From: slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer)
Subject: Re: Fetal tissue research, Nathanson, etc.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:29:27 GMT

Linda Birmingham <ADMN8647@RyeVm.Ryerson.Ca> writes:

>In article <Bs2zLn.3rx@news.cso.uiuc.edu> Steven L. Kellmeyer says:
>>
>>chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>>
>>Oh, you're right, Chris.  What am *I* thinking, posting per capita abortion
>>rates for Germany and the US?  It's not like per capita abortion rates
>>have ANYTHING to do with abortion.  I should only discuss such figures
>>when the subject of Belgian waffles come up.  I'm terribly sorry.
>>
>>>[--number crunching deleted--]
>>
>>Number crunching re-inserted.
>>500,000 abortions in Nazi Germany, with a population of 35 to 37 million.
>>1.6 million abortions in 1980's US, with a pop. of 255 million.
>>
>>"Illegal" abortion in Germany was occurring at *TWICE* the rate of LEGAL
>>abortion in present-day America.

>"In the 1890s doctors were estimating 2 million abortions a
> year (in the US).  In 1921, when statistics on these matters
> were more reliable, a Stanford University study estimated that
> one out of every 1.7 to 2.3 pregnancies ended in abortion of
> which at least 50 per cent were criminal"

>Woman's Body, Woman's Right, Linda Gordon
> sources for this quote:
> Jefferis and Nichols, Light on Dark Corners, p. 138;
>   A.Lapthorn Smith, "Higher Education of Women and Race
>   Suicide," Popular Science Monthly, March 1905, p. 470.
>Arthur William Meyers, "The Frequency and Cause of Abortion",
>   American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2, no. 2.
>   (August 1921).

WOW! REAL SOURCES!  *LOOK* Chris, THIS is what sources look like! 
Take the lesson to heart, huh?

Thank you, Linda, for providing something substantive to refute.
I can only hope you're starting a trend.

Now, on to the meat of the matter. Let's assume that the doctor's and
the medical students were correct.  I don't know if they are, but you
have sources and real numbers so we'll take 'em.

Where are all the dead women?

You know, the ones butchered in back alley abortions.  Lying in pools
of their own blood (not to be confused with the women who are being
maimed and killed in LEGAL abortions today, mind you).  WHERE are they?

That rate of abortion, in an era when antiseptic technique was still not
universally practiced, should have created one f*cking HUGE female 
mortality rate.  Where is it?  Or are the 'choicer's lying?
We keep hearing how illegal abortion (which it most certainly was in
the US in both the 1890's and the 1920's) does nothing but kill women.

We are told today that the repeal of RvW will create a massive number of
deaths.  SO.  Where's the massive death rate in the 1890's?  The 1920's?

Those books you quote wouldn't happen to have figures on that, would they?
Or do they just state these estimated "facts" baldly, and fail to provide
supporting material like mortality rates?  Truth to tell, I have no idea
how these women would have been classified then.  They may have been
classified under maternal mortality, but I'd bet heavily against.
It's quite an interesting problem, actually.

>Linda
>--
>"If you teach a man, you teach one person; if you teach a woman,
> you teach a whole family" Keralan saying

Assuming she has a family of course.  And we all know that "real" 
feminists would never let a paltry thing like another human being
interfere with what's important - the CAREER!

Steve Kellmeyer