From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Saturnalia I: "She shoulda kept her legs crossed"
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 30 Dec 92 16:57:55 GMT

In ancient Rome, Saturnalia was a time of revelry and (to put it mildly)
thumbing one's nose at the established order.  This is the I-st part
of a III (or more: pro-choicers keep providing me with fresh material)
part series today.  This offering #I is quite mild [I am saving the real
fireworks for the other posts] and the only thing that keeps it from
being a serious post is the format:  I present it as though it were a 
pair of proposed questions (and responses) for the FAQ.

[On the other hand, the definitions I proposed last week were serious 
business.  They were, however, suggestions rather than wordings I insist
on: if others can improve on my wording, I will be very glad.]

Here we go:

1. Why do so many pro-lifers say of a pregnant woman seeking abortion, "She
shoulda kept her legs crossed?"

ANSWER:  I have never heard of a pro-lifer say anything even remotely 
resembling this, not even on talk.abortion.  On the other hand, I regularly
see pro-choicers lampooning pro-lifers by depicting them as saying this.

Recently I also read an account of one of those pillars of the community,
an abortionist, say something quite close to this thread title.  It 
appears on pp. 161-162 of Randy Alcorn's 1992 book, _Pro Life Answers
to Pro Choice Questions_ [Multnomah Press, 10209 SE Division St., Portland,
Oregon]:

	  Despite the huge amounts of money they make, abortion clinics
	actually receive volunteer help from feminist organizations because
	they are regarded as heroically pro-woman.  Yet the attitude of 
	the abortionists--the vast majority of whom are men--toward the
	women coming for abortions tells a different story.  A friend
	who formerly worked as an abortion clinic counselor shared one
	example of this.  "One day the doctor was in a hurry to go play
	golf.  This poor woman was crying because he was rushing the 
	procedure to dilate her cervix.  She was in a lot of pain and
	really afraid.  He got angry and told her, `Spread your legs!
	You've obviously spread them for someone else, now spread them
	for me!'"

2.  What bearing does *one* _alleged_ example of *one* abortionist acting
like a male chauvinist pig have on the question of whether abortion 
should be legally restricted?

To this I have no ready answer, but I do have a couple of comments.

Comment 1.  Questions like these, with the use of "_alleged_" betray
a leaning towards being pro-abortionist, one symptom of which is to
pooh-pooh any account by a pro-choice feminist (and * a fortiori * anyone
who *was* a pro-choice feminist and has had her eyes opened by what she
has seen at the clinic where she works) when it puts a bad light on
one of those "heroically pro-woman" pillars of the community, those 
benefactors of womankind, those paragons of virtue, the very scum--er, 
salt--of the earth.

Comment 2.  In order to avoid this question, one would have to post a 
10,000+ line post thoroughly documenting at least 10 cases of gross
misconduct (of which an incident such as the above would be one of the
mildest) by each of at least 10 abortionists.  

If anyone reading this doubts this, have a look at the reaction which
has thus far greeted my posts, "Meet Ismail Elguindi, Abortionists"
and the two parts thus far of MEET GEORGE TILLER, LATE TERM ABORTIONIST.

Susan Garvin said I had better be praying my preliminary information 
on Elguindi had better be true, darkly hinting that nuisance lawsuits 
beget lawsuits against the plaintiffs.  Then, when I posted extensively
from the Final Report of the State Board of Medical Examiners she 
alleged that what I had posted had nothing to do with abortion, even 
though, if she had read the post, she would have seen that Elguindi
was treating a woman for INFERTILITY and had done a D&C on her WITHOUT
CHECKING HER FOR PREGNANCY, and indeed she was 9 weeks pregnant, so that
if the pregnancy had been a normal one, he would have TERMINATED THE
VERY PREGNANCY SHE HAD BEEN HOPING FOR, and this was even explicitly
stated in the Final Report.

Nothing to do with abortion, indeed!

As it was, this was an ectopic pregnancy, and it remained untouched
by the D&C, and the woman needed emergency treatment for it elsewhere;
it would have been utter folly to go back to Elguindi for that because
he does not have hospital privileges and would have had to take pot
luck with whatever doctor was on duty if he found himself out of his
depth.   All this, too, was in the post to which Susan was replying with
her supercilious remark.

As for the TILLER post, Susan even cast doubt on things taken directly
from the brochure.  At this point I would like to ask her:

Susan, have you seen Tiller's brochure yourself?  Check as many as 
apply:

Yes____  No____  Don't remember_______  Don't care_____________

If your answer was Yes, did I quote correctly from it?  Check as
many as apply:

Yes____  No___   Can't find my copy____  Threw out my copy long ago___
I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that it might undermine
my credibility on talk.abortion___________

And Mezias came up with a thread titled "The one bad apple theory..."
in which I posted the following recently [some deletions from original
post].  The following copy will close this present post, and I just
want here to reiterate my claim that in order to avoid this kind of 
"*one*" rubbish, a 10,000+ line post is needed.

Date: 23 Dec 92 22:44:38 GMT
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Nyikos and the one bad apple theory of forced pregnancy.

In <34529@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:

>In article <nyikos.724627328@milo.math.scarolina.edu>
>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) post the latest in what I
>describe as the one bad apple theory of forced pregnancy.  In it, the
>a legislative agenda restricting the rights of women is disguised as a
>response to a public health crisis.  The public health concerns
>revolve around bad performance by an abortion provider.  This is the
>one bad apple that leads by some incomprehensible leap of fetus
>fanatic logic to a legislative agenda of forced pregnancy.

To date, I have posted concerning FIVE  bad apples, on three of them
extensively, with information from PRIMARY sources, including in one
case the victimized woman herself, testifying before the South Carolina
State Senate Judiciary Committee.  TWO of these abortion providers
are right in the Columbia area, and as I said in "Meet Ismail Elguindi,
Abortionist," the two together account for almost exactly half of the
5000+ abortions reported in the Columbia area in 1990, the last year
in which Elguindi did not have his license suspended for some reason
or other.

>To believe this public health concern, I would at least like some
>statistical evidence gathered by an impartial panel demonstrating that
>abortion was on balance an unsafe procedure.

In this, I am in full agreement with Mezias.  So far, all we have 
seen are MORTALITY rates given by the Alan Gutmacher institute, research
affilaiate of Planned Parenthood, and other statistics which could all
go back to this Institute for all the documentation Larry Margolis or
anyone else has provided on them.

In the meantime, I wish Columbia SC were a statistical anomaly, but
so far Susan Garvin has not come forth with the documentation of this
factoid that she seemed to be promising when she sneered at my documentation
of Elguindi's malpractice.

[...]

Peter Nyikos