Abortion rates in the United States have been reaching record lows, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There’s also
evidence of more abortions being performed at earlier stages in
pregnancies. 

In a new “abortion surveillance” report, the CDC
explores data from 2002 to 2011 and finds the total number of
abortions decreased 13 percent during this period. The abortion
rate—that is, the number of abortions per every 1,000 women age 15
to 44—decreased 14 percent, and the number of abortions relative to
births was down 12 percent.

Over this same time period, the CDC notes a 6 percent increase
in abortions performed at eight weeks or less gestation, suggesting
that women are catching and terminating unwanted pregnancies
earlier. In 2011, almost 65 percent of all abortions were performed
before 8 weeks gestation, and nearly all (91.4 percent) were
performed by 13 weeks. Just 7.3 percent of abortions took place at
14-20 weeks gestation and 1.4 percent at or after 21
weeks. 

Overall, there were 13.9 abortions per 1,000 women in 2011, down
5 percent from 2010. There were 219 abortions performed per 1,000
births, down 4 percent from the previous year. Analysts say the
decline has less to do with abortion restrictions passed in various
states than with the recession and an overall decline in
pregnancies and birthrates. 

Contra anti-choice rhetoric, America’s abortion rate has been
declining relatively steadily since the early 1980s. The CDC began
keeping track of abortion statistics in 1969. Since then, the
lowest abortion rate until now was seen in 1973 (16.3 abortions per
1,000 women) and the highest in 1980 (29.3 per 1,000
women). 

Click above to watch a great hour-long documentary about
the Free State
Project (FSP) in New Hampshire. FSP is pushing for 20,000
people to move to New Hampshire and work to reduce the size, scope,
and spending of government. More importantly, the 1,600 or so folks
who have already moved there are already creating a number of
relentlessly interesting and fun communities. For my money, FSP is
the most interesting experiment in creating intentional communities
I’ve personally witnessed. 

Full disclosure: I show up several times in
“101 Reasons” (first time is around the 13-minute mark). I was
interviewed at last summer’s Porcupine Freedom Fest (PorcFest), which
was just totally awesome. I highly recommend attending it to anyone
interested in libertarian ideas and community.

I live next to an elementary
school in Los Angeles, and when school lets out, greeting parents
and kids walking home in my neighborhood is a small collection of
street vendors selling ice cream, snacks, and Mexican corn on the
cob. Everything they’re doing is illegal in Los Angeles, offering
children a nice introduction to how black markets work, not that
their customers probably realize the vendors are violating city
law.

Street vending is banned in Los Angeles. City residents may be
forgiven for not realizing this, because they’ve encountered it any
place where lots of people gather. And now Los Angeles might
actually recognize that they really can’t realistically stop this
form of commerce and legalize it. And, of course, heavily regulate
it, like they do in other cities like New York and San Francisco.
LA Weekly, taking special note of the possibility
bacon-wrapped hot dogs will be decriminalized,
describes the new legal process, under consideration this week
by the city’s Economic Development Committee:

As it stands the “framework” for street-side entrepreneurs would
have them take a mandatory course on the rules of the game, apply
and pay for various permits, and obtain county approvals for food
handling, if that’s what they do.

I suspect the street vendors outside my local elementary school
will remain rebels under the law, unable to afford the permits or
course. The “framework” LA Weekly references is a
nine-page document that ends with a flowchart for potential legal
street vendors that has a whole host of steps and involves three
different permitting agencies, any three of which could deny a
permit.

The vote on Tuesday will call for the city to
prepare a report within 90 days about how these vendors may be
legally permitted and regulated. It also calls for the
recommendations for “ways to ensure street vendors provide safe and
healthy food options.” There’s already a way to ensure that: It’s
called consumer demand. Based on that language, bacon-wrapped hot
dogs may continue to enjoy its outlaw status, even if serving them
from street carts becomes technically legal. (There is a square on
the spreadsheet labeled “healthy food certification” that should
make people shudder)

LA Weekly and Reason have been reporting on the illicit
status of these hot dogs all the way back to 2008, detailing how
the city put Elizabeth Palacios in jail to make an example out of
her for selling them. Read more here.
Just like the failed drug wars, the city’s meddling under the guise
of “public safety” have not affected demand one bit.

Below, Reason TV and Drew Carey explored the city’s harassment
of street vendors in 2008:

After the riot that followed the grand jury’s
decision last week not to indict Darren Wilson, members of the
Oath Keepers—a controversial group of current and former military,
police, and public safety officials who have pledged not to obey
unconstitutional orders—arrived in Ferguson, Missouri. Armed with
rifles and fire extinguishers, they stood guard on the rooftops,
ready, they said, to protect local businesses from arsonists and
looters.

Over the weekend, the police told them to stop. The St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
reports:

Following a night of arson fires and
bashed storefronts that hit close to home, Greg Hildebrand stood
naked Tuesday, drying off from a needed shower, when he noticed
somebody on the rooftop.

“I opened the window and said, ‘Hey, can I help you?'” said
Hildebrand, 35, a website developer.

The man said he was security and would be up there at night with
others to protect the pocket of second-story apartments and
lower-level storefronts near the Ferguson Police Department. A day
earlier, rioters had broken out windows below Hildebrand’s
apartment in the 100 block of South Florissant Road and torched a
nearby beauty supply store.

“I am in the middle of a difficult spot,” Hildebrand said. “I feel
a lot better having those guys up on the roof.”…

Police questioned group members early in the week and allowed them
to stay. But Saturday, after media inquiries, St. Louis County
police officers ordered the Oath Keepers to leave the
rooftops.

Threatened with arrest for operating without a license, the
volunteers argued but eventually left their positions early
Saturday, [Oath Keepers founder Stewart] Rhodes said.

It’s not clear how many Oath Keepers were standing guard before
the cops shut them down. (A member told
The New York Times that there were “more than five, less
than 500.” He also said that he had been vetting prospective
volunteers to weed out any racists, and that about 10 percent of
the group’s guards were black.) I’ve seen some worries in the
press that the Oath Keepers’ presence “could
inflame tensions further,” but I have not seen any reports of
violence either by or against the group’s St. Louis patrols. The
locals quoted in the Times and Post-Dispatch
pieces seem to think their presence served as a deterrant.

You can read the rest of Post-Dispatch story
here. One of the Oath Keepers reacts to the police’s order to
come down from the roofs here.
The Oath Keepers’ call for Ferguson volunteers—which also denounces
“egregious violations of the rights of peaceful protesters and
media” during the last big wave of Ferguson protests—is
here. (The Oath Keepers’ basic position on the situation is
that the government has trampled the rights of peaceful protesters
while neglecting their duty to protect lives and property.) Some
thoughts on the Oath Keepers’ activities during those earlier
protests are here.
A feature I wrote about the Oath Keepers four years ago is here.
Radley Balko interviews the group’s founder here.

It’s difficult to ignore the racial aspects of
law enforcement when something as stupid as this happens. A
Pontiac, Michigan, cop stopped to question a black pedestrian
becaue the man was walking down the street with hs hands in his
pockets. As a Michigan native, I can assure you the man had good
reason to do this—it’s really cold in the winter.

Ah, but when a black man tries to keep warm, it
“makes people nervous.” Indeed, somebody who saw the man actually
called the cops, prompting the officer to check the situation.

“You were making people nervous,” the officer explained,
somewhat defensively, after the man demanded to know why he was
stopped. “They said you had your hands in your pockets.”

A video of the encounter is available below.

To the officer’s credit, I suppose, he remains fairly polite and
doesn’t taser the pedestrian—or tackle, shoot, or maim the guy in
any way at all. He’s just a little annoyed that someone would
object to being questioned for having his hands in his
pockets. Maybe this counts as a positive police
interaction, these days?

In any case, when in the Mitten State, wear your mittens. Lest
somebody sics the police on you.

Or, as News Mic’s Jared Keller
put it:

And here’s the broader lesson of McKean’s relatively pleasant
run-in with the Pontiac police: If you see a black person walking
through your neighborhood with his hands in his pockets, don’t just
assume they’re up to no good and call the police for no good reason
— especially if it’s freezing outside.