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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ga Bard who wrote (185783)	9/23/2001 8:07:02 PM
From: gao seng	Respond to of 769670

<Legalized abortion can account for about half the observed decline in crime in the U.S. between 1991 and 1997.> Margaret Sanger would be proud. Wonder how many trees have been saved.

To: Ga Bard who wrote (185783)	9/23/2001 8:21:40 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Estimates of the annual number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million 50s AND 60s...200,00 to 1.2 million....that is pretty convenient to pump it up huh? Life Without Roe: Making Predictions About Illegal Abortions WASHINGTON, D.C. - Laws preventing abortion will not only dramatically reduce the total number of abortions, but also the number of women and babies killed by either legal or illegal abortion, according to a report released by the Horatio R. Storer Foundation. "This report carefully and clearly debunks the myth that women will die if abortion is no longer available," said Cynthia McKnight, author of the report and a specialist in state legislative issues at the Storer Foundation. "Medical progress in treating complications, not legalization of abortion, accounts for the enormous drop in maternal abortion deaths from the 1940s to the 1970s." The report, Life Without Roe: Making Predictions About Illegal Abortions, was released Wednesday, July 1, 1992 by the Storer Foundation, an educational foundation dedicated to examining issues related to life and death and affiliated with the National Right to Life Committee. The report, both historical and forward-looking in its scope, examines previous studies and statistics on the number of illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade and the number of maternal deaths (deaths of mothers) from legal and illegal abortion to provide a scientific framework for predicting "life without Roe." The report provides the basis for estimates that there were a mean of less than 100,000 illegal abortions annually in the years before Roe v. Wade, far fewer than the 1 million repeatedly claimed by abortion advocates. "Today, there are 1.6 million abortions each year - 16 times as many as in the years before legalization," McKnight noted. "Even assuming an increased risk from illegal abortions, that means that the total number of women dying and being hurt by abortion would be less in a post-Roe America with protective laws than it is today." Before Roe v. Wade, there were approximately 100,000 illegal abortions per year, a number far lower than the 1 million claimed by abortion advocates. The largest reasonably possible number of illegal abortions in any one year before Roe v. Wade was approximately 210,000 in 1961; the lowest was about 39,000 in 1950. The mean was 98,000 per year. The data demonstrates an exponential increase in the number of abortions since legalization. There are roughly 16 times as many abortions now each year as there were in an average year before Roe v. Wade. The claims by abortion advocates that 1,000,000 or more illegal abortions occurred annually and 5,000-10,000 women died are based on inaccurately calculated extrapolations from flawed and erroneous data of the 1920s and the 1930s - the pre-penicillin era. The number of deaths of childbearing-age women for non-abortion related causes remained relatively constant in the years before Roe v. Wade, showing that deaths from illegal abortion could not have been "hidden" under other causes of death. Advances in medical technology, not the legalization of abortion, caused a significant drop in the number of maternal deaths from abortion: maternal deaths from illegal abortions were above 1,000 per year only in the pre-penicillin era (1940). The maternal abortion deaths dropped sharply with the advent of antibiotics (penicillin and sulfa) and other medical advances to treat infections. the maternal death rate had declined to 30 maternal deaths from illegal abortions by 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade was decided. If maternal abortion deaths were significantly under-reported in the official statistics, there would be an over-reporting of other causes of death. But multiple forms of analysis demonstrate this did not occur. The small numbers of maternal deaths demonstrate that there were a comparatively small number of illegal abortions pre-Roe, suggesting that the total number of abortions would drop substantially if protective laws were again in effect. "As America looks forward to life without Roe, the debate on the legality of abortion must move beyond unsubstantiated claims and toward a realistic approach sensitive to the lives of both women and unborn children," the report concludes.

To: Ga Bard who wrote (185783)	9/23/2001 8:23:07 PM
From: alan w	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Deaths from abortion declined dramatically during the past two decades. Not for the aborted babies. Saved the mothers, but not the innocent children. Aren't you proud. alan w

To: Ga Bard who wrote (185783)	9/23/2001 8:26:17 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

The legalization of abortion is a significant factor in the dramatic drop in crime in the U.S. in the 1990s. Wrong again...your breath is starting to reek of lighter fluid....be careful. Still Irrelevant - Crime and Abortion One of the latest salvos in the battle over legalized abortion is a study by Stanford Law Professor John Donahue claiming that as much as half of the decrease in crime during the 1990’s was a result of legalized abortion. Opponents of legalized abortion have long claimed that abortion increases the crime rate by cheapening life. It was only a matter of time before proponents of legalized abortion tried to use a similar argument to support their cause. While legalized abortion probably does contribute to crime by devaluing human life, the point is impossible to prove and usually only provokes another distracting argument. Whether legalized abortion increases or decreases crime is irrelevant to whether abortion should be legal. Lies and Statistics While proponents of legalized abortion are dancing with glee over the claim that killing off the unborn reduces crime, the actual numbers are not as clear as they would claim. The drop in crime during the 90’s has been attributed to many causes. For instance, David Murray of the Statistical Assessment Service points out that if abortion accounted for the drop in crime, then crime would have dropped first among the younger generation which has been decimated by abortion. Instead, crime dropped first among older groups.* A friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in political science from a major public university and a background in statistical analysis asked the authors of the study to see exactly what data they used so that he could look for similar discrepancies. They refused saying that they might release the raw data later. What they have to hide in the raw data is unknown, but the "kill a fetus, reduce crime" hypothesis is still far from proven. The Real Issue Whatever the real correlation between abortion and crime, the correlation is irrelevant to whether abortion should be legal. As I have insisted many times, there are two questions that determine whether abortion should be legal. The first is whether the unborn child is a person. If it isn’t a person, then abortion should be legal. If the unborn child isn’t a person, no rise or fall in the crime rate justifies interfering with a woman’s right to control her own body. If the unborn child is a person, then the question should be whether anything justifies ending the life of the innocent unborn child. While I believe that there may be situations related to the mother that justify ending the child’s life, ending the child’s life as a sacrifice to society is always and completely wrong. The rise or fall of a crime rate does not justify that killing. As an example, consider that many people say that the police know where most of the criminals live. They could point out the neighborhoods where we would find most criminals sleeping as most hard-working Americans prepare for another day. If one supports the idea that killing the innocent is justified to reduce the crime rate, why shouldn’t we simply sneak into these neighborhoods when they criminals are sleeping and release large quantities of poisonous gas? We would kill the innocent as well as the guilty, but abortion kills those who in the future will be innocent as well as those who will be guilty. (When abortion kills them, they are all innocent.) The poison gas solution would mean executing people whose crimes would not normally warrant capital punishment. Likewise, using abortion to reduce the crime rate means executing people whose future crimes will fall far short of those required to earn the death penalty. At this point, proponents of legalized abortion are screaming, "But it’s not the same thing!!" They are wrong. In fact, the abortion debate revolves around whether it is the same thing. Honest proponents of legalized abortion have looked carefully at the evidence and decided that the unborn child is not a person or are at least willing to admit a willingness to keep the killing legal. While I disagree with them, I appreciate their willingness to understand the real issue. Others will continue screaming from their self-imposed blindness. The one sense in which eliminating certain neighborhoods isn’t the same as eliminating unborn children is that at least some of the criminals in those neighborhoods are guilty. Abortion as a crime deterrent has never punished someone who was already guilty. Professor Donahue claims not to be advocating a pro-abortion agenda, but his claims are irrelevant to the issue. He claims to favor ensuring that every child is wanted in a good home and that unwanted pregnancies do not occur. While these are laudable goals, they are also used as an excuse for legalized abortion when they are not met. They are good goals, but they do not justify ending the life of an innocent unborn person. For those still screaming "It’s not the same!:" I disagree. The issue rests entirely on whether you are killing an innocent person, and the evidence is not on your side. * Foxnews.com, May 16, 2001. (via The Pro-Life Infonet, infonet@prolifeinfo.