. This increased my property taxes by 50% last year. But…what is wrong with the buyers who are paying outlandish prices for a home surrounded by declining properties and cracked streets with weeds growing in the cracks? Has their rash ruse worked to offset rising rental prices for properties that landlords do not maintain?
“The freedom of young people to choose where they will live carries significant implications for states’ economies.”
A lack of shopping options and closing businesses with declining infrastructure in large surrounding areas appears to me to be a lack of common sense and no consideration of location and life outside the doors of the homes they are choosing. Their vehicles come and go but other than lawn mowing they are not seen once they return from jobs and close the doors behind them.
We are about to learn what it means to live in a society lead by the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. When will Hoosier voters finally get a bellyful and decide to create change?
And, as always, the main question is “what are you going to do about it”?
The act of our new Governor in eliminating all DEI initiatives in Indiana will further discourage people from coming here and will drive others away. Very sad….
I didn’t know Sheila was an Anderson girl!
And John T., if you’re watching the business news, many large companies are removing their DEI programs before Trump’s presidency. They don’t want to be on the HIT LIST. It doesn’t matter whether their HQ is in a blue or red state. Even Eli Lilly is slowly scrubbing their website and proxy statements last year. Lilly even scrubbed “racial justice” from their proxy statements.
The oligarchy wants to be on the Trump administration’s good side. Listening to the excerpts from the confirmation hearings, I can understand why. As we’ve noted on this blog, our kakistocracy is heading for an all-time low. In this upside-down world, no experience is a bonus. Real populists are being cast aside for sycophants to make way for a top-down leadership style. Trump wants to play golf or watch Fox News all day, so who will run the daily operations? Vance? Musk? Thiel?
According to Anne Nelson’s book excerpt, Weyrich was the man who birthed the New Right in the 70s and 80s, which consisted of politicos and evangelicals. Reagan was the first to embrace the god-fearing people. Imagine that, Vern!!!
The South did rise again! 😉
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Shadow_Network/aI2SDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR5&printsec=frontcover
I believe we can guess the outcome if we polled voters in red states and asked, what do people around here think about Islam? The way they make women dress? And Mexicans coming across the border?
A majority of red-state voters have been radicalized because they believe that they are superior people. Real Americans. Real Christians. Real men and women. More competent parents. That, of course, comes with a price, and that’s the thought that those others don’t measure up to them. Others are inferior politically, ethnically, religiously, sexually, and parentally.
They are also angry that things are constantly changing and becoming more complex and challenging to understand. Many buy new technology, use the most straightforward 10% of its features, and swear at the parts they don’t learn, so they can’t understand.
They have common sense, so they don’t need any more learning, not AI, to deal with long-term problems like unaffordable health care or changing the Earth’s climate to one hostile to civilization by moving carbon from underground into the atmosphere.
Then, some people take advantage of the rest by manipulating them and stealing their wealth. They steal a little bit from many people, which, let’s see, adds up to a lot of wealth. MTV (Musk, Trump, Vance), Zuckerberg, and Bezos are replacing Sam Walton’s and the Koch Bros heirs, taking, taking, taking from those who make, make, make (like the people of every other continent, thanks to the reality of globalized corporations, intermodal shipping, the Internet, complex and sophisticated ports and airports.
Big men with many zeros after their names and always $ (the symbol of power) recorded by countless accountants and protected by armies of lawyers versus little men and women with high hopes don’t make for a stable society.
We were here once in the formerly united states, then only 13 colonies, ruled by King George of Great Britain.
When the leak of the Dobbs decision happened, I wrote a little screed on Facebook about it. I wrote that, if this had happened in 1954, my mother would have died from an ectopic pregnancy, instead of living to the ripe old age of 83. I also asked about religious beliefs. Is it a violation of the first amendment to impose the belief that human life begins at conception, not with the first breath, as the Bible tells us (Genesis, 2:7)?
The ideologues all focused on the part about my mother. They swore that would never happen. The rational people who oppose abortion – a very small minority – focused on the first amendment question.
Once again, some of the blame for this needs to be handed to the terrible messaging of the left. The word abortion should never have been used. Choice should have been the focus. Control over your own body is the point of the pro-Roe side. IMHO bad messaging is the left’s Achilles Heel.
So, will some future historian write about the time that Indiana became an intellectual, and cultural desert? That may well happen here, in Florididia!
I can’t help wondering how Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, et al., would react to the “antics” of the current crop of politicians, who implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) reject the ideas of the Founding Fathers about how a functioning government requires some oversight over the individual states. Oversight and authority. That is why they wrote the Constitution the way they did – with a strong central government that could provide the unity that only it could provide. I think a lot of today’s politicians would benefit from a few classes in the thoughts of the Founders (the group they pretend to revere), and hopefully, such lessons would change the “direction” in which they are “aiming” the country.
Right now I’m livid with fury at the “executive orders” pansy Braun issued on his day one, in particular banning DEI initiatives and declaring that flags will be flown at full staff next Monday to honor that orange piece of crap. Oh, and that undereducated people will be welcomed with open arms into government positions. I’m not surprised, but that doesn’t quell my rage one bit. I’m embarrassed to be a Hoosier, and often embarrassed to be American. I have so many words…well, actually, just one, and it begins with F.
I know a few young people who are looking outside of Indiana for life after education. Most are young women. I would be among them if I were still of reproductive age.
Medical deserts will mean almost as much to men as women when clinics and hospitals close. Cancers will increase as access to early testing becomes harder with longer distances to travel become the norm.
I know of one southern Indiana county that has a small clinic in a drugstore in the county seat. It is the only medical provider in the entire county. The closest hospital is approximately 20 miles away from the county seat which the largest town in the county. If you live outside of that place, the distance can be as much as 30 to 40 miles. The time and cost of getting regular tests and checkups when you have to spend a working day’s time to access can be a deal-breaker for many low income, rural residents.
If you are a young person looking for opportunity, a place with very limited or no healthcare, few job openings of any kind, where would you want to locate? Not in Indiana, especially not in rural Indiana.
Yes, Todd. Reagan showed us that when Republicans touch anything it dies. They’ve been hard at killing our society for the sake of the oligarchs ever since Coolidge.
I’ve written before about what happened to Cleveland, Ohio when the auto industry abandoned the country for cheaper, overseas labor. Half the city is STILL boarded up. It looks like Indiana wants to be boarded up too.
But Republicans don’t care about that. All they care about is controlling the things surrounding their fetid ideology, power and money for their sponsors. How can people still be so stupid as to vote against their own best interests and revel in it?
Preach! My daughter is 16 yrs old and the family is looking at colleges. I am partial to the amazing universities and colleges in Indiana where I have lived most of my adult life. However, for her safety, we have indicated that it maybe best to find a school in a blue state or a purple state if they value women. The level of unreported sexual assaults towards women on college campuses coupled w/ imbedded bias where women are always held to account for men’s bad behaviors (women in burka’s get raped)–it maybe safer to attend schools in an another state. Its unfornuate, because Indiana does have some amazing schools–but too risky for women.
Like you, Sheila, I’m a born-‘n-bred Hoosier, even thru my collegiate years. Post-graduation is when I spread my wings, moving to the east, then south, then to the Deep South, before returning to the land of my ancestors. I experienced the wild side of Ohio, nee Northern Kentucky, as well as the German-Catholic parish conservatism. I also witnessed firsthand the “divide and conquer” policy of Huey Long in New Orleans, which left a decidedly bitter taste in my Northern sensibilities.
Average-paying employment, family and friends lured me back home again with a certain naïveté around government, and decidedly more of politics. Until I was employed as a contractor for various state and local government entities. That’s when I began to be slapped by those long kid gloves, as, dare I say, a professional WOMAN who needn’t be paid as much as her “head-of-household” male counterparts. This backroom “policy” extended its grip to my spouse, when he nonchalantly announced I shouldn’t expect the same income as my male colleagues. (He sat up and took notice when he realized he had thrown out the baby with the bath water.)
All this is to say I’ve lived through some valley lows and hill highs in this 19th state in the Union. I never gave a thought to actually discouraging others from taking up residence here. Until now.
But if one is female, especially if she’s young, and is seeking a better life, in all good conscience, I cannot support staying in, much less moving to, this state of denial, be it climate change, 21st C ethos of “white man disease”, religious extremist dogma, or social network pathos. I’m starting with my 20-something niece and then following the ripples of my cast stone in the scum-covered pond of this state I know longer recognize as my homeland.
I stumbled across a Fran Lebowitz interview while she was in Australia and in her opinion, Indiana is the worst state in Union. Home to right wing idealogue Pence and home base to KKK. Coercion, bullying politics with disrespect for individual rights especially minorities and women are in their playbook. When people’s freedom to make decisions for their own life circumstances is taken away and an outside conforming standard is set for everyone, that causes great misery and is impossible to sustain in a sane, healthy way.
It’s good that people can still leave the state if they want to and if I was younger that’s what I would do.
Sigh; these demographic shifts only make the continuation of a Republican-dominated U.S. Senate more likely. Having left Indiana 25 years ago, I guess I made my small contribution to that trend long ago. Can’t blame folks for leaving.