From: bmc@mayo.edu (Bruce Cameron)
Subject: Re: The Nurturing Network 1-800-TNN-4MOM
Organization: Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN. Campus
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 14:04:30 GMT

In article <nyikos.715294692@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
|> 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:
|> >|> {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.
|>

Simply because  _Everywoman_ uses an incorrect definition does not make that
definition the standard Ob/Gyn line. Also, if the Ob/Gyns you know that
counsel patients use that definition, I would look for another doctor quickly.

For pregnancy to occur, sexual intercourse must occur within (at most) 24 hours
of ovulation. Perhaps you are innocently confusing the method used to determine
an approximate due date (ie 2 weeks prior to ovualtion is roughly the date of the
woman's last period) with the definition of gestation.
 
|> >|> > 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".
|>

No, the South Carolina law does not distinguish between a spontanious abortion
and a surgical abortion since it includes wording to include other possible,
but not specifically mentioned abortion methods as being illegal unless used to
remove an already dead fetus. Since it would not be possible to determine if the
fetus was dead prior to spontanious expulsion, the law prohibits spontanious
abortions.
 
|> >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. 
|>

Life did not make the claim that one could distinguish between a dead
premature infant and a surgical abortion. It simply reported the
statement of the coroner who had provided the fetus to the minister.
 

|> ...deleted my argument the enforcing an abortion prohibition
   would be as effective as the war on drugs in terms of cost/benefit.

|> 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.
|>

Excuse me, how does that math work again? If you reduce the number of
abortions from 1.5 million to 0.5 million, and that does not result in
1 million live births, where do all those fetuses go?

Historically, the cost of enforcing a prohibition is usually many
times greater then the resulting benefit. The cost of enforcing
a ban or abortion would go beyond the additional cost of providing
for the welfare of the increased numbers of children, there would
be a increased court load, increased demands on the police force etc.
 
|> 
|> >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?
|>

Very few, but then again those that are are done so at little cost, so the
benefit (a small reduction in the number of liars) is not out-weighted by
the cost of enforcing the law.
  
|> >|> >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.  
|>

You have still not shown which part of the statement is false. I have provided
two examples of the same system of government (one in which the government
controlls reproductive rights) each of which uses that power in opposing
manners. 

The fact that the governments are totalitarian is of little consequence as the
people who formed them granted them the power over reproductive rights, just
as you wish to grant that power to our government.
 
|> >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.
|> 

Again, you don't explain how to prevent a government from abusing its
power over reporductive rights. Pro-life is pushing to grant the 
government that power. Are you so affraid of personal liberty that
you are only happy denying it not only to yourself, but to others?

-- 
--Bruce

"Truth is ultimately a philosophical concept,...,
 and standards of truth are adequate for practical
 purposes if they are substantially more reliable 
 then the system undergoing evaluation"
				C. E. Metz
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