From: corwin+@CMU.EDU (Scott Safier)
Subject: Re: PAS or Post Abortion Syndrome
Originator: scotts@MORPHEUS.CIMDS.RI.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 15:30:06 GMT

In article <sfLaKdu00WBMM0YX1o@andrew.cmu.edu> Michael Loomis <ml3e+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

   Excerpts from netnews.talk.abortion: 19-Jan-93 Re: PAS or Post Abortion
   Sy.. by Peter Nyikos@math.scarol 
   > As Meg Greenfield put it in _Newsweek_ a good number of years back, talking
   > about dishonest polemic: all your opponent has to do is say "There is no
   > evidence that..." and you are cooked.
   >  
   > So was NancyJo Mann, founder of WEBA and living counterexample to the
   > benighted statement made in JAMA.

       Of course, it is possible to feel immense guilt if you feel you should.
   That fact that there do exist women who so brainwashed that they would
   feel guilty about having an abortion has no implications for either the
   morality of abortion or the feelings of a normal woman who has an
   abortion.  I wouldn't be surprised if one of the NancyJo Mann's of the
   Victorian era managed to grow on her palms.

   Michael Loomis

Michael, you have to understand that Nyikos is an idiot.  He ignores
the facts that there are no credible studies to document post-abortion
syndrome, and several studies to indicate that decisions which empower
people to take charge of their lives, such as choosing to terminate (or
not to terminate) a pregnancy, can be beneficial.  He ignores the fact
that Surgeon General C. Everett Koop issued a report during the Reagan
Administration that, at that time, no scientifically credible studies
had been done.  Even the book that the idiot is quoting from has one of
these rotten studies.  

Let me tell you about this survey.  This survey "was distributed
through WEBA chapters to 252 women in forty-two states."  Perhaps
Nyikos can explain how distributing a survey to a biased population
leads to credible conclusions.  But even if the population weren't
biased, the survey is.  One question asks, "were you encouraged to
have an abortion by" and then lists several possibilites.  There is no
category for no one.  Each of the categories listed expects you to
rank each person on a six point scale from "not at all" to "very
much".  A seventh category of "not applicable or unsure" is provided,
although I cannot fathom how something can not apply and yet the
person is unsure whether it applies.  There are no internal
consistency checks built into the survey, and the only statistical
analysis performed is simple percentages (one question in the book I
have has the answer as 47% yes and 76% no!).

But even without evidence, Nyikos is willing to assert based upon one
person's claim that scientific studies to the contrary are bunk.  In
NancyJo Mann's impassioned recollection of her abortion trauma, she
also says, "I took acid every day for a year and a half.  I smoked an
ounce of pot every day."  I think this goes toward NancyJo's
credibility, don't you?

Scott Safier                                   corwin+@cmu.edu
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
        
member, T.S.A.K.C.  S2/6 b g- l-(?) z n+ o+(+) x+(+) a-(-) u-  v j+ 
                    B0/1 h f+ w- g k+ s- m(+) e++

If you have, after buying three cars from the same company, found
they're all lemons, why would you listen to anyone who would try to
convince you to buy a fourth?

The same thing applies to this issue.
    Steve Chaney, explaining why he only dates white women, 1/14/93.