From: gjh@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Galen J. Hekhuis)
Subject: In response to something...
Organization: University of Virginia Health Sciences Center
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 04:47:51 GMT


I wanted to respond to an article, but got blown off line and when
I got back on it was gone.  I can't do the nifty re: stuff, but I
believe that a person with the userid "vengeanc" or the like asserted
that the main difference between pregnancy and the draft was one of 
assignment of risk.  Like Kevin, this person is also mistaken that
assignment (or the ease thereof) is the main difference between
pregnancy or abortion and the draft and/or a late night burglary.

Both of you should note that a pregnant woman is nothing
like either the draft or burglary.  Comparing the relative risks of
them is amazingly futile -- it doesn't prove or shed light on a 
thing.

As for an estimate that 90%, or for that matter any percentage, of 
illegal abortions were performed in a licensed physician's office, I
would encourage people to think about that just a minute.  How do
you get reliable percentages about anything illegal?  You can get
fairly reliable statistics about legal things with some effort to
avoid some of the more common pitfalls, but what group or organization
keeps records on illegal activities?  Are we really to believe that
a representative number of (illegal) abortions were reviewed (how were
they even detected?) and it was found that 90% of them were actually
performed in a physician's office?  The difficulty involved in even
gaining the raw data should make one terribly skeptical of any analysis
of it.  Or are we more likely to conclude that there might well be
another reason, if the figure is to be believed at all, that 90% of 
all detected illegal abortions were performed in a physician's office.
Perhaps their location accounted for the lion's share of their detection.

I lived in Texas until 1963, well before Roe vs Wade, during a 
time in which I believe abortion was mostly illegal in Texas.  At no
time (and I went to high school in Texas, and I wasn't exactly deaf)
did I hear of anyone obtaining an abortion in a physician's office.
I'm certain it happened, but I doubt the 90% figure.  I can't imagine
I didn't hear about it if it happened with anywhere near that frequency.  

There is also an assertion that life begins at conception.  Perhaps
it is just a matter of semantics, but it would be a bit of a leap.
Virtually every scientist knows that some reproduction is accomplished
by fission, and no conception is involved whatsoever.  Perhaps what
was meant was that a unique life or a unique chromosome makeup begins
then, but hardly life.

I know several scientists, although I wouldn't characterize them as 
"friends."  Some are, most are not.  I work for a department in 
a medical school.  The scientists I know are mostly faculty or 
post-doctoral fellows (both MDs and PhDs and double degreed folk)
who do research in the life sciences.  When they speak about what
medical science (or science) knows about life I tend to accept them 
as knowledgeable sources.  They don't think life begins at conception,
although I imagine you might get some to concede that after enough
rounds of semantic badgering.

This all is beside the issue for me, anyway.  No one has yet provided
any statistics that making abortion illegal is either necessary or
effective.  I was around before Roe vs Wade, and after, and I see
little evidence that overturning it would make things any better.
I have seen no evidence that government involvement in reproduction
is necessary, effective, or wise.  A lot of people tend to think that
legislation is unnecessary, ineffective, and unwise.  The few statistics
that have been posted tend to bear this out.  I don't archive articles,
but I recollect that Brazil (where abortion is illegal) has a higher
per capita abortion rate than the US (where abortion is largely legal).
This in itself suggests that illegality is exactly the wrong way to
go for those who wish to reduce the number of abortions.


 
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     Galen Hekhuis  UVa Health Sci Ctr (804)982-1646 gjh@virginia.edu
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