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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (17093)	6/19/2001 1:52:47 AM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Excellent point Chris, and one that you have made better than I could. Upon reading that post I immediately thought of the old saying "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics". It also crossed my mind that it would be awfully hard to gather any meaningful statistics on a practice that by definition, is underground, by virtue of it's illegality. The fact that many "contraceptives" are in fact just an early form of abortion was also totally ignored. Any form of post conception contraceptive falls into this category, since a new life comes into existence at conception. Good evening.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (17093)	6/19/2001 2:46:42 AM
From: Solon	Respond to of 82486

I would suggest that that has more to do with the abortion rate than whether abortions are legal or illegal. Actually, the point is that the abortion rates do not appear to vary significantly between developed and undeveloped countries. The reason the statistics were given thusly is simply due to the fact that only a handful of countries are categorized as developed--and ALL the rest are otherwise. Unfortunately, statistics can only be applied against facts, and they are still dangerous. But one cannot make up the characteristics of the population group. The fact that developing and developed countries have similar rates of abortion (legal or illegal) certainly suggests something about a consistent demand for abortion. However, whatever correlations one might wish to draw between the legality of abortion, and the state of development (civilization) of a country, or additionally--the influence of religion compared to the secular in any particular country--still, it remains to be explained or justified, whether a policy of making abortions more illegal in the instances where they already are, holds any reasonable prospect of REDUCING the abortion rates; not because the prevalence of abortions in the illegal context (whether this takes place in developed countries, undeveloped countries, or on the moon) seems to be sufficient in and of itself to suggest a social advantage may be gained--but, rather, because the statistics, comparing legal to illegal abortions, regardless of all other factors, shows that a terrible human toll is being taken upon the living--without any benefit whatsoever to the dead. The point is that making abortions illegal has not come close (anywhere) to suggesting a public health benefit, so one is hard pressed to see just how illegal one needs to get before the incredible increase in maternal deaths and injury may be considered well-grounded. If any countries (developed, undeveloped, red, yellow, white) showed that making abortions illegal REDUCED their incidence, then this fact could be used as an argument for social policy (although a rather feeble one under the present statistics of maternal death and injury). But where does society have any evidence of this? I have spent the last hour (perhaps 2) with a long dist. call. I'm not sure I was finished this response. Probably not. Not really in shape to add to it. I have noted your book recommendation. Thank you.