[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

Wed Sep 26 18:40:27 MDT 2007

I was pretty surprised to hear there are 47 million abortions a year, so
I took the liberty of looking it up.

The CDC has really good data, but I wasn't able to find it in raw form.
I found it organized very well on Johnston's Archive.  I've never heard
of Johnston's Archive, but it says it uses CDC data and it's numbers
seem to match up with articles from the CDC website.  The Johnston's
Archive website doesn't seem to have a political affiliation.  The guy
who makes it is a doctorate student at U Texas.  Cool picture of him
with a missile on the "About me" page.  I have links to some articles
from the CDC website below.

The data goes up to 2003.  In 2003 we were at 850k abortions, with a
high of around 1.4m about a decade earlier.  So, 47m worldwide is a 
realistic number.  I was hoping that number was made up.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-unitedstates.html

* Reagan: Went up and down, with a net change of something around 85k
more abortions at the end of his term.
* Bush Sr: Up, up, up, down, down.  Net change of 17k-ish up
* Clinton: Down for 7 of his 8 years.  Net change of almost 500k down!
* GWBush: down, up, down.  A net of 11k down.

For a comparison with GWB, Clinton was down 15k from 1992 to 1995.
The fact is that Clinton didn't raise the number of abortions, he
lowered them.  This can be for a number of reasons, which I'm sure we'll
argue about, but you can't argue with results.

Look, no one wants to kill babies.  The abortion debate (not the
question, the debate) has gotten out of hand and is no longer about
abortion.  It's about cheap theater.  It's about mobilizing your base.
The Republicans know they can paint the Dems as anti-children.  Which is
  pure silliness.  The Dems can sometimes use it to scare women into
voting, but it doesn't seem to be very effective.  But, Republicans had
a good few years of control of the all houses of the government, and yet
abortion is pretty much no more illegal now than then.  All sound and fury.

-Dave

Here's some good stuff from the CDC page:
NCHS - 1999 Fact Sheet - US Pregnancy Rate Lowest in Two Decades\
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/99facts/pregrate.htm

Factsheet on teenpreg.doc
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/factsheets/teenpreg.pdf

Estimated Pregnancy Rates for the United States, 1990-2000: An Update
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_23.pdf

Disclaimer:  I didn't read all of these articles closely.  Mostly I was
just checking to see if Johnston's Archive's numbers were correct.  And
I didn't do a very close job of it.  Feel free to check my work.

David L. Willson wrote:
> I took the liberty of looking up metaphysics, Brian.  Now, would you
> please explain, on behalf of the pro-choice crowd, how your admittedly
> arbitrary definition of the starting point of human rights is not
> metaphysical, but mine is?  In fact mine seems just plain physical, to
> me, and any other point, looks like blank denial.  But I'll hold for
> your answer.
>
> As the only person arguing pro-life, I challenge any of you to show why
> you or I have the right to life but the unborn doesn't.  Use simple
> words, so I can use them to teach my sons and nieces and nephews and any
> future daughters I might have.  If you can't do that, then recognize
> that 47 million of some act that ~you~ can't tell from murder are
> happening every year.  You all say that Iraq is worth voting over, yes?
> At the worst estimate, our invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 lives in
> six years.  You all say that financial issues are worth voting over,
> right?  Wouldn't you give up your second car to save some kid's life?
> 47 million people are being sacrificed to the great god Self every year,
> and you're keeping silent.  You fight for something as intangible as
> free software... doesn't this matter more than that?
>
> This is not a "stupid issue".  This is ~the~ issue.  It might not be
> trendy, but that doesn't matter, does it?  It might not even be
> winnable, but wouldn't you lose a fight if you might save some kids life
> in the process?  Some guy is giving the  best years of his life to
> increase worldwide awareness of the genocide-in-progress in Darfur, and
> he's not doing it to be cool.  Some other guy is building houses in New
> Orleans, and paying for the bus ride there, so he's not doing it to be
> cool.  Winning isn't everything, but fighting the good fight, just might
> be.
>
> On Tue, 2007-09-25 at 22:26 -0600, David L. Willson wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, 2007-09-25 at 19:37 -0700, Brian Gibson wrote:
>>     
>>> Since David addressed me specifically I'll provide a
>>> response.  I'll _try_ to keep my responses brief.
>>>
>>>       
>>>> anyway, so why try to stop it?
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> There's nothing wrong with trying to stop it, but
>>> attempting to abolish it is the wrong tactic.
>>> Eliminate the causes of situations that lead to those
>>> abortions you don't deem acceptable.
>>>       
>> OK, I can't see my way clear to that.  I don't think encouraging people
>> to choose the noblest choice will really work, if there's nothing
>> ~wrong~ with making another choice, and it's WAY inconvenient to make
>> that uber-noble choice.  Really, who's going to give up 9 months of her
>> life, and risk stretch marks when abortion is legal, convenient, and
>> safe?
>>
>> Do you really think that eliminating the causes is realistic?  How do
>> you eliminate the causes of unwanted pregnancy?  Have we tried this, or
>> have I imagined it?  Do you have a new plan?  If so, describe it.  I
>> can't wait to hear it.  And, unless you're speaking to some point far in
>> the future, your plan needs to address the 1% of the time that something
>> goes wrong and "nature" has her way, in spite of our best efforts.
>>
>> No, encouraging people to do the right thing won't work, and this is a
>> smoke-screen.  But please, prove me wrong.  Show me the plan.
>>
>>     
>>>> The unborn is a human, and should have the rights
>>>> that we associate with
>>>> our humanity.  
>>>>         
>>> This is that arbitrary line I mentioned.  At what
>>> point does a fertilized egg go from a collection of
>>> cells to being a human baby?  Some say it's the point
>>> of conception.  Now if that is your stance, there is
>>> no point in continuing because we're then delving into
>>> metaphysics.
>>>       
>> Yes, that is the line I keep asking you, all of you, about.
>>
>> I would say that identifying the moment of conception as the moment of
>> beginning of that new human person as plain, simple, logical.  Please
>> define "delving into metaphysics".
>>
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