From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: The Nurturing Network 1-800-TNN-4MOM
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 31 Aug 92 20:58:12 GMT

In <1992Aug26.210739.27670@bmw.mayo.edu> bmc@mayo.edu (Bruce Cameron) writes:

>In article <nyikos.714849525@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>|> In <1992Aug21.212103.22958@bmw.mayo.edu> bmc@mayo.edu (Bruce Cameron) writes:
>|> 
>|> >I am aware that the most common abortions are spontanious abortions
>|> 
>|> {Satire} Not if you use the usual Ob/Gyn definition of "pregnancy", 
>|> which begins
>|> two weeks prior to most fertilizations.  Then well over 90% of all
>|> "abortions" take the form of expulsion of the ovum at menstruation.
>|> {End of satire}
>|>

>Gee, I guess my Ob/Gyn texts are all wrong and that those Reproductive
>Endocronologists I work with are really mixed up. They seem to think 
>that pregnancy begins with fertilization.

I'm talking about Ob/Gynecologists who counsel their patients, not to be 
confused with what you read in books.  (BTW the more-than-million-copy 
bestseller _Everywoman_ uses the definition I gave)  More on this in a 
new edition of my "Ripley" post.
 
>|> > and birth and that surgical abortions are in the minority and that laws 
>|> >prohibiting abortion must distinguish between all the forms of abortion, 
>|> 
>|> So far as I know, they all do and have done this.  Do you know of
>|> any exceptions.
>|>

>I don't know of any that do differentiate between a spontanious abortion
>and a surgical one, they do seem to recognize birth as a seperate (good)
>form of termination.

South Carolina law does. I put up a post on it earlier today.  I'm curious
to see how other state laws define "abortion".

>Thought experiment:
>	you are presented with a dead premature infant say 20 weeks
>	gestation, now without asking anyone, how do you determine
>	if that infant was born, surgically aborted or spontaniously
>	aborted?

*Life* magazine seemed to think you could, saying that the fetus handled
by the minister at the Buffalo barricades was the result of a spontaneous
abortion (or did it qualify it by saying "probably"?) while being 
buffaloed by a Buffalo nurse who successfully palmed off a chorionic sac (with
the embryo/fetus still inside) as
a fetus and saying it was "an abortion," which the reporters took to mean
induced abortion. 

>	So, the woman is to prosecute the doctor for performing
>	elective surgery,

If he botched it, or forced it, or performed it under false pretenses, yes.

[speaking about an abortion ban:]

>|> >and will be about as effective
>|> >as the war on drugs and prohibition.
>|> 
>|> though considerably more "effective" [I'm guessing as to what you mean by
>|> this] than the laws agains perjury.  Should we do away with laws against
>|> perjury for that reason?
>|>

>By effective, I mean that a prohibition on abortion would substantially reduce
>the number of abortions,

Query: how many abortions per year do you think took place before the
general legalization that began in 1967 and culminated in Roe v. Wade?

> thus substantially increasing the number 
>of live births
>in this country without incurring an extraordinary 
>cost to the taxpayer and without

Don't be silly.  Reducing abortions from, say, 1,500,000 to 500,000 will
not result in a million more live births.  And even if it did, that would
only bring the birthrate in this country up to zero population growth
level.  As for "extraordinary costs to the taxpayer", that remains very
much to be seen, and the benefits will offset the costs.  Why do you
think there are so many dire predictions about the crash in Social
Security somewhere around 2020?  Our population is becoming increasingly
top-heavy.

[Hey, Adrienne, you despaired last month of getting
pro-lifers to discuss economics? You're on!]

>Neither prohibition or the war on drugs is effective, the laws against
>perjury to the best of my knowledge are.

What percent of perjuries do you think are exposed and punished?
 
>|> >I also realize that once a government has been granted the power 
>|> >to prohibit
>|> >abortion it has also gained the power to mandate abortion.

>|> Ten thousand repetitions of this standard NOW-NARAL-PP lie don't 
>|>make a truth.


>What part of this is false?
>The former government of Romania and the current government of China granted
>themselves power over their citizens reproductive rights, in the former, the
>government prohibited abortion, in the latter, the government requires
>abortion.

They're not the same country.  And besides, both of them are totalitarian
systems.  

>Feel free to explain how one would prohibit a government that has
>the power to prohibit abortion from requiring abortion at some later
>date. Keep in mind that governments seem to have the ability to 
>work arround annoying limitations when required to do so (eg RICO).

Well, I'll grant this: this government may very well have the power,
at some future date, to mandate abortion (it already has that power in
limited instances).  But it will not be the pro-lifers pushing it to
do so.  And it will not come out of the family values the Republicans
are espousing, either.

Peter Ny.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity