Abortion rates same, regardless of legal status

[gam197]

This study was brought up by KarenNC in another thread -
Plan B and soaring STD’s???

I posted this statement from the US Bishops.

But Deirdre McQuade, a spokeswoman for the nation’s Catholic bishops, says the study’s methodology is flawed.

“The authors start out by simply defining ‘safe’ abortions as ‘those that meet legal requirements’ in countries with permissive laws,” she told LifeNews.com.

“But by this unusual definition, legal abortions are ‘safe’ even if they kill women as well as their unborn children,” she explained. “The authors then say that illegal abortions are ‘harmful’ – even when women experience no medical complications – because women have to violate the law.”

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, told LifeNews.com he agreed the study is completely flawed.

lifenews.com/int474.html

And some history on the medical community on the US, as this study was published in the British medical journal, the Lancet.

High politics aside, the A.M.A.'s 1937 convention was notable for several other events and reports:

Contraception Approved. Of greatest sociological significance was the A.M.A.'s formal approval of contraception. After 21 years of prodding by Mrs. Margaret (Higgins) Sanger (Slee) and two years of actual argument among themselves the doctors last week decided that contraception was now such a prevalent and accepted U. S. custom that it was prudent for the profession to take charge of the nation’s 342 Birth Control clinics and $575,000,000 commerce in contraceptives. Medical schools hereafter will teach “how to space babies to protect the mother’s health and the father’s bank balance.”

Roman Catholic priests instantly set up a violent denunciation of this decision. Father Ignatius Wiley Cox, professor of ethics in Manhattan’s Fordham University, rushed to Atlantic City, assembled 75 members of the Federation of Catholic Physicians Guilds of America in a room at Crane & Co.'s plumbing exhibit and promised to “advocate a Legion of Decency with regard to firms dealing in contraceptives and doctors approving their use.”

This put two potent U. S. doctors in moral soup. Surgeon General Thomas Parran Jr. is a devout Catholic. William Irvin Abell, president-elect of the A.M.A., is Louisville’s foremost and richest Catholic. Before Dr. Abell begins an operation he kneels and prays.

time.com/time/magazine/ar…7971-5,00.html

Nationalized Doctors?
time.com/time/magazine/0,…370621,00.html

July 12, 1937

time.com/time/magazine/ar…788167,00.html

 

[gam197]

There are many responses on methodology.

a response by Dr. Keith Schumann to the study…

marysaggies.blogspot.com/2007…her-stats.html

Quote:
-The researchers “corrected” some data for under-reporting. The correction inflation was usually about 140%. The US correction factor was 105%; Bangladesh was 300%. Therefore, for countries where abortions are illegal, the total number of abortions was estimated, then inflated, and then all of these were considered unsafe.
Quote:
-Oddly enough, when you estimate and then inflate the number of abortions in regions where they are illegal and unreported, you arrive at the fact that the incidence of abortions is no higher for polities that have unrestrictive abortion policies.
Quote:
-Based on the information presented in this article, there is no way to reproduce the statistics; there is a tremendous amount of rounding error and the underlying raw data is essential unavailable given the “corrections.”

thelancet.com/journals/la…1575X/abstract

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Statistician Refutes Planned Parenthood Report

ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=83343

 

[rwoehmke]

Any body out there have any statistics on abortion rates pre-Roe VS Wade? I know at least one woman had one in the early 40’s. Legal or il-legal an abortion could be had if someone wanted one.
I have no doubts that the rate was much lower than today’s, but I think it will turn out to be more than a “drop in the bucket.” Anyone who believes that reversing Roe VS Wade and passing laws will completely stop abortions is more than a little naive. My personal belief is that a reversal would be welcome, but it won’t provide “utopia”.

 

[rlg94086]

Any body out there have any statistics on abortion rates pre-Roe VS Wade? I know at least one woman had one in the early 40’s. Legal or il-legal an abortion could be had if someone wanted one.
I have no doubts that the rate was much lower than today’s, but I think it will turn out to be more than a “drop in the bucket.” Anyone who believes that reversing Roe VS Wade and passing laws will completely stop abortions is more than a little naive. My personal belief is that a reversal would be welcome, but it won’t provide “utopia”.

Nice straw man…who has claimed that a reversal would be a “utopia?”

Most people know that a Roe v. Wade would only *allow *states to restrict/outlaw abortion. In many states, nothing would change. Pro-lifers do much more than call for the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Some would prefer a Constitutional amendment recognizing the rights of an unborn child to life, but that is pretty far off.

Other pro-life actions include: educating people on the immorality of killing an unborn child, supporting adoption, providing “crisis” pregnancy support, etc. These will still be required if Roe v. Wade is overturned. The reason we want Roe v. Wade overturned is because it will allow us to push for legislation at our local levels.

 

[mozart-250]

In another thread I looked at abortion rates by states versus the relative restrictions a state imposes on abortion.

Although there are outliers in the data, the trend is clear. There is a correlation between the the abortion rate of a state and the number of legal restrictions a state imposes on abortion.

Now I did not study abortion rates by states versus the per capita income of states, but just by eyeballing the data, it is hard to see any correlation…if anything…the poorer a state was the lower the abortion rate seemed to be.

 

[gam197]

Here is another article that is important because if gives a statistics of New York. New York was one of the first states and a primary state that did abortion without prosecuting. It became the abortion state early on. This figures represents “legal abortion” in the sense it was well-publicized that in New York, doctors did abortions in hospitals. People came from all over.

Prior to this the figures were probably much lower as doctors were prosecuted.

Additionally, while New York City reported resident and non-resident abortions from July 1, 1970, to June 30, 1972, to total 334,865, Jean Pakter, M.D., stated:

"After correcting for under-reporting (approximately 16.7 percent), it is conservatively estimated that 402,000 abortions were actually performed in the two-year period."17

all.org/article.php?id=10110

The number is somewhere between- as little as this 1937 article saying about 2000 abortions in NY and Newark,NJ. This abortionist made girls pose nude.

More than 2,000 women in Newark, New York City and neighboring communities subscribed to the system of this
abortionist whose name echoed London’s famed Harley Street where England’s most honorable doctors have their
offices.

time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770627,00.html

time.com/time/searchresults?No=0&sid=115F7193AC67&Ntk=WithBodyDate&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&N=46&Nf=p_date_range%7cBTWN+19370101+19371205&Nty=1

False figures have always been around…

I

NARAL (the acronym for the then-National Association for the Reform of
Abortion Laws) we generally emphasize the drama of the individual case, not the mass
statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always 5,000 to 10,000 deaths each year’.
I confess that I knew the figures were totally false…But in the `morality’ of our
revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it
with honest statistics?" Said Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL and
once the director of the busiest abortion clinic in the Western world. (From Aborting
America, Doubleday, 1979.)

Stats before Roe. vs. Wade

64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:2mVcpLs85E8J:www.grtl.org/docs/roevwade.pdf+abortion+rates+before+roe+verses+wade&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

 

[SoCalRC]

-The researchers “corrected” some data for under-reporting. The correction inflation was usually about 140%. The US correction factor was 105%; Bangladesh was 300%. Therefore, for countries where abortions are illegal, the total number of abortions was estimated, then inflated, and then all of these were considered unsafe.

Wouldn’t this make sense? If it is illegal, more of the activity is underground. If it is legal, there are more public records sources to collate.

Again, no one complains when the same methods are used to get a more accurate count of about 1.2M abortions in the US vs. the CDC’s 800,000. So why is everyone screaching now?

Yes, legalized abortion drops maternal deaths, even with modern medicine, antibiotics, and plasma. In the last year tabulated that I can find there were 7 abortion related maternal deaths in the US. Just prior to Roe, when many people here claim there were dramatically fewer abortions, the number was about 30. Pre antibiotics and plasma, like the mid 1940s, we can found thousands.

But what is the big deal? It is modern medical care that makes the huge difference, not legal status.

And, yes, there appears to be a statistical correllation between abortion rates and contraception. How does this threaten Catholic beliefs? We are called to do what is right, not what is expedient or easy.

Why are we putting ourselves in a silly position of asserting that prohibition, in of itself, is a productive strategy? We know that Christianity prohibited infanticide, the intentional killing of newborns, since the 2nd century, but it took a millenia for the Church to effectively elliminate it among the faithful, and we dealt with abandonment for centuries more.

Make it illegal if you want, but the real change has to be both in ellimating the excuses and in changing fundemental beliefs.

 

[SoCalRC]

Sadly, there are many ‘Catholic’ doctors as there are many ‘Catholic’ politicians. Catholicism encompasses much more than placing an adjective before ones name.

I think that is unduly harsh. Dying for one’s faith is a lot harder than it sounds. As is letting a patient die when you have taken up a profession of compassion and care.

We preport to have a love for all life, from conception to natural death - sinner and saint. If we can’t find compassion for a young mother dying with the twins inside her, or the tragedy of prenatal care turning into uterine cancer treatments, then our concern for fetal life rings hollow.

 

[vz71]

Somehow I don’t agree with that article. If abortion is illegal, and those who get abortions or perform abortions are punished, the abortion rate would drop dramatically. That said, I personally think abortion needs to remain legal at least for cases of rape, incest, molestation, and for the health or life of the mother.

A classic example of why ‘pro-life’ is often considered a difficult position.
People always want to make exceptions to the rule.
Is this some kind of concession to appear less hardline?

I do not see it. Either you are pro-life, or you are not.
Anything in between is actually somewhere along the very steep downhill slide that eventually ends with ‘pro-death’
All life is precious. Either you value it all, or you eventually value it none.

 

[gam197]

o

riginally posted by SoCalRC
If it is illegal, more of the activity is underground

If abortion is not something that young people have even heard of, why would you think it would be more prevalent underground. I certainly had never even heard the word when I was in my teens.

Why are we putting ourselves in a silly position of asserting that prohibition, in of itself, is a productive strategy?

Not only prohibition but prosecution of anyone involved in it. That was the way it used to be. Yes, there will be some deaths from illegal abortions and you are right, we now have antibiotics and good emergency care which should help. The wealthy will go overseas as they did before we had “legal” abortion. There are over 200,000 new cases yearly and 40,000 woman yearly die from breast cancer and many believe there is a correlation in those women who have had an abortion or used the pill.

 

[mozart-250]

In another thread I looked at abortion rates by states versus the relative restrictions a state imposes on abortion.

Found it here (post 318).

 

[rwoehmke]

Nice straw man…who has claimed that a reversal would be a “utopia?”

I hardly think that this comment was called for. I asked a legitimate question and stated an obvious truth. You got a thin skin or something?

 

[rlg94086]

I hardly think that this comment was called for. I asked a legitimate question and stated an obvious truth. You got a thin skin or something?

Not at all…I was just pointing out the fallacy of your argument. SoCalRC just made an equivalent statement.

SoCalRC:

Why are we putting ourselves in a silly position of asserting that prohibition, in of itself, is a productive strategy?

I don’t know of anyone who is asserting this. Therefore, it is a straw man argument. Do you have a thin skin or something?

 

[rwoehmke]

INot only prohibition but prosecution of anyone involved in it. That was the way it used to be. Yes, there will be some deaths from illegal abortions and you are right we now have antibiotics and good emergency care which should help and the wealthy will go overseas as they did before we had “legal” abortion. There are over 200,000 new cases yearly and 40,000 woman yearly die from breast cancer and many believe there is a correlation in those women who have had an abortion or used the pill.

I never lived in a state that prosecuted the woman having the abortion. The procurer and the provider, yes. Was there a state where the mother was open to prosecution?

 

[mozart-250]

Make it illegal if you want, but the real change has to be both in ellimating the excuses and in changing fundemental beliefs.

My belief has always been that if the objective of the pro-life movement is the criminalization of abortion, that objective is far too narrow.

The objective should always be the elimination of the practice of abortion. An example where this has been achieved in the past has been race base slavery in the United States.

This in practice will only be accomplished once society rejects the practice of abortion.

Of course a society that rejects the practice of abortion will have that rejection codified in its legal system (as opposed to protected as a “constitutional right” as it is today).

The only argument I have with myself is whether premature recriminalization of abortion (if possible) would be counterproductive to the long range goal of rejection of the practice of abortion.

 

[SoCalRC]

I don’t know of anyone who is asserting this. Therefore, it is a straw man argument. Do you have a thin skin or something?

No, just a willingness to actually read what others say. Estesbob has repeatedly gone ballistic every time I have suggested a possible connection between our social justice obligations and abortion.

We are not talking agreeing to disagree, we are talking about disagreement = bad Catholic. And diagreement = pro abortionist.

I’ve searched the Catechism and I still miss the part where GOP = GOD, despite his assertion that the GOP is the only source of real progress on “real” Catholic values.

 

[SoCalRC]

If abortion is not something that young people have even heard of, why would you think it would be more prevalent underground. I certainly had never even heard the word when I was in my teens.

Ah, a statistical universe of one. If your logic is correct, why do we primarily track illegal abortions in developing nations through death certificates?

Not only prohibition but prosecution of anyone involved in it. That was the way it used to be.

No, it was never that way. Abortion was legal until the latter part of the 19th century. Then it was ‘quasi illegal’ for decades (much the way prostitution still openly advertises in phone books, etc., today). We’ve never really prosecuted the women procuring the abortions, or the boyfriends/husbands for that matter. And we’ve really never aggressively even pursued and prosecuted the providers. Principally because it is our medical professionals, not back alley abortionists, who perform them.

Prosecution occured when someone was seriously injured or died (rare, at least post antibiotics and plasma). And not even then. During WW-II we had a huge uptick in abortion related maternal deaths, but no uptick in criminal prosecutions.

Since the majority of the public supports abortions in some cases (ex. rape, incest, life of the mother), why do you expect secular law and policing to be any more effective than, say, our experiment with prohibiting ‘strong drink’?

There are over 200,000 new cases yearly and 40,000 woman yearly die from breast cancer and many believe there is a correlation in those women who have had an abortion or used the pill.

I’m sorry, but I find this sort of stuff maddening. It is a serious social ill. We object to it as a matter of faith. Why are we rejecting science because it does not match one ‘solution’, embracing ‘science’ with virtually no basis to escalate the ill, and claiming that, this time, prohibition will work?

Autism rates are now placed at 1:166, is abortion to blame? We have had an explosion of PID and ectopic pregnancies, and current research seems to indicate that birth control is not a major causal factor…

If we want to be taken seriously by secular society then we have to try fitting our beliefs in secular society’s objective reality. Persuading people to change their beliefs is hard enough without asking them to take a leap of faith away from what they can see and observe as well.

 

[rlg94086]

No, just a willingness to actually read what others say. Estesbob has repeatedly gone ballistic every time I have suggested a possible connection between our social justice obligations and abortion.

We are not talking agreeing to disagree, we are talking about disagreement = bad Catholic. And diagreement = pro abortionist.

I’ve searched the Catechism and I still miss the part where GOP = GOD, despite his assertion that the GOP is the only source of real progress on “real” Catholic values.

I don’t think anyone can show any verifiable data on “real progress” for pro-life. The reason is that you can show correlations of data until you are blue in the face, but there is no way to link this data to cause-and-effect. The reason is that there are too many variables - stigma of abortion, legality of abortion, practice of abstinance, practice of birth control, promiscuity, effect of drug/prostitution, etc.

From a Catechism standpoint, abortion is a great evil, equivalent to murder. A rational Catholic should then understand that abortion, like murder, should be illegal.

I do understand the difference of opinion between conservatives and liberals on the effects of social welfare on life issues. However, like murder, we would continue to teach against it, try to find ways to lessen the occurance, while it is illegal.

IOW…the legality of abortion is a separate issue from the efforts to decrease abortion. It is as illogical to believe that abortion should be kept legal/safe, as it would be to make murder legal/safe and then work for other social change to lessen its occurence.

All of your anti-GOP rhetoric just clouds the things we should all agree on, as Catholics. If you are a Democrat, working within the party to try to make abortion illegal, then I respect your decision. I don’t understand it, since the party believes strongly in the right to murder an unborn child, but I respect your right to vote any way you choose. If you are truly working on a third party with Catholic views, I also respect that, though I believe it is an indirect vote for the Democrats.

 

[SoCalRC]

This is because from the beginning birth control and abortion has been aimed toward minorities and the poor as a solution (though a false solution) to thier poverty but mainly to control thier populations.

Sanglar was a eugencis supporter and a socialist. But we need to be careful using that as a weapon. From 1900-1930 both were hugely popular in the US. And there were strong ties to both congressional leadership and the prohibition movement.

Remember, we wrote the model for the Nazi’s ethnic purity law.

Also, remember that LBJ predicted, upon the Democratic caucus passing the Civil Rights Bill, that the south would be GOP for his lifetime and the lifetime of the person interviewing him. To this day, GOP hopefuls have to appeal to the ‘angry white male’ vote. It is discrete (maybe a speech on states rights at a location where civil rights workers were killed, like Reagan), but it has to occur.

So if we start screaming ‘racist’, while largely backing the GOP, we open the door to being called hypocrits. Particularly since immigrant bashing mostly focuses on hispanics, hence fellow Catholics.