From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: FETAL AGE ESTIMATES (with apology to LM about LMP)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 21 Jan 93 19:56:52 GMT

In <1993Jan20.040358.22975@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:

>In <nyikos.727467367@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>In <nyikos.727467367@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>In <1993Jan19.054345.22273@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:
>>
>>>In <nyikos.727393071@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>>>In <1993Jan14.064750.48880@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:
>>>>
>>>>>In <nyikos.726617447@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>>>>>In <C0FG5v.Ey3@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Larry's documentation stated that 50% of abortion occur after 8 weeks
>>>>>>>LMP.  I have documented that this is considered the fetal stage.
>>>>>>>Therefore, Larry is full of it.

Oops! Looks like my eye glossed over the  LMP in ...>>>LMP both 
now and in previous
posts.  My apologies to Larry, who is *not* full of it in this instance,
but was correct in stating that vengeanc@...  was full of it in this
instance.  I stated otherwise, due to these glosses and/or lapses of 
memory.

>No, your general posting style is uncivil - you're the one that started
>with the nicknames, not me; you throw in gratuitous insults in posts
>where I'm not even involved; you lie about me; etc.
				^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Present what you take to be evidence of this, or retract this claim.

I admit I have made bad judgments of you, Larry [see above instance]
but they were all in good faith.

>>You have behaved dishonestly towards him, Larry.

>This is not true.

You are cleared of the charge in re the claim above.  Not the one
pertaining to me below, at least not yet:

>>Just as you deliberately confused
>>empirical with logical matters to accuse me of ignorance of logic,

>See above, where Simmonds stated:
>   Larry's documentation stated that 50% of abortion occur after 8 weeks
>   LMP.  I have documented that this is considered the fetal stage.
>   Therefore, Larry is full of it.

>Note that he even says LMP, but refers to a definition that discusses
>developmental age.

Quite right, I stand corrected.

One little nagging point: could you tell me where I can look up these
stats myself?  I want to make sure the expression LMP was used.  There are lots
of funny ways of stating these things.  See below.

>>>>>  My statement that most of
>>>>>what's aborted are embryos, not fetuses, is correct.
>>>>
>>>>Not clear.  You are using stats from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which
>>>>has a vested PR interest in underestimating time since LMP, or whatever.
>>
>>>Speaking of bozos - what do you think they do, tell the womam when her last
>>>period was?
>>
>>Larry going off half-cocked again, and slipping in an insult while the
>>going is good--i.e. before his opponent has a chance to refute him.
>>
>>>  Whoever collects the statistics doesn't do any estimating for
>>>the time since the woman's last menstrual period, bozo.
>>
>>No, Larry, there are ways of estimating fetal age besides the woman's
>>word, and if you don't know that, your knowledge of abortion is truly
>>Lilliputian.

>That's estimating gestational age, not estimating time since LMP.

I wonder whether "gestational age" refers to time since implantation.

In _Abortion
Practice_, by practicing late-term abortionist Warren Hern, there are
figures on p. 208 relating Sonographic BPD's with gestational age, and then on
p. 213 there are figures relating it to fetal age, and the figures differ
widely: week 26 goes with 67mm in the first chart and 58mm in the second.

Now, the sources are different: one is Sabbagha RE and Hughey M, _Obstet.
Gynecol 52:402, 1978, and the other is Hern's own set of estimates.  Hern
himself finds it impossible to account for the discrepancy.  His book
does not explain how he arrived at the data but he does give an article
of his in _Adv Planned Parent_ 13:14 1978 which might possibly give this
information.  Since I consider _Obstet. Gyn_ to be a much more reliable
journal than the other, I'd rather someone else checked this PP journal.

Of course, if Sabbagha and Hughey meant "time since implantation"
 when they said "gestational
age," that would explain the discrepancy: their figure for 24 weeks is 
61 mm, still greater than Hern's for 26 weeks, but close enough.

What also makes me wonder is that Hern labels the table for Sabbagha
and Hughey as "From the 14th to the 30th week of pregnancy", and
it is customary to say that pregnancy starts with implantation, not
fertilization.

>>>As you pointed out, according to a number of dictionaries (which appears
>>>to reflect common usage), fetushood starts at the end of the third month.
>>
>>You still have not answered my question of what these lexicographers
>>think the intermediate entity (end of 8th week to beginning of 3rd month)
>>is called.

>I don't know; it seems to me that if you want to know what those
>lexicographers think, you would be better off asking them than me.

I will.  In the meantime, chew on (1) below.  I hold (2) in abeyance,
pending further evidence.

>>You are, again, demonstrating either (1) your naive faith in the Merriam-
>>Webster people or (2) that your love of wordplay and mindgames is
>>inexorably making a fundamentally dishonest person out of you.
>>
>>>According to other dictionaries, and apparently the proper medical
>>>definition, is that fetushood starts at the beginning of the 9th week of
>>>gestation.  By any definition I've seen, Simmonds is wrong.
>>
>>Didn't Simmonds say the end of the 8th week?  Six of one and half a
>>dozen of the other.

>You are again demonstrating disingenuousness bordering on dishonesty, or a
>fundamental stupidity. 

No, Larry, once more you are going off half-cocked. [I admit I do that
sometimes too.]  I was here thinking of the narrow issue of when fetushood
begins.  vengeanc@... may indeed have confused this with LMP, but
his texts must have meant fetal age, and I believe this was the concept
in his mind too.

 The discussion of who's right and who's wrong is
>in regards to the erroneous claim that the majority of what is aborted
>is in the fetal stage (a claim which *you* made).  As I stated above:

I did not make the claim.  I merely shed doubt on the correctness of 
yours.  As I do below.

>     My statement that most of
>   what's aborted are embryos, not fetuses, is correct.

>By any definition of fetus that I've seen, Simmonds (and you) are
>wrong about more fetuses being aborted.  (This is using the latest
>statistics I've seen.)

By your own implication, these are obtained by relying on the woman's
estimated time since LMP.  But this is a very poor indicator.  In
a famous case, *Anders v. Floyd*, which originated right here in
Columbia, SC and made it all the way up to the US Supreme Court,
a woman went to Dr. Jesse J. Floyd and told him she was about 15
weeks pregnant.  He made his own estimate of 20 weeks, and did a
prostaglandin abortion.  The fetus was expelled alive, and the resulting
infant [Damn! I hate the way pro-choicers insist on these crazy language
patterns on talk.abortion.] lived for three weeks.  

What! at 20 weeks???  No, the hospital nurses estimated the child to
be of seven months fetal age, which is what the indictment against
Floyd charged him with, and the U S Supreme Court accepted the
estimate of 25 weeks, which may have been as much a legal fiction
as Blackmun's claim that viability *may* occur as early as in the 24th week.

The abortion took place in September, 1974 and the Supreme Court's
final decision came in March, 1979.  Of course a lot of things have
happened since then, but I do not think women's estimates of LMP have
improved markedly.

In fact, Hern writes in _Abortion Practice_, copyright 1984:

	Correlation between the sonographic estimate of fetal age
	and the measured result is 0.97...whereas correlation with
	the last menstrual period is only 0.62 at best and the correlation
	with the physician's estimate is 0.87.  [pp. 209-210]

>I know how to apply my
>language and logic skills in communicating with other people,
>a capability in which you seem to be lacking.

How am I doing in this post, by your reckoning?

>[I'm combining two posts, in order to try to cut down on bandwidth.]

>In <nyikos.727468237@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>In <1993Jan19.054917.7454@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:

>>Over and above your very suggestive 50.8% statistics gathered
>>straight from the offices of abortionists, and, if your condescending
>>comment to me is any indication, straight from the mouths of women all
>>of whom "know" when their LMP was.

>Are you suggesting that a sizable percentage of women don't know when
>their LMP was?

Seems like Warren Hern does that above.

How am I doing *now*, by your reckoning?

Peter Nyikos

Newsgroups: talk.abortion