So, what now for Planned Parenthood?

Well, it’s passed the house, but it still has to pass the Senate and get Obama’s signature. It’s expected that it will get some resistance in the Senate.

Currently, ⅓ of Planned Parenthood’s funding comes from federal, state, and local funding.

@MyNewtBoobs thank you. Exactly what I wanted to know. I am mentally challenged in the field of politics.

@deni – How a Bill Becomes Law

A great intro and good stuff to know.

It hasn’t happened yet. All sorts of awful stuff gets thrown at the budget bill, but it has not passed and been signed by the President yet.

@deni No prob – I’m quite great at explaining it to the layperson. In fact, several of my friends rely on me regularly when they need to know what’s going on.

“Since the Democratic-run Senate is stronger on abortion rights than the House, the proposal is not likely to pass.” – New York Magazine

In debating the issue, Jackie Speier (Dem. CA) revealed that she once had an abortion because of the life-threatening complications, which (I’m 99% sure) makes her the first representative to reveal her own abortion in a floor debate.

@MyNewtBoobs – That’s profound.

Oh, no. You mean people are going to be expected to pay for their own medical bills? Some may have to resort to abstinence? Adults will have to learn to be responsible or pay the consequences? What has this world come to!!

@12Oaks You didn’t really answer the question but thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!

@MyNewtBoobs I heard that too. I agree, tis profound.

@12Oaks – It’s not the adults that I’d be worried about – it’s mostly the kids.

Adults should be responsible for their decisions. Let’s make sure that it’s only the adults that are the ones that have to deal with the responsibility.

Considering that with the rise of concern over AIDS and more contraceptive availability has led to a steady decline until only very recently in teen births so that, again until recently, it’s been lowering to 1970s levels.

Of course, people are less afraid of AIDS now. Traditionalism has been pushing abstinence-only programs, and the “purity ring” phenomenon (abstinence pledges arguably don’t significantly whether or not teens have premarital sex – unfortunately, those who pledge do seem less likely to use protection.). With that in mind coinciding with the increase in teen pregnancy, why do we think trying to publicly defund Planned Parenthood is a good idea?

Perhaps because of the “Live Action” video scam that was meant to show how Planned Parenthood was pushing abortion and protecting sex trafficking. Edited for traditionalist benefits, of course, it showed what was some upsetting PP behavior – of course, the full video and story shows that much of the conversation was elicited to get information for the authorities, or authorities had already been contacted (see here and here).

And, of course, ignores an important thing – these counselors have to skirt a fine line between helping and judging…appearing like it’s a safe place and fulfilling a duty to law enforcement. If people knew that if you went to PP they would just turn you in, would you really go?

The push on the legislation went forward with a vengeance on release of the videos. Live Action is really doing it’s job – although ironically it’s going to probably help create the “nanny state” that neo-con rhetoric always seems to find distasteful – only this won’t be figurative in that the state will treat us like children…it’ll be literal in that the state will have a whole lot more babies birthed by babies to take care of.

@iamthemob It’s not that I necessarily think that trying to publicly defund Planned Parenthood is a good idea. It’s more the idea that the government really shouldn’t be in the medical business or the funding of anything but law enforcement/military, judicial and infrastructure. They should no more fund abortions for teens (or anyone) then they should be buying car companies, in the loan business, or dictating what should or should not be allowed on the Internet, as long as it’s legal, of course. Lower taxes and stay out of my personal life is all I ask of the government—too bad that’s too much to ask. (sigh)

@12Oaks

“They should no more fund abortions for teens (or anyone) then they should be buying car companies”

They don’t. The Hyde Amendment stopped that in the 70s.

So how do you propose that the poor (who are the primary population served by Planned Parenthood) get reproductive health care?

Planned Parenthood’s Negro Project has become The Poor Project.

Why should tax dollars fund Planned Parenthood?

This would be absolutely devastating to a huge part of our communities. I doubt Obama would pass this.

@crisw Simple. If you that poor, and you can’t afford to raise the kids you create, then you shouldn’t have kids to begin with. How? you may ask. Even simpler—abstinence works every time it’s tried. Amazing, huh?

@12Oaks

I think you are massively confused about what Planned Parenthood does. It’s not all about abortions, or even about contraception. Nor is it only for unmarried people.

Planned Parenthood provides, among other things, screening for cancers of the reproductive organs and breasts, menopause treatments, pregnancy care, sexual health education, and so on. So, once again- how would you have the poor obtain such care?

@perspicacious

“Why should tax dollars fund Planned Parenthood?”

Why shouldn’t they?

@casheroo

“I doubt Obama would pass this.”

I doubt it will make it into the final budget bill. But the problem with all of these amendments is that the President does not have line item veto power. There are always a bunch of nasty, unnecessary amendments in budget bills, tacked on because the President is unlikely to veto the entire budget over them.

@perspicacious would you rather have a ton of unwanted kids running around not getting the care they deserve? Not every 20 year old wants to go through a pregnancy just to give their kid up for adoption because its what YOU think they should do.

@12Oaks Seriously..poor people having sex, how sick! They should be living in squalor together, sold all their belongings, have nothing nice and better not be spending any money on anything that might be considered a luxury!!! ~

@bkcunningham

You may need to read this.

@casheroo well I know that one of my main goals in life is to not have sex until I have a safe 50k in the bank. The two are directly related after all.~~~~~~~~~~

@deni Pssh, only 50k? A birth can cost 57k! you need to have at least 100k before you even think of getting into bed, missy!

@crisw Oh, that is so simple. Private funding, of course. Governments shouldn’t give to any charities. Another simple way is to privatize all that could be privatized, lower all taxes down to a minimal, and then we’d all have a better chance so that the poor may no longer exist—will at least be reduced to almost nothing—and could afford all on our own.

@casheroo Maybe the poor should spend less time in bed and more time cleaning their apartments so they no longer live in squalor. Would free up more time looking for a job. But, damnit, they’d rather have half of my income taken from me and given to them. Redistribution of all that hope and change.

My kid’s delivery was about $3,000 cash in hand. In the past five years, I took nothing in aid from nobody. Not bad for a high school drop-out, huh?

@casharoo What birth costed $57,000? $3,000 is the going rate…. was in 2005, anyway, when the economy was the best it ever had been. I paid in cash, so it may have been “tax-free income” for the doctor, I really don’t know nor care.

@12Oaks I’ll show you the bill from my youngest…it was 57,000. My oldest was I think less than 30,000…I forget the exact amount. I had my youngest in 2010.
I’m thinking of having the next in my bathtub. I’m not even kidding.

@casheroo How in the world did it cost that much? I hope it was a healthy baby and regular, good birth and all is going well, seriously. My wife had a c-section and it was about $3,000. Mine was done at a private hospital with a private doctor paid privately. Man, $3,000 to $57,000 in 5 years is quite the inflation.

@12Oaks I really think you ought to get off that high horse and get a clue before you continue spewing privileged, entitled, backward-ass opinions about this topic.

@12Oaks The baby was fine. I had a csection, it also included an epidural, meds for the csection, close to 5 days in the hospital. My oldest was a normal vaginal, epidural plus narcotics, 48 hour stay.
Giving birth is expensive. My first was covered by private insurance…15 buck copay once. My second was Medicaid, but I did pay 21.00 to the hospital for a copay for it all. Who even knows if they got even close to 57000.

@12Oaks

I am very surprised that the chips on your shoulders have not weighted you down so much that you cannot move. Your lack of empathy is even more disturbing than your economic blindness.

@12Oaks Abstinence works great, just look at the Palin family. One pregnant teenage daughter, and Palin herself having babies at irresponsible ages which resulted in a child with a developmental disorder.

I’m baffled by conservatives that are beating their drums about how illegal immigrants crossing into the US is creating an overpopulation of poor minorities, while simultaneously advocating policies that will result in millions of unwanted children to be born mostly into poverty.

@12Oaks The funding of abortion is just another Republican Big Lie way of attacking Planned Parenthood. The Hyde Amendment, which has been in place since 1976, prohibits any use of taxpayer dollars for abortions. Planned parenthood provides family planning counseling, help with getting birth control pills, mammogram, etc. But of course, they help little people, and Republicans want to make sure that taxpayer money only goes to the world’s largest corporations and wealthiest people; because that’s who gives the big money to the Republican Party to help them establish permanent one-party rule.

Republicans are protecting the $40 billion a year annual subsidy to the oil industry, the most profitable industry in the entire history of the Earth. Corporate farms now produce over 90% of all the food grown in the USA. Republicans are fighting to keep paying Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto Company. Cargill and the other huge agri-corporations not to grow specific crops. Republicans are willing to accept the accidental spillover of 10% of the massive farm subsidies so long as almost all of it ends up in the hands of their corporatist cash cows.

None of these budget salvation moves House Republicans are making are even intended to make it into law. There is no way Senate Democrats are going to allow them to stand, or that the President would sign a budget bill that uses slash-and-burn tactics on the poor in order to preserve, untouched, welfare for the world’s largest corporations. Their real intent is to force no votes in the Senate, filibusters, procedural moves and Presidential vetoes that they can then say are all the Democrat [sic] Party’s fault. The Democrat [sic] Party shut down the government.So what if it throws millions of people out of work. They’re just workers, not people that matter..

@ETpro Fortunately, there are other, less murdersome organizations that can pick up the slack.

@Nullo It’s a bit early to start dancing on Planned Parenthood’s grave/

@ETpro You better believe it. I just found out about this; it’s gonna take days to sort out the schedules, buy the party hats and decorations and noisemakers, get a cake made, and find all of the really good fireworks in the state.
You’re all invited, of course. BYOB!

While I’m all for BYOB parties… regardless of occasion… does ANYONE know someone that hasn’t been helped by planned parenthood…

And really… who here is against education when it comes to reproduction… seriously… is there any better education you could give someone than an understanding of what it takes to make a family.

I rarely speak out strongly for any organization here, but how could anyone be against people understanding more what it takes to make a happy family and having options should something else happen.

Seriously.

It’s not so much that I don’t like abortion (I live in China and American abortion is on a waaaaay smaller scale-now that partial birth is illegal I’m satisfied overall with our rules). It’s that Planned Parenthood was started by this woman,.

Yeah, it seems to me that a lot of Planned Parenthood haters don’t really get what PP DOES. They are great with informing young people about STDs and pretty much everything regarding sex….condoms, how to talk about it with your kids, etc. And yeah, I guess it makes them the worst organization in the world that they LET A WOMAN CHOOSE. OMg so awful.

The U.S. was founded by slave owners, and Thomas Jefferson wrote a treatise on the inferiority of the “Negro.”

A disturbing factoid – but focusing on that as good reason for wanting to defund planned parenthood sounds a little “conspiracy theory.”

@jlelandg

Please see the link I provided above. Extreme-right wing anti-abortion groups are distorting the truth on this one.

@crisw

The thing is, even if they are not – does that matter and does that really have anything to do with PP now?

@crisw @iamthemob has a point. Even that paper (which is pretty good, btw), admits she was a eugenisist. But that also didn’t effect her PP feelings. In her opinion proper family planning would lead to better people. Makes sense. She was also not up for forced eugenics.

Also, Henry Ford was a pretty huge eugenicist, much more then Sanger, and I’m pretty sure he was a proponent of forced eugenics. Don’t see him demonized for it very often.

Also also, @jlelandg She was highly respected by, at least, Martin Luther King Jr and W.E.B. DuBois. I find it hard to believe that that picture is honest given that kind of support.

@iamthemob

You are correct. I really hate ad hominem attacks. They are never valid in trying to discredit a position.

@BhacSsylan

Another good clarifying point. That time period was one where eugenics was actually in vogue – along with social Darwinism. The respect that eugenics as a “science” had was reflected in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinion in Buck v. Bell (especially unfortunate considering that Holmes is one of the greatest legal scholars the Court has ever seen) and is part of the reason for our devastatingly slow reaction to the Nazi power consolidation in Europe.

@iamthemob yeah, it’s sort of strange how these huge gaps appear in history. I don’t think it’s necessarily conscious, but i never even heard of eugenics until a few years ago, even though it was a large and well-supported movement.

I’ll be sending them more money.

[mod says] This thread has been moved to Social. Prior ‘off-topic’ remark restored.

@deni Oh, we’re aware of Planned Parenthood’s assorted other services. It is enough that they provide abortions.
If they were to stop that, or make them really hard to get, we’d probably back off.

@Nullo – The problem that I have is that PP doesn’t offer abortions for free, as far as I know. I understand how people would not want to have federal dollars spent on funding for people to subsidize or receive abortions for free – that seems a reasonable policy concern.

The problem with offering federal dollars only to those organizations that don’t provide abortions is that what is the difference between those that do, and those that offer information on how to get abortions? If there is no practical difference, then the government can only give federal dollars to organizations that promote anti-abortion policies (e.g., at the very least refuse to provide information on abortion as an option).

@Nullo Why should they be really hard to get? Because your opinion is that they should? Why should your opinion be pushed on every woman in the country?

@Nullo

So are you saying that you would make your personal religious beliefs, which others may not share, the law of the land? You would deny people care because of your personal religious beliefs? You’d violate the First Amendment and have the government promulgate a certain religion because of your personal religious beliefs? What’s the difference between that and, say, imposing Sharia law on everyone? I don’t imagine that you are in favor of that now, are you?

Here’s a link to a petition to support Planned Parenthood.

I signed it, although I’m sure that our senators (Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein), are already both strong supporters of PP.

The last time I was getting health care at a Planned Parenthood (it was a cancer-detecting pap smear if you must know), there was a big notice there about how, while services like my pap smear are subsidized, abortion services are not, and as such, to not expect them to be quite as affordable as the other sorts of care someone might get. Because abortion services are full price, that alone can “make them really hard to get” for many people. Is that what you mean, @Nullo?

@Brian1946 As much as I’d like to sign that, I’m pretty sure my protest to McCain and Kyl will go unheeded >.<. You can support them directly via their website too, though. Click ‘stand with Planned Parenthood’ in the middle there. Sorry, the direct link is crazy long so I couldn’t put it in here.

@deni I don’t think taxpayers should pay for abortions, period.

WOW! I have spent some time (since reading this question yesterday) on researching the whole Sanger/Racism/Eugenics/Planned Parenthood issue and I have to say that Sanger doesn’t seem as bad to me as people make her out to be, but theres some other issues that make me wonder. I am going to stick with my original position: I’m glad we’re not dealing with a situation like China with birth control rates, and since partial birth abortion is illegal I’m rather okay with the abortion laws in the US. I wish there was reproductive health for people that wasn’t Planned Parenthood because of MS’s questionable background.

fwiw I’ve heard of condoms handed out by planned parenthood not having a great success rate. Ah yes, here is something: a prolife article (biased) quoting a Consumer Reports study (unbiased) that their condom quality does suck-possibly leading to more abortions?

I don’t know how it was funded. But I’ve had two abortions at Planned Parenthood, they did not ask for proof of income, other than taking my word, and I didn’t pay nearly as much as it originally cost. They go on a sliding scale. The cost of an abortion is much less than more children on the system.
That’s the kicker. Republicans want you to have the unwanted child, but then they don’t want to help you in any way financially or medically…cutting funding towards Medicaid and other welfare programs…but god forbid you ever have an abortion!! think of the fetus!

@casheroo As to Sanger, again keep in mind two things. First, it was a different time, and opinions like eugenics were very common. And again, she had respect from very important civil rights leaders. Wouldn’t get that if she was attempting to somehow subvert African Americans. And, she argued against other, forced eugenics supporters, stating that the woman is the one who should decide when and if to have a child, not the state (forced eugenics would not only say some people can’t have children, but also that these people should, because they’re ‘better’). See: Nazi Germany, where they actually burned down family planning centers.

And secondly, again, the moral fiber of the founder does not necessarily reflect on the organization. As @iamthemob stated, Jefferson actually went as far as writing an entire treatsie on why blacks should be enslaved, because of their inferior mental capabilities. Whites needed to ‘help’ them.

And, lastly, i looked at that link, but they don’t link directly to the CR report, and i couldn’t find hide nor hair of such a report on the website. Some reviews of condoms, but none referencing planned parenthood. Also, i tend to view conspiracy theories rather dimly, and that’s essentially what that is.

@Nullo Virtually all hospitals provide abortions in cases where that is necessary to save the life of the mother. Would you like to also see all hospitals closed down. Of course, when the fetus is not yet viable outside the womb, letting the mother just die kills the fetus too. But who cares. The husband, the family, their friends may all be devastated at the loss, but at least Jesus is happy.

@ETpro Oh, you didn’t hear? There’s a new bill up to allow hospitals not only to refuse such an operation, but to refuse to transport the woman to a facility that will perform it. Say hello to H.R. 358.

Relavent quote from a talking points memo: “Pitts’ new bill would free hospitals from any abortion requirement under EMTALA, meaning that medical providers who aren’t willing to terminate pregnancies wouldn’t have to—nor would they have to facilitate a transfer.”

Redefining rape, letting hospitals sit by while women die, and trying to kill Planned Parenthood. Yep, republicans hate women. Glad to see that’s on the table now.

@BhacSsylan The race for batshit crazy continues among Republicans.

@BhacSsylan @ETpro And there was a bill in South Dakota that would make murdering an abortion provider “justifiable homicide”.

@MyNewtBoobs Well, yes. We could go on for a while. Here’s a top ten list, if you like feeling very, very sad: Top Ten Republican Attacks On Women

@BhacSsylan Oh, I saw that!

@BhacSsylan Helpful link to have. Thanks. I’ve bookmarked it.

Yeesh, I don’t think I’ve ever had this many responses to one measly post.

Okay, in order:
@iamthemob I dislike any organization that doles out abortions par commodité, federally-subsidized or otherwise.

@deni They should be hard to get because every single one kills a person. Not even guns are so deadly in purpose: those at least miss now and then, and people have been surviving gunshot wounds for centuries.
Why should my opinion be pushed on every woman in the country? I dunno, why do we prosecute and imprison criminals? That’s some opinion on-pushing if ever there was any.

@crisw This happens to be an ethics issue, not a religious one. Ethics are part of a person’s paradigm. My paradigm is rooted in my faith, but there are atheist and agnostic pro-lifers in the world as well. Ethics-based legislation is nothing new – it lies at the very heart of the criminal justice system, for instance, and has for a while.
I contend that the unborn are human (albeit underdeveloped – really, who among us stops developing, at birth or even at Death’s door?), like the rest of us, and so deserve the same rights that we afford everybody else.

@laureth At the time, I was thinking specifically about a Missouri law that at one point required, or else still requires, a 24-hour waiting period between consultation and abortion, to give the mother time to think it over. Obstructions like that, discussion of (and emphasis on) alternatives, generally things that would reduce the overall frequency of abortions. I understand that there are medical conditions that might necessitate an abortion for the sake of the mother’s survival (I believe that uterine cancer is one such condition); I feel that such cases are the only ones in which it is a justifiable alternative.
The pro-abortion lobby’s goal was “safe, legal, and rare,” wasn’t it?

@ETpro I understand that there are medical conditions that might necessitate an abortion for the sake of the mother’s survival (I believe that uterine cancer is one such condition); I feel that such cases are the only ones in which it is a justifiable alternative – it comes down to one life or another, or one life or no lives.
For the record, doing what God wants you to do is always a good idea.

I do not think that a doctor ought to be required to perform abortions if he doesn’t want to.
@BhacSsylan Would you want them to pass a law that forces you to participate in unsavory/unethical practices just so that you can keep your job?

@Nullo What if I have a miscarriage? Should I be put in the stocks?

@Nullo Aren’t we all required to participate in unsavory/unethical practices just to keep our jobs? Especially those with entry-level jobs who can’t really afford to quit until they find something better?

@deni Don’t be silly; miscarriages are non-volitional. A murderer has to want to kill someone; otherwise, it’s just accidental death, or perhaps manslaughter. Entirely physiological processes are exempt entirely, since there is no way to control them.

@MyNewtBoobs It’s not legally mandated, is it? And if you’re being made to do unethical things, you really ought to tell someone.
A lot of doctors get into the business to save and improve lives, not to end them. Besides that, I believe that, presently, there are other penalties for doctors who refuse abortions. Sounds like discrimination, to me.

@Nullo well, here’s a news flash for you. A ball of cells isn’t a human being with a brain and a heart. And here’s another thing. I think a lot of us here who are for PP and for a woman’s right to choose would probably agree that after a certain point, abortion IS wrong. But when it’s just a cluster of cells that, if it’s lucky, resembles an alien-being, sorry, but that is not the same as murdering another living person.

@Nullo – I’m willing to believe that someone going in for an abortion has thought it over on their own for at least “a day” anyway, because it’s not like going in to get your nails painted or your hair did. Same with the silly rule somewhere that a doctor has to show the pregnant woman the ultrasound and point out the different body parts and talk about the growth of the fetus. It’s a play on the psyche and emotions of women who are already in a tough place, or else they wouldn’t be going in there to get an abortion.

Somewhat off topic, but why not have women going in for pre-natal care for their wanted pregnancies have to hear about things like the cost of daycare, the cost of college, about what idiots teenagers can be, what it’s like to not get any real sleep for a few years, and how it takes several hundred thousand dollars to raise a kid to adulthood?

Although I do admit it would be interesting to make Wal*Mart shoppers have to watch videos about sweatshop labor, fast food customers have to watch the slaughter of factory-farmed cows, and SUV drivers visit islanders whose homes are disappearing under rising sea levels before they all engage in such behaviours. If we’re forcing abortion-seekers to get real up-close and guilty about their moral choices, why stop there?

@Nullo Just one note: EMTALA does not force anyone to provide an abortion. Period. It does, however, force the hospital to bring the woman to where she can get the care. And, just so we’re perfectly clear, this is only in life threatening circumstances. So no, if i had a choice between shuttling someone to where they can get help i’m personally iffy on, and letting a person (or to you, two people!) die, i sure as hell would pick the first.

@deni and yes, i believe abortions are prohibited after the second trimester. And partial birth has been banned for a while, i believe.

On a tangential note, Stephen Levitt found a link between abortion rights and the national crime rate.
To summarize, he found that the decline in national crime rates from the 80s to the 90s wasn’t adequately explained by the ideas being put forth by politicians. A closer look revealed that the ruling on Roe v Wade in the 70s affected the crime rate ~17 years later by reducing the number of unwanted children in the nation. Unwanted children are apparently more likely to commit crimes, which isn’t really a stretch of the imagination.

I just learned about this last night actually. I’d heard two friends recommend “Freakonomics” in the last week, this subject of crime rates and abortion as discussed in Freakonomics was a Jeopardy question yesterday, and then it popped up on Netflix to watch instantly. Weird, huh? So I watched it and it discusses this point among others. I totally recommend that movie.

@Nullo ”They should be hard to get because every single one kills a person.”
.
Er… No. They don’t. As @deni pointed out, they remove a cluster of cells from a woman’s body. Frankly, it’s like removing cancer cells before they get out of control and end up costing more to take care of than the actual person involved can handle.

Yeah, I sort of just compared kids to cancer. And I’d do it again.

This is really the crux of the abortion debate, and will never be resolved: I, and others of like mind, think the conceived fetus is not a person yet. I think until it reaches a vaguely defined level of sentience, the fetus is little more than a clump of cells like in any other fetus in any other animal on the planet. I don’t believe in late-term abortions (unless the mother’s health is in serious jeopardy), and I don’t know many that are.

@Nullo and others of like mind believe that at the moment the 23 chromosomes from the sperm and 23 chromosomes of the egg come together, you instantly have a human of equal rights to you, me, our friends, parents, children, etc….

No amount of debating will change either side’s mind, at least at this point in our history.

@cockswain I would hesitate to use that, just to say. That’s a flimsy connection at best. Possible, yes, but a proven link it is not.

@cockswain has just boiled it down to the essence, for sure.

@BhacSsylan I don’t understand what you said. You would hesitate to use what? What is a flimsy connection?

Edit: Oh, I think you mean the abortion/crime rate study. Can you explain why you think the connection is flmsy?

@deni If I’m derailing your thread to your irritation, just let me know

@cockswain You’re not. But you’re right. It will never be resolved. I’ve never met anyone who was pro-choice at one point and then switched to being pro-life…or vise versa. Have you? I’m sure they’re out there, but I’m willing to bet it’s very rare that someone changes their stance on abortion. But see, I get why people are anti-abortion. If someone doesn’t think abortion is right, then that is FINE WITH ME. I’m not going to MAKE them have an abortion. But when it’s the other way around, their views are imposed on me, and every other woman in the country, and I don’t get how that’s right. Keep to your fuckin self, you know?!

@Nullo

In other threads, you’ve claimed that a whale has no more rights than a worm does, because you believe, for religious reasons, that only humans matter and have rights. Yet here, you are willing to grant a clump of cells, with absolutely no sentience, full human rights. And you are calling it an ethical position rather than a religious one.

Any tenable ethical position must be logical and consistent. This position is neither. A blastocyst is biologically human- but that doesn’t automatically grant it full human rights. After all, the cheek cells I kill every time I brush my teeth are also fully biologically human, yet no one accuses me of murder when I do so. Nor is the potential of the blastocyst what grants it rights- cracking an egg is not the same thing as torturing a chicken.

Rights serve to protect our interests. In order to have interests, we must be aware enough to have preference autonomy- to be able to choose what we like and do not like, to have a life that can go better or worse for us. A ball of cells has no such sentiency. It makes no logical sense to grant it rights.

@deni

I’ve met quite a few people who were once pro-life. Sometimes they change their minds due to logic and reason (the same process that sometimes leads formerly religious people to become atheists.) Sometimes, they change their minds when their lives are directly affected, and they need an abortion.

@crisw HUH. Very interesting…

@deni

You might enjoy this story.

@cockswain To answer both your questions, first, i actually happened to be pro-life once upon a time. Upon becoming atheist I still was for a while, until the philosophy group I belonged to pointed out the logical inconsistency in my argument, and thus I became pro-choice. Unusual, yes, and that particular set of steps requires one to have internal consistency as a high priority, but conversion does happen. And since I’ve found more and more reasons to support my position (such as women’s rights), while pro-life just keeps getting flimsier and flimsier. Doesn’t help that my campus is inundated two to three times a year by ‘pro-lifers’ putting up huge pictures of aborted fetuses for shock value and trying to compare abortion to genocide. Darned state schools being publicly usable land. My Undergrad campus didn’t allow that crap.

And yes, i’d say that the abortion/crime rate connection is a little shaky. The main reason is that i don’t agree that they managed a decent show of causation. Correlation, fine, but that doesn’t show anything (see Relationship of # of pirates to global temperature, courtesy of FSM). The paper (this one, yes?) gives a correlation, and a plausible reason for causation, but not more. I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but in debates of this nature I like to stay with more solid footing. There’s so many good arguments against pro-life, I don’t see the need to give them any advantage with a tenuous connection.

@BhacSsylan Ok, that pirates/global warming thing may be the best argument I have heard yet that correlation =/= causation. Because pirates make everything awesome.

@BhacSsylan It appears Levitt found a statistically significant correlation though. On the surface, just hearing the idea of the theory, it sound shaky. But stats give high probabilities when applied correctly. I suppose to discuss deeper, we need to analyze Levitt’s methods on data analysis and see if we agree or not.

@cockswain I agree the statistics look good, but you really have to do more work to prove causation then just saying “the numbers make lots of sense”. You have to do the work necessary to show that your proposed theory actually makes physical sense. It doesn’t help that his theory relies on psychology/sociology, which isn’t doing himself any favors in that regard. Again, it’s entirely possible that it’s true. It’s just ridiculously difficult to prove it in this instance.

I’m with @BhacSsylan on this one – the problem with the type of study that you describe is that the more you actually try to isolate the variable that you’re controlling for, the less reflective it is of the real world, or the less meaning it actually has.

Yes, but you can apply what you guys are saying to any soft science. I am not saying I 100% believe the results of the study, since I’m a good skeptic. I just think the statistical significance is noteworthy. So in other words, if I was telling someone about this, I would say “there is a statistically significant probability that women’s freedom to choose whether or not to have a baby may have have played a large role in the reduction in the national crime rate entering the 90s.”

I don’t think a lot of people could really argue with that statement.

@cockswain Well, i suppose it mainly just comes down to what each of us is comfortable using in a argument, really. In which case i suppose we’re not really arguing, per se :-p. I guess my only worry is that he relied (as far as i could tell) purely on numbers, without the sociology aspect beyond conjecture. Like i wouldn’t publish a biochem paper on the statistics of a protein-protein interaction based on the numbers my machine told me, without doing the work to also show that the interaction was physically consistent, based on the structure and so forth.

And yes, i do tend to be wary of soft sciences, so maybe it’s just me. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Well, admittedly I haven’t read the paper entirely yet, but in the documentary he is contrasting it with a crime model in Romania, where Chocescu had forced women to have babies in hopes of stimulating economic growth and jobs (crazy, I know). Anyways, the increased unwanted babies resulted in an increase in crime in the same time period from the increase in birth as the inverse relationship occurred in the the US in relation to Roe v Wade (not the same years, the same difference in time). Either way, I think I’d best read the paper.

@deni I was also pro-life at one point. Then I turned about ten years old, read a little, shed my religious brainwashing, and got a clue. I know lots of others who switched from pro-life to pro-choice, too. But I’ve never met anyone who went the other direction.

@cockswain I did, but still, numbers numbers numbers. No reference to sociology to show that this link is possible beyond the numbers aspect. I also direct you to page 398 and 399. Those are some ugly looking graphs, just to say.

Oh, and the Romania story isn’t uncommon. Again, any forced eugenics tends to go that way. The state controls whether or not you should reproduce, so just as it tells some not to, it tells some they have to.

Also, I didn’t realize how well stated Roe v Wade is: “The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. SpecifiŽc and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it.”

Edit: And again, I do think it’s a good argument, and the paper as a whole is well done. I’m simply not convinced enough to use the argument myself.

@Nullo how many crack-babies have you adopted?

@gorillapaws two here. How about you?

@cockswain Wow, just now realized I had you and @deni merged into one person in my head for a while there. My comment way up thread about me being a pro-lifer before and now pro-choice was actually for @deni. Sorry if that caused any confusion.

Can’t believe I didn’t link this song before. It sums it all up so well.

I know this is a month old, but I am interested to see what happens for Planned Parenthood now since it seems to be one of the biggest arguing points about the budget. Anyone else following what’s going on?

@Seaofclouds

I am. In all of its ridiculousness. Stupid grandstanding Republicans, threatening to bring down the government over whether or not poor women get reproductive heath care…

@crisw weren’t they supposed to be against the government coming between a patient and their doctor?

Republicans want to defund Planned parenthood because they really want to breed an army and a slave class.

lOL

It seems (from what I read this morning) that Planned Parenthood may have been saved in the deal they made at the last minute to avoid the shutdown. The article I read didn’t give many specifics, but it did mention that they saved funding for family planning. I doubt the Republicans will stop there though.

And isn’t that “deal” just delaying a shutdown for another week? I’m sure it’ll be on the chopping block again in a few days.

Yeah, it’s been saved in the provisional bill, which lasts until September. As far as I can tell they still need to pass a full budget. This current measure is apparently not too bad, though, though details are few (that I can find). Biggest spending cut in history, etc.

More interestingly, Boehner is apparently telling people to shut up about cutting Title X, which is pretty cool. We’ll have to see.

Interesting, relevant article:
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2011/04/03/shutdown-politics/