Jivin J’s Life Links 4-14-10
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
… According to Koppelman, the hostility in red states to both contraception and comprehensive sex education leads to a greater incidence of abortion. Conversely, even though blue states are more tolerant of premarital sex, their support for comprehensive sex education and contraception actually lowers abortion rates….
… [T]he best way to empirically test Koppelman’s claims is to simply analyze abortion data from the state level. If Koppelman’s claims are correct, then sexually permissive, contraceptive friendly blue states should have the lowest abortion rates. However, that is not the case. Data from both the CDC and… Guttmacher clearly indicate that abortion rates are significantly lower in red states than in blue states.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Very interesting — correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Maryland has the highest abortion rate in the country, and it’s definitely a blue state. I don’t what state has the lowest, but Mormon Utah’s rate is quite low. I don’t agree with many Mormon beliefs, but I have a grudging admiration for them as they do practice what they preach.
Give me a break. What will these nimrods think up next. Hostility to contraception? When will these folks realize that hostility does not prevent anyone from buying or using contraception. The pharmacist isn’t going to threaten you with a deadly weapon. Who even has to know you are using it?
I notice a trend in bills that force people considering them to really look at what abortion is and what it does. The “skull crushing” bill, for example. It’s hard to argue that you’re just removing some tissue when you admit that you’re grabbing a human skull with a pair of Sopher forceps and crushing it.
Maybe we need to get Warren Hern and Mildred Hanson in the chamber, arguing about the proper skull crushing sequence of events. Hern argues that it’s important to make sure that what you have in your forceps really is the skull before you pull it out, so you should squeeze and watch for brains (“calvarium show”) to ooze out through the mother’s cervix before you pull the skull out. Hanson argues that since fetal brain tissue is the tissue most likely to cause clotting disorders in the mother if it gets in her bloodstream, and the sharp edges of the skull can make tears in the cervix that allow fetal brains to get into her blood stream, you should vacuum the brains out of the skull first, then crush and remove it.
Everybody who claims that abortion merely removes tissue should have to listen to that debate.
Here’s a link to abortion rates around the country:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_abo_rat-health-abortion-rate
The top five states (including DC) all went blue in the last election.
Here’s a link to abortion rates around the country:
http://www.statemaster.com/graph/hea_abo_rat-health-abortion-rate
The top five states (including DC) all went blue in the last election, but one of the states in the top ten, Kansas, is a red state. And the bottom five includes Colorado, a blue state. So I don’t know if there’s any clear pattern here (but then again, I’m not a statistician).
The pattern you are observing is population density. Utah has under 4,000 abortions per year, so it’s rate is very low. But that doesn’t mean that Utah lacks abortion providers. The University of Utah Medical Center has recently opened the state’s first full-service, hospital-based Family Planning department. So while the demand for abortion is low, Utah now has the optimal facilities a lot of the states in the bottom of the list lack. I would expect a lot of women from outside Utah to seek an abortion in Salt Lake going forward. Notably, women from Nebraska.
Or take Texas (# 16 in the list). As far as I know, the only world-class family planning facilities are in Austin. Dallas and Houston don’t have one.
And there is my New York City, where we have 3 hospitals with full-service Family Planning departments. That’s two more than Utah, and three more than Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, or South Dakota.
It’s not a conspiracy, folks. 25% of Red State women will seek an abortion during their lifetime, same as Blue State women. If they can’t find a facility in their own state, a good number of them go to a state that does.
Family planning facilities. ha
Hardly the planning of a family when you are going there to kill your children.
Yeah, carla. Just like abortion is “reproductive health care”. Calling abortion “reproductive health care” is like calling the gas chamber a “respiratory treatment facility”.
Oh and I also like the words to describe these family planning facilities that do not facilitate the planning of families…..optimal, full-service and world-class!! Whooeeeeeeeeeee
Dhalgren, 5:10PM
So you are in direct agreement then with the PL stance that lack of legal abortion facilities does not mean women will see out illegal abortions. Interesting.
In case you didn’t notice you didn’t display a very impressive number of abortion providers.
We have a larger number of beauty salons in the midwestern city I live in than the number of abortion facilities you mention across the country.
Dhalgren,
Speaking of Nebraska, isn’t that where Carhart ran his state of the art abortion “clinic”. You remember, the one over a service garage, with the drugden next door and the junked truck with no tires in the parking lot not far from the porta pottis. Real classy place. Also, it had an outdoor generator. Either Carhart didn’t pay his electrical bills or he didn’t bother to make sure his facility was properly wired. The port-a-pottis make one wonder if Carhart didn’t pay his water bills or he just didn’t bother with plumbing.
Dhalgren,
I googled “University of Utah medical center family planning facility” and only got Jill’s site with your post about the alleged facility.
I visited the hospital website and could find nothing about family planning, abortion, or reproductive health care services.
I’ve checked a few more times, tried rewording and still come up emptyhanded. I find it odd that this would not be easily found on Google or the hospital’s website. Perhaps you can give us your source.