From: cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker)
Subject: Re: KILLfile created to prevent flamewar
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 01:53:33 GMT

dsh@zeus.csc.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:

>In article <1992Aug19.191054.24902@crd.ge.com> 
>cook@sunloan.crd.ge.com (Cathi Cook) writes:

>> Ms. Bartley said that it would disturb her for certain abortions
>> to be legal, even if she didn't believe that these abortions 
>> would ever occur.  I, on the other hand, am disturbed by the
>> thought of making a law that addresses a problem that has not
>> been proven to exist.  I don't believe in legislating "just in
>> case", which is what it appeared Ms. Bartley was advocating in
>> our last debate.

>If you don't believe a problem exists, then perhaps you should
>take a look at the following article:

I read the entire thing, Holtsinger.  I read it the first time you
posted it, too, but this time I'll comment.

>---------------------
>Abortion: The Dreaded Complication, PART II
>Originally appearing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 1981
>by Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds
>Reprinted in The Congressional Record, April 21, 1986, S 4621


>     Something happens in a very small  number  of  abortions,  per-
>   formed  relatively  late  in pregnancy, that no one wants to talk
>   about. It horrifies  many  of  the  medical  personnel  who  have
>   encountered it.

Odd how I didn't see any quotes where a doctor said "I was horrified
that the baby survived!"

This seems to be fairly clearly the author's opinion.

>     What happens is that about once a day somewhere  in  the  U.S.,
                           =====
>   something goes wrong and an abortion results in a live baby.

"About"?  Within what order of magnitude?

>   ...

An ellipsis!  Warning!  Warning!

[126 lines that had nothing to do with the rate of late-term
 abortions deleted]

All those heartwrenching stories proved is that people who can't
stand the sight of blood shouldn't be in the medical profession.

>     Only one large-scale study has been done of live  births  after
      ========================================
>   abortions--by  George  Stroh  and  Dr. Alan Hinman in upstate New
>   York from July 1970 through December 1972 (a period during  which
>   abortion  was  legal in New York alone). It turned up 38 cases of
>   live births in a sample of 150,000 abortions.

This was the only solid statistic in the entire article.  If my math
is correct, this works out to the horrifying rate of .0253 PERCENT.
Clearly, this is where the "about once a day" contention came from.
I could give you any number of reasons why the statistic for NY in
1970 can NOT be extrapolated to the entire US in 1992, but why 
bother?  You'd only stick your fingers in your ears and yell "La la,
I can't hear you, and besides you're WRONG!"


>     Evidence gathered during  research  for  this  story  suggests,
                                                            ========
>   without  proving  definitively,  that much of the traffic in late
    ==============================

Well.  This WOULD explain why Holtsinger likes this story so much.

>   A state health inspector found in June 1979 that the unit
>   had  successfully  aborted a fetus that was well over a foot long

The smallest baby I have ever heard surviving any significant length
of time (I believe the girl is about six months old now) was about
11 inches at birth.  (About the size of a Barbie doll)

Frankly, this story would be better off on alt.folklore.urban.  You
know one of the mottos over there - "It COULD have happened, so it
MUST have happened!  :-)"

You have shown me nothing more than further evidence of your lack
of reading comprehension.

                         -rocker
Xref: sparky talk.abortion:32461 alt.politics.elections:10953