From: mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran)
Subject: Re: Statistics
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Organization: None worth mentioning.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 05:33:11 GMT

In article <nyikos.727637875@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>In <1993Jan20.171409.27837@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran) writes:
>
>>In article <nyikos.727476745@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>>In <1993Jan14.203524.13491@pwcs.stpaul.gov> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>>>
>>>>mcmillan@vf.jsc.nasa.gov writes:
>>>>>mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran) writes:
>>>>>>mcmillan@vf.jsc.nasa.gov writes:
>>>
>>>>> Abortion trauma is not a myth, but a proven medical fact.  It doesn't happen
>>>>> to all women who undergo abortions.  I care about those women who suffer 
>>>>> through it, you don't.
>[...]
>>>>If you have evidence showing that the incidence of post-abortion trauma is
>>>>higher than that of post-partum depression, please post it.
>>>
>>>What I am aware of is a pair of very unusual statements:
>>>
>>>	Statement 1:  "No less than 90 percent of aborted women
>>>		experience moderate to severe emotional and psychiatric
>>>		stress following an abortion.  Up to 10 percent require
>>>		psychiatric hospitalization or other professional 
>>>		treatment."
>>>
>>>	Statement 2:  The same figures in re postpartum depression.
>>>
>>>The source for the first is _Aborted Women, Silent No More_, pp. xxiv-
>>>xxv.
>>>
>>Now try to find an unbiased source which bases it's conclusions on a
>>resonably wide sampling PHoney.
>
>Such sources do not exist.  Stop trying to send me on wild goose chases.
>
Nice of you to admit your source is just so much bunk PHoney.

>>>The source for the second is a post either last July or last August
>>>by Linda Birmingham.
>>>
>>>I have not been able to find the copy I made of this post, or rather
>>>of my follow-up in which I said, "Where do you get your statistics,
>>>Ms. Birmingham?"
>>>
>>I've already posted the stats and the source for them PHoney.
>
>Do they agree with Linda's?  I missed them, y'see, because even I 
>don't have the stamina to plow through 180 articles by you.
>
Within a resonable margin or error, yes. My sources indicate a 70%
rate for post partum depression. That's within a few points of what
Linda posted, as I recall.
If you're too simple minded to find them, that's your problem. I
posted them, like I do *all* the sources you can't find for your own
feeble minded self.

>>>What Ms. Birmingham may have neglected to note, IF she indeed plagiarized
>>>Reardon's book, is that Reardon speaks of "aborted women," i.e. the members
>>>of WEBA, who are hardly representative of the women who have had abortions.
>>>
>>So her eyou admit that your quotation above about post abortion trauma
>>is so much bunk. Thanks for wasting our time. Why bother posting it
>>when even you admit it's worthless? What? Oh, I see. You can't *find*
>>any valid evidence, so you post crap instead. Makes Nyikossense...
>
>My main point was that what Linda Birmingham posted was bunk, and claimed
>to be an accurate reflection of women, unlike Reardon's material, which
>he admits is from a biased sample, but as they say in the Army, "We go
>with what we got."
>
Except that Linda was not, apparently, wrong at all.

>You are making this too easy for me, Cochran.  A more experienced 
>pro-choice Establishment member, like Humphrey or Hekhuis, would have
>deleted everything I said about Linda Birmingham, making me work hard
>to restore it.  Looks like you are still not ready for the big leagues.
>
I have no need to delete it, since you're merely digging yourself in
deeper with every post PHoney. Your claim that Linda's statistic was
bunk has been disproven. Are you now going to retract it?

>>>To use such obviously unreliable material as a basis for something made up
>>>out of whole cloth in re postpartum depression is indicative of something,
>>>but I'd rather not say what it is. 
>>>
>>I'll say it. It's indicative of your total and complete lack of any
>>human intelligence PHoney. Why *do* you use such obviously unreliable
>>material?
>
>You made it so easy, I don't even need to add anything, except that 
>if past behavior is any indication, Linda Birmingham will refuse to
>follow up to any post which mentions her wild and wooly claims of last
>summer, while flaming people like Bill Overpeck in long, detailed posts,
>and calling him a coward for not answering *all* her questions.
>
Why should she refute your claims when I've already done so?

>BTW I wonder what good ol' Bill is doing.  I'll send him a copy of this
>post.  Unlike you, Marcus, he does not pretend that they are personal
>e-mail messages, nor threaten to impose this illusion on my postmaster.
>
I don't threaten anything PHoney. I told you flat out, I don't want to
see any of your bilge in my mailbox. If it shows up, it'll be
automatically bounced straight back to your sysadmins.
And what 'pretending' am I doing PHoney? Anything that shows up in any
of my mailboxes is, by definition, private. That's the *reason* it's
called mail, you twit.

>>>>Please define convenience.
>>>
>>>How about doing the same, since you ask such loaded questions?  My 
>>>definition: something not more than three times as bad as having an 
>>>abortion and putting up with PMS and menstrual cramps, bleeding, etc.
>>>
>>>I wonder why there is all this hullabaloo about the mother's tissues,
>>>organs, blood, etc. in regard to pregnancy and not in regard to menstrual
>>>blood, etc.  Aristotle even believed that the unborn child was built up
>>>from the menstrual blood of the mother, congealed by the sperm of the
>>>father.
>>>
>>So because Aristotle was incorrect, you feel jusitifed in being an
>>idiot? Doesn't work that way PHoney...
>
>Let me spell things out a little more here.
>
>Aristotle, most ancients, and many biologists up to the 17th century,
>believed the myth because they thought the volume of menstrual flow
>(including blood, but I don't think it was restricted to that)
>over 9 months was adequate to produce a baby.  I wonder, BTW, what
>the true story is on this: has anyone compared volumes or weights?
>
Why would anybody care, since it's obviously as incorrect as the rest
of the tripw you post.

>One can see allusions to this theory in the biblical book of Job, in the
>Apocryphal book of Wisdom, and even in Sterne's _Tristam Shanty_, showing
>the belief persisted in the common folklore even after being discredited
>scientifically.
>
>Superficial biology texts do not mention this theory, but do mention the
>rival homunculus theory of the middle ages, which never really supplanted
>it.
>
So they mention only one of the three myths you cite. So what? It's
biology, not mythology.

>Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of menstrual flow, and, coupled
>with menstrual cramps, can sometimes be worse than pregnancy.  I have
>a sister who was plagued with extremely severe cramps lasting longer
>than a week at a time, until she had her first child.
>
This is supposed to be a point? It's pretty damn well hidden...

>>>>>> Your attempt to compare abortion to the holocaust is cheap
>>>>>> emotionalism, and smacks of anti-semitism to many of those who have
>>>>>> personal conenctions to that time period.
>>>
>>>And not to many others, like Bernard Nathanson.  I have made a post
>>>earlier on why he became a pro-lifer, that deals with this matter.
>>>
>>Again you cite what can hardly be considered an unbiased source. Have
>>you ever tried to find one?
>
>He was as unbiased as you can get in _Aborting America_.  He is also
>Jewish.
>
Nonsense. Nathanson has never been unbiased wrt the abortion issue.
It's his source of income, after all.

>>>I have seen few people as shallow in their thinking as Chris Lyman.  Back
>>>in November I posted, "Chris Lyman's Massive Denial, Part 1" but I fear
>>>that never made your boards, because I have never seen a follow-up.
>>>
>>How lucky we are! We've been spared another 1000 line bandwidth
>>wasting PHoney article in which he shows that his only claim to
>>credibility is his ability to rely on Truth by Blatant Assertion,
>>without any support whatsoever from facts. And often without any
>>connection with the Real World (tm).
>
>You speak of you know not what.  The bulk of that post, less than 200
>lines long, was quoting from Jerome Lejeune, the discoverer of the
>genetic basis for Down's Syndrome.  Ever hear of him?
>
In other words, more stuff with no direct bearing on the abortion
issue. How lucky we are to have missed it.

>TEST OF MARK COCHRAN SOFTWARE.  PLEASE IGNORE._____________________
>
>No, but I can hardly be expected to know the name of every
>geneticist.
>
>End of test___________________________________________________________
>>Still working on how attribution lines work aren't you PHoney?
>>Twit.
>
>Still trying to fathom the concept, "begging the question"?
>
nice bit of selective editing there, PHoney. Cute how you erased the
part where you falsely attributed th words of someone else to me.

--
                  Mark Cochran          merlin@eddie.ee.vt.edu
These are the views of my employer, your employer, your government, the
Church of your choice, and the Ghost of Elvis. So there.
Member, T.S.A.K.C.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion