Serious Questions about Pregnancy and Abortion

In a thread on the ethical considerations of abortion, two factual claims were made which have an impact on the overall debate. Both claims were essentially asserted, with little solid material presented (which is not to say that there couldn't be).This thread is NOT about who said what, or about personal commentary at all. It is about providing and analyzing evidentiary material to support/refute such claims, and (if people feel up to it) how their support/refutation effects both sides of the abortion debate. Claim #1 - "The leading cause of death for women worldwide is due to pregnancy and childbirth." One poster limited this to only women 13-18, while another used the broader category. Since neither provided evidence for such claims it is hard to know which is true. The broader statement seemed dubious to me given all the ways people can die, and I had no intrinsic feeling whether it would be true for the limited range. Thus I looked for such stats... Wiki contains a chart breaking down causes of death by the WHO. It was the best/recent list I could find. I do not see any support for either claim. Adding perinatal and maternal causes gives one 51.9 per 100K deaths among women, which is vastly lower than the top five, the top two being cardiovascular disease (278.4) and infectious/paraitic disease (165.1).Is there better data on what % of women die from pregnancy/childbirth as opposed to all other causes? Claim #2 - "we have done those studies where we have taken a random, representative sample of women who have had abortions and followed them for several years. And very, very few of these women suffer depression. Furthermore, the ones who do have problems are likely to have not been emotionally stable before they chose to have the procedure."While proChoice orgs certainly make the above claim, direct refs to these studies have not been made to show/test their validity. Another poster linked to a study whose results conflicted with the above, so I decided to check into it more thoroughly (since I had no idea what the actual state of evidence was). It didn't take long to start finding counter studies. This was a very recent, and comprehensive longterm study on the issue. It contains refs to other studies with counterevidence. Offline it may be found at...Fergusson DM, Horwood LJ, Ridder EM. Abortion in young women and subsequent
mental health. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 2006; 47(1): 16-24.Following excerpts are of note... and... They agree that evidence has been weak, but due to conflicting evidence not absence, and flaws within the methodology... The paper goes on to list that study's limitations, but it certainly can't be good if that is the result of the most comprehensive one made... Is there a way to account for the discrepencies in findings by these different studies? What studies showing no harm can we look at as best representative to consider methodological validity/strength?Please no animosity in this thread, or personal commentary. Abortion is always a hot topic, but lets keep this as rational as possible, and evidence focused.Edited by holmes, : making claims stand out

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

First of all I want to thank everyone for their response. This is a reply to everyone, and will address comments/data made by others here, but I'm replying to crash's post in particular because his was the last on the page (when I started typing) and presented some evidence in support of claim #1.What I'd like to do is look at what we have so far and see if we can reach an agreement on what evidence we have so far. CLAIM #1 (pregnancy risk) Okay I looked at the save the children link and did not find any real data to support their claim. It appeared to be a politically motivated group whose concerns were about spreading a universal moral stance on sex, using assertions about pregnancy risk to try and scare up support. Not only were they lacking any hard data, the principle claim seems to have come from themselves.Your second link (which is listed as a ref by the above) was more fruitful... This certainly seems better supported, and one that does seem intuitive. I believe NWR mentioned something which I agreed with, that made the limited range claim seem plausible (even if I had to admit I just didn't know). Within developing nations with low medical technology/availability pregnancy is much more risky.Looking at the stats within the UN report we see it is not that pregnancy in and of itself is a leading cause of death worldwide, but rather lack of medical technology/availability in developing nations and the great numbers of people in them make pregnancy statistically one of (but not the top) leading cause of death of women worldwide. Inside developed nations such a claim does not see much support.Also a very LARGE caveat must be placed on the data we are looking at, given within the UN report itself. Its a potent reminder that statistics cannot just be looked at to derive conclusions, but the methods and context of the data understood. This is what they said... and more importantly... and finally (beyond just drawing conclusions on trends)... That last one is a whopper of a revelation. Because they THINK there may be underestimates due to developed statistical system the authors PADDED THE DATA by up to 50%, then excuse that activity by saying such a degree of padding is not an exaggeration DESPITE the fact that it could just as easily be lower.That is a bit shocking and politically motivated to my mind. It is NOT very scientific at all. Again, this should be a potent reminder to look past the data to understand the data. NEWLY ADDED INFO: I went back to check something in the data and IT MUST BE NOTED that the given RATES INCLUDE ABORTION! Thus the stats cannot be used to argue for abortion based on inherent risk of pregnancy anywhere, much less developing nations. This is yet another reminder to CHECK THE METHODS, definitions are crucial as they may include categories one does not expect.

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I might also add that the basic info page you linked to (not the UN report) states that pregnancy in developing countries lead to less than 1% of deaths worldwide. According to the poster whose quote I used for Claim #1, that would mean pregnancy is wholly insignificant as a factor in developing nations when discussing risk of pregnancy worldwide. That underscores a question of whether we are looking at the risk of being pregnant (including to carry and to abort) in general, or just where medical technology is unavailable.Okay with all these caveats in mind, I think we can move toward a conclusion that is agreeable.Could we say then that pregnancy carries physical risks such that where medical help is not available it is one of the leading causes of death in women of childbearing age? CLAIM #2 - (abortion risk to mental health)Alacrity listed a Norwegian study which found that depression rates among those who have chosen abortion are less than miscarriage in the short term, yet much higher as time goes on (that is they do not reduce as with natural loss). While it certainly does not show a majority of women suffering from such problems, it does show a much larger percentage (20-25%) than proChoice orgs suggest in their material using older studies.Since the study was not linked to directly, I cannot analyze the methodology, however it does mirror findings in the study I linked to originally.NWR stated... I agree that discovering an answer to the question is problematic and prone to inclusion of bias. HOWEVER, I found the recent study to be sober in its analysis and wonder what problems you had with it from the aspect of bias?The fact that more studies are discovering this same phenomena regarding mental health , especially recent studies in societies that are not a vociferously anti abortion as the US, tends to suggest there might be something there.I agree it does not necessarily point to the tools of abortion creating a trauma in some mechanistic sense, but it could very well have to do with feelings of violation or doing something "bad" (by killing a part of onesself or another life) inherent to the procedure one goes through.Even the earlier studies admitted a small number suffered effects. They merely asserted it must be due to preconditions, and not significant to worry about. More recent studies looked at the possibility of preconditions and did not find support for that, neither did they find such low numbers.While one can question the validity of studies in a generic way, it is not appropriate to deny the validity of studies based solely on that doubt.Can we agree that accumulating scientific evidence shows that while a majority of women do not suffer negative mental health effects from abortion, there is a significant percentage that show problems, perhaps less than for miscarriage in an immediate sense but more so with time? And at the very least the conclusions based on prior studies have been thrown into question?Thanks again all.Edited by holmes, : major addition regarding UN data

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I'm not sure you can say it is not a significant risk factor, just not among the leading factors. I guess I'd like to see a definition of what makes something significant before I could agree. I think most would agree to this, and I do think using pregnancy risk stats from developing nations are a bit disigenuous to making conclusions about pregnancy in general. However, it does seem that pregnancy does pose some form of increased risk, and I'm not sure one can just assume/discuss medical technology of developed nations as if that is some natural part of pregnancy.Shoot, I just realized I may have missed something. What are the risks for women having abortions in developing countries? Intuitively that would also have to carry risk and one wonders what the difference is between carrying to term or having an abortion there. Did abortion deaths get lumped into "maternal" deaths in these stats?

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Attack thread??? I never said anything like the above. I haven't even suggested what conclusions may be drawn from the studies so as to impact the abortion debate.We are looking at studies, and trying to come to an agreement on evidence so that we can move from there. In my summary I suggested possible agreeable position based on that state of evidence, here I will retouch them a bit...1) Pregnancy does inherently provide risk such that in regions without medical technology/availability it is one of the leading causes of death for reproductive age women. We could also add: For those in the developing world there is much less risk, such that it is not nearly a leading cause of death, yet it is not risk free.2) While not conclusive, there is recent data which shows longterm mental health issues for some women who have had abortions. This is for a minority of women, though much larger than what previous studies had indicated.I really am trying to reach a noncombative consensus by just looking at/analyzing the data. Is there something wrong with the above positions? If so what is your specific complaint based on evidence we have available to us? I have never said that, nor have I implied that. I am simply looking at the evidence we have about risks associated with pregnancy, specifically using a claim made earlier as an earmark to seek/refute/generate a more accurate assessment.Once we had consensus I figured some might want to discuss how that effects the overall debate. (Peeking ahead) Personally, I believe any amount of risk is sufficient to allow a woman to choose to end a pregnancy. I also believe a woman should be allowed to end a pregnancy even of there were 0 risk, based on other concerns including the welfare of the child (potential disabilities/economic conditions) and herself (economic/social conditions). If I honestly believed a "who" was "taking up residence" inside a woman's body, I'd probably be against allowing abortion. To my mind it is a gestational process taking place in a woman's body (in fact we can do some of it outside their bodies), and does not result in a "who" for some time (perhaps not even at birth though that is a convenient point for consideration). And the "what" does not "reside", but rather just gestates according to its natural process. It makes sense that if a woman is going to eliminate potential problems stemming from implantation of an embryo, it should be during that gestation period, preferably early.In future posts, please refrain from character judgements or jumping to conclusions about how a person might use evidence within the overall debate. Could we start with a simple agreement or explanation for disagreement with the above points?Edited by holmes, : quote fix

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Before answering anything else, are you in agreement with the positions regarding the state of scientific evidence on these claims? If not, why not, and what could be changed? While any amount of risk is sufficient for my position, others have different positions where this would be important. Clearly you and another poster found it important to your position and others might as well. Thus it becomes useful to explore.Also, I am just plain curious what the real risk is. I did not find support for the claims made and would like to have better/more correct info if it is out there.Now I would turn the tables and ask why it would NOT be of interest to you, since it was a factual statement you made? Isn't it important/interesting to find out what the actual state of evidence is regarding that fact? Well most people have agreed that birth is the demarcation of when "personhood" begins, so that is a form of consensus. That said I think you are right that it would be hard to get some sort of unanimous consensus on when a fetus becomes a "who". I wasn't the one pressing for people to accept my position regarding that, or trying to address it as a topic in this thread. I don't view gestational entities as human beings. They are cellular life of human origin, but hardly "beings".If pregnancy involved the "humunculus" version of gestation, with a minute but fully developed human being inside a womb, my opinion would be vastly different regarding whether abortion should be allowed. Of course it would still depend on consciousness/awareness of that being too.There certainly are situations where people do become responsible for taking care of others. That goes double for anyone who has engaged in a behavior which risked such an entanglement. Like say a bunch of people decide to go mountainclimbing and wind up in a position of having to take care of a friend to bring the person back to safety though it might risk their own life. They seem obliged to do so to me.But pregnancy is not like that (to me) because we are talking about cellular life which is in the process of becoming a human being. Until it is such a thing, other considerations for the mother may be overriding.Unfortunately this is to digress. The main points here is the degree of physical risk posed by pregnancy and mental risk by abortion, and how that would impact the abortion debate for people... not just me.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Thanks Kongstad, sorry it took me a bit to go through the study you linked to. That statement is not entirely accurate. The study you linked to is very specific in its focus. It is meant to address possible flaws in an earlier study by Reardon which concluded that termination of unwanted first pregnancies was connected to depression.They did this by recoding data and analyzing the effects of selection schemes used by the Reardon study. I will assume for sake of argument that their recoding and analysis is correct and so their criticism of Reardon stands.Unfortunately the limit of conclusions from this study is pretty severe. They are only addressing abortions of unwanted first pregnancies. Here is what they say... It seems to me somewhat intuitive that terminating an unwanted pregnancy would be less prone to depression than those who terminated an unintended pregnancy.Despite other problems with the data, they make a somewhat strongly worded conclusion but it is limited in scope... Have you read the more recent study that I provided in my OP? Do you feel that its conclusions are more/less valid than the study you quote here?

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

It seems you would agree with the proposed claim for #1 but you haven't voiced anything regarding claim #2. I'm just trying to find out if you are in agreement.As it is I did read your first post and pointed out that your supporting docs were not completely sufficient for drawing conclusions. In fact it was somewhat misleading as they BOTH included abortion under risk associated with pregnancy.I don't think that undercuts a position that pregnancy comes with risk, but it does diminish the level of risk that can be claimed (its predominance as cause of death), as well as ability to discuss that in conjunction with a support for abortion. I said I did do a search and have not found support for the claim made. That makes it a challenge to others to find evidence to support that claim. I'm not sure how controversial that is, in fact that is usually the M.O. at EvC. Actually that hasn't been established at all. That there is risk has been established, that it is "great in general" does not seem to be in the data. It does seem very high in developing countries but as I already pointed out the data includes abortion deaths, which means it is unsuitable to use this data to discuss risk of carrying a child to term vs having an abortion to reduce risk. In my OP I directly quoted another poster that was attempting to defend an earlier statement you had made. I noted that another poster (that would be you) had limited the range of threat to 13-18 and not all women. That is the factual statement I just referred to. Here is a post by someone that appears to be you. Here is what that poster (perhaps you) said... Here is that same person, in an earlier post in that thread...Do you recognize these or not? If you have data to support such claims I am certainly willing to look at it. It is NOT found in the data you linked to upthread as the data includes many things beyond demands of a fetus killing a mother, indeed it includes abortion, and definitely does NOT come out on top as a major killer of women worldwide compared to other problems. Ah, my mistake. I meant within the US most people have agreed for person to be defined at birth. I was taking that because that seems to be what the law states. I understand there are some efforts underway to move it back for some criminal cases (killing a fetus when attacking/injuring a woman) but that does not seem to have broad consensus. I didn't ask for greater degree of precision, I am asking about validity. Yeah it would be great if we could have a very precise measurement of risk but that is not necessary, a ball park will do. The question is if there is a valid ballpark figure we can agree to on these subjects... or is there insufficient data to make such claims?I'm not sure why my interest in discussing the state of evidence appears bizarre. I was under the impression that that is what was behind EvC debate in general.If this topic really doesn't interest you, then why did you post here at all? If it doesn't interest you then why do you appear to be making claims in other threads which reflect claim #1? You don't have to answer these last two questions, but I am puzzled.Can you give me a simple yes/no regarding the proposed state of evidence I advanced on these claims?

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Your analogy is incorrect. If you are arguing that the risk of pregnancy justifies the availability of abortion, then the proper car analogy is to show how many people DIE in auto accidents that weren't wearing seatbelts. If one just gives a study showing how many accidents there are, with no list of injuries/fatalities there is no argument for a seatbelt at all. If one gives a study showing how many deaths/injuries occur in accidents and it includes people wearing seatbelts then one still does not have adequate evidence to argue for seatbelt usage.The only way to argue for the use of seatbelts... using statistics... is to show that accidents where people do not use seatbelts results in greater amounts of death/injury than for those who wear seatbelts. Going back to the study at hand, you cannot say for sure whether abortion actually decreases the risk of death for mothers within developing countries, as opposed to having a child. In fact it could very well be opposite due to poor medical tech. This is from my OP... Do you see it now? I didn't, I said in the very next sentence that I based my conclusion off of laws which result from a form of indirect polling called voting. You ask what that has to do with anything, and again I get confused. Look at what this other person (who appears to be you) says in another thread, when asked: "At what point does the unborn child cease to "be" or "become" a human? At what point does a human have the right of protection under law?"
When 2ice responds to the above with: "I did not ask you what was legal. I asked you how you define these things." this same crash states in post #228... It appears then that at the very least this OTHER person called "crashfrog" (bizarro-crash?)uses the law to define when he feels a fetus may be considered a human being, and goes on to suggest the other poster ought to as well.Personally I would not use the law or consensus to drive my own definition of what is human, but I certainly do view it as a handy, if imprecise, way of judging general consensus. How much precision do you need, and when did you poll americans to arrive at your own conclusion that there was NO general consensus? I have stated that even in the absence of physical risk women would be justified. Finding any amount of physical risk (as long as it is less than the risk from abortion) would add another valid argument for me to use, as well as a potential counter to antiabortion arguments. Others may find risk more valuable to their own arguments.I didn't come on here to debunk the proChoice position, but to get a clear understanding of the evidence, something people can feel comfortable agreeing is the state of evidence for future debate. In the case of claim #1, it is not really supported, but out of the anlysis (thus far) there is certainly support for proChoice arguments that pregnancy involves some physical risk, especially in developing nations (though now as we see we cannot be sure if that is less risky than abortions in the same environment), that women may want to avoid.Is there a problem that I am finding support for a proChoice position while negating other claims that go beyond evidence? Your claims within in this thread seem about the same as my proposed statement of evidence so yes I think they are merited. However your earlier claims in another thread, as discussed in the OP and repeated here (regarding 13-18 yos, as well as women in general) have not been. Not even for informal debate.And my objections were not specious. That claim is funny since I directly quoted from the authors themselves about the limits of the study. The only thing I added later was that pregnancy risk in their study included risk from abortion complications, which is anything but a specious thing to point out. "Specious" sure sounds good when you want to dismiss an argument without having to present any logic or evidence. However, where I come from its name-calling, and a fallacy. Uh, I just got done showing you your own quote from post #53 with the generic woman claim, and you agreed it was yours. Maybe it was that other crashfrog again? Here it is, showing even more of that post to make it clearer... Looks like that other frog is suggesting all women and not just 13-18. The limited range was for "leading cause" alone, the larger range of all women (as we can see here) was "greater than almost any other cause of death". BOTH are not supported in the data you provided. Don't put words in my mouth. I believe that the current state of evidence suggests some amount of risk, but not nearly to the degree as originally claimed. I have made NO argument with regard to precision, as the difference between "leading cause" or "one of the leading causes" and "not a leading cause" is not about precision of estimation, they are different ballpark estimates/conclusions.The point is for people to agree or not. If AntiAbortion people agree then that offers an avenue of discussion. If they don't then they need to provide evidence. If ProChoice people agree then that smooths out any wrinkles between those on the proC side, by avoiding inaccurate statements. Or better still puts those on the proC side in a more solid position with valid evidence. In other words this portion not only clarifies the validity of evidence available on the subject, it happens to help the ProC side (to varying degrees). Again, I feel compelled to ask if you don't like this thread, and apparently are incapable of understanding what it's about... why are you posting, other than to break my balls? That's pretty convenient, and interesting given that that some other guy named crashfrog said he based his morality on science and scientific evidence. Guess that wasn't you again, huh? Edited by holmes, : defining precision.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Fair enough, how much precision do you need? I was taking it as a rough estimate of general consensus... which by the way doesn't mean majority of personal opinion but majority willing to accept as a practical matter. Remember that I don't share that opinion, but I do share in that consensus.I figure if the majority of people had a problem with human life being identified by birth there'd be much more hue and cry about it than simply from the far right antiabortion opponents. You were arguing that you used law to define human life, and then went on to make the argument that if the other poster did not join that consensus he was setting himself beyond the law. Thus it is highly relevant to my point.Now I could be wrong that that held an implication that most others do as well, but it seems to suggest that since the opposite would mean most people were above the law. In any case I must scratch my head... Why would you allow laws to dictate your definitions of human life where you view laws as the result of minorities held in power due to gerrymandering? Buddy, every time I quote your language, you look more ridiculous. You keep saying you haven't said things which quite clearly you have. Oh I see what this is. You are trying to catch me in some error regarding something that is totally offtopic, and near inconsequential, because you don't want to talk about the evidence which is the topic here.If you want me to say that I don't have scientific evidence that most people in the US use birth as the point of considering a gestational life as human life, then fine. In fact I thought I already said that to you. I directly said my statement should have been just to the US, and I was basing that on common law. I certainly wasn't trying to hide that fact.Do you want me to add that to claims in this thread, so we can investigate it? I'm more than willing to. Uh... take a look again. You just pulled my words out of context! Here is what I said with the yellow portion being what you cut out to make the above statement... So as you can see I am totally in sync with what your claim was, not twisting anything, and making a valid criticism. Now I am willing to accept an admission that you simply didn't read my post, but clearly you need to get a hold of yourself. And again... Degree is exactly what I am trying to get some settlement on, based on validity of conclusions from studies, though it didn't have to be an argument. What I like is how you prefaced the quote with a statement that I was dishonest and a quote miner, when you saw exactly what I was referring to above... As I said, you have a limited range for "leading cause", and a general range for "one of the leading causes" and BOTH are not supported. If you wanted to make it "one of the leading causes of death" for all women in developing nations I could accept that (with the caveat we still don't know how much is from abortion), but your own source stated for developing nations the risk of pregnancy was small. ??? I'm sorry, but I have no idea where you came up with that use of "precision". It has no bearing on any uses I have seen that term put to (which is usually about measurement). In fact that looks like a conflicting statement given that you were suggesting my solution was demand more studies with better precision. How does one get "better precision" from different studies, when you are talking about how to label things AFTER measurement? That's not to mention I clearly didn't use precision that way when discussing measuring US views on when human life begins, and you had no problem with it. Sheesh.For argument's sake I am willing to assume you meant precision to mean the above, and we can run with that definition. I'd suggest we change the name to "ranking", "defining", or "labelling", but whatever you want.To address that issue, I don't think there is any wiggle room on "leading cause", that implies the top cause. For "one of the leading causes" I agree that there will be some subjective wiggle room. I'd say top 1-5. I think top 20 is stretching it a bit. Not to say you couldn't but I don't think most people would agree top 20 is "one of the leading".We could add that to the list of claims to check out if you want. Apparently it is quite possible for me to do so, though there is a question of it is possible without having you quotemine me to invent a pretext of personal outrage, and so argue me rather than discuss evidence. Well it seems convenient to me as it allows you to pretend that there is only one issue in this thread and so claim "why on earth are we here?" when you feel the other topic is completed. Convenient in that you will not have to admit that a claim by a fellow "defender of science" falls short of support. And convenient in that it allows you to ignore a point advanced by antiabortion people, which is gaining some level of scientific support. 1) That wasn't ad hominem. I'm not even sure why you'd think it counted as that.
2) Are you claiming that you have not stated that science and scientific evidence is the basis for all your moral positions? If you have done so then I find your disinterest in discussing scientific evidence rather curious. If you claim not to have said so, then someone else using the name crashfrog certainly did.Can we get back to the claims regarding state of evidence? A simple yes/no on the proposed new claims would have sufficed.Edited by holmes, : made some of this mess a little clearer.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I answered this question later in the post you are replying to. Is there a reason you left this question in? Oh, you mean like back in post #18? Here it is again... See that, I admitted I made a mistake, and then clarified the scope of what I was saying as well as where I came up with my position. I have gone on record that the evidence I used was of limited quality, so I'm not sure why that would require an apology because I never claimed it was conclusive on the matter. Is it that you don't know what the word consensus means? I just said that you argued that the other poster SHOULD join the consensus created by the law, otherwise he would be above it. Unless you are suggesting that most people consider themselves above the law, and act against the definition of human life set in the law, they are in consensus. And apparently you still haven't looked up the meaning of specious. Boy I wish all my college courses had been this easy to pass... someone confronts you with evidence and you just whisk it away with name-calling, brilliant!Oh wait, this time you say you'll support that claim... Yes, but then you refuse to answer a simple question on the proposed states of current evidence, and go on to make contradictory statements like the following... So you retract, yet then reserve the right to continue acting as if the evidence exists for your claim. Oh by the way, if you want an example of a specious argument, look no further than your statement above.First you prop a strawman of what I said... my argument does NOT rely on believing abortion results in more deaths, I only stated that we cannot tell and that could be the case... and then state categorically abortion isn't available in the developing world.If you READ YOUR OWN MATERIAL you will discover that they say there is abortion in developing nations. Now am I supposed to believe your assertion on this matter, or the material you presented as evidence to support your claim? No, that's not what I said. While I mentioned that is possible, that is not necessary to undercut your use of it in your argument. We can assume for sake of argument that no abortions are included and the stats still don't show what you claim. Did you read the OP or not? I was looking to investigate the state of evidence regarding the issues of risk related to pregnancy (physical), and abortion (mental). I don't view any evidence as "disposable" only placed into a context so we can come to a conclusion on the state of evidence. You got suspended for language. I didn't bitch to anyone, I asked if I got to use the same language. If you noticed, other people did complain. And no, you won't see me bitching to anyone... but who is this "we" you are talking about? That doesn't make much sense. You claimed that you used science and scientific evidence to form all your moral positions. To now claim that you are uninterested in evidence that impacts, at least being brought to bear against, a moral position you hold means you do NOT use science to form your position... that would mean you pick and choose scientific data that interests you to reinforce your opinion.I myself am not interested in any and all subjects. Heck, I don't even claim to base all my moral positions on scientific evidence. But if I am engaging in debates on a subject and factual claims are made, I am interested in finding out if those factual claims have evidentiary support. If I don't then I can't make claims about those facts and the opponent's position stands.You can do what you want, I just find it curious given the earlier claim.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Ahem... You said I never admit a mistake. I showed you I did. That was primarily what the quote was for. As a bonus, I showed in the full quote (which you just mined) that directly after my admission I went on to explain what the scope was AND why that seemed to be the case.I have said that laws are not perfect and my opinion could be wrong, HOWEVER as long as laws are not being challenged they do APPEAR to reflect some degree of consensus. I am willing to add this issue to the list for examination. No, especially when I just proved that I did admit I made a mistake.What's funny is that you continue to go on and on about this issue, when I not only have stated that my evidence may not be appropriate and I am willing to open it for examination. Why don't you just say "okay" if the issue is so important to you? I am willing to look at evidence on it and come to a consensus on that evidence, which is all I was asking anyone in this thread to do with the other claims. I have been asking if you want me to do that for at least the last two posts... can you read? You do understand that in english more than one word can have the same meaning, and in this case one can refer to something without using a specific word? I explained how your argument implied consensus. If you are having problems reading, perhaps you should alert posters. I'll try again...Consensus is essentially an agreement to something, in this case a consensus to use birth as a defining line between nonperson and personhood. When you argue to a person that the law makes that definition, and that his not using that definition makes him above the law, then unless you believe most people feel above the law they must use that definition and so by definition be in consensus. Its called logic.So you can make this very clear, you were either implying most people were in consensus and the other poster was an odd man out, most are not in consensus and so the poster's being "above the law" is commonplace, or you didn't know either way but decided that it sounds good not to be "above the law" whether it is widely held or not. That last argument would logically carry no weight in the way you used it against the other poster. Well I started with it once, and asked you to adress it before anything else. And in another post I placed it last. Others had it mixed around. How do I get your attention? Wow, so you agree with Candian Steve, Faith, and Tal? That figures. Look I'm going to tell you what I told them. You can agree to disagree ONCE you agree on the facts underlying an issue and understand more than one point of view can emerge from those facts.This simply is not the case for what you claim to be supported by the evidence you gave. Oh, I can accept the fact that you are choosing to be willfully ignorant, but that is different than agreeing to disagree on the facts. The facts are that the evidence you provided do not support your claims. Its like when Tal says a Fox article shows WMDs have been found, and the only evidence for it is in the headline, while the rest of the article states otherwise. Except for the few fragments that have been pulled out of context, reading the full report (and in some cases just looking at the data) reveals that pregnancy itself does not pose that great of risk. We can agree risk occurs, and it is very high where medical technology is not available. But that is it.That means appealing to its ranking as a threat, especially on a worldwide scale is disingenuous. The report this data is culled from argues that more medical technology is needed, not abortions, because pregnancy within developed nations carries such a low risk! That patently undermines the claim.You can of course continue to argue that some risk is enough to justify abortion, but you cannot claim your earlier statements are supported by your evidence. And there is no way I could "agree to disagree" on that. I mean really, you are essentially in disagreement with your own source. ??? If we can agree that under that abortion where it is illegal is more dangerous because it leads to abortions without much medical training, especially as further conditions arise, why is it unreasonable to think that abortions where there is little medical training in general would not be more dangerous. It certainly isn't conclusive, but it is plausible. Ah another mistake. Just to be clear I am saying my mistake. Not an intentional distortion but a misread (popped over the "that" in "that available"). See how simple it is to correct such a thing!Of course now I wonder what you mean by "that available"? Yeah, clean abortions with trained staff probably aren't, but why does that make abortion less available? Women have been using all sorts of methods forever. And even where the sterile trained kind might be, medical attention might not be available should complications arise later. This is why I suggested risk (and so death) associated with abortion may very well be higher in developing nations. Your earlier, now suppressed but you claim to believe is still supported, that pregnancy is a leading cause of death worldwide for women 13-18, and one of the leading causes of death for all women.The latter is only possible with a rather free use of the the phrase "one of the leading", and that by using numerical ranking rather than actual percentages. I proposed something quite similar to what you said early on, which is why I didn't understand the hesitation to just state that you agreed. As follows...While evidence shows that there is risk inherent to pregnancy, and that the risk is increased dramatically with little medical technology/availability, the degree of risk is not as great as seen in claim #1. The moral position is on abortion itself. Opponents, people that are antiabortion, are advancing and argument that abortion presents a risk of mental harm and so should be considered in allowing abortion to exist and/or in how preabortion counseling is handled.You can pretend to be on an island if you wish, but it seems to me a person that does not take into consideration the arguments of opponents when formulating a position, is sort of half-assing it. All I said is that it is curious that a person who beats his chest about how steeped in evidence his moral positions are, would not be interested in discussing evidence that reflects on moral positions he holds.If you hadn't blown so much hot air about your connection to science earlier, I wouldn't have noticed or cared to mention anything about your disinterest in it now. No. I opened a thread to investigate some claims. I went out of my way not to mention you as a source for one of them, and asked not to get into that. When you came in all I did was address the evidence you provided, to which I've been attacked personally with increasing vehemence.I think you are projecting. This makes twice now that you have made out like I am persuing some vendetta with you, when YOU were the one to start posting to me, and refused to just deal with the evidence (and topic) once your evidence gets questioned, and instead focus on deconstructing me.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Gosh, genius, you mean like I did in post #8, and#13. Like I said If you have a problem reading, let others know. Again, I am baffled at the amount of disingenuousness or laziness a person has to have to leave lines in that are clearly addressed later in a post being replied to. At this point I will cut to your answer to that question... Uh... YOU made such a statement first, using such language. This is tantamount to announcing you can use whatever language you want, no matter how misleading, and then not get involved in the discussion about your claims because it inolves language and you are disinterested in it.As it is I have already mentioned that there is no wiggle room for "leading". That's like a used car salesman throwing up his hands and saying, what does "brand new" really mean, what does "complete guarantee" mean? Leading means top, ahead of the rest.If you want to suggest "one of the leading" has some subjective wiggle room I am more than willing to agree. HOWEVER, it is a bit odd to suggest that a large "top" range would not mislead some people, and using a ranking system rather than percentage system to make such a determination is a bit slight of handish. Again its like the used car salesman saying the car was definitely "one of the top sellers", when he means one of the top 50 brands sold, and in fact it only had .05% of the market.Perhaps some care about language is in order. I went on to explain how consensus was implied, making this whole rant unnecessary, yet you left it in. Why? Here is you response to my explanation... 1) You were specifically asked NOT to explain hoe you determine legal personhood. The direct quote may be seen above in posts by me and 2ice upthread. I can post it again if you need a reread.
2) Consensus can be agreement to anything. It can be legal definition, or clinical definition, or whatever. Thus you are still discussing a form of consensus.
3) I said I was discussing consensus to the law, which is a form of consensus. I specifically stated that it may not reflect individual ideology, giving myself as an example, but an agreement on where we can draw the line socially. Which means what you just said fits exactly what I am talking about.
4) That backpeddling is ridiculous. Exactly what were you trying to say to 2ice then? That sure looked like an argument that it is the rare person that doesn't follow the law, not that people are free to choose and you yourself might be the odd guy out.That is called ad hoc reasoning, and it only gets you into trouble. WRONG. What results were found is NOT agreed on. That seems to be where the problem begins, and from there proper conclusions. And even if for some reason it was all about "the conclusions" that is still a bogus answer. I stated that we have to be able to agree that logic can support either conclusion from the facts, in order to agree to disagree.If you honestly held the above opinion, then how on earth can you disagree with ANYTHING a creo says? You should be simply agreeing to disagree on all issues and leaving it at that. Man this is exactly how Faith argued regarding evidence for the flood in geological formations. Do you mean to say that I should accept that from her, that you do accept that? We agree that studies are made and there are results, but any conclusion can be had?I mean really, c'mon. This makes twice in the same post you are undercutting your own arguments. I'm not sure what you mean by medical conditions: medical ailment, or medical technology available? I guess I will tentatively advance the notion it is plausible in both cases. Abortion introduces new possible problems, some of which can occur later. While in hospital treatment might favor abortion, when complications arise outside those who had abortions might fare far worse. Are you kidding me? There are many "home" methods besides what you just described, including simple acts like putting pressure on the abdomen. And despite any possible impractical aspects of "coat hanger" abortions, desperation has led people to attempt abortion with all manner of sharp instruments.You understand that your current line of argument undercuts claims by proC people that making abortion illegal will result in more deaths of women due to unsafe abortions, right? Exactly, which is why we need to look at whether evidence supports that IF. I agree that science is our best tool for understanding any underlying reality. What are you talking about? Posts #8 &13 are linked above. They are the first responses I had to your posts and evidence contained within. Find me anything like you just suggested in either of this posts. Post #12 is your first response to my questioning evidence within your first post. Here's a highlight... Again, you seem to be projecting your own actions onto me. I don't look in a crystal ball, it's called good analysis and debate technique. You use logic to deconstruct an argument and determine possible permutations, defenses to what you are going to say, and cut them off. I have not done that in this thread. Looks like you aren't the master of everything that goes on here. The last time I did this, in the previous abortion thread, I was dead on. The very points I was told I could not say anyone held or would be discussed, ended up being the points under discussion. I found that quite amusing. Okay, or you could just not reply to my posts? Just a thought. When I "crawled out of my hole" I didn't write to you at all. I didn't even mention you in this thread, so its not like I was picking on you personally.In any case this might be a good tactic for you. Though I might suggest not posting until you can control your anger and learn a bit more about how evidence and logic work together. Well that's an outright lie. Look through my post list (start with my original posts and move forward). It is true that recently most of my posts have been in the Coffee House but I have already explained why that is. Once there are more topics within ID, or on other subjects which haven't been done to death already, you'll see posts in there. Maybe you'll even see one to YOU, bwahahahahahaaaaaa!But hey, what's your problem, according to your own stated criteria nonCoffeeHouse topics are some of the leading topics I deal with... Heheheh.Its cute when you pretend to be the boss of EvC and tell people what they are supposed to come here for, tell them how they post as if you know what they do, and chastise them for not posting properly. Edited by holmes, : correcting url error which led to huge monster post

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Interesting, but wholly offtopic. I guess I'd say that there is no inconsistency in discussing meaning and morality and being a relativist. You just can't suggest that others must subscribe to that same meaning or morality.By the way I wholly disagree with Teddy. The most dangerous trait anywhere is the deification of moral responsibility unaccompanied by smartness. We can see that playing out in fundamentalists of all stripes these days. The first group cause problems by accident, the second cause problems intentionally as well as accidentally and dismiss it as rightful justice.I suppose I could sum it up this way, being smart generally entails and empowers people to question actions and results of those in charge, moral responsibility does not.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I wasn't sure if I understood you correctly or not, so I'd point out that to a moral relativist there is no absolutely social source for morality as well. There are many different sources which can have equal values of moral reality. I don't think that's true. A single person can develop moral systems without other sentient beings around. Finding worth in industry over laziness, or perhaps injuring animals or even inorganic structures without "justification".Many people find their own moral identity by isolating themselves and considering their relationship with the world itself.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I'm just not sure how much clearer I could be than putting it first, and stating that I want you to answer it before anything else. You want I should make it blink or something? Then what did you mean? Please explain what you meant by that statement to Taters. He specifically asked you NOT to do that. I'm not sure how he could have been any clearer. If you look upthread here you will discover that your "intended audience" came away with the exact same interpretation I did. In fact I don't see how anyone could come away with any other interpretation. I'm quite interested to see what point you were trying to make to Taters without that interpretation. What numbers you claim they are showing, yes. I mean you know it wasn't as simple as some team of researchers out there with a clicker jotting down how each person died according to some chart, right? They have sections on the definitions needed to filter the original data they received, as well as the variability that made up all the different ways records were kept. This is more like a meta-study.And as it stands what data is required for you to claim support for your "personal" position is not there. This is directly comparable to what Tal and Faith do, suggesting that all data is open to interpretation and so supports their position. That's not how it works. Sometimes the very nature of the data stands in conflict with certain conclusions. No I'm not the only one, but that does not mean that any and all can. Some are patently incorrect, and your position is one of them. For example, Tal says that his position the wmds Bush was discussing were found in Iraq, because some wmd material was found in Iraq. He does not get to say the above, to get out of the fact that the report he is pointing to clearly states that the material was known about, in storage all along, and at this point couldn't harm anyone anyway.If you look at the UN link, you will see that they were only trying to assess the different magnitudes of risk to women engaged in sexual activity (as well as getting pregnant) where there insufficient medical help. Part of the "numbers" they use are incredibly low risk factors for pregnant women within developed nations. That is patently incompatible with an argument about how dangerous pregnancy is. I'm sorry what? If women know how dangerous pregnancy is then why do they keep doing that? But more to the point, when a woman is desperate to get rid of a child she tends to do so even at greater risk. If that were not so, why do women have back alley abortions, though their risk was known?And by the way your argument does not mean they are "less available", which is what you said originally, just done less often. Okay, how less often, and what difference does that make if the mortality is higher? I am not asking about the years. You said I did something right here. I showed you my first posts to your posts in this thread. And I showed what your second one was to me. You know you can't show anything you claimed in my initial posts (though it is right there in yours) so you are pulling out this "over the years" flimflam. Why would I have to address charges in this thread by discussing charges you made in ANOTHER thread? That makes no sense. Regarding the other thread, as I said then most of the issues were totally bogus on their face, and since many had been dealt with already, people would have either made their decision already or they just wouldn't care. Nope, try again. I dropped all discussion of the points I initially raised, because of the uproar you and she made. I then laughed as the argument proceeded to unfold between schraf and Taters in the exact way I figured would happen. They did this on their own with no intervention by me. It was just obvious that's where it had to end up if there was any point to what they had been arguing up till the time I entered.It didn't take a genius to spot where it was going, it took disingenuity to claim I couldn't. Uh... so now writing to someone else counts as writing to you, because in talking to them I was attacking an argument you had used elsewhere in the thread? That's some serious damage. Its really simple crash, I didn't write you. I left you alone. If you don't like how I write then you could have completely avoided any contact with me. You chose to initiate, not me.And let me point out the major irony here. One of your huge complaints to me is how I distort your position, building strawmen to attack. If that is true, then how could I possibly have been attacking an argument of yours when I wrote to RAZD? I mean I didn't use your name in that post, and you later claimed I wasn't even addressing your actual position in that thread. That means something is in logical conflict here. You need to sit down and figure out whether I can identify your arguments and positions or not. Heheheh... I was making a joke by riffing on your complaint about me. That you could not tell that was a joke is sort of sad. That you claim I must be projecting if I say such a thing, is hilariously ironic. In this thread I have directly and indirectly admitted more than one opponent has had a good point about something. You in specific have made at least two resulting in direct admissions that I have made a mistake. It appears that you need something else from me, like just saying all that is necessary is not enough. Do my posts need to squirt tears, or bleed profusely?Plenty of people know better than me on subjects I find interesting. Its just that you don't see me writing to them as if I know something in their field when I don't have a clue. Absence of my posts in a thread is not evidence of an absence of my interest/presence in a thread. Sometimes silence is more valuable, especially when people know more than me on topics I am interested in. Again, I don't know what you want from me, except posts which gush about posters?On your third critique, I think there have been many people with interesting points of view that I have either not thought of or have no experience regarding. In one recent thread all I did was pop on to say how interested I was in all the view points expressed so far. Truthlover in specific was a guy living a different way of life that I totally had to admire even if it was not my route. And RAZD has had some wonderful takes on traditional arguments which didn't just make me think, but made me think better. I mention those two because they were the ones with some of the most unique vantage points that simply never occured to me, and probably never would. But MANY others have had their impact on me. With all the insults you laced into this "invitation" I must assume you don't work for Hallmark. FYI, I don't need your invite to post. If it means I gotta crash the party, so be it!Edited by holmes, : added anyone

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)