So the most populous country in the world is just thrown out of the an of the analysis? Doesn't seem like a good idea to me, your ignoring over a billion people.
Well, it was a very good idea. China is a COMMUNIST country. It had a ONE CHILD POLICY. It utilized forced abortions and sterilizaton. Children (beyond one) were ILLEGAL.
Statistics from such a country (even if accurate reporting was available, which it wasn't) would have skewed the meaningful data on the subject, and undermined the study of a serious health issue.
To sum up - I admit I missed 2 of your points (that where apparently made on a link you posted rather then in the actual text of your message), but you either missed repeatedly or are ignoring several of my points
I know SI requires time. I also have many other abortion links which I look at. I do not have the time to write an essay--with material organized, categorized, properly attributed, etc. In a broad issue such as this, there needs to be a mutual reliance on good faith and general intelligence. Of course, when a site says that such and such is more likely to be undeveloped, or illegal, or blah, blah, blah--I recognize that we are being deprived (for the purpose of the article) of perhaps thousands of pages of data and interpretation. This is in the nature of things.
When a respected source appears to be summarizing from data or indicating general trends or tentative positions--I accept that as a genuine effort. For that very reason, for instance, I have not opposed the stats of 34 and 39 that you now consider important to your cause.
As to your points: The only points obvious to me were that you were unwilling to concede any meaning to the stats I quoted, even though the authors were assigning meaning, interpretation, and additional commentary, for which they (of course) did not bother to include the thousands of pages of reporting data that would had to have been examined and incorporated into their rendering. It is easy to say there MIGHT be other variables. Of course there ARE other variables. And they are infinite in number, and a statistical figure cannot ever be entirely concretized in the interpretive arena. Such an oposition, however, is not an "argument." It is a mutual recognition of incompleteness, and it is an automaticaly assumed disclaimer for all such data.
They did provide the Latin anaylsis in more detail, including commentary on possible reasons for increased or decreased safety, etc. The Latin charts and analysis were an example of the process, and it shows that these people, whose daily job is to MAKE sense of the statistics--are entirely aware of the many factors present that can only be imperfectly incorporated into the ongoing data interpretations. Again, this incompleteness is not grounds for assailing the data, nor the comments they do bring to the site.
If we read all the reporting papers and such, we would never have time to post on SI, and we would be very very confused. Other people are being paid to bring a little bit of sensible information out of the combing of endlessly generated and confusing data.
It was clear to me that many variables influence birth rate and abortion rate world wide. Most of these variables are present and common in different degrees in countries with illegal and illegal abortions. But the legal does not always mean affordable, and the illegal does not always mean back alley (money talks). So unless you are credentialed in the field, I think it more appropriate that we accept the commentary of experts while (of course) watching for biased motivations, etc. That is why, again, I do not atack the figures which you are now using to show a slight difference in abortion rates between developed and developing countries. I found it surprizing (as they did) that after all the other variables have contributed their effects, we still find such a corespondence in the prevalence of abortions between developed/developing and "more likely to be" illegal versus legal, etc. One might expect (if the motivation for abortion was thinly based and not very compelling) that making it illegal (especially given the nature of many of the countries that keep it illegal due primarily to religious, often RC influences, and the increased risk brought about by inconsistent and unpreditable application of law), that abortion would all but disappear. In many countries, it takes a great deal of courage to cross their laws--a great deal. The fact that there is such uniformity of the procedure suggests ("suggests") to me, that the demand for abortion is based on serious and compelling considerations, and that it is the most significant variable involved both historically and in the present. There seems to be a general consensus forming that making abortions illegal simply "forces" mothers to put their life and health at risk, as well as the chance of any current living children continuing to have a mother, at risk.
Your claim that legalizing abortions harms embryos is an odd one, and I am unsure why a non religious person would throw it in. It as if you think a smudge of cells is equal in value to somebodies mother. I don't get where you come from. It seems a very cold and calloused attitude. I believe you said that you don't believe in a soul entering the yolk, and that you don't believe that humans have any divine value over and above other life forms, and yet you still act as if every unwanted smudge of sperm should be forced into existence even if it means destroying the lives and the happiness of real living persons with families and loved ones. Why would you not be doing the same thing for every dog, cow, or crocodile embryo? If a human being has no divine pre-eminence, then what is your beef about bringing lower life forms into a world where they are unwanted? I can understand the opposition of religious people. They think something divine (but full of original sin) slips into the the egg/sperm and remains attached to it for 75 years (which indicates by the way, just how tiny the soul must be--no wonder no-one can find it). But why YOU would place a clump of cells ahead of a living breathing human being and her family? Furthermore, if your opposition is n on religious, then why do you not oppose contraception. Contraception prevents human life from developing as surely as abortion. A sperm and egg half an inch apart have just as much bloody potential as when they meet. And they are both infinitely far from cirent consciousness while yet both 9 months apart from breathing air. Why should the one breath air and not the other? I understand the "arguments" of religious people but you? I can only wonder. I shake my head, and I wonder why a mother should die and her family should lose her--because one of bllions of sperm managed to touch an egg--not just any egg--but a human one... |
