If you consider it being a pain in the ass to require some supporting facts then you should just avoid discussions with more than one possible view.
I don't see where you're getting the 1973 quote, and I just did a ctrl f search to find any mention of 1973 in wikipedia's 63 reference.
I also tried permutations of your quote, thinking maybe you typoed the year, but there is no segment that is "legalization of abortion" so I'm not sure why you used quotes, or even where you got it from in the source.
I would apologize for being a pain, but there is no reason that requiring evidence to be persuaded my viewpoint is wrong isn't an outrageous request.
doublepost?
Sorry, it was 62, not 63. The year is correct, the article is Abortion in the United States.
If you scroll down to the references at the bottom and click on the 62, it will jump to where it is in the article.
Yeah, the pain is in that it should be kind of obvious; if something is illegal, that generally deters people from doing it.
Glantri,
While yes, the human race can be surprising, there are other times things that are not worth debating because the answer is so obvious.
Communism = Bad.
Naziism = Bad.
Not really worth debating either one in a lot of ways.
Being illegal doesn't deter people to the extent that was implied. Going back to the original statement of several hundred thousand after abortion was legalized to only a thousand before hand would mean that it being illegal caused 99% who otherwise would have an abortion not to. That's absurd, and no supported by facts.
Also, drugs are very prevalent despite the fact that they are illegal and there are theories that it would not see a significant increase in use if legalized.
Tad:
You attempted to gain an advantage in the discussion by playing on the strong emotions communism and naziism evoke from people, despite there being no relevance to the current discussion.
If you want to make a statement of numbers growing and have any credibility you have to have supporting fact. Regardless of who the person is.
You mean hypotheses; if they were theories, there would have been many controlled tests performed with similar results. Some drugs are more prevalent than others. Which one are you talking about?
I think he was making the point that the increase in abortion rates causes an increase in maternal fatalities beyond that which occurred before, when abortions were illegal. It makes sense, logically speaking, especially in since in the 1960s abortions were performed (mostly) illegally by trained medical professionals and were not as unsafe as the time worn punch-in-the-stomach or coat hanger techniques. Granted, he didn't have the numbers on hand when he made the point, but the point is still made that legal abortions have increased maternal fatality rates.
bump
bump
bump
and bump.
bumpagain!!!
True to a point, but its also relevant. Some things are not worth arguing about. Gravity exists. Nazis are bad. Ice cream tastes great...
At some point you can learn the taste of truth. It helps to realize that a lot of statitistics are made up.
Freud was influential even though he mainly interviewed people with serious issues. So he was effectively basing his theories of normal humans on the abnormal.
Kinsey got a lot of influence even though he was interviewing a lot of folks who one would reasonably suspect had serious sexual issues (if I'm remembering right he interviewed a lot of prisoners among others.)
At one time it was considered the truth that ten percent of people were homosexuals. But others, and me after a bit started questioning it. Now the number is considered 1-2 percent.
After enough of these experiences, including times where you ignored your own 'that don't make sense' in favor of the Accepted Truth, you start to trust your own intuition.
There's an illustration pastors like to use which may be helpful. Bank tellers know how to detect counterfeit money. They don't do this by examining lots of counterfeits. They do this by learning what real money is like, and then its obvious what the fake is.
You learn the taste of truth.
Or to put it another way...
You'd spot it immediately if a random hundred pixels in your computer screen were flipped to white or even to some less standout choice. There is a pattern to reality, composed of hundreds of facts, and then someone comes along and says these dozen facts are wrong....problem is, then the whole picture doesn't hang togehter.
What I'm arguing is for the use of intuition and experience as judgement. Logic is great, but its actually a secondary method of deciding things.
Do you really think, based on good sense, that abortions are equal in the legal and non-legal settings?
A lot has been said here already in a discussion that has time and time again been proven to lead to nothing but enmity and anger.
Some good stuff has been said, some bad stuff has been said. As it already seems to be the people versus Glantri I will not join this discussion. Glantri is brave in stating his view and voicing his opinion, whether I agree with it or not. He knows that a majority (or at least the biggest minority) of users on this forum are bible believing Christians.
For those who honestly want to read about abortion and why it is (considered) bad (as this is my stand on the matter) by many Christians, I would encourage you to read a little booklet called 'Social Justice Begins in the Womb', written by Bryan Kemper. It also has numbers.
Glantri, while I am firm in my belief that abortion is murder, I feel compelled to let you know that I do not hate you. (should you think I would)
I don't hate Mike either. He hasn't actually said he's anti-life, but I wouldn't hate him even if he did. I wouldn't hate him even if he announced to the forum that he performs abortions in his basement with a pair of brass knuckles. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Just saying that everyone deserves a chance at life.
I'm going to make a concession and also hopefully bow out of this discussion, mostly out of not wishing to aggravate people who I think highly of. (which is all of you, in different ways)
As to whether I feel that it makes sense that abortion rates are the same whether illegal or legal I believe it's not completely unreasonable, although I do find it shocking. This is in part why I asked people to give me numbers. I'm willing to read things and potentially change my mind, but I won't change my mind because "But this should make sense".
All in all I was mainly just trying to point out the growth wasn't what was stated. I find it hard to believe the source I gave entirely, but I find it equally hard to imagine the boom that MJ mentioned.
I'm hoping to bow out of this conversation, with the concession that the information is murky and overall not terribly important to why people object to abortions. Also thank you to everyone for not hating me over my views, I sometimes am a little too outspoken about some of them.
You should not be afraid to voice your beliefs. ;) And I agree with statistics not being terribly important in the reasons for believing one way or the other. And I also agree with Kylers post, completely.
Yeah, I suspect MJ's boom was based to give a general idea, not to give exact specified numbers. The point he was making is that more women die from safer, legal abortions than died in the old days from "coat hanger" abortions, for the simple reason that more women get abortions since they're readily available; he was using hyperbole to adaquately demonstrate the example for sake of ease to the reader, not listing genuine statistics. It was a "for instance."
Had an interesting bit tonight when I was taking the kids trick or treating. Turned my ankle on an irregular edge of the road, and went down in the road. Large grey cloak on asphalt. Guy in the opposite lane facing away, and then a small car comes whipping (well, whipping a bit anyways) around the truck and into my lane where I am sitting on the road assessing how badly my ankle hurts.
I'm quickly getting up, and my wife is flagging the guy down. Oh, and in his car, he had one headlight, on my side, which did not work right.
No serious injuries, and my ankle is only mildly turned.
Next time I hope to wear a lighted bracelet or something.
Should have used Great Jump B5@6 :P
Glad you are ok.
Further, even were MJ's statistics meant to be accurate, he cited numbers from years that were fairly far apart, so it was not a 99% difference-you have to take into account population changes.
Someone, I think it was Kyler, was talking about an interview process for getting an abortion. That should just have a scant two questions.
1) Were you aware of the fact that having sex could get you pregnant? (Yes)
2) Were you raped? (No)
ABORTION DENIED!!!!!!!!
Women do have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies. They had that right before they had sex.
Two
Mistake
1) Were you aware of the fact that having sex could get you pregnant? (Yes)
2) Were you raped? (No)ABORTION DENIED!!!!!!!!
I'd add:
3) Were you using effective birth control properly? (no)
4) Is there a legitimate medical reason, eg. tubular pregancy? (no)
Three is more of an open question, but four is pretty important, since tubular pregnancies and the like are almost invariably fatal to both mother and child.
***
In other news, apparently thirty states are using internet voting this election. Also, DC ran an open security test. University of Michigan picked the final candidate, beating out other teams, including Chinese and Iranian government ones.
The Internet: Not actually secure enough to trust with elections.
Hmm... is it okay for the rape victim to murder her rapist?
Then why should it be okay for her to murder the child, who had no control over the father's actions?
I think adoption is the better answer in such situations.
Edit:
HOWEVER, there are valid medical reasons to have an abortion. If it is the feeling of the doctor that neither the mother nor the child will survive the pregnancy, whether it's a tubular pregnancy or a nine year old rape victim, that makes it a no brainer. If just the mother probably won't survive the pregnancy, I would be all for an abortion in that case if it was the will of the mother. If the child would probably not survive the pregnancy, well, why bother with the abortion, then. And finally, if the child will almost surely be born handicapped, mentally or physically, I'm against the abortion. (1 in 4 children born to a Bipolar parent become Bipolar in their lifetime. Two Bipolar parents raises it to 1 in 2.)
Ya know Kyler, I was just about to post about that. If the pregnancy is dangerous to the mother, then there's no point in allowing it to continue. Better to save the mother if they're both going to die anyway. I personally know two women who kept babies which were the product of a rape. Aborting a baby in that case is like killing a son because of a crime his father committed. I thought that line of thinking went out in The Dark Ages, ya know? The point I was making is she knew she could get pregnant by having sex. She took a risk, she consented to it. She can deal with the consequences of it.
As I've learned on this board, you don't let people off the hook for doing something stupid.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
One of them was intending to have an abortion. While they were examining her, they let her listen to the heartbeat. She said she couldn't do it after that.
(Doing Therapy)
I want to apologize to Mike for some of the confusion that arose from my post. I was dredging up twenty-five-year-old memories from a time when I was surrounded by the issue, and trying to rebuild something of what I once knew much better. I do know that
- the rise in abortions in the years following Roe v. Wade was drastic;
- that there were significantly more fatalities among those obtaining legal abortions than there had been among those obtaining illegal ones even though the mortality rate dropped significantly;
- and that by the nineteen eighties many women looked on abortion as a viable contraceptive method to be used either if other methods failed or if you were unlucky enough to get pregnant (remember, the odds are against pregnancy on any one sexual encounter, and it's like rolling dice--you could miss every time). I spoke with such women, and spoke with many counselors who spoke with such women.
How much the situation has changed I do not know. I do know that too many children are killed because mothers don't wish to be bothered with the birth process.
I also certainly agree that if the life of the mother in endangered an abortion is an obvious solution. The in vitro solutions are still some years away. The problem is that once someone adds "and health" to that statement it becomes a matter of whether the mother thinks that having a baby would ruin or social life and cause her psychological trauma, and while I'm sorry about that I don't think anyone should be able to kill someone else simply because of negative impact to social life.
Eric, glad you're all right.
--M. J. Young
You probably mean "alright"; Eric's ego is big enough without thinking he's got no wrong at all.
Kidding.
Funny how languages work like that. I read about a Russian secretary who frequently saved people from prison camps by simply transposing a single comma.
The original order read:
Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.
She would transpose the comma to say:
Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.
Strange how that works, ya know?
(Doing Therapy)
Two
I wish I could remember how it went, but I read another example of that. The exact same words. Punctuated one way, it was a steamy love letter a girl was writing to her boyfriend, punctuated a different way, it was an "I hate you and never want to see you again" letter. Same words, just different placement of commas and so forth.
(Doing Therapy)
I would have used my super ego shield, a Psi skill, but the side effect would have been to totally intimidate Kyler with my awesomeoness. :)
Hahaha. If anyone's got an inflated ego, I'd be first to admit it's me.
I owned a copy of a Bookcase Game created by Steve Allen (the original host of The Tonight Show) entitled Blow Your Own Horn. It involved drawing cards and trying to out-boast everyone at the table with your own claims to fame in the area denoted on the card. Sometimes, though, the card would challenge you to outboast Steve Allen in one of his strong areas--television, acting, music, writing, some other entertainment area fields.
Never played it, don't know what became of it, probably lost in one of our disasters.
Interestingly, I am surprised that people are impressed by my accomplishments. I don't feel that I've accomplished as much as the average person. So maybe I'm not so egotistical as people once thought.
Of course, it isn't really egotistical if you make true statements about yourself in appropriate contexts.
--M. J. Young
MJ, you were saying that you thought I would enjoy an accurate representation of Terminator. Flatline biases. I would very much love that, IF an infinity loop wasn't at stake. One bad dice roll. That's all it would take, and I'm stuck in the loop forever. That's a lot to put on someone, without giving them the means to escape it ahead of time. I think a high magic curve is only fair, given the circumstances. Take out the threat of an infinity loop, and you can drop the biases.
Eric, you were talking about running me in one. If it's a normal verse in verse out no infinity loop scenario, I'd love it.
(Doing Therapy)
I'll see what I can do.
When I say that you should listen to the players, it's more to get ideas. I could tell you a lot of things about the Terminator world that I know, you take what I tell you and make it your own. That way you never run out of ideas.
(Doing Therapy)
You wouldn't necessarily be stuck in an infinity loop forever.
It would just take an external influence to get you out; another verser, for instance. Since you would have been there an eternity before that happened, it would happen right away.
=P whatever sense that makes.
Of course, it isn't really egotistical if you make true statements about yourself in appropriate contexts.
Ah, but it never seems to stop feeling like it, you know?
What Kyler said, of course.
--M. J. Young