From: rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: THE RAPE/INCEST MYTH.
Date: 22 Jul 92 17:00:36 GMT
Organization: CERL-EE, Georgia Institue of Technology

In article <1992Jul22.020327.7297@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> kcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran) writes:
>In article <64007@hydra.gatech.EDU> rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts) writes:
>
>Welcome back to talk.abortion, Richard!  Did you bring your handcuffs and that
>shows that guy in the sling getting "stripped" that I like?

Thanks for noticing I wasn't around very often.  [Actually, it seems you
may have me confused with someone else, for I don't know to what you 
are referring in your second sentence. :-)]

>>In article <22dml=#.ray@netcom.com> ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
>>>...
>>4000 abortions/day - 1,500,000 abortions/year - these are approximations,
>>but pretty good ones, correct?
>
>No, but that's never stopped you before.  Tell me something.  Is it difficult
>to breath through your duodenum?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE NUMBERS?

Thanks for your concern about my duodenum?

>>Let's say that 1% of abortions are third trimester ones.
>
>Wrong again.  But, let's continue on...

PICK YOUR OWN PERCENTAGE.  I've seen numbers like this before on
t.o and they were not contested - I think the number was 0.5% or
so, but that's on the same order of magnitude, which is similar to 
saying that numbers around 1 (say the set [0,2]) could be considered 
in the same order of magnitude, whereas, the number 10 is 
not of the same order.

>>1% of 1,500,000 is about 15,000 per year or 40 per day.
>
>At least you can do 5th grade math...

1% of a number is achieved by dividing by 100 or multiplying by 0.01.
This is the same as moving the decimal point two places to the left.

Try it out - by the way this concept holds throughout college.

0.5% would reduce the above calculated third trimester numbers to
7,500/year and 20/day.

>>Are these ok numbers?
>
>Well, they're completly wrong, but if they're "just numbers", I suppose they're
>ok.  I mean, you've got an awful lot of "0"'s there, and you seem to have
>forgotten completly about the lovely curves in the number "8"...

I missed this point, unless your whole reply was in a sarcastic sense, which
I don't think it was, but I'm a little slow in this area.

>Ok.  According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, less than 100 abortions are
>performed PER YEAR after the 24th week of pregnancy.  These are done for 
>life threatening reasons to the mother or because of severe deformities in 
>the developing fetus.  There are only 3 or 4 doctors in the entire US who
>perform third trimester abortions.

I have not seen this in print anywhere - are these new statistics?
As stated above I've seen numbers from 0.5% to 1%.

>>>Religion stops a thinking brain.
>>
>>Fear (reverence) of the Lord is the begining of wisdom.
>
>Well, which is it?  Fear?  Reverence?  They're hardly the same thing.

definition: (from The Scribner-Bantam English Dictionary)
fear n 1. emotion characterized by dread or expectation of harm, 2. REVERENCE
     FOR A SUPREME POWER, ...

This is the only dictionary I have handy.  If you have one, you may want to
check the definition yourself.

Maybe you have failed to comprehend the complete meaning of the word.

>--
>=kcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu | B(0-4) c- d- e++ f- g++ k(+) m r(-) s++(+) t | TSAKC=
>=My thoughts, my posts, my ideas, my responsibility, my beer, my pizza.  OK???=
>="I want a man, who will, lay down beside me.  I want a man, who will stand up=
>=to me too.  That's what I like about you." -Trisha Yearwood, talking about me=

Sincerely,
Richard Pitts

-- 
rpitts@cerl.gatech.edu       |    
Atlanta, GA                --|-- 
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