Abortions have been falling steadily since their peak in 1990. Kevin Drum posts the graphic at left, which I gratefully stole from him, and links to an article trying to explain the decline:
Abortion rights advocates suggested women may be avoiding unwanted pregnancies, thanks in part to the morning-after pill, emergency contraception that is sold without a prescription to women 18 and older.Conservatives, by contrast, [focus on] laws in more than 30 states mandating counseling before an abortion.
Kevin does an able job of explaining why the conservative argument is nonsense: the pregnancy rate has dropped, and the abortion rate has dropped in states that don't have counseling requirements. He doesn't do quite as good a job at explaining why the abortion-rights activist explanation is also wrong--or at least, not backed up by the available evidence. The abortion rate has been falling pretty steadily for almost 20 years, but the morning after pill, though it has been widely known about since the 1980s, has only been legal in the United States since the late 1990s. Neither of those developments matches up with the observed drop in abortions very well. Nor is better sex ed a very good explanation; I'm aware of no revolution in sex-ed that occurred in the late eighties.
The best explanation may be AIDS; unprotected sex is riskier, so people are having much less of it. The fall roughly matches up with the widespread change towards perceiving AIDS as a heterosexual problem. But that's an offhand guess. We really don't know why the abortion rate has fallen, though I'm sure we're all glad it has.
Since we're seeding cockamamie theories, here's mine: People are just getting tired of doing it.
How about this theory: Drop in overall human fertility?
http://www.slate.com/id/2140985/
I agree with you Megan. As someone who had sex-ed in the mid 90s, the #1 topic (scare tactic?) was AIDS. For some reason, teenage pregnancy never scared people that much (which is odd, given that about 5% of my graduating class was pregnant). But AIDS (probably helped by Philadelphia) seemed like a 100% certainty if you were stupid enough to have unprotected sex. And the types of people who would use condoms to prevent AIDS seem like the same people who would've otherwise gone on to have an abortion, i.e. those not in a committed relationship.
It would be helpful to know whether the same trend exists across age groups.
Also: Is the fertile female population getting older? If teen pregnancies are fewer in raw numbers than 20s or 30s pregnancies, if 20s pregnancies are fewer than 30s pregnancies, that would mean more pregnant women feel mature enough to take on the responsibility.
I think we might be able rule out any possible effect of the welfare reforms of the Gingrich/Clinton era, inasmuch as the trend appears to have started before 1995. But we still can't be sure without the age information.
I also agree with Megan. I suspect that, were the data available, we would find that heterosexual sex frequency, among singles, would show the same trend of a steady fall starting in the mid-80s and continuing through the 90s. This fall was driven by heterosexual AIDS awareness.
Of course, I don't have this data, but I turned 18 in 1989 and I'm 100% sure its true.
How about the effect of changes in the age composition of the population on the fertility rate, and especially on the unwanted pregnancy rate?
This fall was driven by heterosexual AIDS awareness.
I don't doubt the truth of what you guys are saying here. I also think that sexual responsibility-- that is, taking care in protecting yourself from STDs and unwanted pregnancies-- is a really good thing. It's just interesting that the impetus to start taking that responsibility came/comes from fear of AIDS, considering that the chances that a non-intravenous drug using, heterosexual person in the developed world (specifically outside of sub-Saharan Africa or Brazil) will contract HIV remains incredibly low.
"We really don't know why the abortion rate has fallen, though I'm sure we're all glad it has."
Are we? I wonder. Not so long ago I passed by a "pro-choice" rally, and there was no indication that the women waving signs felt any ambivalence about the procedure. They seemed pretty gleeful about it.
After all, it's just a "clump of cells." Right? So really abortion's more serious than plastic surgery. And it's symbol of "women's liberation".
Or it could be that the living children of pro-life parents are much less likely to have abortions than the non-existent children of pro-abortion parents. Think of it as evolution in action.
Are we? I wonder. Not so long ago I passed by a "pro-choice" rally, and there was no indication that the women waving signs felt any ambivalence about the procedure. They seemed pretty gleeful about it.
After all, it's just a "clump of cells." Right? So really abortion's more serious than plastic surgery. And it's symbol of "women's liberation".
Stay classy, pro-life movement.
Maybe it has something to do with the increase in obesity?
We all know fatties like to kneel rather than lay.
It's just interesting that the impetus to start taking that responsibility came/comes from fear of AIDS, considering that the chances that a non-intravenous drug using, heterosexual person in the developed world (specifically outside of sub-Saharan Africa or Brazil) will contract HIV remains incredibly low.
Yet the fact that people think the risk is much higher is actually a good thing.
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss an expansion in an understanding of what constitutes "safe sex" but I also don't know of any specific data to confirm or deny that. It's only anecdotal, but growing up in rural Maine in the early to mid '90s my strong impression is that the amount of sex-ed in public schools was unprecedented for the area.
"Stay classy, pro-life movement."-Freddie
Freddie, you have it wrong. I am not a member of the pro-life movement. I wouldn't vote to make abortion illegal in al cases (though I do think Roe v. Wade should be overturned).
I agreed with Bill Clinton when he said that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare." I just find the cavalier attitude many feminists show toward abortion rather repulsive.
I have known quite a few women who showed no qualms about abortion, no hint that they considered it a "sad, even tragic, choice." Look here for instance.
rwe-
Why do you lament the cavalier attitude with which some women show when discussing an abortion?
It seems like you are just complaining that some people aren't feeling guilty enough.
Or it could be that the living children of pro-life parents are much less likely to have abortions than the non-existent children of pro-abortion parents. Think of it as evolution in action.
So where did the 50+% of pro-choice Americans come from then? (The notion that natural selection applies to political beliefs is demonstrably false, and also kind of creepy.)
The personal emotional response to getting an abortion is just that, personal. I understand completely the idea that aborting a fetus is, for many people, a deeply sad and conflicted occasion. Where I can't follow is this: 1, that there is something defective or amoral about a woman who fails to have a deep emotional response to getting an abortion, and 2, the whole "shattered lives" tactic that is employed by the anti-abortion movement in this country.
Number 1 follows pretty straightforwardly from my views on abortion. I don't think a fetus is a person, and as such I don't think that it is necessary for woman to mourn as they would if a baby died. I do think it is natural and understandable for a woman to have a whole host of emotional responses regarding the procedure. But I don't like the idea of a prescriptive view on that kind of thing. It's impossible to say exactly how you feel about anything, and I am creeped out by the idea that there is a wrong or right set of emotions for women to feel. Could we ever accurately understand what any individual woman is feeling about her abortion? Could we apply some sort of test to see whether she's adequately pained about the procedure? Would we want to?
I find the notion that women should be allowed to choose to have abortions but should always feel regret or remorse at the decision profoundly odd. If one has an ethic that feels that sometimes having an abortion is the right and responsible thing to do, then there's no reason that the choice should necessarily involve regret. If one thinks that abortion is just wrong, it's just wrong. When women say that they are not sorry that they had an abortion, they mean precisely that-- that they don't regret the decision because it was the correct decision for their lives at the time. Are they upset? Do they feel some emotional pain? That's a separate question; it's an unanswerable one; and it's none of your business, frankly. When you say that women are "gleefully" having abortions you're simply engaging in a really ugly appeal to base animosity, and you're wrong to do so.
As for point 2, it's important because of the new tack of claiming that "abortion counseling" or similar are designed to prevent the inevitable, life-changing trauma that abortion supposedly causes. That's simply untrue. There are many, many women who have abortions, and getting them is unmistakably a net positive for their lives. The idea that's promulgated by pro-lifers that every women is a hollow shell after getting an abortion is pure propaganda, and demonstrates again their refusal to consider the issue maturely. If abortion didn't help women, if it wasn't something that materially improved their lives, there'd be no abortion debate at all. Now the fact that women aren't ruined by abortion is hardly dispositive to the larger question; a committed opponent of abortion wouldn't care either way about how much a women's life is improved (or more accurately, how much harm is averted) by having an abortion. But the "harm-prevention" model of anti-choice argument is pretty thin gruel, and any rational discussion of abortion has to include the fact that for most women, abortion makes life at least much easier and more in line with their goals and plans.
"Why do you lament the cavalier attitude with which some women show when discussing an abortion?"-rickm
Presumably we can all agree that infanticide ought to remain illegal. So then, the question becomes, "What essential difference is there between a baby 1 second before birth and one second after?" And the answer is that there is no very important difference. The baby is about the same 1 second before birth and 1 second after birth.
So those who treat infanticide as a horrible crime, and yet refuse to admit there is anything wrong with late-term abortions (including the notorious "partial birth abortions") are guilty of intellectual dishonesty.
And they have abused the court system to prevent a vote that would allow some sort of democratic compromise. As The Economist has noted, European politics is not poisoned by the abortion debate the way this country is. And that's because the Europeans have addressed the issue democratically, rather than by judicial fiat.
I would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Then each state would be free to make its own laws about abortion. In most states abortion would remain legal, with restrictions. And that seems to me the rational position to take. It would certainly be much better for the country, though I doubt "pro-choice" extremists like Freddie will understand why.
I would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Then each state would be free to make its own laws about abortion. In most states abortion would remain legal, with restrictions. And that seems to me the rational position to take. It would certainly be much better for the country, though I doubt "pro-choice" extremists like Freddie will understand why.
Except that that is, in fact, entirely irrational. If abortion is murder, how on earth does it make any sense whatsoever for it to be a states rights issue? If Alabama decided it wanted to legalize plain old murder, if the people of Alabama were really jonesing for the legal right to shoot each other in the face, would you want to turn that right over to them? You're suggesting that there is no material difference between abortion and murder. (Or, perhaps, that there is a large difference between infanticide and murder of someone older.) So how can you rationally want to give states the right to choose whether to allow abortion and not murder?
I'm also looking forward to the day when, like those halcyon days of yore, only women with the financial means to do so will get abortions safely. Middle and upper class women, after all, will just go to the nearest state that allows abortion and get the procedure. Poor women? The ones least able to provide for the unwanted children they'll be force to have? Too bad for them, I guess.
Presumably we can all agree that infanticide ought to remain illegal. So then, the question becomes, "What essential difference is there between a baby 1 second before birth and one second after?" And the answer is that there is no very important difference. The baby is about the same 1 second before birth and 1 second after birth.
No babies are aborted 1 second before birth. None. Zero. None. No babies are aborted anywhere close to that. "Partial birth abortion" has, in fact, nothing to do with live birth. The vast, vast majority of partial birth abortions are performed before the third trimester. Partial birth is a term chosen purely for political theater. If you want to be taken seriously, please argue honestly.
rwe-
What do you think women do, rwe? Do you think women play chicken with their fetus', just waiting to see how long they can wait to get an abortion before the slimy parasite pops out of their crotch?
Every month, a woman has receives a signal confirming that they are indeed, not pregnant. If that signal fails to appear, the women has evidence that she is pregnant. Usually the next course of actions is for some medical confirmation. Assuming a doctor is available, I would guess most women that get an abortion get it within 2 months of conception. (i have no data, but would like to see it).
rwe- Why base policy, or even moral judgments about an issue, on the worst case scenario?
"Assuming a doctor is available, I would guess most women that get an abortion get it within 2 months of conception. (i have no data, but would like to see it)."-rickm
Well then, there should be no objection to banning third trimester abortions, right? Other civilized countries have restrictions on abortion, and there fanatics like Freddie are not permitted to dominate the debate.
He makes the rather silly argument that it's dishonest to want to restrict abortion rather than either banning it completely or legalizing completely.
But the truth is that there is a long process of growth and development from conception to birth and it isn't at all clear where the dividing line should be drawn. But we have to draw it soewhere, and most people, quite reasonably, want to draw the line considerably ealier than the ninth month of pregnancy.
The logic--such as it is--of Freddie's position is that a premature baby born at six months is a human being, while another baby (or fetus, if you prefer) still in the womb after nine months have passed is not a human being--is nothing but a clump of cells. The absurdity of that position will be obvious to any reasonable person.
I reject extremists on both sides. And I dislike the effect that their uncompromising irrationality has had on the judicial process and the country as whole.
rwe wrote: "He makes the rather silly argument that it's dishonest to want to restrict abortion rather than either banning it completely or legalizing completely"
No, he makes the counterargument to your argument that no one is getting an abortion 1 second before birth.
You know, we can actually read what he read, so if your paraphrasing him, we can actually scroll up the page and corroborate his writings with your paraphrase. At this point, you are just making crap up. You have demonstrated that you don't 'really care about having a serious discussion.
Go away and goodbye.
In case anyone had any doubts that rwe wasn't completely dishonest or willfully obtuse, this is his rejection to my statement that "Assuming a doctor is available, I would guess most women that get an abortion get it within 2 months of conception. (i have no data, but would like to see it)."-rickm'
He responded:
'Well then, there should be no objection to banning third trimester abortions, right?'
So, rwe's logic is, most women that get an abortion get it within 2 months of conception, ergo, there are no objections to banning third trimester abortions.
I'm aware of no revolution in sex-ed that occurred in the late eighties.
Not the late '80s; the mid '80s. The decline in the abortion ratio begins in 1985, which means we'd be talking about a drop in unwanted conceptions in early 1984. As far as I can see there is only one possible explanation:
Relax, don't do it
When you want to come to it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Goes_to_Hollywood
Well then, there should be no objection to banning third trimester abortions, right?
From that bastion of liberal media, Fox news:
My objection would be that it happens so rarely that I'd need to be convinced that these procedures aren't almost exclusively to protect the health of the mother, and that I hate to take the doctor out of the decision-making process. There seems to be nothing to suggest that these incidents are approached "cavalierly."
Calling both ends of the spectrum "extremism" elides the fact that many, many more people are comfortable saying that life begins at conception than believe (or at least demonstrate through their actions) that the moment of birth is what indicates the "validity" of a human being, a position held by approximately nobody.
The fanaticism on evidence here is really amazing to behold. These people seem to hate anyone who doesn't want abortion to be legal in all cases. I want women to be able to have abortions in the first few months of pregnancy, but probably not in the last three months or so. The vast majority of people want some kind of restrictions on abortion, so it isn't me that is part of a lunatic fringe.
Incidentally, Freddie did argue that there is no reasonable position between an ouright ban and total legalization:
You're suggesting that there is no material difference between abortion and murder. (Or, perhaps, that there is a large difference between infanticide and murder of someone older.) So how can you rationally want to give states the right to choose whether to allow abortion and not murder?-Freddie
This argument is awfully simplistc, since it refuses to admit even as a possibility the very reasonable position that there is a significant difference between an abortion after two months of pregnancy and one after seven months.
***
But why should I waste the rest of my morning arguing with people like this--people who seem incapable of rational discourse? Aristotle called such people "little better than vegetables," but I have too gentle a nature to say such a thing.
For the most part I don't care too much about the abortion debate in this country one way or another, and I'm not always a big fan of the concept of states' rights. But the premise behind this question is just wrong:
"If abortion is murder, how on earth does it make any sense whatsoever for it to be a states rights issue? If Alabama decided it wanted to legalize plain old murder, if the people of Alabama were really jonesing for the legal right to shoot each other in the face, would you want to turn that right over to them?"
The thing is that the crime of murder already IS mostly left to the states- there is no constitutional basis for federal jurisdiction in most murders. Indeed, depending on the state you're in, you can face slightly different definitions of murder (see, e.g., the discrepancies in the felony murder rule). So leaving the question of whether abortion is defined as murder would be consistent with this (although the SCOTUS would likely have a say in whether punishing abortion as murder amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment").
Very few studies have shown any effect whatsoever of sex education on actual behavior. There have been some that have shown effects on knowledge of STDs and so forth, but that really doesn't translate into behavior. The recent study about abstinence programs showed no effect on behavior, as most people know. The one program whose participants had not had other sex-ed did show a strong effect of increasing students' accurate knowledge at an indistinguishable rate from non abstinence-only programs; the programs that were in addition to existing programs showed no real additional increase in knowledge. This came in for a lot of commentary and criticism, but it's not that surprising since studies have consistently shown this about all sex ed programs, abstinence-only or not. (Similarly, drug ed programs like DARE are capable of teaching facts, but have essentially no effect on behavior.)
However, of course, that certainly doesn't rule out behavioral changes based on fear of AIDS that has less to do with explicit school sex ed programs. After all, as Freddie correctly notes, even incorrect information (unrealistically overestimation of the chance of AIDS) can lead to useful responses anyway, so it's not clear that accurate sex ed would necessarily help anyway.
So where did the 50+% of pro-choice Americans come from then?
Arbitrary labeling, really. Over 50% of Americans favor some legality of abortion, but over 50% of Americans favor greater restrictions on it than we have now. In fact, over 50% favor including some restrictions that would require overturning Roe v. Wade, but over 50% are opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. Arbitrarily lumping the mushy, self-contradictory middle in with the extremists on either side so that you can fit everyone into one of two labels is ridiculous no matter who does it.
The notion that natural selection applies to political beliefs is demonstrably false, and also kind of creepy.
Kind of creepy, perhaps, but for all the obvious fact that children do rebel against their parents, all things considered children are more likely to have any view X if their parents did than if their parents did not.
I'd say that we can agree that natural selection seemed to apply to the Shakers.
Assuming a doctor is available, I would guess most women that get an abortion get it within 2 months of conception. (i have no data, but would like to see it). rwe- Why base policy, or even moral judgments about an issue, on the worst case scenario?
rickm-- I think it's fairly common to base policy and moral judgment about an issue on the worst case scenario, and I would hesitate to condemn it. Certainly many pro-choice activists base their policy and moral judgments on abortion on the worst case scenario in their minds-- a woman who finds it completely impossible to get an abortion until the third trimester for various reasons, including not knowing that she was pregnant, even though those cases are rare. Stressing, as Freddie does, that the "vast, vast majority" of abortions, even partial birth abortions, are before the third trimester itself argues that someone who finds herself wanting an abortion in the third trimester is in a "worst case scenario."
Merely because something is a worst case scenario doesn't mean that it doesn't happen; nor does it mean that we can ignore moral judgments of a policy because it only affects a small number of people.
But I don't like the idea of a prescriptive view on that kind of thing. It's impossible to say exactly how you feel about anything, and I am creeped out by the idea that there is a wrong or right set of emotions for women to feel.
Freddie-- Understandable given your position, but surely you can understand that people who do feel that it is murder or close to it do believe that there is a right set of emotions, I trust? Most of us would feel that there is a right or wrong set of emotions to feel about murder, rape, accidental manslaughter, slavery, etc. Even at the level of accidental manslaughter, or even justifiable homicide, I think that many of us would find it somewhat worrisome if people felt nothing; something of the sort motivates those worries about members of the military becoming heartless killers. So too are people disturbed if someone is completely insouciant about causing the accidental death of someone else or a death in a "him or me" situation because the other person is a foreigner and somehow less worthy of a person. And many people want others to at least feel bad about not helping the needy, even if there is no absolute moral or legal obligation to help in any case.
So that attitude is everywhere. And yet at the same time many of us are creeped out by the attitude when it refers to some moral principle we do not share. Many of us who eat meat are creeped out by vegetarians who don't understand how we can "eat something with a face," or blithely acquiesce in the slaughter of animals in sometimes cruel conditions without feeling anything.
So the question of "proper feelings" does go back to part of the larger moral principle involved that always rules the discussion. However, one does not have to believe that abortion is murder in order to have a feeling that it should bother women; viewing abortion as something closer to justifiable homicide, an accident, a "him or me" situation, or even refusing to accept a request of aid and support from a particular beggar can still lead to such a conclusion, while still not wanting legal sanction.
I actually don't particularly feel that the extremists on either side are that logically inconsistent; they're generally quite internally consistent, often more so than the moderate middle. However, both sides have certainly found it necessary to make logically inconsistent arguments or hide their true premises in order to appeal to the middle.
The fanaticism on evidence here is really amazing to behold. These people seem to hate anyone who doesn't want abortion to be legal in all cases.
How fanatical of me, wanting a doctor to be involved in the decision-making process in the already extremely rare event of a third-trimester abortion, rather than just a state decree. That just oozes hatred.
Aristotle called such people "little better than vegetables," but I have too gentle a nature to say such a thing.
So wait: women who have abortions are "gleeful" and "cavalier." People that object to you are little better than vegetables. But our hatred amazes you.
Rwe,
Your position is meritless. Opposition to third term abortion prohibitions is almost exclusive to those laws that do not make exceptions for the health of the mother. Third trimester abortions ARE banned in almost every state. They are banned with exceptions for the life and health of the mother. Only in those states where there is argument as to what constitutes the health of the mother is there significant resistance to those laws. There is no significant backing for completely unrestricted abortion. You are arguing against a "movement" that is smaller and less powerful than the flat Earth society.
I really don't think I'm a fanatic. I think that I want consistency. If we are to allow abortion, we are in some sense saying that there are times when abortion is a rational thing to do. If that's the case, why do people insist that women should always regret the decision? Part of my point is that there is very hazy ground between emotions of pain and sadness, and emotions of regret or remorse. Perhaps more than any other, our national discussion on abortion has been polluted by the attempt to find some sort of a unified position. I simply find the idea that we should allow abortions, but that women should feel nothing but shame in getting abortion, to be deeply strange. And again, on the question of their personal emotional attachments to the procedure, I don't think it's my business, and I don't think it belongs in a discussion of public policy.
On the other point, I simply find the attempts to make abortion a states rights issue disingenuous. Just as we liberals tend to use questions about the pain inflicted by lethal injection as a trojan horse to discuss abolishing the death penalty, so too, I think, do conservatives use making abortion an issue of states rights a proxy for outlawing abortion everywhere. If abortion is starkly immoral and should be banned-- if abortion is murder, as I'm told-- I don't see how anyone can enthusiastically support turning that decision over to the states. I think it's simply a tactical argument pretending to be an ethical one.
So where did the 50+% of pro-choice Americans come from then?
They didn't, or at least not in the black-and-white terms that statement implies. The last time Gallup took a poll, only about 20% of Americans took either of the extreme positions ("Any time, any reason" versus "more or less never").
The other 60% fall in a spectrum ranging from life-of-mother-exception to limited regulation and restrictions, including fairly borad support for things like third-trimester ban and parental notification laws for minors.
"These people seem to hate anyone who doesn't want abortion to be legal in all cases."
I see far more people who want abortion to be illegal in all cases, than legal in all cases. The current abortion statistics also show that the vast majority happen in the first trimester. .01% occur in the third trimester, more than likely all from attempts to save the mother's life. Stop using this strawman argument.
I didn't bother reading Freddie's or Rickm's responses above. There's no point. I can imagine all the irrational fury--all the insults and hate. If I wanted to read that I'd go over to the Daily Kos.
I just wanted to add that third trimester abortions are just one of the restrictions worth considering. Others include parental and spousal notification (except in cases of abuse). My position on this is about the same as the position of that well-known pro-life fanatic John Kerry.
More than any particular policy, though, I want a democratic process to decide abortion law, not unelected judges legislating rather than intepreting the law. I think that would allow a reasonable compromise, preferable to a poisonous battle between extremes that wrecks political discourse and corrupts the judicial process.
Whether Breyer or Bork or anyone else gets on to the bench should have to do with his ability to interpret the law, not his personal views on abortion. And people who disagree about abortion ought to be abe to tolerate opposing views. I have friends who want abortion kept legal, and friends who want it banned. I have discussed the subject with them calmly and without acrimony. If only everyone were so reasonable.
Have unwed mother births risen in the same time period? With the declining stigma against out-of-wedlock birth, maybe single women who would have aborted are now keeping the babies.
FYI re morning-after pill, it might only have been packaged and sold as such starting in the 90s, but young, sexually active women knew for a long time before that that regular birth control pills could substitute--three right away, three 12 hours later. And everyone either has an extra pack lying around or has a friend who does.
I strongly suspect that the availability of the long-lasting hormonal contraceptives (Depo-Provera and Norplant) is a significant factor.
Njorl,
Opposition to third term abortion prohibitions is almost exclusive to those laws that do not make exceptions for the health of the mother. Third trimester abortions ARE banned in almost every state. They are banned with exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
The health "exception" is so broad that it renders the bans meaningless. As far as I'm aware, not a single abortion provider has ever been successfully prosecuted for performing a third-trimester abortion on the grounds that it did not meet the health exception.
I'm not saying I think this is wrong. I support the broad health "exception." But we shouldn't kid ourselves that third-trimester abortions are mostly banned. They're not.
We really don't know why the abortion rate has fallen, though I'm sure we're all glad it has.
No, not really. I mean, I guess it's good, in an economic sense, if we're not wasting resources on abortions because people aren't getting pregnant. But I don't see a decline in abortions as a moral good, and I'd be quite happy to see more abortions if that's what it would take to reduce the rate of births to young, unmarried women.
If abortion is starkly immoral and should be banned-- if abortion is murder, as I'm told-- I don't see how anyone can enthusiastically support turning that decision over to the states.
1) Murder (and all crimes, really) are already turned over to the states; some things are legal in some states that would be illgal in others, and some things are punished more or less harshly from state to state. Somehow we all survive.
2) I don't see how someone could believe half the things that you regularly post here, but that doesn't mean I deny your very existence.
The health "exception" is so broad that it renders the bans meaningless.
Yes, it includes mental health, which in practice boils down to "I'd be sad if I had a baby." Such procedures may be rare, but they aren't illegal and probably can't be made illegal at present.
I'm aware of no revolution in sex-ed that occurred in the late eighties.
Ultrasounds at 10 weeks. I just had one e-mailed to me last week. I know a woman that had one done earlier than 10 weeks.
These images may have been available in the late eighties in a classroom setting but 15-year olds may now be viewing images shared by their older sister, aunt or neighbor.
More than any particular policy, though, I want a democratic process to decide abortion law, not unelected judges legislating rather than intepreting the law. I think that would allow a reasonable compromise, preferable to a poisonous battle between extremes that wrecks political discourse and corrupts the judicial process.
But the same could be said about any other contentious issue of constitutional law. If a judge believes abortion is a constitutional right, he has a duty to strike down state laws that violate that right, just as he would on any other issue.
But we shouldn't kid ourselves that third-trimester abortions are mostly banned.
and
Yes, it includes mental health, which in practice boils down to "I'd be sad if I had a baby." Such procedures may be rare, but they aren't illegal and probably can't be made illegal at present.
As has been pointed out, the number of abortions performed in the United States in the third trimester is minuscule. Which makes your attempts to turn it into a central part of the argument mere dishonesty. Stop harping on a red herring and engage the actual facts on the ground, please.
1) Murder (and all crimes, really) are already turned over to the states; some things are legal in some states that would be illgal in others, and some things are punished more or less harshly from state to state. Somehow we all survive.
Do you or do you not think that states should have the ability to legalize murder?
Freddie,
As has been pointed out, the number of abortions performed in the United States in the third trimester is minuscule.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that about 1% of abortions in the United States are performed during the third trimester (JordanT was only wrong by a factor of 100). That's roughly 10,000 third trimester abortions a year, or roughly 300,000+ since Roe was decided. As a share of the total number, it's very small. In absolute terms, not so much.
Do you or do you not think that states should have the ability to legalize murder?
Preseumably, states have the ability to repeal their statutes that criminalize murder. What's to stop them?
As has been pointed out, the number of abortions performed in the United States in the third trimester is minuscule.
So...banning that tiny number is OK, then? Because the pro-choice movement hasn't seemed to take that position.
And furthermore, Mixner and I are engaging the "facts on the ground," namely that such abortions are not and probably cannot be made illegal. So statements to the contrary (from Njorl, for example) are, ahem, counterfactual.
Finally, I'd like to point out that I haven't been
"harping" on anything, having arrived at this fight a few minutes ago.
Do you or do you not think that states should have the ability to legalize murder?
Yes. They do have that power, as they quite properly should, and there's nothing the Feds can do about it directly (but there are always indirect options).
Now, I don't think they should actually use this particular power, but that's a different question.
But the same could be said about any other contentious issue of constitutional law.
Well, I suppose, but most other issues in constitutional law don't discover a right to abortion in this phrase: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Now, a layman might read that and think that it means he gets a trial before going sent to jail ("due process" before being "deprived...of...liberty"), but our marvelous experts at SCOTUS can tell you that it actually means the right to engage in homosexual sodomy or have an abortion, with restrictions on the latter based on how far along you are in pregnancy.
That is to say, I think there may be something to the argument that SCOTUS is engaged in legislation rather than mere interpretation here.
I'm not saying I think this is wrong. I support the broad health "exception." But we shouldn't kid ourselves that third-trimester abortions are mostly banned. They're not. Posted by Mixner
That's ridiculous. There is a factor of ten dropoff between 1st and 2nd trimester abortions. Betweeen 2nd and 3rd, it is a factor of 1000. You don't think the law is significant?
Now, I don't think they should actually use this particular power, but that's a different question.
OK, so now I'm asking you if they should. Look, here are two facets of this discussion: one, rwe above suggested that there is no material difference between a late-term abortion and murder. Two, he says he thinks that abortion laws should be up to the states to determine. I find that a frankly bizarre position to have. I believe, with good reason, that the emphasis on states rights in the abortion discussion is a way to leverage a larger criminalization of abortion. Do you really think that's so off-base? Does it really make sense to you that the rabid abortion foes in this country would be satisfied with "abortion there, but not here"? Is that a defensible reading of the anti-abortion movement?
And, by the way, you can be federally prosecuted for murder.
"Do you or do you not think that states should have the ability to legalize murder?"
-But they DO have that ability; with the death penalty, one could even argue that they actually have legalized murder. Besides, that's not really the issue. The issue is whether states should be allowed to expand the definition of murder to include abortion, much as some states have done with felony murder or, more analogously, with fetal-murder laws.
When something is already legal in a state, the proper question isn't whether they should have the right to make a broader crime legal, but whether the state has a right to make the currently legal behavior illegal.
By the way- I agree that the states' rights argument is a red herring for many, even most, anti-abortion types. But that is not true in my case, since as I said above, I don't really have a dog in the fight.
"That's ridiculous. There is a factor of ten dropoff between 1st and 2nd trimester abortions. Betweeen 2nd and 3rd, it is a factor of 1000. You don't think the law is significant?"
I shouldn't have acceptd the number earliewr in the thread. That number is wrong, from the few sources I saw.
njorl,
That's ridiculous. There is a factor of ten dropoff between 1st and 2nd trimester abortions. Betweeen 2nd and 3rd, it is a factor of 1000.
You're another one who seems to be making up numbers. The most recent data I have seen from AGI breaks down the 1st/2nd/3rd trimester abortion share as 88%/11%/1%. The 2nd/3rd trimester ratio is about 10, not 1000.
You don't think the law is significant?
What law? State bans on third trimester abortions? As I said, they're effectively meaningless. The health "exception" is so broad that it can encompass any abortion. If you really think these third-trimester "bans" are effective, cite a case where an abortion provider has been successfully prosecuted for performing an illegal one? Given that there have been 300,000+ third trimester abortions since Roe if the bans are meaningful, you shouldn't have any problem coming up with lots of examples.
"JordanT was only wrong by a factor of 100"
The source was Fox News from Brad L's post (.01%). I figured that Fox News was unlikely to understate the quantity of third trimester abortions. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html
Secondly, the data you cited (but didn't provide a link to) says that 1.0% of abortions occur 21 weeks and after. Third trimester starts at about 28 weeks so it's you who misstated the data not me.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Lastly, according to that same data only 8% of abortion providers even offer abortions in the third trimester.
So, please stop with the strawman argument that it's easy to get an abortion in the third trimester.
"And, by the way, you can be federally prosecuted for murder."
Yes, but only in limited circumstances. There still needs to be a legitimate federal interest in order for the feds to have a right to prosecute.
I shouldn't have acceptd the number earliewr in the thread. That number is wrong, from the few sources I saw.
Bring the sources. I got curious, looked it up on The Google, and posted the link to what I found. If this indeed happens more frequently, then it is at least worth discussion. I had always thought it was a strawman argument, but am open to hearing evidence otherwise.
These stats are actually surprisingly hard to find. The ones that I find (such as this one from the above-mentioned Guttmacher Inst. that put the number around 1% use the date from 20+ weeks (not 24+ weeks, where the earlier stat came from), which does not seem insignificant to me.
JordanT,
Secondly, the data you cited (but didn't provide a link to) says that 1.0% of abortions occur 21 weeks and after. Third trimester starts at about 28 weeks so it's you who misstated the data not me.
1% is an approximate figure. Your 0.01% figure is wrong by orders of magnitude.
So, please stop with the strawman argument that it's easy to get an abortion in the third trimester.
Please stop attributing to me statements I have not made. I never said it's "easy" to get a third trimester abortion. I said that legal bans on third trimester abortion are effectively meaningless. The primary obstacle to getting a third trimester abortion in the United States is finding an abortion provider who is trained and willing to perform it, not the law.
1% is an approximate figure. Your 0.01% figure is wrong by orders of magnitude.
Mixner, can you provide a source? I've linked two, one of which includes the Guttmacher Inst. One contradicts, and the other seems not to corroborate, your "orders of magnitude" claim.
I say that because it is extremely unlikely that of the 1% of abortions that Guttmacher says take place after 20 weeks, all or even most take place after week 28. Still, there isn't clarity from them as to how many actually do, at least that I could find.
Freddie,
I believe (with less that perfect certainty) that abortion is either murder or, at the least, a lesser crime of killing. But I know that many others disagree with me, and I think their disagreement reasonable. So I can live with a geographic compromise: let’s fight it out the same place we fight out most criminal laws, in the state legislatures. That’s what we do with fetal murder laws, the definition of “rape” when a woman is intoxicated, death penalty, etc.
I suppose you’re right that much of the pro-life movement would not be satisfied with that solution, but who cares? They can’t win in all the states. In any case, just because some people use states’ rights as a red herring doesn’t mean the rwe or anyone else here is necessarily doing that. Hell, if we’re going to talk red herrings, let’s talk about the fear that the pro-life movement will ban birth control if Roe is overturned.
Re: federal murder prosecutions: they aren’t possible for the garden-variety murder. You need to do something like kill someone on an army base or kill a postal worker to give the feds jurisdiction.
Not to appeal to authority or anything, but I’m 1) a lawyer (WaSB# 38464, you can look it up), who 2) spent a year working for a federal judge and 3) is currently knee-deep in studying for a second bar exam. So I am perhaps at least minimally familiar with the legal issues under discussion.
Mixner, can you provide a source?
See the AGI link JordanT just posted, for example. As I said, the 1% figure is approximate. It fluctuates from year to year. For 2003, for example, the CDC reported a rate of 1.4% for abortions after 21 weeks [source]. The trimester framework itself is just a mathematical division. The biological transition from non-viability to viability for which the 2nd/3rd trimester transition is usually used as a crude proxy actually occurs around weeks 21-24, not week 28.
From the site linked below, I think an honest source of confusion can be gleaned (I couldn't find the actual study, the link didn't work):
http://www.lifeandlibertyforwomen.org/issues/issues_partial_birth_abortions.html
The Alan Guttmacher Institute indicates that only 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks plus. In real numbers that is approximately 11,848 abortions. In 1997 the Alan Guttmacher Institute said that approximately four one-hundredths of one percent (.04%) are performed in the third trimester or after viability. In real numbers that would be approximately 474 abortions performed in the third trimester out of over 1 million abortions overall.
Notice different numbers for " post 21 weeks" and "third trimester". They are nearly the same concept, yet the same source quotes a factor of 25 difference in the number of abortions. I can't say for sure, but because every state makes it's own rules (36 use "third trimester" and I believe about a dozen use "24 weeks") the study may have used its own standard, 21 weeks.
It is reasonable to asssume that many women would have put off a decision as long as possible in the hopes that some test was wrong, amnio results got swithed etc. The bulk of these abortions are for women who want children. They would only have an abortion when faint hope ran up against a legal deadline. That deadline falls after the 21 weeks, but before the third trimester. That brief period would have a spike in the number of abortions. So, someone arguing that the third trimester begins at week 21 is correct in saying that 1% of abortions are in the third term. Someone arguing that state law defines the third trimester would be correct in arguing that 0.04% of abortions are third term.
"1% is an approximate figure. Your 0.01% figure is wrong by orders of magnitude."
I provided a reliable source for my data and you haven't for yours.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html
The source you cited doesn't support your claim, it seems to contradict it but I guess we can't be 100% sure of that. Theoretically, if every woman who had an abortion 21 weeks and after had it at 28 weeks and after, I would be off by two orders of magnitude. You originally misrepresented this data by claiming that 1% of abortions occur in the third trimester.
The current law allowing for a ban on third trimester, except for when the mothers life is in danger appears to work. It's rare enough that I figure there were very good reasons for a doctor to recommend it. It is possible that there are so few doctors willing and able to do it, because there's so few cases where it'd be allowed under the law.
It could also be possible that those same doctors only perform it in that situation because they refuse to do it otherwise. The reason why the current law may be meaningless is because it bans a practice no doctor would perform anyways.
See the AGI link JordanT just posted, for example. As I said, the 1% figure is approximate. It fluctuates from year to year. For 2003, for example, the CDC reported a rate of 1.4% for abortions after 21 weeks [source].
I posted the same source that he did, coincidentally. AGI said 1% after week 20. (No mention of after any other timeframe, whether it is week 24, week 26, or week 28, all of which I've heard as third-trimester markers). Fox said .01% after week 24.
This is pretty much all the data that I have to go on. If 9% are in the second trimester (Fox and AGI pretty much agree), I'm willing to believe that 1% fall at the tail end (last 4 weeks) of that time. That seems perfectly consistent, and not inconsistent with the idea that very few happen after 24 weeks, as reported.
And let's be honest -- most people that talk about "partial birth abortions" aren't talking about the difference between week 24 and week 25, are they? There always seems to be language and imagery of "just before the baby is born," etc etc.
JordanT,
I provided a reliable source for my data and you haven't for yours.
I don't consider Fox News a reliable source of data on abortion.
The source you cited doesn't support your claim, it seems to contradict it but I guess we can't be 100% sure of that.
I have no idea how you think my source contradicts what I said. Did you see the CDC report I linked to?
The current law allowing for a ban on third trimester, except for when the mothers life is in danger appears to work.
The current law prohibits states from banning abortions necessary to protect the life or health of the mother. Health is defined so broadly that any abortion could be justified under this provision. That is why the bans on third trimester abortion are effectively meaningless.
It's rare enough that I figure there were very good reasons for a doctor to recommend it. It is possible that there are so few doctors willing and able to do it, because there's so few cases where it'd be allowed under the law.
No, that is not possible, because the law defines "health" so broadly that any abortion could be justified to protect the woman's health. Can you find even a single case, among the hundreds of thousands of third trimester abortions over the past 30 years, of an unlawful one, not protected by the "life or health of the mother" provision?
I haven't seen any statistical data on the reasons women have third trimester abortions, but Slate's medical correspondent, Atul Gawande, wrote in this piece that his own informal survey of obstetricians suggests that most post-viability abortions are elective, not done for reasons of health:
It's not at all uncommon, he said, to see women go through an entire pregnancy without realizing it, come to the ER with a stomachache, and turn out to be in labor.
You'd probably have to be mentally ill to be in denial that deep.
I looked up third trimester before I posted. I looked at four separate websites that all claimed 28 weeks is the start of the third trimester. Not the most scientific, but there seemed to be a consensus. I also figured 21 weeks doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you assume a 36 week pregnancy (about 8.5 months, so a little short) but I could accept 24 weeks for simplicity sake.
I don't think that third trimester has traditionally meant that the baby is now viable, but as a way of roughly splitting pregnancy into three time points. 28 weeks doesn't seem very viable without modern technology. However, it's probably best to get rid of the "trimester" term for this discussion and instead use weeks since it's much easier to know exactly what frame of time you're talking about.
"Atul Gawande, wrote in this piece that his own informal survey of obstetricians suggests that most post-viability abortions are elective, "
Is there some reason to assume that "his own informal survey" has any value at all?
Is there some reason to assume that "his own informal survey" has any value at all?
Sure, it’s just a journalist telling an important a compelling story for which good data might not be available, and it’s just SOOOOO unfair to ask for actual hard data.
That is, it has at least as much value as stories about veteran killing sprees (not much IMHO, but you could find people around here who disagree).
"I have no idea how you think my source contradicts what I said. Did you see the CDC report I linked to?"
I'm not arguing that 1% occur 21 weeks and after, but rather that 0.95%-0.99% occur between weeks 21-24 (bringing us to a total 99.95% to 99.9%) and that I didn't see a source that considers 21 weeks to be third trimester. The CDC article you linked to, makes no mention of trimesters only weeks.
"A few late abortions are done for the mother's health"
No specific mention in the article of what is considered a late abortion. I read it, because you again are misrepresenting what the article was saying. You said that it meant third trimester. My assumption is that he meant anything after 15 weeks is considered late, since the introduction focused on that time period. It seems likely that the majority of abortions between 15-24 weeks are elective, so I won't debate that.
A few late abortions are done for the mother's health, to save her, for example, from possible disaster caused by an infected uterus or a newly diagnosed heart condition. Most of the time, however, they are elective.
The problem here is that he does a particularly poor job of describing what he means when he talks about "late." The few hundred after week 24? Or is it after week 20, a stage that he physically describes?
If he means the former, how many of those rare cases did he talk to? It's hard to imagine his personal sample size is real big, from such a small pool. If he means the latter... what does that mean in the context of this discussion? He suggests this is more a matter parents deciding late in the second trimester that they aren't prepared to rear children with certain types of conditions that become known late. (These are classified as "elective.")
That's a really hard call, one that I am not personally ready to condemn prospective parents for making. But this is pretty far afield from any sort of gleeful, cavalier attitude that uses late term (or partial birth) abortion as some sort of delayed birth control.
[Incidentally, the "few hundred" is far closer to the estimates we found earlier than the 1% number in the 10,000+ range].
Brooksfoe,
You are completely wrong. The real cause was SheBop by Cyndi Lauper, which predated Relax by a few months in the summer of 1984.
The problem here is that he does a particularly poor job of describing what he means when he talks about "late.
He's talking about post-viability abortions. See the preceding paragraph.
Is there some reason to assume that "his own informal survey" has any value at all?
He's an MD and probably one of the top medical journalists in the country. I'm not suggesting the piece constitutes any kind of serious scientific evidence that most post-viability abortions are elective, but it does suggest that that is the case. If you have any conflicting evidence, perhaps you could present it.
Of course, even if it's not true that most post-viability abortions are elective, even if only a minority of them are, that may still be a very large number, given that there are around 10,000 of them every year.
I'm still waiting for those of you who claim that third-trimester bans are meaningful to produce an actual example of an illegal third-trimester abortion. If these state bans on the practise are meaningful, surely you should be able to find at least one example among the hundreds of thousands of third-trimester abortions that have been performed since Roe v. Wade.
The Supreme Court defined "health" in this context as:
What abortion couldn't be justified under such an expansive definition of health? I think the only chance a prosecutor would have of securing a conviction for illegal abortion is if the abortion provider actually confessed or was caught on tape admitting that he did not believe the abortion was necessary to protect the woman's health.
Incidentally, the "few hundred" is far closer to the estimates we found earlier than the 1% number in the 10,000+ range
For 2004, (apparently, the most recent year for which it has issued its report), the CDC found a total of 839,000 abortions, of which 1.4% were performed during or after week 21. That's almost 12,000 abortions.
JordanT apparently believes that the vast majority of those 12,000 are performed between 21 and 24 weeks, but he offers no evidence to support this belief.
Note also that the CDC figures are likely to understate the true number of abortions, because they only include reported abortions, and there are likely to be a substantial number of additional unreported ones. There is no federal requirement for abortion providers to report the number of abortions they perform to the CDC.
He's talking about post-viability abortions. See the preceding paragraph.
In the preceding paragraph, he mentions three separate timeframes, 15, 24, and 20 weeks, all of which could be construed as "late" relative to the 94% of abortions that are prior to this timeframe.
In the paragraph containing the quote, he adds a 4th timeframe, 18 weeks. Later in the article he hedges viability to be the 25th week.
But even taking your reading that he means the 24th week, he estimates that number at "several hundred," not 10,000+ that you oddly keep referring to.
Of those hundreds, he then speculates that the elective ones are mainly in response to serious conditions that the fetus presents late. That's pretty tricky emotional and moral ground that should at least be acknowledged, not brushed aside as the same in kind to other "elective" abortion procedures.
JordanT apparently believes that the vast majority of those 12,000 are performed between 21 and 24 weeks, but he offers no evidence to support this belief.
Actually, there was, but you dismissed it as unworthy. So, instead, we are guessing at the numbers, based on the pattern.
As I keep noting, we don't seem to have clarity about the numbers between weeks 21 and 24. So, instead we are looking at the overall pattern, as best we can.
As I said earlier:
If 9% are in the second trimester (Fox and AGI pretty much agree), I'm willing to believe that 1% fall at the tail end (last 4 weeks) of that time. That seems perfectly consistent, and not inconsistent with the idea that very few happen after 24 weeks, as reported.
This is not evidence, but it seems far far likelier that this all happens in a downward sloping curve, not that procedures crater out in weeks 21-24 but spike after that.
JordanT apparently believes that the vast majority of those 12,000 are performed between 21 and 24 weeks, but he offers no evidence to support this belief.
I'll add that the Slate article itself is a second source for the claim that the vast majority are performed between 21 and 24 weeks. I'd like to know where the numbers came from, but this is the second news source making that claim, so "no evidence" is a mischaracterization.
"We really don't know why the abortion rate has fallen, though I'm sure we're all glad it has."
My recommendation is to conduct more research instead of speculating on blog comment sites.
Mixner,
You're simply refusing to accept the facts extant in the sources that you yourself are citing. You are misstating the numbers of abortions covered by late-term ban laws, regardless of what you think viability means.
Doctors performing illegal late term abortions is irrefutably such a rare crime, so difficult to prove, so politically volitile that it is easily understandable that it never gets prosecuted. That does not mean that the law has no effect. The vast majority of people obey the law just because it is the law. The fact that a doctor could easily get away with lying does not mean that they will be willing to do it.
Just the source of this bickering is proof of the effect of the law. There is certainly a spike of abortions after 21 weeks, and before the beginning of the period covered by late term abortion laws. That is clear evidence that the law has effect. If the laws started at 21 weeks, you'd see a spike just before that.
Mixner
You said:
"He's talking about post-viability abortions. See the preceding paragraph."
And imply that this is the 10,000 figure you are referring to.
The article you cite says:
"and several hundred of these are done after 24 weeks, commonly taken to be the point of viability"
Taken directly from the article that you linked. No statistics show that 10,000 are abortions are performed after 24 weeks. Most estimates seem to vary from 100-500 in the 24 week and up time period. This is a small enough number where it appears that doctors just aren't performing abortions in that time, unless there are compelling reasons to do so. I'd go so far as to say if you were healthy and wanted an abortion at 24 weeks and beyond you'd have a hard time finding a doctor to do it.
The article never defines what late means, so it could mean 24 weeks or 15 weeks or something in between. It talks about both time periods just before mentioning "late abortions." That's two major strikes against you using this article to support an argument. It's not clear what it means, and it uses only anecdotal evidence to support your claim. Remember that "Marines go psycho" article, it used the same anecdotal methodology and the conclusions didn't hold up to any type of statistical scrutiny.
Actually, there was, but you dismissed it as unworthy.
I mean serious evidence, not a number that appears in a story on Fox News.
Taken directly from the article that you linked. No statistics show that 10,000 are abortions are performed after 24 weeks.
The CDC says that about 1.4%, or about 12,000 a year, are performed during or after week 21. For the claim of 0.01% after week 24 to be true, about 11,915 of those 12,000 would need to be performed in the 4 weeks from week 21 through 24, and only about 85 of the 12,000 in the 16 weeks from week 25 through week 40.
Sorry, it's not remotely plausible.
Gee, Mix, you don't admit the possibility that the law is 100% effective? A law just isn't any good unless someone is breaking it? Or the corollary, no law is so effective that someone isn't breaking it, so if no one is breaking the law there's a problem with it?
ROFL.
Does "remedy in search of a problem" mean anything to you?
For the claim of 0.01% after week 24 to be true, about 11,915 of those 12,000 would need to be performed in the 4 weeks from week 21 through 24, and only about 85 of the 12,000 in the 16 weeks from week 25 through week 40.
Sorry, it's not remotely plausible.
I guess this is where we agree to disagree. The second trimester accounts for 9%, which would then be 75,000 during weeks 13-24. It would not surprise me in the least that 12,000 of those 75,000 occur in the final 4 weeks of the trimester (which is a third of that timeframe).
The idea that they don't, that there are ten thousand or so women carry through 6 months and then decide to have an "elective" abortion seems far more implausible to me than the inverse.
Could the number be 400 instead of 100? Sure. But to keep repeating 10,000 and associating it with 24+ weeks, because the CDC stopped at 21 weeks, just seems strange to me.
The second trimester accounts for 9%, which would then be 75,000 during weeks 13-24.
The CDC data contradicts this claim, too. It shows 10.3% just for weeks 13-20.
In fact, putting your assumption in the context of the figures for earlier weeks just makes it even more wildly implausible. You would have us believe that at week 24 the abortion rate suddenly declines by a factor of 600, from an average of about 2,980 abortions per week for weeks 21-24, to about 5 per week for weeks 25-40.
"The CDC says that about 1.4%, or about 12,000 a year, are performed during or after week 21. For the claim of 0.01% after week 24 to be true, about 11,915 of those 12,000 would need to be performed in the 4 weeks from week 21 through 24"
Because the statistical evidence we have points to this being the case, and there is no statistical evidence that this isn't the case. I want to see data proving your point. The cited evidence has varied from 0.01%-0.05% in the 24 and on range but none have approached the 10,000, and are markedly below the 1,000 mark. BTW your math is wrong, if 0.01% of abortions is 85, then we only have 850,000 total per year.
There could be multiple reasons why this is the case. One could be that abortions are illegal (except mother's health etc.) in many states after this point so many people who are going to have one do it before 24 weeks. Secondly certain birth defects can be first detected at the 18 week mark. When you leave time for results to be reported back, and time to make a gut wrenching decision seeing a spike in the 21-24 week range doesn't seem unreasonable.
The CDC data contradicts this claim, too. It shows 10.3% just for weeks 13-20.
Sorry, I was using the AGI info that you suggested earlier.
You would have us believe that at week 24 the abortion rate suddenly declines by a factor of 600, from an average of about 2,980 abortions per week for weeks 21-24, to about 5 per week for weeks 25-40.
There is nothing that appears to be linear about the demand curve here. From the CDC data, I notice that the number/week drops in half from 9-10 to 11-12, then half again at 13-15, then roughly in half again for their next interval, 16-20. (I'm looking at table 16, btw).
So, quick math, if this fell in half again for the 21-24 interval, we'd expect almost all of the remaining procedures to be accounted for in this timeframe.
(From that data, it would be:
week 9-10: 44,000/wk
week 11-12: 22,000/wk
week 13-15: 9300/wk
week 16-20: 5200/wk
leaving 7200 remaining.
If the pattern continued for week 21-23:
2600/week, that would account for almost all of the remaining procedures.
The curve here is a pretty steep drop at all of our known points. I don't know why that would change at the tail.
The cited evidence has varied from 0.01%-0.05% in the 24
A Fox News report is not evidence. Show me data from a government source or a reputable reproductive health organization supporting your 0.01% claim, or even just some broadly similar value.
BTW your math is wrong, if 0.01% of abortions is 85, then we only have 850,000 total per year.
Do you understand the meaning of the word "about?" The actual reported abortion total is 839,226. 0.01% of that is 83.9226. I reported this as "about 85." Call it a favor.
One could be that abortions are illegal (except mother's health etc.) in many states after this point so many people who are going to have one do it before 24 weeks.
That would be your assumed bans for which you cannot find even a single example of a successful prosecution in 30 years. The bans that would be effectively eviscerated by the Supreme Court's definition of "health" even if they are on the books and a DA was foolish enough to try to enforce them.
The curve here is a pretty steep drop at all of our known points. I don't know why that would change at the tail.
Let me amend: I don't know why that would flatten at the tail, as it would need to for fewer abortions in 21-24, and more later. I can absolutely see why there might be a cliff at 24 or 25 months, as new factors come into play such as laws, fetal viability, reluctant healthcare providers, etc.
(From that data, it would be:
week 9-10: 44,000/wk
week 11-12: 22,000/wk
week 13-15: 9300/wk
week 16-20: 5200/wk
leaving 7200 remaining
Huh? 1.4% are reported for week 21+. That's about 12,000. I have no idea where your "7200 remaining" comes from. And for weeks 16-20, the total is 4.0%, or about 33,500. That's 6,700/wk, not 5,200. Your data is wrong, or your math is wrong, or both.
The curve here is a pretty steep drop at all of our known points.
There is nothing remotely consistent in the data for prior periods with the almost vertical drop between weeks 21-24 and weeks 25-40 that you are assuming.
Huh? 1.4% are reported for week 21+. That's about 12,000. I have no idea where your "7200 remaining" comes from.
I used the raw data from table 16 of the CDC study. It is admittedly "only" a sample size of 430,000, which is why the raw numbers and the numbers that you are deriving from percents aren't equal. It's the study you keep referring to, so I thought I was safe just saying that it came from table 16.
There is nothing remotely consistent in the data for prior periods with the almost vertical drop between weeks 21-24 and weeks 25-40 that you are assuming.
True. I'm only noting that the expected number of procedures for weeks 21-23 account for nearly all of the remaining procedures, and that I have reasons for believing that there would be a cliff after the 24+ week point, as mentioned above.
"Do you understand the meaning of the word "about?" The actual reported abortion total is 839,226"
I didn't read the CDC article all that carefully, it seems to be lower than most of the other articles on the subject though. California, New Hampshire and West Virginia didn't report data to the CDC, likely causing the numbers to be lower.
According to Planned Parenthood after 24 weeks accounts for "Less than one-half-of-one percent occur after 24 weeks."
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/courts-judiciary/fab-faq-13438.html
AGI estimates it at 0.08%
http://www.guttmacher.org/presentations/abort_slides.pdf
Do you or do you not think that states should have the ability to legalize murder?
Depends. How many states have variations of Make-My-Day or Castle Doctrine laws in place? How many states permit the death penalty? How many states still use the lessened charge of Manslaughter (or an equivalent) to deal with deaths resulting from negligence?
The fact of an unnatural human death is simply an ocassion to review the circumstances that lead to it. The results of that analysis then determine whether there is civil or criminal culpability on the part of the actors, and if so, how much.
Two points, unrelated:
1) AIDS (as HTLV-3/LAV) was well know even to high school students when I was one circa 1978. Even at that time the cry of "everyone's equally vulnerable" was strident.
2) The exception of miscarriages from the statistics is something that I find troubling for more than one reason. First, a fair, though probably unquantifiable, number of induced abortions have been officially listed as miscarriages, Second, the power of mind over body is underestimated. Stress, guilt, and depression can have the effect of inducing spontaneous abortion. I've seen it happen, it's sad, but it's true.
Brooksfoe,
You are completely wrong. The real cause was SheBop by Cyndi Lauper, which predated Relax by a few months in the summer of 1984.
Posted by Yancey Ward
Yancey, I think with powerful confounders like these, there may be no way to reliably isolate the effect of any one factor.
Abortion statistics, especially on specifics of when the abortion occurred, tend to be a bit fuzzy and open to dispute. So it's plausible y'all could have several reputable sources give somewhat different figures.
In Sweden, hardly a right-wing nation, abortion is essentially not allowed after the 22nd week. It is also restricted after the 18th. Many to most pro-choice organizations I see state 24 weeks is viability. Although the ones I found also made claims, which are not scientifically supported so far as I know, that there has been no change in "limit of viability" since Roe was adopted. It might be possible to argue this if you take the position that the premature infant must be able to become "healthy" and or "normal" in time. (Being a 42 inch tall man with osteogenesis imperfecta you can guess how I feel on "non-healthy" people being classed as having lives not worth living)
Anyway considering abortions after 24th week is probably clearer than "third trimester." There's going to be some fuzziness on how many there are in that range, but I'm reasonably certain it's more than a hundred. Still it's unclear if this can be a big issue for Pro-Lifers like me as Roe vs Wade would seem to allow states to ban abortions after viability and 32 states have done so. However five who did ban it essentially make exemptions for deformed or otherwise undesirable fetuses. It is unclear to me if killing a deformed premature infant is allowed, but I'm going to guess it's usually not.
As for the idea of "if you accept it being legal why should a woman regret it?" or "why is not regretting it so callous?" The most obvious objection to this is that it seems to indicate anything legal should be seen as permissible or just. This is hardly the case. Imagine a man who smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, had an affair with his wife's sister, and had Pokemon characters tattooed on his body. As far as I know none of these things are illegal nor is there a movement to ban them. If he said he regretted none of them would you find that perfectly normal or slightly strange? It's perfectly plausible to believe something should be legal, but is nevertheless slightly icky or weird.
(I'm not claiming I believe abortion should be legal, but I can understand seeing it as a "necessary evil")
I wrote a post in response, or really in addition, to this one, but I cannot trackback, for some reason. It says Got an error: Can't call method "path_info" on an undefined value at lib/MT/App.pm line 1342.
I agree with Freddie's point about the supposed emotional trauma women are obligated to feel about the decision to have an abortion. It's bullshit-just another way to manipulate women. I think I know where it comes from-the desire to stake a claim to some safe middle ground on abortion. Trying to appease both sides, the pro-choicer will say it's a woman's decision, but it's a damn shame if she signs up for one, abortions are always an unfortunate tragedy, blah ze blah. Well, that's just stupid. It's really an either/or proposition-either abortion is murder or it isn't. If it isn't, a person shouldn't feel a whit of guilt about having one. I side with the "clump of cells" camp-call me a psychopath if you wish, but a blastocyst is less complex than a live chicken, and we slaughter and eat chickens by the metric ton. So, to my mind, if a woman got pregnant just to have an abortion, as expensive as such an experience would be, I wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that. The number of abortions we have per year all by themselves is irrelevant. The psychological toll they actually have on the people who get them matters to me; but I think that anguish has been magnified by the right-wing hordes screaming "baby killer" outside of clinics.
but a blastocyst is less complex than a live chicken
How many abortions really involve a blastocyst? I've seen a heartbeat on an ultrasound at 7 weeks, which is really only about 5 weeks from conception (weeks are counted from the start of the last period; a woman is fertile roughly 2 weeks from that date). The home urine tests don't work until, at a minimum, week 4. I doubt that most women even know they're pregnant until they're past the blastocyst stage.
The "clump of cells" argument only works if people are going in a week after having sex and getting abortions.
The whole thing with rwe admitting they hadn't read freddie or rickm's replies because of the "irrational fury . . . and hate" they imagined to be in these fairly restrained (esp by online abortion debate standards!) comments was pretty amusing. But they also said something that no-one's remarked on yet, I think, but which is pretty, well, remarkable:
"I just wanted to add that third trimester abortions are just one of the restrictions worth considering. Others include parental and spousal notification (except in cases of abuse)"
Now, I can understand why people would like the idea of parental notification for minors. I think it's a bad idea, but not contemptible - teenagers as a group aren't noted for decision-making ability, and most folks surely hope that their (real or even hypothetical) daughters would come to them for help and support in such a situation. More broadly, the whole teenage sex - pregnancy - abortion dynamic - just the idea that is happens - is often felt as a tear in the social fabric & order, and parental notification laws let people construct a soothing narrative about wayward daughters now safely in the care of their parents (or in the worst case, firm but fair judges.) The fact that some studies seem to show one major effect of such laws is to increase the number of second-trimester abortions - well, that's messy reality, of a kind that people often try to exclude from their social/cultural myths.
But spousal notification?
Look, if my wife became unwantedly pregnant, and decided to have an abortion, I'd certainly prefer (one can't really say like) that she would tell me, both as a symbolic gesture and so that I could support her in any way possible. The whole 'for better and for worse' mutual respect, trust, and honesty thing, y'know? But there's no legislature or court in the land that has the right to make her tell me, or to require that she provide a good enough reason why she can't. What an offensive idea!
It's also one that really reveals the 'all your uteri are belong to us' thinking that animates the anti-abortion movement (though individuals may have a range of motives). Look again what rwe writes:
". Others [that is, restrictions worth considering] include parental and spousal notification . . ."
In that single sentence, they implicitly equate minor children (vis-a-vis their parents) and married adult women (vis-a-vis their husbands).
Rob, do you support the use of Plan B emergency contraception?
Decreading abortion numbers/rates:
* decreasing teen pregnancy rates*
* increasing obesity
* increasing acceptance of birth out of wedlock
* better child support laws/enforcement
* increasing acceptance of oral and anal sex
* more virtual sex than actual, with the growth of the internets
* better/earlier ultrasound technology
* more news coverage of the demographic crisis
That's my guesses.
* yes. our state demographer often does public speaking and congratulates today's youth for having a far lower teen pregnancy rate than their parents' and grandparents' generations. LOL
I'm not opposed to Plan B. Really, I'm not certain I'm in favor of legal restrictions on abortion at all. I'm just opposed to really bad arguments.
On the spousal notification front, while the husband certainly shouldn't have a veto, I'd say he has enough of an interest to have a right to be told if his wife is going to kill their child. It's half his child, after all.
Re: AIDS (as HTLV-3/LAV) was well know even to high school students when I was one circa 1978.
AIDS (AKA "GRIDS", Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome at first) was unknown in the 70s. The first news stories, using the afore-mentioned acronym appeared in 1981. The disease did not really penetrate public consciousness until about 1983-84. My high school was a bit progressive and included a VD prevention lecture in 10th grade biology where I recall AIDS being mentioned. But for many people it didn't hit their radar until Rock Hudson's death the following year.
" while the husband certainly shouldn't have a veto, I'd say he has enough of an interest to have a right to be told if his wife is going to kill their child. It's half his child, after all."
Oh, I agree - if a guy's wife is going to kill their child, he definitely should be told, along with local law enforcement, etc.. If she's having an abortion, on the other hand . . .
Seriously, though - whether or not husbands have some sort of vague 'right' to be told, the question here is whether they have a legal right - whether the state can force women to inform their husbands (unless they can get a court to give them permission to go ahead because their husband will beat or kill them, or because he's not actually the daddy).
And if you ask me, as a married man: no, I don't have any such rights, legal, or otherwise. Yes, in the case of a relevant unintended pregnancy I would have contributed genetic material, but y'know what? It's. Her. Body. A marriage license is not a property deed.
Do women have a legal right to be informed if their husbands get themselves vascetomies (or un-vascetomies), or any other procedure which would affect their fertility? Certainly one would hope that these guys would, indeed, inform their wives; for them not to is probably a sign of a pretty dysfunctional relationship, and in many circumstances could be a pretty detestable act. But should we have a law requiring them to?
And if you think husbands do have such a legal right, what makes them so special? Every abortion involves half of some guy's 'child' being 'killed,' if one accepts those terms. Yet somehow only married men deserve to be notified? And what about emergency contraception, which some people continue to insist is a form of abortion?
It's. Her. Body. A marriage license is not a property deed.
This is the second time you've repeated this trope. I fail to see what about being told of an impending abortion makes her his "property." Requiring consent would do that, but requiring notice, not so much. Keeping in mind, of course, that all that was required in Casey was that the woman sign a form; it would have been much more burdensome if her husband was required to sign it.
I wouldn't mind if the law required wives to be informed about vasectomies. Or for that matter, about other major decisions which will have a big impact on her, such as incurring a mortgage.
And if you think husbands do have such a legal right, what makes them so special? Every abortion involves half of some guy's 'child' being 'killed,' if one accepts those terms. Yet somehow only married men deserve to be notified?
It wouldn't bother me if non-husbands had to be notified, either, although since the law presumes husbands to be the fathers of children born during the marriage or promply thereafter, they do have a greater claim to notice than one-night stands.
Dan, just to flip the hypo:
A woman gets pregnant by her husband. She immediately divorces him and moves away. 9 months later she gives birth to his child, but decides she doesn't need child support from him, so she never tells him about the child.
Should he have a legal right to be notified about the child's existence? After all, he merely contributed genetic material, and it is "her body."
The decision to abort or not is huge, and has a huge impact on the future lives of both husband and wife. I think a husband has every right to participate in that decision (pro or anti), even if in the end his wife will wind up with full control over the decision itself.
All the pro-choice claptrap about "It's her body" ignores the fact that women don't abort to avoid pregnancy, they abort to avoid motherhood. You don't have to think it's really a baby to see that becoming a father or not becoming a father is a very big deal.
Oh, and as an aside: If she does want child support, can he defend on the grounds that It's. My. Wallet. Marrige doens't give her a deed in my future earnings.
Late to the discussion, but here goes.
Freddie wrote:
"No babies are aborted 1 second before birth. None. Zero. None. No babies are aborted anywhere close to that. "Partial birth abortion" has, in fact, nothing to do with live birth."
Yes it does. Federal law and most state laws define live birth as
1) when a baby completely leaves the birth canal (the umbilical cord may still be attached) and 2) if the baby shows any movement of a voluntary muscle, a heartbeat, or takes a breath.
A spontaneous or induced birth at 20 weeks would result in a baby breathing for about an hour before dying, but this would still qualify as a live birth. At 23 weeks, one-third of babies survive long term, and at 24 weeks, more than one-half of babies survive long term. So the repeated claims at the beginning of the paragraph are simply wrong.
"The vast, vast majority of partial birth abortions are performed before the third trimester."
True, but irrelevant given that viability (if you put stock in that term) occurs before the third trimester. See above.
"Partial birth is a term chosen purely for political theater. If you want to be taken seriously, please argue honestly."
No, the opposite is true. Partial-birth abortion is a legal term of art defined by Congress and recognized by medical dictionaries, including the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary. The terms "intact dilation and extraction" or "intact dilation and evacuation"
are attempts to hide the nature of the act through scientific mumbo-jumbo. Notice any word missing in those terms? Oh yeah, abortion!
This might seem insignificant, but the terms D&X and D&E are not the most accurate terms available, because it is possible to undergo those procedures without getting an abortion. My sister did five years ago when she lost her twin boys in the seventh month of pregnancy. She had an intact D&X, but obviously there was no subsequent abortion because her babies were already dead.
So partial-birth abortion is an accurate description of the procedure, and this is why leading medical authorities will continue to use this term in the way they use the term heart-attack instead of myocardial infarction.
Brad L wrote:
"Calling both ends of the spectrum "extremism" elides the fact that many, many more people are comfortable saying that life begins at conception than believe (or at least demonstrate through their actions) that the moment of birth is what indicates the "validity" of a human being, a position held by approximately nobody."
Well, many people are comfortable saying that life begins at conception because life does begin at conception. Any embryology textbook will tell you that the beginning of a genetically-distinct member of the human species begins precisely at conception. I think what you mean to say is that the notion that personhood (with the corresponding rights that any born person has) begins at conception is extreme. I think the view you characterize as extreme can be rationally defended, as Robert P. George has shown. But let's move on.
I presume the word approximately was thrown in for the Peter Singer crowd, but even the defenders of partial-birth abortion hold the view you suggest "approximately nobody" holds, given the way a live birth is actually defined. I realize that you were responding to rwe and his comment about the nine month fetus, but again viability occurs well before the end of the third trimester. A partial-birth abortion of a baby at 24 weeks is not really different from killing a baby the day before its natural birthday. Which leads me to my final point.
People like me who argue that both life and personhood begin at conception are nowhere close to having our views put into law, while people who defend partial-birth abortion (a view which defnies the "validity" of a baby at birth) did have their views put into law. In fact, the Supreme Court declared this procedure to be a protected Constitutional Right back in 2000. And as you pointed out, late term abortion still takes place today, even if that procedure is rare. So I guess your point elides the fact that the extreme position on one side has been imposed on the country by judicial fiat, which is not unimportant.
One final point. For those who try to downplay post-viability abortion by pointing out the rarity of this occurrence, I wonder if you would accept this kind of argument from someone defending the status quo on the death penalty. If someone were to say that the death penalty is fine as it is, because "only" 53 people were executed in 2006, would this be an acceptable argument? I don't think it is.
Torourke, Freddie doesn't know anything. You might as well try to have a rational discussion with a two year old child.
Your post is quite reasonable, but it is wasted on a vacuous interlocutor. Freddie makes Paris Hilton look like an intellectual.
Re: Well, many people are comfortable saying that life begins at conception because life does begin at conception.
This is nonsense, because there is never a point in the whole gestation process when something that is dead becomes something that is alive. Life never "begins"-- it continues. (Who would deny that sperm and egg are alive?) The question which needs to be addressed is when should personhood, with all its attendant rights, be acknowledged? I would put that point no later than the point when a fetus shows brain activity, since we acknowledge that personhood ends when the brain ceases to function. Others may have other answers and I am willing to listen to their arguments, but let's debate the right thing, not scientific nonsense about life "beginning". That's something that happened 3.8 billion years ago or so and is no part of the present debate.
rwe, while I don't agree with much of what Freddie posts, that's a rather unnecessarily rude characterization.
As since my son turns 3 next weekend, I know whereof I speak.
I think what you mean to say is that the notion that personhood (with the corresponding rights that any born person has) begins at conception is extreme.
I suppose this is fair, but is more parsing than I would do. I think (and you demonstrate) that the original point was perfectly understandable, even stated colloquially.
I think the view you characterize as extreme can be rationally defended...
Of course it can. It's not a view that I hold, but it is a perfectly logically consistent one, given certain assumptions. In fact, the point of my post was that this is a fairly common viewpoint, but by labeling this and using "1-moment-before-birth" rhetoric by the same label ("extremist"), one would be falsely inflating the number of people who are comfortable with late-term abortions, basically to try to vilify a large group by association with a vanishingly small one.
A partial-birth abortion of a baby at 24 weeks is not really different from killing a baby the day before its natural birthday.
I think this gets a little tricky. In your previous post, you say "at 24 weeks, more than one-half of babies survive long term." I'm not sure how well doctors can determine what that likelihood is on a case by case basis, but I am betting this is not totally random. The lower the possibility of survival, the less this is like the day before its natural birthday. This is relevant, of course, if you are using viability as your guide.
If you are using a different guide (some guess at "awareness"), then this calculus probably changes again somewhat.
My problem, generally speaking, with abortion discussions is that people seem not to recognize that there are several perfectly defensible points that you could debate personhood: conception, recognizability (this is more emotional, but people use it), viability, awareness. But in the heated dialog that gets tossed about, somehow it becomes "conception or birth" to many people (with conception being the moment you describe as just before an otherwise natural birth), and I just believe a hardly anybody falls into that camp. For all intents and purposes, that really is a strawman.
For those who try to downplay post-viability abortion by pointing out the rarity of this occurrence, I wonder if you would accept this kind of argument from someone defending the status quo on the death penalty.
The reason the rarity seems salient to me is not that it's "only" so many times that something bad happens, it's that it suggests to me that other factors are at play, quite likely the health of the mother.
And while the earlier point is that "health" is hard to define narrowly is also valid, removing it as a viable reason to perform a late-term abortion seems terrible to me. I just can't see legislating the doctor's opinion out of the equation. And again, the rarity tends to show that even if it is possible to define the health exception too broadly, it doesn't seem to happen that frequently (depending, I suppose, on which numbers you believe).
As a quick aside, about the death penalty and numbers argument: You can probably guess that I am against the death penalty. Philosophically, I disagree with it. But it would make a *huge* difference to me, as a practical concern, if I felt it were used rarely (reasonably true) and, more importantly, justly.
Quick corrections:
"one would be falsely inflating the number of people who are comfortable with on demand late-term abortions (as opposed to health-related, etc.)"
and
"somehow it becomes "conception or birth" to many people (with birth being the moment you describe as just before an otherwise natural birth)"
Re: I think (and you demonstrate) that the original point was perfectly understandable, even stated colloquially.
No, I disagree. Debating about "When does life begin" is extremely misleading, as it suggests we can replace a moral question ("When should we acknowledge a fetus as a person"?) with a merely factual one.
"All the pro-choice claptrap about "It's her body" ignores the fact that women don't abort to avoid pregnancy, they abort to avoid motherhood."
Actually, a fair proportion of them are already mothers. The mask always slips. It's always about those selfish, wicked, unnatural women, isn't it?
The mask always slips. It's always about those selfish, wicked, unnatural women, isn't it?
Dan, I have no f'ing clue what these sentences mean.
Actually, a fair proportion of them are already mothers
You're being deliberately obtuse, but I'll rephrase for the benefit of people who avoid my point by pretending not to understand me: women don't abort to avoid pregnancy, they abort to avoid having a child.
Satisfied?
"rwe, while I don't agree with much of what Freddie posts, that's a rather unnecessarily rude characterization."-Rob Lyman
Rob, look, I tried to point out to Fredie that biologically there is not much difference between a baby just before birth and just after. He responded:
That's a non-sequitur. It is not a logical response to anything I argued. I never claimed that any baby was aborted one second before birth. I was trying, as should have been obvious, to make the point that birth is not the right moment at which to declare that a baby (or fetus) is a person with rights--that one should reasonably consider an earlier time.
Freddie also made assertions about the mental states of women who've had abortions backed by nothing other than his own vehemence. Any adult should know that if he's going to make an empirical argument he ought to provide empirical evidence.
And I have seen Freddie's posts before. He is always similarly irrational--full of non-sequiturs, sophisms and passion unmoored to logic. Often they are so incoherent that noone could discern his meaning. So I have no choice but to conclude that Freddie is largely incapable of rational discourse. Rickm is probably even worse.
Actually, I could say much worse things about someone who would write that there is no reason for a woman having an abortion--even a late-term abortion--to have any remorse or sorrow about it. But I won't. Res ipsa loquitur. What puzzles me is why you would defend this guy. He and his pal Rickm are the ones who started with the insults (look at Freddie's second post, which was a direct response to my first one--it was nothing but an insult directed at me).
Anyway, the guy's a clown, and I've wasted too much time on him already.
JonF wrote:
"This is nonsense, because there is never a point in the whole gestation process when something that is dead becomes something that is alive. Life never "begins"-- it continues. (Who would deny that sperm and egg are alive?)"
I wouldn't, but the sperm cell and egg cell are functionally and genetically parts of different people (namely the father and mother), that combine to form a new, genetically-distinct member of the human species at conception. I'm not suggesting a human embryo is formed ex nihilo at the moment of conception, and I think a fair reading of what I wrote would indicate as much.
Brad L,
Your points are all well taken and I don't think the average pro-choicer is fine and dandy with late-term abortion on demand. But I suspect that the number of late-term abortions, and the percentage of those abortions that are purely elective, are higher than you might think.
Let's take partial-birth abortion. When the bill to ban that procedure was first introduced into Congress in 1995, the reaction of the leading pro-choice groups was not exactly impressive. NARAL and Planned Parenthood issued statements suggesting that the procedure was rare (500-600 a year they claimed) and only done when there were severe medical risks present to the mother, fetus, or both.
It only took a few months before these claims were debunked. In September of 1996, reporters from the Washington Post and the Record--a newspaper in Bergen County, NJ--disclosed that one clinic alone in Bergen County performed 1,500 partial-birth abortions a year on mostly healthy babies. A few months after that, Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, admitted to the New York Times that there were roughly three to five thousand partial-birth abortions each year, and that the vast majority were performed on healthy mothers with healthy babies. Given that one clinic alone performed 1,500, I think it's safe to assume that the real number was higher. Maybe even much higher.
The point of all of this is that the numbers on late-term abortions you and Mixner were discussing were provided to the AGI on a purely voluntary basis by various clinics, and thus chances are that the number is higher, again maybe even considerably higher. Furthermore, the chances that the procedures are mostly elective--as they were in the partial-birth cases--is very high. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I have a bad feeling that I'm not.
That's why I associate a partial-birth abortion at 24 weeks, or any other kind of late-term abortion so closely with the killing of a baby right before the natural birthday. The chances are high these babies are healthy, and that even at 24 weeks they have a better than fifty percent chance of surviving long term.
I realize that I'm extrapolating from numbers that are not well-known to a somewhat different setting, and again I'm not suggesting that pro-choicers know this stuff and care not. But to properly evaluate late-term abortion, I think we need to be clear-eyed about what is most likely happening.
If you happen across any information to show otherwise, it would make me feel better. A little.
If you happen across any information to show otherwise, it would make me feel better. A little.
Me too. Actually, better information would make me feel better regardless of whether it supported or contradicted my beliefs. Context matters a lot here, and the numbers are really hard to deal with.
I was surprised at the Bergen county report you mention. I wasn't able to find the original article, but I did find http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/3/abortion.asp" rel="nofollow">this interview with Ruth Padawar of the Record.
The whole thing is interesting, but this caught my eye:
For what it's worth, I think even here we are defining "late-term" as before the 24th week. It's similar with Fitzsimmons, from what I gather: the NYT says there were more procedures of the type in dispute, but the timeframe is once again tricky, and this puts that 20-24 week timeframe back into question:
Helpful? Probably it's just more confusion. My suspicions lie opposite yours -- I don't think too many prospective mothers wait until the last moment for elective abortions; I think almost all of those pregnancies (24+ weeks) were wanted -- but this informational goop seems only to be telling each of us what we want to hear.
Re: the sperm cell and egg cell are functionally and genetically parts of different people (namely the father and mother),
Sperm and egg are physically contained within their parent organsims, but they are genetically distinct from them in that they are haploid not diploid. There are some living species where the haploid entities are free living organisms in their own right and the diploids are insignificant means to reproduction; or in which haploid and diploid members of the species are both free-living and alternate generations with one another.
If a newly fertilzed egg is a unique individual so was the unfertilzed egg and the sperm that fertilized it.
Which is why I think it's more sensible to define personhood on the basis of functionality (a sentient and functioning mind) not by genetic reductionism. Sperm and egg are not persons, nor are zygotes. Nor are brain-dead bodies kept alive by artificial technology. But fetuses-- yes, they are (hence a basis to oppose abortion as we commonly understand the term). And should we ever create sentient AI or encounter sentient aliens they too would and should be accorded personhood rights.