BREAKING: Australian TV personality commits suicide after depression triggered by abortion
This is such a tragedy. And abortion proponents share the blame. They, of course, push for easy access to abortion, deemphasizing its after-affects to the point they absolutely refuse to acknowledge post-abortion depression, which further incapacitates those actually living through it (more on depression following an abortion).
Charlotte Dawson, RIP, was born in New Zealand but achieved fame in Australia as a model and a judge on Australia’s Next Top Model.
From The Telegraph, today:
In the end it seemed like the final, inevitable episode of a tragic soap opera: Charlotte Dawson ? the model, TV star and social crusader who spent many of her adult years battling depression ? ended her life at the age of 47.
It is understood Dawson was found hanged in her luxury Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf apartment by a security guard on Saturday morning, the day after the birthday of her ex-husband and the man she still described as the love of her life – disgraced Olympic swimmer Scott Miller….
But friends believe she had never really gotten over her marriage to Miller, which ended in divorce after only a year. In her tell-all autobiography Air Kiss And Tell, she revealed she had an abortion because the pregnancy would interfere with Miller’s preparation for the 2000 Olympics – and blamed that for the start of her long battle with depression.
More from The Australian:
Ms Dawson gave an insight into her life – both her troubles and the highlights – in her autobiography, released late 2012.
In the book, Air Kiss and Tell, she revealed she had had an abortion with her former husband, Olympic swimmer Scott Miller, so that he would not have any distractions in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics.
She had been looking forward to having a baby but sensed “hesitation” in Miller.
”Everything Scott had done was leading up to this moment and nothing could stand in his way, so it was decided that we would terminate the child and try again later. Who needed a developing foetus when a gold medal was on offer, eh?”
Ms Dawson wrote that she was alone when she had the termination.
In he book she wrote that this was her first experience with depression – a battle she continued to fight for the next 14 years.
Miller… did not go with her when she had the procedure.
On this side of the pond newsrooms aren’t mentioning the abortion connection.
Dawson revealed in her 2012 autobiography “Air Kiss & Tell” that she was frequently visited by the “depression bogeyman.”
Despite her professional successes, Dawson’s personal life was often tumultuous. In 1999, she married Olympic swimmer Scott Miller. Although the marriage ended after a few short months, she struggled with the breakup and said he was the only man she would ever marry.
After Miller recently gave a tell-all interview to 60 Minutes in Australia, Dawson spoke out: “I continue to fight my depression”…
Seemingly a stab, from E! Online:
Per the BBC, Dawson suffered with depression for a very long time and was admitted to a hospital in 2012 after being targeted by cyber bullies.
Dawson married Olympic swimmer Scott Miller in 1999 but they were divorced two years later. She had no children.
[HT: Reader Sean]
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.
It is so tragic that babies in the womb are treated as commodities to be aborted and “replaced” at a later date. I am so sad that she lost her only child through abortion and then lost her life to the trauma of it.
Poor soul. I understand. From the outside she had it all and it looks like she thought she would plan her family. An abortion changes everything. Depression is very hard on a person. I was reading that a female cop did the same not long after her abortion. Pulled her gun out and killed herself.
The human, without the Holy Spirit giving them the guidance between right and wrong, will suffer a whirlwind existence! To keep peace in your life, center it with the anchor of Jesus the Christ, and His word……
To come to the realization of killing one’s own child in the womb, it will be a burden and scar many will not be able to cope with.
If anyone is suffering with this sin, turn to a strong local body of Christians, who will show you the path of redemption! Local crisis pregnancy centers will share that knowledge with you!
Shalom, only by the power of Jesus…..
”Everything Scott had done was leading up to this moment and nothing could stand in his way, so it was decided that we would terminate the child and try again later. Who needed a developing foetus when a gold medal was on offer, eh?” No one will ever know if Charlotte would have suffered depression & suicide if she had NOT killed her baby. I have friends who had never murdered a child by abortion who wanted to end their lives. But, it is very honest of Charlotte to confess to this horrible sin against her “child” & the great & kind God who gave her son or daughter to her.
Really? Someone who suffered for decades from depression – and you attribute it to the abortion from 14 years ago? That was just one of her bad decisions…. Seems to me the biggest, most powerful bad decision was not getting continual treatment for overpowering depression.
Per this quote from the article, Charlotte did not suffer from decades of depression. Her depression symptoms began after she killed her child.
“In he [sic] book she wrote that this was her first experience with depression – a battle she continued to fight for the next 14 years.”
How tragic that apparently Charlotte Dawson did not trust in the finished cross work of Jesus Christ. :(
Reminds me of the Indian (Bollywood) actress who also killed herself following an abortion a few years ago. Stacey Zallie was a young woman who killed herself following an abortion. Happens more often than we think.
Sure there are people who haven’t had abortions who want to kill themselves. I was suicidal at age 20. I’ve never had an abortion or even a miscarriage! There are other losses and regrets and grief that can drive you to consider suicide. That being said, having an abortion certainly doesn’t help your mindset.
Jiah Khan! That was the Bollywood actress. Couldn’t remember her name for a minute.
Lisa she admitted her depression started after her abortion.
Pro choicers are going to sweep this under the rug and blame it on anything but her abortion.
She was pushing 50 and probably realized biological children were no longer an option. She never got over Scott Miller and said she would never marry again. All of her relationships flopped after Miller.
People do not realize that abortion is actually a human sacrifice to demons. The gateway to being possessed by the spirit of depression is the result. The only remedy is the precious blood of Jesus Christ. May all who suffer as a result of this oppression come to Him in repentance for He casts no one out.
Ugh! As a pro-lifer, am I now partially responsible for the murder of Andrea Yates kids??? This is terrible…I had a clear conscience starting this day out.
LOL at Ex-GOP describing himself as a pro-lifer.
Rest easy, Ex. You can still have a clear conscience…unless you have a link to a prominent and oft quoted pro-life expert denying or downplaying the problem of postpartum depression. Do you have such a link?
No EGV,
You’re off the hook on that one. Her husband Rusty is responsible for the deaths of those children. He was a totally irresponsible husband and father and 5 children are dead because of it.
Thanks Mary.
This reminds me of Bode Miller and his ex-girlfriend. He didn’t want his baby and tried to coerce his ex to abort. She was strong enough to say no way and have the baby. Too bad Ms. Dawson, even married to this dude, wasn’t as strong to say no to his demands. Relationships are very complicated but the baby shouldn’t be a pawn to power struggles. What is interesting about Bode Miller he sued his ex, with his new wife, to get custody of the baby he didn’t want in the first place. Luckily, his ex fought him in the courts and won I believe. I’m blanking on her name. If anyone followed that case please post her name. She was, and is, a true PRO-Life person!
While depression is a treatable multi-faceted disease, I am struck by the fact that she hanged herself in her luxury apartment. Despite achieving so much worldliness and wealth, it was not enough to overcome emptiness, loss, and despair. Too often people chase after illusory fame and fortune only to see their lives end in shambles. Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
Well put m j…..all the fortune fame and money can bring back the baby. Not to get off track too much but Ive read Charlie Sheen is going to give marriage a 4 th try to a porn star. It wont work if its true. Proof that $ pretty cars and fame TV shows cant buy you happiness. Sheen tried to talk Denise Richards into an abortion both times and she refused. He said he wanted boys ( Richards had 2 girls ) but then Brooke Mueller gave him twin boys and he still hit her. Not to mention the countless porn stars and Heidi Fliess who aborted at his insistance on demand. SAD!
Yes @ sydney…obviously men dont have abortions and they kill themselves. i have been suicidal but never had an abortion but as youve said it cant be good for the mindset. Maybe this womans thinking at the time really was fear driven that she would destroy this guys life. However thats the problem…the chance to try again never came and they broke up. perhaps he figured my wife killed our baby. Its just sad all the way around.
Also maybe women believe they will be strong enough to handle an abortion only to find out later they couldnt. Susan Smith drowned her 2 boys. I read a book about her…i believe it was called Sins Of The Mother. Smith was having sex with a married man and became pregnant. She was told by him to abort so she did. PAS was not understood back in those days. Smith attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of pills not long after her abortion. She then began a new life marrying David Smith and Im sure youve heard the rest. Smith has had more than one suicide attempt in jail and even caught an STD from a security guard.
Heather…I know Susan Smith had an abortion as a teenager. I didn’t know she had another one as an adult.
This is tragic.
And yet… the MSM missed another chance to talk about Post Abortion Syndrome. Anyone who cares about women’s health and safe sex and “choice” should be very anxious to get the information of this danger out to women. But there’s a war on women, and certain people (for lack of a better label, I’ll call them “liberals”) don’t want women to know how to be safe.
Yeah Syd I believe she was a teen involved with a married man. Only one.
Yes just ran it through my search engine. Smiths biological father killed himself. She attempted suicide at age 13. She had an affair with a married man and became pregnant. Attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of aspirin after the abortion. meets David gets pregnant and they marry March 15th…that would have been my anniversary with brad. Smith was born Sept 26 one day before me and 1971 2 years after me.
Depression is a disease waiting for a trigger or triggers to manifest itself.
Charlotte’s depression could have just as easily been triggered by childbirth.
It would appear a few events contributed to her overall state of depression.
“Dawson spoke about former husband Scott Miller — and her hopes he would make a recovery from addiction — in a candid dressingroom chat with close friend Richard Wilkins the day before she was found hanged at her waterfront apartment.”
In 2012 she was hospitalised after becoming a victim of cyber-bullying.
“Before her death, Dawson was said to be under significant financial pressure, having borrowed up to $80,000 from friends.”
As per my second sentence above – “Scientific and medical groups have found that induced abortions do not cause mental-health problems, and that the risk of mental-health problems is equal whether a pregnancy is carried to term or terminated via abortion.”
“The APA updated its findings in August 2008 to account for new evidence, and again concluded that termination of a first unplanned pregnancy did not increase the risk of mental-health problems.”
“A 2008 systematic review of the medical literature on abortion and mental health found that high-quality studies consistently showed few or no mental-health consequences of abortion.”
“post-abortion syndrome” is not recognized as an actual syndrome by any medical or psychological organization…..the effort to popularize the idea of a “post-abortion syndrome” is a tactic used by pro-life advocates for political purposes.”
It’s sad and annoying when people’s repression gets triggered by their experience with abortion and then, they want to ban abortion and take away other women’s reproductive freedom, because of their dissociated feelings. Their abortion triggered the repressed emotions of the small child they once were. Now the abortion gets the blame and becomes their scapegoat, but it’s not the cause, it’s just the trigger. Like some women after giving birth fall into deep depression, what the professionals call “postpartum depression”, but giving birth it’s not the cause of depression, it’s just the trigger. Should we go around telling people not to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth to new beings because it can trigger “postpartum depression?” Of course not!
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-924935
This is so sad. I have never had an abortion but I remember being so horribly depressed it was like being in a deep dark pit with no way out. I felt like a heavy weight was crushing my chest and suffocating me. I was raised to believe that suicide was a great sin so I prayed that God would let me die in my sleep or even that I would get terminal cancer. At the time of the Susan Smith murders I was in the hospital and I cried and cried, not only because of the death of those two babies but I was also afraid that someone was going to kill my children and they wouldn’t let me go to them. Thank God I am no longer in that dark place and I haven’t been in a long time but my heart goes out to anyone who suffers that type of soul crushing depression.
Yes reality she had other problems but she never got over Miller and the abortion. The fact that she wanted to try again is what pro choicers say ….thats their plan. BUT it was not in Gods plan for her.
PTSD is very common following an abortion and the denial of it , like any grieving process can continue for years.. Most do not even begin to connect their abortion to PTSD for and average of 10 years later. POST-ABORTION DEPRESSION as in this case, can be deadly. It is most often drowned by alcohol or covered over with drugs. There are some very good Post Abortive Counselling Classes for women and for men through CARENET for anyone who may be struggling… Abortion does not simply make a woman no longer pregnant, her body and her emotions make her the mother of a dead child and that cannot and should not be over looked.
PTSD is very common following abortion – you have some evidence for this?
and the denial of it, like any grieving process can continue for years – evidence for this would be useful too.
Also i find it strange that she ended her life a day after her ex husbands birthday.
I don’t find that strange heather, given all the things she had said about their relationship and how she felt about him. Tragic, but not strange.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by a life-threatening situation in which the victim has no power to protect oneself. Among old soldiers, this was known as “shell shock” — one can imaging listening to the mortars and the screams of the wounded, not knowing how many buddies are being killed and if the next one might land on you.
PTSD also happens to parents who witness the sudden or violent death of a child while being helpless to save her.
Abortion is already extremely stressful. We know from post-abortive women that they frequently feel trapped and helpless, frequently saying “I felt like I had no other choice.” On top of this emotional turmoil, add the trauma of physically and personally experiencing the death of the child, the discomfort of that killing procedure, and the loud noise of the suction vacuum.
It is a sensory and emotional overload — a psychic trauma that rewires the brain, resulting in the sudden onset of anxiety and depression. And that starts new habits of trying to escape from the pain. Drug & alcohol abuse, risky sexual behavior, withdrawal and rejection of loved ones, eating disorders, attempted suicide.
It is no surprise that depression and related disorders are epidemic in this, the richest era of all human history. Women have more wealth and more opportunities than ever before. There should be great happiness…. but this is also the age of abortion. Too many women suffer for it.
Abortion is already extremely stressful. – ranty crowds around the building probably don’t help. Many things in life are stressful. A new job, moving house, childbirth.
We know from post-abortive women that they frequently feel trapped and helpless – “frequently”? Wanna quantify that, perhaps with some data.
frequently saying “I felt like I had no other choice.” – here too.
On top of this emotional turmoil, add the trauma of physically and personally experiencing the death of the child, the discomfort of that killing procedure, and the loud noise of the suction vacuum. – not by most of those I’ve spoken to, they seem to feel relief. What’s the repeat rate?
Reality says:
February 23, 2014 at 10:54 pm
We know from post-abortive women that they frequently feel trapped and helpless – “frequently”? Wanna quantify that, perhaps with some data.
frequently saying “I felt like I had no other choice.” – here too
=================
So a web search on Post Abortion Stress Syndrome. Among the quarter-million hits, pick a source that you trust. Then come back after you have learned about reality.
Wow, talk about confirmation bias and special pleading! I’m sure that Charlotte Dawson’s depressive illness that resulted in her suicide had much more to do with her formative years as child given up for adoption, ambivalent relationships with male role models throughout her life, low self esteem and self-defeating behaviours and inherited biopsychosocial vulnerabilities, as well as (but not solely) the trauma of having to terminate a pregnancy that she obviously longed for. Add to that a life lived in the public eye, with public judgment and scrutiny. This over-simplification of the issues is why pro-lifers make it so easy for reasonable, uncommitted people to wave them off a one-trick ponies
It’d be more straight forward if you just said that you cannot quantify it or provide data Del.
But since I’m such an extraordinarily generous person I thought I’d indulge you, a little, and see what I could find from sources I trust. One stated that PASS is “a medical syndrome that does not exist” while the other said the same things that I quoted in my 8:44pm comment.
You came back too soon. As one named “Reality,” you should not rely on reality-deniers.
As an extraordinarily generous person, you should consider sharing yourself at a site where post-abortion women share their real-life experiences.
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org
As to real information about Post Abortion Stress Syndrome, try this site:
http://www.afterabortion.com/faq.html
These women are not biased toward pro-life. They exist only to help women who suffer after abortion, without judgment. This should be a fair place you to learn.
As one named Reality, I spot reality-deniers very, very quickly :-)
As you stated earlier Del, there are a myriad of sites which tell us what PASS supposedly is. The problem is that there aren’t any which demonstrate that it actually exists or to what extent.
Apart from which…….
You stated that post-abortive women frequently feel trapped and helpless … frequently saying “I felt like I had no other choice.”
These are the claims you made which I asked you to quantify and provide data for. Perhaps you came back too soon?
PTSD was also medical syndrome that did not “exist” before it was included in the DSM.
and sleep disorders related to another mental disorder and sleep disorder related to a general medical condition have been removed from DSM-5 - so what?
Put it together: Ms Dawson wrote in her memoirs that she had an abortion so her husband could compete in the Olympics without the distraction a pregnant wife would bring. Ms Dawson wrote that the depression after her abortion was her first experience with depression. She committed suicide when the Winter Olympics was on TV, in the news, on newsstands, etc. The Olympics could have been the trigger for her depression that led to her suicide. Different things trigger depression. After a suicide, people who are close to the one who takes their own life are familiar with those triggers, or they’re not. And that awareness, or lack of it, would depend on a lot of things.
She committed suicide as the winter olympics were drawing to a close.
Her ex was a swimmer – summer olympics.
She committed suicide the day after his birthday – “the man she still described as the love of her life.”.
Post abortion syndrome is a pro life myth. It has not gained any acceptance in the medical community. It is not included in DSM; it is not included in ICD. “Before the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in 1973, many women were maimed or killed by illegal abortions, and psychiatrists were sometimes asked to certify that abortions were justified on psychiatric grounds. Currently, there are active attempts to convince the public and women considering abortion that abortion frequently has negative psychiatric consequences. This assertion is not borne out by the literature: the vast majority of women tolerate abortion without psychiatric sequelae.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15985924
But a genuine pro lifer does not care about that science counters their claims. They find enough satisfaction in trying to cash in on her tragic suicide.
Yeah just like abortion clinics cash in on a pro choice womans uterus
Christine i wouldnt be so quick to say what the medical community will dismiss or not. I have been a nurse since 1988 and over the years have worked with many women in the field. Many have opened up to me about their abortions. This includes friends. If abortion is so grand then why do the women I know say they would never have another one. Biggest mistake of my life. Most painful procedure. Many became alcoholics and drug addicts. My friend Margaret was sobbing 10 years later telling me shes been suffering nightmares. A little girl will appear and when Margaret goes to reach out to her she is suddenly gone. You wish it was all a myth. You want everything about abortion to be peaches n cream. We arent going away.
Heather: they “cash in” because they have a common interest. The woman needs an abortion, they provide health care for mothers (of which abortions normally are a tiny part). Did Charlotte Dawson want her suicide to be “cashed in” on by pro lifers? Not to my knowledge…
How about you making your decisions, just as others make their decisions?
One of the best dividing lines between science and opinions is how you use evidence. Real science use statistics, control groups, randomization (when possible, hardly in evaluating psychiatric outcome of abortions) etc etc, while opinions use “I know this woman who…” , “Many have opened up…”, “Many become alcoholics…”. Facts and numbers, please? Unlike you, I rely on science, and give you this one: ”
A review of methodologically sound studies of the psychological responses of U.S. women after they obtained legal, nonrestrictive abortions indicates that distress is generally greatest before the abortion and that the incidence of severe negative responses is low. Factors associated with increased risk of negative response are consistent with those reported in research on other stressful life events. ” Psychological responses after abortion (Adler, David, Major, Roth, Russo and Wyatt”) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/248/4951/41
And yes id never thought about the olympics being a trigger but it very well could have been. I was reading a very sad story about a woman who was taking about her abortion. She said As I lay in bed and touch my empty stomach I want to scream with rage. I killed my baby. And I HATE my babys father because he wanted me to do this. I want my baby back. We already see an unhealthy change in this woman and according to the story her abortion was recent. She said I should have left. Why didnt I? So many women will tell you about triggers. The anniversary of the babys death the due date. For this woman it didnt matter that it was winter olympics. Maybe the music was a reminder. Miller has a son although I dont believe hes married. Hes going through substance abuse problems and said his son keeps him grounded and focused. Another trigger? Could have been their 14 year old son or daughter.
C Dawson put it out there she said “I gave up my child for my husband.” How is a pro lifer cashing in on that?
If the abortion didnt bother her then why write about it? Why was it hard for her to watch the 60 minutes taping? Because she regrets her abortion. And she admitted she still loves Miller.
Well Christine whatever helps you sleep at night I guess. I dont need to base anything on science when I see for myself that abortion destroys a woman.
Well Heather, I had one, it did not destroy me. Life is full of decisions, choices (forbidden word here, I know). And women are mature enough to make those decisions.
I’m trying to draw the correlation between an abortion 14 years prior to her suicide, and her suicide. Most news publications (The legit ones) speculate this had more to do with financial duress, and perceived attacks. I know I am not supposed to make comments about people, but rather ideas, but the idea that there exist people who will twist anything to fit their pro-choice agenda is concerning. Paraphrasing/partially quoting other news agencies articles, stitching it together in a way that suits you, and running it as fact is what is called yellow journalism.
This is an attempt to draw away from the real issues surrounding her death. How many seemingly normal and healthy people fall through the cracks and obliterate themselves from places of disempowerment? Couldn’t the choice to end an unborn life instead be construed as indicative of much deeper issues? Can’t we stand back and take her life in as a whole and recognize that this was a troubled woman?
Why is it some people just pick one thing and use it to explain everything? The idea of that is amazing.
Should we now take “psychological reasons” off the table as a reason for wanting an abortion, now that we’ve determined no woman ever commits suicide because of Post Abortion Syndrome, which is now determined to be a “phony diagnosis?” If psychologists can “find” no past abortion triggers suicide, then how can they “find” no abortion choice can be caused by psychological reasons?
To be consistent, then, the Death Certificate for persons found hung to death by rope should read:
Reason for death: “None. ”
Cause of death; “Rope.”
Thats good Christine. I guess youre the acception to the rule then. The women I know are suffering.
While post-abortion stress syndrome may not exist as a medical disorder so to speak, there are any number of emotional reactions to having an abortion & a number of factors influence how a woman will emotionally react after her abortion such as: her support system (or lack there of), her spiritual beliefs about the pregnancy & abortion, her circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, whether or not she was supported in her decision or pressured to have an abortion, & her prior mental health. Every woman’s experience & circumstances are diverse & there is no one right or wrong way to feel.
While the studies are conflicting and scientists continue to debate, we need to turn to the women making the decision and listen to their needs & honor their voices & experiences, even if they don’t fit into your political narrative or views. These women are speaking and there is strong demand for adequate post-abortion support through counseling & peer support.
According to Vicki Thorn, founder of the Catholic-based post-abortion healing program, Project Rachel, “The national office receives 300-400 phone calls and about 200 e-mails each month.” (source, 2002) The Post-Abortion Support Site, a well-known neutral peer support website has 12 pages (with an estimated 217 stories) and 6,000+ more active members on the message board community of men and women who are working through post-abortion issues. In 2002, the pro-choice post-abortion hotline, Exhale was established and has received more than 500 calls a month (source
In addition, Naomi’s shared story reveals the barriors of stigma and political rhetoric women face when seeking post-abortion counseling:
“I think it is also crucial for women to be warned that post abortion depression is not just a myth promoted by anti-abortionists. I had been reassured that I would not have emotional problems after the abortion. I heard that the only opposition to abortion was religious; since I was an atheist, I should never have a problem with it.
When post abortion trauma hit me a full decade after the abortion I was not prepared and absolutely stunned at its force. I was devastated, depressed, suicidal, angry and ashamed for a full six months. I had nightmares, couldn’t cope with going out in public, and hated myself and everyone involved with the abortion. Anything I thought I could not have acquired or achieved if I had allowed my child to be born, I wanted to destroy: my marriage, my career, my home, my car; I even had to put my wedding pictures away for a while because I felt like tearing them all up.
Trustingly, I turned to pro-choice groups for help with my trauma. Even though I was still pro-choice and an atheist, I was laughed at and argued with. I was told that if I was having any regrets it was because I was not psychologically normal before the abortion! I was told it was just post-abortion hormones (the abortion had taken place ten years earlier!). In tears I called several pro-choice organizations and clinics, honestly seeking help. I was told that there was no such thing as post abortion regrets, I was called a liar, I was told there was no help available for me at all. The only “nice” response I got was a lady who said “I’m sorry” and then hung up. The last abortion clinic receptionist I talked to got furious and accused me of being an anti-abortionist pretending to have post abortion depression and threatened to report me to the police for “harassing” the clinic!
I was devastated. If I had a gun and did not have two small children to care for I know I would have ended it all right then. I didn’t know who to turn to. I had not even told my husband yet what was upsetting me.
Luckily, I called a pro-life center and they referred me to post-abortion therapy (even though I told them I was pro-choice). I chose non-religious post-abortion therapy and eventually healed. But for a while my husband and some relatives were angry with me for admitting I never wanted the abortion. Cruelly, they subjected me to the very same comments and pressure which caused me to submit to the abortion in the first place (“reassuring” me that it was what I “had” to do) while insisting that it was all my idea and they never pressured me at all!
I strongly urge women to speak up and be honest – no matter who it pisses off! No more pretending that it’s what we want or all our idea. It’s bad enough others (who supposedly “love” us) impose their wishes on us without us also being expected to act like it’s what we alone “chose.”
Naomi July 1998 Feminist Women’s Health Clinic: Naomi’s Story
In closing, please consider the following section of a letter submitted by Celia Ryan, a social worker and specialized grief counselor, in response to the Canadian Medical Association May 13 (2006) article relating abortion to increased risks of psychiatric hospitalization…
“I am not a researcher, and the hurting men and women who come to my office for counseling, or to my groups, are not interested in statistics or expectable outcomes. They are interested in having a language, structure and a framework for their abortion experience and an opportunity to use that information in a helfpul and healing way. They are grateful and relieved to finally be able to name and explore an issue that society says does not exist. They are no longer disenfranchised from their appropriate grief.”
These women exist, we can’t ignore their presence or needs for support/counseling as well.
Mods,
Just a heads up, I have a link heavy comment in moderation.
BTW, is this the user DocKimble from TheForce.net bulletin boards?
It seems fairly obvious to me that the reason PAS has been taken off the table as a reason for depression is because “psychological reasons” has been put on the table as a reason for wanting an abortion. Walking back the PAS diagnosis as reason for suicide to its source in medicine would conclude the original diagnosis contributed to the suicide. If the abortion didn’t cure the psychological cause for abortion, but rather led to depression, which led to suicide, then the original diagnosis was a death sentence for both the child and the mother.
The psychologists are just trying to take themselves off the hook for the transgressions of the boundaries of medicine made by their abortionist colleagues.
Lawyers make lots of money making “diagnoses”that they propose to juries all the time. Jonathan Edwards, one time a Presidential candidate, once made 30 million dollars for one of his clients by”channeling” the voice a dead fetus for a jury.
* While post-abortion stress syndrome may not exist as a medical disorder so to speak, there is a spectrum of emotional reactions to having an abortion….
*Every woman’s experience, feelings, & circumstances are unique, there is no one right or wrong way to feel.
As one who lived through it and survived my suicide attempt after my abortion I want to thank you Jill Stanek for this
And abortion proponents share the blame. They, of course, push for easy access to abortion, deemphasizing its after-affects to the point they absolutely refuse to acknowledge post-abortion depression, which further incapacitates those actually living through it.
It speaks to every proabortion comment on this thread. :)
And those who offer help and hope and recovery? Certainly not those that are proabortion. Why would they offer to help someone with something they believe doesn’t exist??!!
Those that have lived through it, offer it. In support groups, abortion recovery healing studies, retreats and helplines.
If you are struggling and suffering after your abortion there is hope and healing for you.
http://rachelsvineyard.org
National Helpline for Abortion Recovery
For help, call now at 1-866-482-LIFE
http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/
http://ramahinternational.org/
http://www.surrenderingthesecret.com/
Charlotte Dawson told her own story: She had an abortion, by her own choice — not pressured or suffering from psychological distress at the time. She insists that her depression started after that abortion. She believed that the abortion caused the depression. She has battled depression ever since. Now it has killed her.
In the light of this story, there is a rush by abortion supporters to deny that PASS exists. There is similar and opposite response from women who have had abortions, telling of the depression and suffering that they experienced.
The mainstream media, afraid as always of anything political, pretend like they know nothing about the existence of an epidemic.
Also I’ve put together a list of resources for those seeking emotional healing or closure from their abortion(s), regardless of their political or spiritual beliefs. At the following link you will find various organizations, online pamphlets, websites, and books of diverse beliefs and practices which offers support, guidance, peer to peer support, and in some cases professional counseling. As you investigate the resources listed, keep in mind that not every program is a good fit for every person. I encourage you to choose recovery resources which fit your values and beliefs system and where you feel the most safe & comfortable:
Reflections: Abortion Recovery Resources
While “facts and numbers” and medical journal studies have their place, to only exclusively focus on them is akin to looking at only one piece of the puzzle. Also it dehumanizes the procedure & limits/disenfranchises women from being able to explore the full range of experiences & emotions of having an abortion.
While “facts and numbers” and medical journal studies have their place, to only exclusively focus on them is to look at only one piece of the puzzle. Also it dehumanizes the procedure & limits/disenfranchises women from being able to explore the full range of their experiences & emotions surrounding having an abortion.
*Mods please delete the previous copy of this comment, due to connectivity problems, I posted it twice*
And women are mature enough to make those decisions.
Yes, All woman are mature enough based on gender alone. If a man said this, you’d be the first to call him sexist.
There is a reason why there is so little research into PASS: Research funds are controlled by politics. The HHS under Obama/Sebelius would never release funding for a study that will obviously hurt the abortion industry…. women’s health be damned.
And researchers hoping to publish such work would meet resistance in peer reviews and censorship in medical publications. Researchers and universities and scientific journals jealously guard their prestige. They fear a political reprisal.
We see the same thing in climate research and in gender/sexuality studies: researchers fear to put forth research that flies against the political winds, and funding for such research is not available.
Same thing happened with cigarettes, back in the day. Big Tobacco had a strangle-hold on politics, so there was no funding for research of the obvious. Big Pharma and the abortion industry are making sure that education about the danger of birth control is not publicized.
Meanwhile, our culture is dying and women are dying.
What a tragic story. Yes, I’m sure there were multiple factors leading to her suicide, but I don’t doubt that her abortion played a major role.
“Well Heather, I had one, it did not destroy me.”
Other post-abortive women are not so lucky. However, I would question if you truly understand what abortion is and if you have a full understanding of fetal development.
” Life is full of decisions, choices (forbidden word here, I know). ”
Most choices don’t involve the intentional killing of innocent children. Oh, and why are so many pro-aborts hung upon the silly (and false) notion that pro-lifers don’t like choice? Nice euphemism, though ;)
“And women are mature enough to make those decisions.”
Well, that depends on what kind of decisions you’re talking about. If you’re talking about decisions regarding career, education, and health care, etc then I agree with you. But not decisions that involve killing innocent children.
Perhaps the abortion is bothering Miller. We don’t know. Something happened after that abortion that they only remained married a year. Yet she said she would never remarry. And when he said his son ( whoever the mother ) couldn’t find any evidence he was remarried….said he keeps him grounded…that could have been another kick in the teeth for Dawson. Maybe tormenting herself over and over again. We could have had our baby. We could have made it. She even had to call a friend to watch his interview with her because she was so shaken. There are indeed triggers. My dead husband lost a son to an auto wreck on Ridge Rd. He was in a GTO and hit a telephone pole going 100mph drunk. He was killed on impact. My husband never got over that and it happened in 2004. We would often pass the pole and sometimes hed start crying…” If that darned pole wasn’t there Steven would still be alive.”…trigger
As for the women who speak of relief following an abortion, I liken it to what people feel when their appendix bursts. The patient feels relief at that point because the pain that resulted from the pressure is gone. In the immediate aftermath of a burst appendix, the patient may not appear sick. Psychological studies of post-abortive mothers done too soon after the abortion reflect this phenomenon. These are the ones usually cited by abortion supporters. However, the patient’s sickness continues as the infection spreads throughout the body. Longitudinal studies better capture the patient’s overall mental health and response to the abortion.
Specialists in the relevant field saying ‘no’ =/= ‘denial!’
Well for women who want to say it was a grand experience…i know a handful…then idk what to say except for one became a raging alcoholic after her 8th abortion and also became sterile. Yet she still was one to scream My Body My Choice! Yet another will just say Im still glad i had my abortion. I dont have all the answers so perhaps she is.
The second ones reason was that she could not stand the babys dad. Actress Susan Sarandon explained her abortion much like my friend calling him the slang for rectal part. My friend aborted in 96 while going for her RN degree. She quipped “There is no way I could have stayed with that jerk for 18 years.” Then she went back to her ex and quickly had an attonment baby. She was pregnant within 4 to 5 months of her abortion
And if you look at Dawsons final picture you can see she is resigned to her fate. She and Scott are over. No child. $ problems. Its tragic.
For those who argue that since there is no acknowledgement of post abortion mental health issues then presto, they don’t exist! Post traumatic stress disorder was not classified as a psychiatric disorder until 1980, which is the earliest I can find. So, that is proof positive that soldiers, from ancient times up to 1980 never suffered any trauma or stress from viewing and experiencing horrors most of us can’t even imagine. After all, until it is officially recognized, a disorder can’t possibly exist, correct?
Of course soldiers and former soldiers maintained they were suffering various mental health issues, but what did they know?
The fact that recognition and acceptance of PTSD was a difficult journey does not mean the same applies to PAS. Quite the opposite if anything. Just as the eventual discovery of the causes of events such as the black death led to a whole new approach to such things, the identifying of PTSD means the approach, the perusal, the examination, as to whether conditions such as PAS exist is much more advanced and accurate. Stress disorders were not even a field of study, now they are.
Reality,
I’m just using the argument posed by your side. If the disorder is not documented or recognized, it doesn’t exist. Prior to 1980 soldiers did not suffer psychological trauma. They returned home and lived happily ever after. I personally know soldiers who seemed to do just fine, so that proves it.
No you’re not.
‘my side’? How cute. It is ‘my side’ which is more open to recognizing things such as PTSD.
It is not a case of PAS not existing because it isn’t documented or recognized, it is a case of it being found not to exist after extensive research and investigation. As I explained, the experience with PTSD has helped.
Oh, and if you think abortion should be banned because some women may get this supposed PAS, we’d better shut down the military.
Reality,
How long was it until PTSD was actually documented? Prior to that time it wasn’t recognized so that means it did not exist. Did they just suddenly decide one day it existed or did it involve extensive research with people taking sides pro and con?
“Battle Fatigue, Shell Shock, PTSD” are caused by different traumas from PAS, but the psychological disorder results in the same effect: suicidal thoughts. In the first, you have a threat to your body being destroyed arbitrarily and capriciously by another, in the other, someone else’s body was destroyed by another by your arbitrary and capricious whim. In both, memories of the trauma can trigger suicidal thoughts. It seems to me that women who have been thoroughly convinced that they didn’t harm another’s body are those who have no traumatic result from abortion. Which is why the pictures of preborn infants are so often said by those women to be “disgusting.”
Returning soldiers who receive a hero’s welcome may be affected positively or negatively by that experience. Returning soldiers who receive a villain’s welcome may be positively or negatively affected by the experience.This may be compared to women who have peers who praise them for getting abortions. Women who are negatively responded to by others because of their sharing about their abortion experience may be positively or negatively affected by that. But, ultimately, the returning soldier may deal with the war experience by getting married, bringing new life into the world and supporting a family. Unfortunately, some women, like some soldiers, can never find that healing in marriage and reproduction and bringing foerth new life.
Interesting side-note: Nazis who were involved in mass exterminations often wrote home and admitted doing that kind of duty was very difficult, but that the fault was not in the duty itself, but within themselves, for they had to “get tougher.” This may be similar to the “tough” personality traits taken on by many women these days, and even seen as an “ideal” for girls, as in Girl Scout”s promotion of Wendy Davis as a role model. Davis is the Texas Senator who is running for Governor of Texas against a cripple. This has brought out the “tough” women to go to Texas and risk jail terms to register voters and then keep the lists (illegal to do that), and then use the lists later for other purposes related to liberal causes. It may be assumed that there are a great number of Davis’ supporters who are in the “tough” category of post abortive women. Many of them brought bags of urine to the Texas capitol to throw at men who interfered with Davis’ filibuster against a bill that would have restricted abortion. Talk about “Vagina Monologues;” there you have it writ large in real life.
I guess my point is that war is terrible, and that there is a War on Women, and the elites have control of the wars, and the elites have convinced many women that to win the “War on Women” they must kill more and more babies, and fight against restrictions to kill babies. The whole psychological pattern of a culture at war with apparently the whole world is terrifying (“War on Terror” and “War on Women” is really a terrorizing of the culture by the elites, who control wars).
What are you on about?
Extensive research eventually led to the recognition of PTSD. As I stated earlier, ‘stress disorders’ wasn’t even a field of study, now it is. And the same rigorous work which led to the recognition of PTSD, and a number of other stress disorders since, has concluded that PAS doesn’t exist.
Blood types once weren’t recognised or known of. Then they were. They were identified. Are you now going to agitate that type G is being denied or something?
Reality,
Honestly, this is great fun. I just checked Wikipedia and throughout most of the 20th century, until the 70’s it seems, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder. Looks like the psychiatric profession isn’t exactly infallible, unless of course Reality you think that for 50 years or so gay people were mentally ill. Seems like the psychiatrists aren’t always real quick on the trigger. They wrongly classify people as mentally ill and they’re not setting any records for recognizing disorders(good grief how long have soldiers been fighting wars?). Given this track record Reality, an open mind on the possibility of PAS is definitely in order.
“Extensive research eventually led to the recognition of PTSD. As I stated earlier, ‘stress disorders’ wasn’t even a field of study, now it is. And the same rigorous work which led to the recognition of PTSD, and a number of other stress disorders since, has concluded that PAS doesn’t exist.”
Okay, even if you don’t think PAS is a separate disorder to itself (which I don’t think it is, it strongly resembles PTSD in my uneducated opinion), can you see that many of the women who speak of their regretted abortions seem to be exhibiting a lot of symptoms of PTSD? I guess what I’m asking is if you think it’s possible for a woman to get PTSD from an abortion, particularly if it’s coerced/unwanted/forced/anything other than completely freely chosen?
I knew someone who got PTSD from having a catheter put in when they were a child. It doesn’t really stretch my imagine to think that many women end up with PTSD from abortions.
Reality—
I’m using my powers of observation in a liberal way to try to understand what’s going on. Restriction of thought (Politically Corrected Speech) is a terrible thing, un-Constitutional, actually. Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing. You don’t like my speech? Why do you shift the focus away from the topics I brought up, and bring in “blood types” as a distraction? I’ve spoken my mind on the subject at hand: suicide, and it’s root causes. Others on this thread have accurately described how research is ham-strung today by grant monies being distributed restrictively to mainly liberal thinkers. It falls to the Common Man and Woman, then, to begin the holistic, truly liberal approach to the discussions that others wish to avoid (obviously, because you just did.)
What, you didn’t know that already? Wow.
My point is that the criteria, the application, the investigation, the methodology, which identified PTSD and has identified other stress disorders, has found that PAS does not exist. There’s already been an open mind on the possibility of PAS and the results are in.
Now, what’s your point?
My 12:20am comment wasn’t directed at you DocKimble. I didn’t see your 12:19 until my 12:20 went up. It was not at all relevant as a response to your comment.
When I did read it I found it interesting until I got to the bit in brackets at the end.
Do you think you can use your powers of observation in a liberal way? Wouldn’t that mean you must have at least a bit of liberal in you?
research is ham-strung today by grant monies being distributed restrictively to mainly liberal thinkers. – what, like the Koch brothers?
It falls to the Common Man and Woman – who are they?
(obviously, because you just did.) – well no, I didn’t.
REality—
Mea culpa. OK, yup, busted. I’m liberal. So liberal I consider the preborn as equal to you or me in human dignity, a legal American citizen who is being murdered by unjust execution by a state-sponsored executioner. Like in the French Revolution, with the Reign of Terror of the Committee of Public Safety. This compares to the Politically Corrected Speech Codes we are being made subject to these days. I always remember that Robespierre was eventually beheaded by the Committee, for “not being revolutionary enough.” This always makes me feel sad for him, and others like him today, who just can’t seem to get ahead of the curve of “Liberalism,” and break on through to the other side of Liberalism , and find God, Who is so liberal he considers the preborn as persons.
:-)
Quite a lot to reply to here, it is not even possible to cover all the subjects above. But the fact that PAS is not proven to exist should be very clear. Ronald Reagan initiated a study, performed by dr C. Everett Koop, an abortion opponent, but oddly enough also an honest scientist, and I quote him from committee hearings on his report:
”There is no doubt about the fact that some people have severe psychological effects after abortion, but anecdotes do not make good scientific material.” You can tead the whole story at http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/17/us/koop-says-abortion-report-couldn-t-survive-challenge.html
And once again, “pro lifers”, life is stress. There are lots of things stressing in life, childbirth, death of family members, losing your job, getting a new job, leaving school, breaking up a relation, marriage etc etc. The list goes on and on. Should all these things be banned because some people may react negatively?
And, making a bow at your ways of anecdotic evidence, here is a website containing lots of womens stories of how they not regret their abortions, and I advice you to read at least a few of them before you start screaming “monsters” and “child killers”. These are highly normal american women; just like all women around the world they should be treated like human beings who has the right to make this decision. Just like we pro choicers give you the right to make your decision.
It occurs to me that PTSD caused by war trauma and PAS are similar in another way: survivor guilt. Then I began to think that in the case of a country which has a draft, those who end up being drafted and return with survivor guilt may be able to find emotional healing in knowing they had little choice other than abandoning their country to avoid the outcome of the draft, which resulted in their survivor guilt.
About the same time our country ended the draft, the Supreme Court legalized the murder of the preborn. It’s as if this country can’t live to fulfill its destiny without being constantly terrorizing some group of people or another. This is the ugly side of “The Sweet Land of Liberty,” and it’s up to the Common Man and Woman, those who are being manipulated by the Barbarian Ruling Elites, to refuse to participate in any but defensive wars.
To say one is defending one’s own life by volunteering to kill is totally unacceptable, imho, unless one is defending one’s life from an unjust aggressor. But when one volunteers to serve the country, one then loses his or her ability to choose which is an enemy and which is only perceived to be an enemy by the Barbarian Ruling Elites. With “Roe” and with the end of the draft, the Barbarian Ruling Elites have accomplished a long-cherished goal of theirs: To be able to stand back and say, as all Tyrants of all time have said, “Oh my, look! They’re destroying themselves!”
We are voluntarily killing ourselves and terrorizing as many others on this planet as we possibly can. We think we may do this because we have a right to the resources that exist in other countries. We think we can take the lives of the preborn because they will take away from us what we want, when we want it, in a terrorizing zero sum game, a war on terror that institutionalizes terror and makes the whole world, bedroom, crib, crade and all, a seething, shrinking battleground.
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, May God have mercy on us… and on the whole world.
Christine,
You seem to have missed the whole point of my previous posts. Given the rather dismal track record of the psychiatric profession, you would be well advised to keep an open mind concerning PAS.
Koop, whom I greatly respect, conducted his research 25 years ago. Has there been any more?
There are women not traumatized by their abortions? Well, if there are soldiers not traumatized by their experiences, does that prove PTSD doesn’t exist?
Reality
Is your 1:01am post directed to me??
Christine–
Some things should be banned. Total War, for one. At Nuremberg, the whole world said “Never again”” because the whole world realized if “again” ever happened again, the whole world may be destroyed.
The murder of the innocents was the beginning of the Total War that nearly ended civilization. We can take stress, but we can’t afford to lose civilization. We don’t have a right to allow the stresses that initiate Total War to continue.
Found a good link describing you “pro lifers”… enjoy reading
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/02/24/anti-choice-movement-denialist-movement/
And in reply to Mary, I give you this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-erdreich/post-abortionsyndrome-the_b_3742606.html
And in reply to your inquiry for later research, how about this one:
http://aomrc.org.uk/publications/reports-a-guidance/doc_download/9432-induced-abortion-and-mental-health.html
From the summary:
Taking into account the broad range of studies and their limitations, the steering group concluded that, on the best evidence available:
• The rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy
were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth.
• An unwanted pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of mental health
problems.
• The most reliable predictor of post-abortion mental health problems was having
a history of mental health problems before the abortion.
• The factors associated with increased rates of mental health problems for women
in the general population following birth and following abortion were similar.
• There were some additional factors associated with an increased risk of mental
health problems specifically related to abortion, such as pressure from a partner to have an abortion and negative attitudes towards abortions in general and towards a woman’s personal experience of the abortion.
I believe the professionals on the PAS..post abortion syndrome. It DOES very much exist because I’ve seen it destroy a woman’s mental health. And those are just the women I know or have interacted with. Imagine the entire world. Violence against children is on the rise. Heck if their own mothers can snuff them out then anything goes.
This pic was not Dawsons final picture but I have seen it. It was taken the day before her suicide.
And Cristine…if PAS might exist then why not just say so? I know post partum depression exists. You can’t speak for everyone. Like my top post about the female cop. It was proven that she was suffering from acute depression following an abortion so she killed herself with her own gun.
Heather: you do not believe the professionals. It does not exist. Quote from above: “The most reliable predictor of post-abortion mental health problems was having a history of mental health problems before the abortion.” and “The factors associated with increased rates of mental health problems for women in the general population following birth and following abortion were similar.”
Why should I say something exists when it does not? I could just as well say that there is a god.
It’s pretty depressing reading the thoughts of people who are trying to defend the act of killing a child in the womb, and then say that that act had no effect on the subsequent mental state of the woman, claiming essentially that it was other stressors in her life that are the cause of depression, and that women who had mental problems before abortion weren’t changed mentally by the abortion, one way or another. It reminded me of other thoughts I’ve read that say that little girls and boys aren’t affected by child molesters’ acts committed on their bodies. Or other studies that make the claim that viewing pornography has no harmful side-effects. Or others that say that the reason we are now seeing hermaphroditic fish is not because of excess estrogen in the water supply from birth control pills but from plastic bottles being discarded in the rivers, lakes and ponds.
To say that a woman can remain the same woman after an abortion that she was before is simply preposterous to me. But I’m not surprised at all that there are very clinical men and women who can come up with studies that say just that. It is a symptom of science that one may have to forego one’s own repulsion at certain sights and thoughts for the betterment of science for the sake of the health of the patient. Putting aside the fact that maternity is a condition that requires great care lest the developing child in the womb be lost, one can hardly deny that any person who could reverse that field of thought and destroy the developing child “for health reasons,” must have been able to go through the same type of mental gymnastics that came up with those ideas about child molestation, porn viewing and plastic bottles causing hermaphrodism in fish.
Doc Kimble – until you come up with substantial evidence from one (or more) studies, from any reputed University (or equivalent) that supports your views, I will just sit back and laugh at your conspiratory ideas.
And if – saying if, because it will not happen – you would manage to find some unbiased study supporting your views, it would not change the fact that it is the woman and only the woman who is to decide what to do with that unwanted child.
Appendix to previous reply: those examples you give are ridiculous. There are people proposing these views, but the scientific studies do not, on the contrary they are supporting the views that children are hurt by what child molesters do to them. So the examples you give are from unscientific sources, just like those sources who propse the existence of PAS. You are using one stupidity to support another.
By the way, post partum syndrome is well known in medicine. Maybe we should ban childbirth too, some women are likely to suffer from that after delivery?
Christine–
“I” don’t come up with “studies,” “I” come up with observations based on my ability to logically understand trends and people who make trends happen. People more powerful than “I” make trends happen by bribery and deceit. This is reality. You may not agree with my observations. I care that you believe as you do, because I believe you are being deceived. You’ve only proven to me that you have allowed yourself to be deceived. I don’t judge your motivations, only that you are deceived. Judging your motivations is “above my paygrade.” The studies proving the reality of PAS are extant, your beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding.
http://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/02/25/abortion-depression-and-suicide/
As to why I believe what I do, in case you’re interested, perhaps you’d care to take a stroll into hell on earth and review Dr Judith Reismann’s findings. They are available on You Tube. “The Kinsey Syndrome.” Then find “The Pink Swastika” by Scott Lively, also on You Tube. You may or may not find confirmation there of deception on the part of powerful people. I only know that I could not deny the reality of such deception.
Interesting link that Bill Muehlenberg. It contains one reference to a study, as always without mentioning authors or providing a link. I did search for the journal mentioned, got some hits, and since it is impossible to determine which he refers to (strange isn’t it?), I picked one random and found this quote from the summary:”
The most rigorous studies indicated that within the United States, the relative risk of mental health problems among adult women who have a single, legal, first-trimester abortion of an unwanted pregnancy is no greater than the risk among women who deliver an unwanted pregnancy. Evidence did not support the claim that observed associations between abortion and mental health problems are caused by abortion per se as opposed to other preexisting and co-occurring risk factors. Most adult women who terminate a pregnancy do not experience mental health problems. Some women do, however. It is important that women’s varied experiences of abortion be recognized, validated, and understood.”
You find it at: http://alranz.org/documents/AbortionandmentalhealthAmericanPsychologistDec2009.pdf
And that simple rhethorical trick of saying that I am deceived does not work with me. I know what evidence I have come up with, compared to what poor links you provide.
Please note that I did not omit the phrase “Some women do, however”. Of course some women can have problems after abortions. Some have it after childbirth. Let us ban that too? Or just leave the decision to the one who is likely to make the best decision, and those are not “pro lifers”, judges, bible readers or GOPers… those are the woman who is pregnant with a child she does not want to.
PS! Pink swastika? I googled it. Connecting nazis and homosexuals? And talking with a cross in the background. All serious historians laugh at that crap. Who is deceived? DS
Christine—
The words you and your abortion enthusiast colleagues use are disturbing. “Unwanted” pregnancy, for one. This language is used in medical research as if it were some hard evidence of the non-personhood of the preborn person. I simply refuse to go along with that “rhetorical flourish” used by “researchers “as having a basis in anything other than bias and prejudice against babies. Simple as that, all medical research concerning PAS which uses such terminology has been discredited in my eyes as being deeply flawed by a heinous and callous disregard for the humanity of the preborn. Simply put, I refuse the “weasel words” which have crept in to our lexicon today. Evil will always be evil. And what is good never changes, either.
Anyone using a hate preacher like Scott Lively and claiming him as a credible source has lost all credibility himself. And you do not use “studies”? Well do not if you do not want to – but medical studies has provided us with all the advance we have in that field. If we would have gone along with your approach, we would still have used leeches to treat a number of diseases. Your choice. (oh sorry, a weasel word)
Scott Lively is not a preacher, and he came to the controversy about the homosexual underpinnings of much of what we call “research” today only reluctantly, after experiencing furious and physical threats to his life from homosexual activists and the deniers of Truth, which is not a something, but a Somebody.
Reluctant draftees to the War Against Truth are a valuable source of reliable evidence of evil. Do you suppose evil jumps out and is dressed with a red suit, sporting horns and carrying a pitchfork? Evil comes as our heart’s desire, beautiful and alluring, using “soothing” and comforting words. Words have meaning. And using the wrong words to describe things has real consequences. Dr. Lively saw past the soothing words because he was in possession of hard evidence of the relationship of medical research with evil. He was personally attacked. And he fought back. Evil itself often creates it’s own worst enemies. Something to think about.
And Dr Judith Reismann; is her research not up to your standards? How do you avoid her research into Kinsey, who was called “The Father of the Sexual Revolution” by pornographer Hugh Hefner at the 50th Anniversary of “Playboy.” Hefner also on that occasion called the Pill “The Ultimate Party Drug.”
All this “research” into abortion and it’s affects on women that is underwritten by the Barbarian Ruling Elites is an apologetic for sexual license and debauchery, and has no more credibility in my eyes than the millionaire playboys who support such filthy and demented sexual anarchy.
Billions are being made on human weakness. To add to that project will never be my intent. Others may do as they wish. I don’t need a “majority opinion of scientists” to confirm what is good in medicine and what stems from evil.
Reisman and Lively both believes in the laughable theory that the nazi top was gay. One was, Ernst Röhm, murdered by Hitlers men in 1934. I put her on the shelf of “Morons with access to a computer”, next to Lively. Next please, you can do better than that… or no, you can not.
Reality (and Christine, for that matter), let me ask you a sincere question: is there any conceivable circumstance, or any conceivable and plausible configuration of data, which WOULD convince you of the reality of post-abortion stress disorder/syndrome? Given what you’ve written on this blog to date, I’d guess either that your standards would be wildly and unreasonably high (e.g. over 90% of post-abortive women commit suicide, with “abortion” as the key element in their written/recorded suicide note/video/etc.), or else the answer would be an a priori “no”. I challenge you to find any such example where you could not simply write it off as a “private case” (e.g. “Sure, that particular woman regretted her abortion, and that particular woman shouldn’t have chosen one!”).
As such, I’m afraid I’m seeing your protestations as something of a disingenuous smoke-screen. Your very same objections could be levelled against any trauma-inducing source, including war (after all, not every soldier who’s lived through compat suffers from clinical shell-shock)… which tells me that you’re defining your standards so as to protect your pre-chosen narrative.
Christine,
LOL. the Huffington Post. A totally unbiased source if I ever saw one. Anyway, all that aside, you miss my point and you obviously know nothing about research, mainly that no study is ever final or resolves an issue once and for all.
Psychiatry has a long and dismal track record. As such I would strongly advise that you not be so quick to jump to any conclusions that this issue is settled once and for all. We constantly discover new information. We discard old. Studies and counterstudies are forever being produced. Most important is that we do not close our minds or treat any psychiatric “finding” like it is a Divine Proclamation.
Paladin: a number of different studies, with no methodological flaws, carried out in different cultures with (apart from language problems) the same questions, that would point in the same direction and do it with a level of statistical significance that is accepted in the scientific community would convince me. Unfortunately, this is what the side that argue against the existence of a post abortion syndrome has accomplished.
Mary: I know quite a lot of research, I have worked on several studies in the area of experimental psychology, I know statistics, and I know scientific method. I am familiar with for example the concepts of verification and falsifiability, I have read Thomas Kuhn on structure of scientific revolutions… is that enough?
I do not say there is an eternal truth in anything. But the evidence at sciences current position is that post abortion syndrome does not exist. The block letters indicate what every serious scientist always point out: that the current set of knowledge may be overthrown and changed. And in my reply to Paladin I pointed out what would be needed to convince me.
And that is a far cry from collected stories from women who had abortions and suffer. Of course they do exist. But we suffer when loved ones die, when we lose our jobs, when we lose contact with friends etc etc. And as I said in another post, post partum depression is real, proven and accepted. How about using some of the resources used to over and over try to prove a failed hypothesis about post abortion syndrome to research into how to treat this real problem? Or maybe we could use your logic: abortion causes problems. Ban abortions. Childbirth causes problems. Ban childbirth?
Christine just because one person or article says its so doesnt make it so! Im very glad your abortion went off without a hitch but Im speaking from PERSONAL experience. The women I KNOW and talk to did not have the great experience that you did! It was through tears and pain that they told their stories. I dont need to see a study saying abortion does not harm women. They have already spoken to me of the damage!
Christine—
So, if, as you say, there’s no such thing as PAS, then there’s no reason for bubble zones to “protect” women from pro life sidewalk counselors who are there to provide information concerning assistance and to tell of the negative effects abortion has had on women. If every abortion has a positive outcome for every woman, then pro lifers are wasting their time, and no good ever comes from a woman who is contemplating abortion listening to them and getting help, and having the child carried to term and loved, raised to maturity, and bonded with as a whole person, from the moment of conception until the present moment, and on in to eternity.
Your ironic suggestion about banning childbirth because women have post-partum depression leaves out the data that many women accept that as an outcome of childbirth, and overcome it, with the assistance of the very children they bring forth out of love for life, which isn’t always perfect.
Christine,
Up until 1980 PTSD didn’t “exist” either. And yes I am impressed with your credentials. Given that I am glad we agree that no study or conclusion is ever final and the possibility of PAS is still out there. My point exactly.
Another thing Christine,
I well remember when PMS didn’t exist. Oh of course women complained of the symptoms, believe me I knew it existed, but these symptoms were all in our pretty little heads. What did women know? Until such time as a decree was issued by the psychiatric gods and various other “experts”, we women were just whiners.
In fact, I remember our soldiers being given the brush-off as well, especially our deplorable treatment of the Vietnam vets. Soldiers always came home from war and lived happily ever after, right? What’s wrong with these guys??
What I find interesting is that “experts” can be hired to say just about anything you need them to. They can’t even agree amongst themselves. Studies? Good grief my daughter lives and breathes publishing studies. She’s the first person to tell you that in the end, they prove nothing and someone somewhere down the line will dispute them.
So you see Christine why studies and “experts” don’t mean squat to me. Sometimes you learn a lot more when you just listen.
But… If we read her sisters story… We find that it was Not the abortion that triggered her decision to give up her life on earth. She had a horrible childhood / Then found “fame” then married a man that she loved with all her heart. Got pregnant “not planned” her “husband” was a pro swimmer and they Both knew that the dew date of a birth of the child would interfere with “His” Olympic fame…so her division was not hers alone. She gave of herself and child. A poor choice for fame and glory. Her marriage to the love of her life. A cruel life bestowed. To blame and set judgment upon her . The taking of her own life was not due to “Just ” the abortion… But a life of poor choices before life lost. Depression in it self is very cruel. When one is not in balance, mind, body and soul, choices that are made… Not always ending with that silver lining… Someone should have been there to say; “I love you” so for this headline to place full blame ONE bad choice in a life full of bad choosing that was clearly not hers alone is very deceiving. Let’s keep in mind, every female that comes to a choice to take a life, with in her or her own, Someone around her deceived her. Someone abused her. Someone was SCARD. No one was there to help pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Perhaps doing away with photos of dripping blood, buckets of body parts… Screams of bashings. Empty ours arms full of painted signs which hold only hate and empty words not fulfilling. With empty arms come the ability and space for that ONE HUG of LOVE that was never given freely! So the next time I stand before my Sister, amid a crowd with arms full of judgments, mine will be empty as to make sure she fits Tightly with in my arms!
So sorry for the loss of both precious lives. Condolences to all.
Rest in peace, dear. You and your loved one will be able to love and play together in a better place.
Yes and she went to her appointment alone. Another mystery. Indeed she must have aborted for she FELT it would ruin his career. I wonder if they ever tried again. I wonder if the abortion began to bother him later. So much so that it seems he wanted a divorce. We dont know what happened behind closed doors but for him to be the absolute love of her life it sure was a short marriage. Something tells me he dumped her. She took it to the grave.
Of course i believe the stats on couples having abortions and breaking up are like 96 to 98% They generally dont last as too much damage has been done.
Christine wrote, in reply to my comment:
Paladin: a number of different studies, with no methodological flaws, carried out in different cultures with (apart from language problems) the same questions, that would point in the same direction and do it with a level of statistical significance that is accepted in the scientific community would convince me.
Hm. All right (and thank you for the straight-forward answer–that’s something of a rarity, in these discussions!)… but while that clarifies *what* would convince you, I’m not quite sure *why*. Let me explain:
1) “Methodological flaws”: in pure mathematics (e.g. algebra, arithmetic, etc.), it’s usually straight-forward (if not necessarily easy) to show whether a math operation is done correctly or not, since the operation is defined exactly; not always so, unfortunately, with definitions such as this. Some “flaws” are easy and self-evident (e.g. trying to survey the opinions of French citizens, and interviewing no one but non-French citizens of Australia); some are much more “in the eye of the beholder” (e.g. what levels of reporting bias are “acceptable” [it’s difficult to get 0%], etc.). I’d have to see examples of what you (in particular) meant by the term, before I could say more on that.
2) “level of statistical significance”: I’m a mathematician (albeit one with some distaste for statistics, since it’s [far and away] the least “pure” type of mathematics extant!), and I’ve seen enough on the subject to know that, while the process and theory behind finding intervals of confidence are sound enough, the actual thresholds are rather arbitrary (and they have to be, by nature of the question being begged: “significant to WHOM?” And to what extent is that significance significant, as it were?).
3) “acceptable to the scientific community”: this, I’m afraid, has enough of a hole in it through which to drive a good-sized lorry! As Mary already mentioned, it’s really rather difficult even to *define* “scientific consensus” (100% agreement would certainly qualify, 0% would certainly not qualify, but the rest is rather a muddle), much less find examples of it, much less define “scientific community” in a sufficiently unbiased way (case in point: when the “other side” is sufficiently disliked, it’s common to say “oh, but they’re not a recognised portion of the scientific community!”–which is nothing more than a text-book fallacy known as the “self-sealing argument”, among other problems).
Unfortunately, this is what the side that argue against the existence of a post abortion syndrome has accomplished.
Well… I appreciate the fact that you believe so; but surely you see the (aforementioned) problems which lie at your argument’s door-step? Consider (just as a not-directly-related example) the case of the “abortion/breast cancer link”; a majority of such studies (53 of 73 peer-reviewed studies, including 30+ massive recent studies, in one meta-study, in China) confirm a statistically significant link (see <a href=”http://www.bcpinstitute.org/epidemiology_studies_bcpi.htm”>here, for references</a>)… but the reaction from abortion-tolerant commenters has been almost universally, “Ah, but the studies were flawed/biased/etc.”… all of which were more wishful thinking than actual logical criticism. Surely you’ve seen this? That example, among many, is why I (along with Mary, and others) cast a wary eye on anything which suggests that (contrary to all common sense) killing one’s own unborn child has no expected deleterious effect on a mother’s psyche. It smacks a bit more of “pay no attention to that abortionist behind the curtain!”, methinks.
Phooey… the hyper-link in my previous comment didn’t encapsulate properly; sorry about that! Here it is, again:
http://www.bcpinstitute.org/epidemiology_studies_bcpi.htm
Hi Paladin,
Your post does so much to shore up what my daughter has told me that I have to laugh. She has pointed out that methodology, statistics, researcher bias, are but many of the factors that at minimum will be called into question, at worst will be ripped to shreds. She always tells me “I expect it to happen, mom, its a given in research”.
Thank you for putting it so eloquently.
My 1:01? Yes it was Mary.
I believe the professionals on the PAS..post abortion syndrome. It DOES very much exist – well obviously you don’t believe the professionals, because they say it does not exist.
Paladin, it is the construct of your question which is a disingenuous smoke-screen. If the relevant specialists, following the applicable methodologies, with peer review, advised that PAS did exist; then I would be convinced of its reality. It would not require mass suicide or whatever other overdramatisation you care to suggest.
But a number of studies have been undertaken by the relevant people and their answer is ‘no’.
Your very same objections could be levelled against any trauma-inducing source, including war – no, the facts are in so I am convinced of its reality. The facts are also in on PAS and so I am convinced of its non-existence. The same people who say yes to PTSD say no to PAS.
which tells me that you’re defining your standards so as to protect your pre-chosen narrative. – no, I’m defining my standards by the facts, not propaganda or wishful thinking.
Up until 1980 PTSD didn’t “exist” either. – So you’ve reached the point where you are basically arguing that ‘PAS must exist because they say it doesn’t!’.
Yes they were wrong about PTSD. That got remedied. The very means by which it was remedied also shows that claims for PAS are wrong.
The work which led to a ‘yes’ for PTSD, plus increasingly additional knowledge, skills, experience and tools, have been applied to PAS and come back with a ‘no’ – more than once.
Reality wrote:
If the relevant specialists, following the applicable methodologies, with peer review, advised that PAS did exist; then I would be convinced of its reality.
All right: just as an aside, for the record (and for the sake of comparison, to get a gauge of your standards): are you convinced that there is a positive link between induced abortion and risk of breast cancer in those post-abortive women?
I have examined the ABC link claim thoroughly and repeatedly Paladin. It has also been found wanting.
Reality,
What I’m pointing out to you is that the psychiatric profession is not infallible. How long was homosexuality a mental disorder? About 50+ years, then suddenly it wasn’t. So what is it Reality?
These are the people you put your blind faith in? Presto change some people are mentally ill, then they’re not. What the devil took them so long to come up with PTSD? Its not like warfare and soldiers are anything new. For that matter neither is the psychiatric profession.
The “experts” told women PMS was just in our pretty little heads. What would we know, right? The great thinkers finally decreed we may be on to something.
You know Reality, sometimes you’re better off telling the “experts”, who usually disagree among themselves, and their “studies” to go take a flying leap and actually listen to what people are telling you. You might actually learn something.
Doc Kimble: those who stand screaming outside abortion clinics are not “there to provide information concerning assistance and to tell of the negative effects abortion has had on women”. They are there to harass women on a day of their life which is already tough.
Mary said ”What I find interesting is that “experts” can be hired to say just about anything you need them to. They can’t even agree amongst themselves. Studies? Good grief my daughter lives and breathes publishing studies. She’s the first person to tell you that in the end, they prove nothing and someone somewhere down the line will dispute them.”
Well what you are describing is the natural process in any science where different findings and different views stand against each other in a search for truth. So I do not see anything strange in scientists disagreeing, I would be more worried if they agreed on everything.
Heather says “Christine just because one person or article says its so doesnt make it so!” Agreed. But it is not one person or article. It is the entire medical community that has discarded PAS as non existent. And just for the record, establishing causality in any science, maybe apart from physics (of which I do not know much) is one of the most difficult things to do with any acceptable certainty.
Christine,
Then I am glad we are in agreement that the existence/non-existence of PAS is not settled science.
The entire medical community has discarded PAS as non existent? You mean the same medical community that told women PMS was all in our pretty little heads?
Mary: the entire medical community that is not part of the “pro life” side has discarded it.
Christine,
You didn’t address my question. Is this the same medical community that told women PMS was just in our pretty little heads?
It is the medical community that is open to revise its current position when there are findings that make that necessary. And I do not think the expression “our pretty little heads” sounds good coming from a “pro lifer”, the very side that think women are not capable of making these decisions but instead want us to give forced childbirth when a pregnancy is unwanted.
Christine–
I have evidence to the contrary. This evidence is so real, that when he was born he was given a name.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1464462821620&set=t.100001742531811&type=3&theater
“the very side that think women are not capable of making these decisions”
Oy vey. Pro-lifers obviously know full well that women are capable of making (and do, over a million times a year in the US alone) the decision to kill their unborn child. We think that decision should not be legal, since abortion kills an innocent human being. Just because you don’t care about “horrible things” happening to women you don’t personally know (human trafficking, abandonment, injustices, inequality – by your own admission in the other thread) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
Christine to Mary:
Mary: the entire medical community that is not part of the “pro life” side has discarded it.
Doc to Christine: True.
Christine,
“Pretty little heads” was a patronizing term used to trivialize women’s concerns and complaints. I didn’t invent it. Feminists were highly critical of this mentality that was prevalent in the medical profession you hold so sacrosanct. You still didn’t address my question. This is the medical community you are referring to, correct?
Reality wrote, in reply to my comment:
[Reality]
If the relevant specialists, following the applicable methodologies, with peer review, advised that PAS did exist; then I would be convinced of its reality.
[Paladin]
All right: just as an aside, for the record (and for the sake of comparison, to get a gauge of your standards): are you convinced that there is a positive link between induced abortion and risk of breast cancer in those post-abortive women?
[Reality]
I have examined the ABC link claim thoroughly and repeatedly Paladin. It has also been found wanting.
By you, certainly. But I’m curious as to why… since a majority of relevant specialists, following the applicable methodologies, all with peer-review, advised that the ABC link did indeed exist… and yet, you are not convinced of its reality. Since your own stated standards were all satisfied (by the standards of the researchers, anyway, and their peer reviewers), and you still refused to accept the conclusions, I must conclude either that your standards are not as you stated, or that you take it upon yourself to dismiss those research authorities as either “not relevant”, “not using applicable methodologies”, etc.
I really would challenge anyone to convince you of anything which you were unwilling to accept (a priori). Your narrative is sacrosanct, it seems.
As someone who uses DSM for his day gig on a daily basis and as someone who has been around since DSM II here’s my three cents:
DSM committee was never and is not apolitical today by any stretch of the imagination. Considerations were and are given, as is the case with DSM-5, to the “evolving societal standards.” Psychiatry missed the boat and made a few whoppers regarding many diagnosis since the inception of DSM-1. The precise reason for that being the pressures from a number of interest groups. Take the ADHD fiasco of the 1980/90s for example - when this disorder was overdiagnosed to assist the medical lobby in popularizing Ritalin. How did that affect the DSM? There are so many other examples to cite that illustrate how the DSM is influenced by those that have special interests in mind and nothing more…
So if anyone wants to continue to argue the DSM (Hi Christine), it may serve them best to truly research how the DSM committee arrives at its decisions regarding disorders.
DocKimble: your commentary is a breath of fresh air.
Hi Thomas R,
Brilliant commentary. Now I would like to add my 2 cents. This is information given to me by a published researcher, my daughter. It was excellent info for me, and I have often advised PL people on this site to adhere to these guidelines. Its very tempting to point to a study and say “see, I’m right!!” Its also a big mistake.
1. No study or series of studies proves anything. It supports, or fails to support, a hypothesis put forward by the author(s). No study ever puts any subject to rest or settles a question once and for all.
2. Studies, however meticulous and carefully done, are subject to error and researcher bias, and sometimes just downright fraud. Every published researcher expects their work to be criticized and challenged… and studies performed to discredit their conclusions. What one researcher finds to be a meticulous well done study another researcher may find seriously flawed. Even the meta analyses are not above reproach.
So the claims by some posters here that the issue of PAS has been put to rest are purely bogus. Studies do not support the hypothesis that it exists, they do not prove it doesn’t exist. Studies may eventually turn up, or may be in progress, that contradict these findings. The fact they haven’t materialized as of yet proves nothing.
Also PL people on this blog, I continue to advise exercising caution when referring to studies of an ABC link. I’m not saying they are wrong, I’m saying they prove nothing.
Mary,
Well… I’ll agree with you, with one qualifier: the very idea of “proof” is rather misunderstood, nowadays. There are two different categories of proof: extrinsic (sense-data-dependent), and intrinsic (non-sense-data-dependent); the latter (such as math theorems) require proof beyond all doubt whatsoever, while the former only require proof beyond all *reasonable* doubt (such as claim that my wife is, in fact, my wife… and not a clever foreign spy who’s brainwashed me into thinking that I’m married to her).
In short: I agree with your conclusion (that studies such as these, especially with such nebulous definitions, are never conclusive, as such); I’d just caution other readers not to require such studies to meet the “100%, mathematical definition” of certainty, on pain of not taking them seriously (*ahem*, Reality…).
By you, certainly. – based on extensive research and examination of the information and reports from the medical bodies representative of the applicable fields.
But I’m curious as to why… since a majority of relevant specialists, following the applicable methodologies, all with peer-review, advised that the ABC link did indeed exist… – this statement is incorrect. They do not.
and yet, you are not convinced of its reality. – see my first response above.
Since your own stated standards were all satisfied (by the standards of the researchers, anyway, and their peer reviewers), and you still refused to accept the conclusions, - I do accept the conclusions. The conclusions say the claimed ABC link is non-existent.
I must conclude either that your standards are not as you stated, – they are as I stated.
or that you take it upon yourself to dismiss those research authorities as either “not relevant”, “not using applicable methodologies”, etc. – quite the opposite actually.
I really would challenge anyone to convince you of anything which you were unwilling to accept (a priori). Your narrative is sacrosanct, it seems. – no, it is the facts which are sacrosanct.
I have previously had ‘discussions’ with others who make a claim for the ABC link. They tend to toss in links which they state support their claim. Upon perusal, I find that the links either don’t discuss the ABC claim at all or indeed negate it. All the links I find from unbiased, agenda-free experts and groups in the relevant fields state the link is unproven.
This very site recently provided a link to a report which was claimed to demonstrate the validity of the ABC claim. It spoke of the chances of minor lowering in the risk of breast cancer through factors such as age at first childbirth, number of childbirths and extent of beast feeding.
When it came to the claim of a link betwen abortion and breast cancer, the very same report stated –
A few retrospective (case-control) studies…..suggested that induced abortion…..was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, these studies had important design limitations…..their reliance on self-reporting of medical history…..can introduce bias. Prospective studies, which are more rigorous in design and unaffected by such bias, have consistently shown no association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk. Moreover, in 2009, the Committee on Gynecologic Practice of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded that “more rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk”. Major findings from these recent studies include the following:
Women who have had an induced abortion have the same risk of breast cancer as other women.
Women who have had a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) have the same risk of breast cancer as other women.
Cancers other than breast cancer also appear to be unrelated to a history of induced or spontaneous abortion.
Well… let’s cut to the chase, then. Be a good chap, and back-trace the references to this meta-study from China, would you? I’m curious as to what your personal standards/tastes would make of it…
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/press_releases/131201/Brind-Summary-of-New-Meta-Analysis-by-Huang-on-ABC-Link.htm
Just in case you need the direct link (for fear of tempting you to chase red herrings), here’s the direct link to the NIH article (would they satisfy your standards of “unbiased” and “peer review”, I wonder?):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24272196
Well I’m pleased you provided the second link because anything from the thoroughly discredited Brind is pointless.
Let’s look at the conclusion from that second link –
CONCLUSION:
IA is significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases. If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates.
And even before the conclusion we find –
Meta-regression analysis of the included studies found that the association between IA and breast cancer risk attenuated with increasing percent of IA in the control group.
So if the risk falls as the percentage within the group having an IA increases, what can we conclude from that?
So what we have, once again, is a possible correlation. No mention of other potential correlative or casual factors. High IA rates may occur in regions with high pollution levels. High IA rates may occur in regions which have adopted less traditional eating patterns. These, and any number of other factors, may contribute.
It’s a data analysis, not a biological investigation.
Mm-hmm. So the verdict of Reality is thus:
1) Dr. Huang is such a blithering idiot that, in the face of supposed decreased incidence of breast cancer with increased induced abortions, he comes to the conclusion (in his abstract, no less) that “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases”;
2) The brilliant minds at the NIH are such blithering idiots that they allowed Dr. Huang’s apparently blithering idiocy to be published through their channels… with nary a word about the fact that the premise/title and conclusion supposedly contradict the very next sentence in the conclusion.
Did you even engage your grey matter before writing this, friend?
It’s not my verdict Paladin. It’s the verdict of the report you provided (which I have dealt with previously as it happens).
1) he’s quite erudite. Perhaps you should stick to what his report actually says, not what you extrapolate from it.
2) nothing idiotic about publishing something which may contribute to the further examination of cause and effect.
It contains ifs, buts and maybes. It analyses data and spots a possible correlation. It does not address any other potential correlative or causal factors. Such as the recent high increases in the rates of breast cancer occuring in areas with recent high increases in industrialisation, with somewhat less than best practice environmental impacts.
Did you even engage your grey matter before writing this, friend? – I could ask you the same question given the same statistical result hasn’t been shown in places such as the US.
All right… let’s examine this, at least so that you can clearly point out my error in a way that I can understand.
The article reads (as you quoted, though I’ve removed your emphases): ”IA is significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases.”
Let’s begin there, for the sake of my tired mind, eh?
Now, when Dr. Huang says that “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases”, you say… that it doesn’t, or that it “might” have a risk of increase increase. Now, no one is suggesting that this study is any sort of guarantee of the link, beyond an indication of probability; but you seem to be saying (while smilingly patting Dr. Huang on the back) that he’s not claiming an indicated increase in breast cancer risk as IA’s increase. Explain, please?
Why leave out the second part? If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates – he’s telling us that nothing is confirmed! ‘If’ and ‘may’, his own words.
He’s found a statistical correlative increase, that’s it. He has not identified any causal link. Why is the same level of statistical correlation not found in the US?
Why does it then attenuate as the percentage within the group having IA’s increases?
but you seem to be saying that he’s not claiming an indicated increase in breast cancer risk as IA’s increase. – no I’m not. There is a correlative increase in individual women but that as the percentage of women within the group who have had IA’s increases this attenuates. Odd eh?
I’m surprised that you, of all people, seem to think that what you have provided in support of the claimed ABC link amounts to anything remotely adequate to make any claims.
Reality wrote:
Why leave out the second part?
Because I was taking things one piece at a time. That’s allowed, yes?
If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates – he’s telling us that nothing is confirmed! ‘If’ and ‘may’, his own words.
Yes… as were the words “significant association” (you seem to dismiss the word “association” as a mere nothing, for some reason–it really is a statistics term, friend… and “significant” really does mean “not insignificant”, when last I checked) and “the risk of breast cancer increases” (without any significant qualifier–not “might possibly increase, if more data were available to point in that direction”, etc.). Either you think he was being rash with his word choices (despite your compliments to his “erudition”), or your reading comprehension isn’t what it should be.
Just to remind you: I *know* that this is not a “proven” link, per se… and I said as much. (Did you miss it?) But you were of a mind to say that there’s not evidence enough to give even a passing thought to the “ABC” connection, and that anyone even suggesting a link is suspect. That’s… odd. My entire point in this exercise is not ultimately to “prove” the ABC link… but, rather, to prove YOUR inconsistency in evaluating studies of this sort. If you’d said merely that the study was significant, and that it might well suggest an ABC link (but has not proven it); I would have agreed with you completely (and admired your answer). But you go to great pains to dismiss even the tiniest suggestion that (for example) the ABC link is strongly suggested by much of the data (and by studies which cannot simply be dismissed by surly readers).
[Reality, comment A:]
He’s found a statistical correlative increase, that’s it.
[Reality, comment B:]
I’m surprised that you, of all people, seem to think that what you have provided in support of the claimed ABC link amounts to anything remotely adequate to make any claims.
Er… such as the claims made by Dr. Huang?
He has not identified any causal link.
Nor could any study, in your mind, I think. As Mary already told you repeatedly, no study of this type is even *designed* to “prove” any link; that’s a decision made by people (hopefully with sense) after the fact, based on reasonable conjectures from the data. But if you’re using *that* wild of a standard, then I suppose you deny the danger of smoking tobacco? After all: what studies could possibly “prove” a link with the standards you suggest?
Why is the same level of statistical correlation not found in the US?
I have guesses (not the least of which is a wildly strong bias in favour of protecting promiscuous sex and its “accouterments” [e.g. abortion, contraception, etc.], a fierce desire to discredit any study which could threaten that multi-billion-dollar industry, etc.), but nothing more. But surely you’ve seen other studies–the Bangladesh one, for instance?
http://www.banglajol.info/index.php/JDMC/article/viewFile/15628/11078
You’re capable with Google, if not with unbiased reading… so I’ll let you search as you will.
Why does it then attenuate as the percentage within the group having IA’s increases?
I’ve no idea. Why does Dr. Huang not throw his entire paper in the dust-bin, then… or at very least *delete* the awkward bit in the abstract’s conclusion about the idea that “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases”. Wouldn’t it have been better for him to delete that, if his own data flatly contradicts it? I’m suggesting to you that the attenuation might, itself, be due to extrinsic, unmentioned causes. I’m giving Dr. Huang the benefit of the doubt for not being stupid; you, despite appearances, don’t seem to be extending that same courtesy.
As for the “hay” you’re making of the lack of USA correlation with this data: not only do I wonder why you consider the USA to be the “gold standard” of unbiased studies in its population, but did you not read Dr. Huang’s comments about China being far less prone to reporting bias than the USA, etc., would be expected to be?
you seem to dismiss the word “association” as a mere nothing, for some reason – not at all. I have repeatedly stated that a statistical correlation has been observed.
Either you think he was being rash with his word choices or your reading comprehension isn’t what it should be. – I have not alluded to any such thing. I have highlighted his words, remember.
But you were of a mind to say that there’s not evidence enough to give even a passing thought to the “ABC” connection, and that anyone even suggesting a link is suspect. – why do you feel the need to put words in my mouth? That is not what I said. I said “He’s found a statistical correlative increase, that’s it. He has not identified any causal link.” and “…anything remotely adequate to make any claims.”
My entire point in this exercise is not ultimately to “prove” the ABC link… but, rather, to prove YOUR inconsistency in evaluating studies of this sort. – ah, the old Paladin ploy of making a claim and then claiming you weren’t actually making a claim when your claim is shown to be unsupported. I approach all these studies with the same methodology.
If you’d said merely that the study was significant, and that it might well suggest an ABC link (but has not proven it); I would have agreed with you completely (and admired your answer). – the study is not significant given the sheer volume of work that is out there and it’s utter lack of cross-comparisons, that’s the point.
But you go to great pains to dismiss even the tiniest suggestion that (for example) the ABC link is strongly suggested by much of the data (and by studies which cannot simply be dismissed by surly readers). – it isn’t strongly suggested by much of the data, again, that is the point.
Er… such as the claims made by Dr. Huang? – what claims?
Nor could any study, in your mind, I think. – well until any appear we won’t know will we.
As Mary already told you repeatedly, no study of this type is even *designed* to “prove” any link; that’s a decision made by people (hopefully with sense) after the fact, based on reasonable conjectures from the data. – reasonable conjecture does not constitute proof, it is at best a reason to start seeking proof.
But if you’re using *that* wild of a standard, then I suppose you deny the danger of smoking tobacco? After all: what studies could possibly “prove” a link with the standards you suggest? – er, the medical ones. The ones well beyond any statistical correlation.
I have guesses (not the least of which is a wildly strong bias in favour of protecting promiscuous sex and its “accouterments” [e.g. abortion, contraception, etc.], a fierce desire to discredit any study which could threaten that multi-billion-dollar industry, etc.), but nothing more. – so, conspiracy theory then.
But surely you’ve seen other studies–the Bangladesh one, for instance? – another place with recent high increases in industrialisation and changes in lifestyle. Another statistical analysis. At least this one looked at other possible contributors. Better stop that womens educamation bizzo hey.
You’re capable with Google, – pfft, who’s to judge.
if not with unbiased reading… – oh ho ho, after you linked to Brind.
so I’ll let you search as you will. – how generous of you. Been there, done that. Not my problem you weren’t around.
I’ve no idea. Why does Dr. Huang not throw his entire paper in the dust-bin, then… - because it notes something of interest such that some folk may consider comparisons with other information and knowledge may be worth pursuing.
or at very least *delete* the awkward bit in the abstract’s conclusion about the idea that “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases”. Wouldn’t it have been better for him to delete that, if his own data flatly contradicts it? – it doesn’t. The word used was ‘attenuate’, not ‘overturn’ or ‘negate’.
I’m suggesting to you that the attenuation might, itself, be due to extrinsic, unmentioned causes. – gee, I wonder what else might be.
I’m giving Dr. Huang the benefit of the doubt for not being stupid; you, despite appearances, don’t seem to be extending that same courtesy. – I’m not the one doing the cherry-picking and extrapolation. I am quoting his exact words.
did you not read Dr. Huang’s comments about China being far less prone to reporting bias than the USA, etc., would be expected to be? – not in the link you provided, no.
One small statistical study noting a correlation with one factor in one region of the world compared to the masses of longer, deeper, more widespread studies which have been conducted?
Reality, I have not had the time to read your posts deeply, nor will I have that time. A quick glance tells me you are familiar with statistics and scientific method, unlike those you are debating with, who even claims that Joel Brind should have any kind of credibility left. If you have the time to continue debating with these people, sadly I do not at the moment, maybe you could elaborate on the distinctions between the concepts of correlation, covariance and causality? It will not enlighten them, since they are too prejudiced, but maybe some reasonable doubt could find its way into their thinking. I know it will not happen, but we can always hope, can’t we?
Christine you’ve got to be the most unpleasantly condescending person I’ve ever interacted with or observed online. I’m usually really good at finding a way to be positive in interactions with pro-choicers but you’ve really taken the cake. Is it literally impossible for you to stop stereotyping and try and get to know the people who dislike so much as people and see where we’re coming from? We’re not all religious bigots and women-haters, which you would see if you bothered to interact rather than preach and bitch.
Deluded, I take that as praise coming from you. I am not here to be pleasant to those trying to reduce me and every other woman to livestock. If a “pro lifer” calls me nice, that would only prove that I have not made my point clear enough. So thank you, your feedback shows me I am on the right track.
Yes, being annoyingly condescending is totally a good debate technique and will totally change people’s minds. Or you’re just doing it to feel superior, which is fine as long as you’re not pretending you’re some social justice warrior.
I’m sticking with Reality, Doug, Blue Velvet, and the other pro-choicers who actually debate with logic and generally without being totally annoying.
I am perfectly happy to annoy you.
One of these days you’ll become an adult, and realize being rude and deliberately antagonizing is childish behavior and will never help you meet your goals, no matter how much you dislike your opponents or how wrong you think they are.
Hi Jack,
Excellent and on point commentary as always.
Americans bestow authority-and billions of tax dollars-upon science in the belief that scientists will make important contributions to society. There is the further belief that scientists, in their responsibility and trust, will behave ethically, especially in research that involves human subjects.[2] While the former is certainly historically accurate, such trust in the class “scientists” as honest, humane persons who deserve unquestioned public faith is sustained neither by cross-cultural or American science history.
Under scrutiny is the role of Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and his contention that Americans are 10% to 47%, more or less, homosexual. Kinsey’s percentage was seized upon by Harry Hay, the father of the homosexual “civil rights” movement, when Hay formed the Mattachine Society, urging that homosexuality be seen no longer as an act of sodomy but as a 10% minority class. Today, scores of homosexual activists cite Kinsey as the man who made the homosexual movement possible.[3]
But what if all of Kinsey’s work was fraudulent, or worse? What if it reflects unethical scientists conducting unprosecuted criminal acts? For example, is it possible that scientists have conducted sexual experiments on children? Or that they could allow or encourage child abusers to conduct such experiments? The possibility that this actually occurred-and indeed that the claimed results of such experiments have played a critical and sustained role in our law and public policy-has led Congress to submit legislation which calls for an examination of the relevant facts. The legislation focuses on the research and publications of Dr. Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues (“The Kinsey Institute”) conducted at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. The legislation is known as H.R. 2749, “The Child Protection and Ethics in Education Act.”
The Science Crime & Fraud Context
Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia are modern cross- cultural examples of totalitarian regimes which produced highly educated scientists who served their leaders without question-but with frightening and disastrous results. As cruel as were the actions of key scientific brutes like Dr. Joseph Mengele, just as instructive is the evidence of wholesale collusion by colleagues, universities, colleges and higher order think tanks. Thousands of state and private professional and pedagogical clubs and agencies were aware of the inhuman and unethical scientific activity, but rarely was there a protest made. Instead, their educated colleagues obsequiously bowed and jealously coveted association with the chosen scientific barbarians.
But, it has not only been totalitarian governments which have produced unethical scientists. Our own nation-a government designed to be of and by and for the people-was betrayed by our fantasy of non-judgmental, objective science. (It is only the trust in scientists as a “special” moral population that permits our nation to approve of fetal and DNA experimentation, as well as other forms of God-like tampering.) For example, consider the Willowbrook school scandal:
Part of the problem is that the establishment press remains amazingly silent in the face of the most vile domestic scientific barbarisms. The Willowbrook school scandal and similar inhumane scientific abuses reflect but a few of the unprosecuted science felonies to reach the public. For example, examine some cites from Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948 by Frank Kofsky (1995):
The other part of the problem is, without an informed public directing its own community af-fairs, science historically serves its funders. Scientific patrons tend to be a small, powerful elite, which is necessarily subversive of a self-governing republic. If the medical, or the harder science experiments cited here are difficult for Americans to come to terms with, these aberrant experiments at least adhere to scientific form and are possible to replicate and validate or repudiate. However, the public does not understand (nor do scientists seem to understand) that the softer social sciences are largely not science, but rather what Professor Hobbs termed, “scientism.” Human behavioral experiments without the limits of scientific protocol are easily manipulated and have frequently been misused by those in positions of trust to undermine the American way of life in the second half of the twentieth century.
Who, by now, has not heard of the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments? If some American scientists could knowingly allow men to die slowly of syphilis, if others could infect pregnant women and endanger the lives of their unborn children, if still other unethical scientists could inject healthy and mentally retarded children with hepatitis, could not some American scientists teach pederasts and pedophiles techniques for sexually abusing children for “science”? Looking candidly at the facts of American scientific felons and the commonality of collegial collusion through silence or support, could scientists-who often feel unconstrained by Biblical standards or fears-not deceive a plebeian public about the percentage of men engaging in illicit sex, and those who are homosexual? Could scientists, together with philanthropic, pedagogical and legal colleagues of like mind and sexual proclivity, now strategize to use their considerable influence in the latter half century to change America’s attitudes and sex crime laws to favor their own personal interests?
The Historical Context
Truman took office in 1945 and shortly thereafter released the atomic bomb. Kofsky’s documentation suggests that Kinsey’s revolutionary report was a welcome public diversion for Truman’s administration. However, while the A-bomb took the lives of thousands and did untold damage to Japan for generations, “Kinsey’s Bomb” has taken the lives of millions and is fomenting the disintegration of the local school, university, and public control, nationwide.
The 1945 A-Bomb: World War II ended in 1945 after America, under scientists headed by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, and like a modern Prometheus, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In an instant, all of America was reeling, as both joy and anguish hit the nation with the force of that nuclear blast. Emotion rode high, for along with the immense relief that “it worked” and the brutal war was ended, came the quaking realization that while God had created the earth, science could now destroy it.
On the one hand, Americans were awed by Oppenheimer’s ability to end the worldwide threat of war. On the other hand, our faith in ourselves as the world’s savior was shattered by both the nuclear scare and ensuing newsreels of burning Japanese children, subverting our sense of moral integrity and who we really were as Americans. Aided by an army that now dispensed condoms, Yankee soldier-saviors of Europe and Asia broke the promises of their Puritan homeland. GIs returned home to wives and sweethearts in 1946 with the highest rate of venereal disease since the original VD epidemics of World War I. Yet, the overwhelming VD epidemic which raged overseas was quenched in the U.S. as young lads overflowing with penicillin waited for the marriage bed to carnally embrace the “girl next door.”
The 1948 A-Bomb: Three years later, after decades of clandestine preparation and a relentless publicity campaign, Dr. Kinsey launched what was then called “The Kinsey A-Bomb” on America’s now fragile sense of moral virtue. Wrapped in Oppenheimer’s flag of science as the final authority, Kinsey’s fraudulent sex science statistics seemed to “prove” middle America to be a nation of sexual hypocrites, liars, cowards and closet deviates, despite the fact that all of Kinsey’s data were repudiated by the then current public health data. While the Armed Services found skyrocketing VD and illegitimacy rates abroad, we found no such domestic rates for these disorders or for abortion, rape and other sex crimes and sexual disorders. Wrong or right, the fighting men might be misbehaving overseas but by and large they were not doing over here, what they were doing over there.
Despite the common sense fact of low rates of illegitimacy and VD, despite personal knowledge of faithful and virtuous family and friends, mainstream America was dramatically shaken by Kinsey’s data. The popular press hawked Kinsey as a diversion from Truman’s ominous cold-war warnings, heralding the astonishing scientific findings-that 98% of men and roughly half of women had premarital sex, 95% of American men were legally sex offenders and 10% or more of men were largely homosexual. And, while no one noted that 317 infants and children were “tested” for Kinsey’s child sex data, educators repeated his conclusions-that children were sexual from birth, hence school sex education, Kinsey style, should be mandated.
The question anyone should be asking is: How did Kinsey get the statistics on childhood sexuality… that were to revolutionize the schoolroom, courtroom, pressroom, and bedroom? More succinctly put, did the Kinsey team participate in the pedophile abuse of 317 infants and children?
Below is a reproduction of… “Table 34. Examples of multiple orgasm in pre-adolescent males. Some instances of higher frequencies” (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948). How were these figures gleaned?
AGE
NO. OF
ORGASMS
TIME
INVOLVED
5 mon.
3
?
11 mon.
10
1 hr.
11 mon.
14
7
38 min.
9 min.
2 yr.
11
65 min.
2.5 yr.
4
2 min.
4 yr.
6
5 min.
4 yr.
17
10 hr.
4 yr.
26
24 hr.
7 yr.
7
3 hr.
8 yr.
8
2 hr.
9 yr.
7
68 min.
10 yr.
9
52 min.
10 yr.
14
24 hr.
11 yr.
11
1 hr.
11 yr.
19
1 hr.
12 yr.
7
3 hr.
12 yr.
3
9
3 min.
2 hr.
12 yr.
12
2 hr.
12 yr.
15
1 hr.
13 yr.
7
24 min.
13 yr.
8
2.5 hr.
13 yr.
9
8 hr.
13 yr.
3
11
26
70 sec.
.8 hr.
24 hr.
14 yr.
11
4 hr.
Kinsey’s Research on Child Orgasm
Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s research on child orgasm is described in Chapter 5 of his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948).[7] Some of the observations are summarized in Tables 30-34 of the book. The numbers of the children in the five tables were, respectively, 214, 317, 188, 182, and 28. The minimum ages were, respectively, one year, two months, five months, (ages of children not recorded for Table 33), and five months. The tables identify sex experiments; for example, Table 32 speaks of: “Speed of pre-adolescent orgasm; Duration of stimulation before climax; Observations timed with second hand or stop watch.”
Did Kinsey instigate or encourage these practices? And did he actually use pedophiles to obtain the data for Tables 30-34? In his book, acting as the on-site reporter, Kinsey did not clearly describe his own role. However, Kinsey’s close colleague, C. A. Tripp, made a revealing statement in a 1991 televised interview by Phil Donahue:
Two questions cry out for an answer: What was the nature of the training given to these “trained observers”? And, who “trained” them? Perhaps Dr. Tripp or others can answer these questions. A 1991 book review in the respected British medical journal, The Lancet, noted:
Tripp is not the only former Kinsey colleague to admit that actual pedophiles were involved in the Kinsey Institute’s child sexuality studies. A taped telephone interview with Dr. Paul Gebhard, former head of the Kinsey Institute and Kinsey co-author, also confirms this fact:
Molesting Children in the Name of Science
In Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Dr. Kinsey reported that the data on the 317 children came from “9 of our adult male subjects.”[11] However, Dr. John Bancroft, current Director of the Kinsey Institute, contradicted this claim. After examining the data, Dr. Bancroft indicated that the data for Table 31 came from a single adult male subject.[12] There are a number of other instances where Kinsey’s published claims about numerical or factual data-claims with important implications if true-are now believed to be misleading or false.[13,14,15] A review of Kinsey’s original data, claims and possible involvement is long overdue.[16,17]
Kinsey’s “trained observers” tested babies “5 months in age,” for repeated orgasms via:
Orgasm was defined as follows:
Lester Caplan, M.D., Diplomate, the American Board of Pediatrics, reviewing Kinsey’s Chapter 5 (as above) said, “One person could not do this to so many children-these children had to be held down or subject to strapping down, otherwise they would not respond willingly,”[20] especially if, as Dr. Gebhard notes, a cinema record was being made.[21]
Child interviews were unusually long. Kinsey said after two hours, “the [adult] becomes fatigued and the quality of the record drops.”[22] Still, Kinsey reported 24-hour orgasm “interviews” of a four-, a 10- and a 13-year-old;[23] a four-year-old for 10 hours; a nine and 13-year-old for eight hours; and so on.[24] Dr. Gebhard’s taped phone interview further details some of these techniques.[25]
Dr. Kinsey even reported that some observers “induced…erections [in the children]…over periods of months or years,”[26] but that the Kinsey team interviewed no “psychotics who were handicapped with poor memories, hallucination, or fantasies that distorted the fact.”[27]
What kind of men were they, this Kinsey team? The question remains: Who did these experiments? As noted, the Kinsey team reported on a cadre of “trained observers.” In Kinsey’s own words…
There are serious questions which must be answered by the Kinsey Institute directors-for Kinsey’s is arguably the most influential model for scientific sex taught to the nations’ schoolchildren today. The proposed Congressional investigation is critical for that reason alone. How did the Kinsey team know that an 11-month-old had 10 orgasms in one hour? (See Table this article.) How did they verify these data? Where were the children’s parents? Have attempts been made to locate the children? Who were the subjects of Table 34?[29,30] Certainly these were not the children pictured in the publicity photographs which were distributed to the press and the gullible academic world, such as the little, braided girl of roughly four years, sitting with “Uncle Prock” in innocent play.
Further, Dr. Gebhard claimed in a letter to me, that they did no follow-up on these children since it was “impossible or too expensive.”[31] Later Gebhard said Kinsey was correct, some children were followed up and “we do have some names” of the children.[32] There is still no answer to the question, “Where are the children of Table 34?” It is finally in the hands of Congress to determine what really happened at the Kinsey Institute.
H.R. 2749, the Child Protection and Ethics in Education Act of 1995, is a bill to determine if Kinsey’s two principal books on human sexual behavior “are the result of any fraud or criminal wrongdoing.” Clearly a useful step would be the gathering of facts on the work of Kinsey and his colleagues and a public disclosure of these facts in a responsible fashion. The U.S. Congress is in a strong position to carry out this kind of fact-finding as a precursor to legislation. An attempt should be made to answer certain questions that bear directly or indirectly on H.R. 2749:
Did Kinsey and his colleagues behave in an ethical fashion in the way they collected and published data from human subjects, especially children?
Apart from the ethical considerations, did they analyze and publish their data correctly from the scientific point of view?
Were federal funds solicited, used, and accounted for appropriately?
Do the answers to the preceding three questions indicate any violations of federal law?
If the information collected and published by Kinsey proves, on examination, to be badly flawed or to involve fraud or criminal wrongdoing, what are the implications for the use of this information in science, education, law and public policy? Specifically, to what extent should the federal government[33] fund or recall the dissemination and use of this information?
Kinsey’s Figures on Homosexuality
With the above in mind, it is shocking that, almost overnight, following release of Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (and a succession of earlier private, public relations briefings at the Kinsey Institute for favorable interviewers), books, articles, films, news clips, cartoons, radio, TV, and front-page stories appeared coast to coast as part of a publicity campaign to institutionalize Kinsey’s claims. Americans believed “the most famous man for ten years” that primitive, sexually permissive cultures were happier than were Mr. and Mrs. Jones.
However, without question, any “scientists” who reprint and encourage production of data on child sexuality which have been taken from child sex offenders engaged in “manual or oral” sex with babies and children, are not scientists but propagandists-indeed guilty of admitted criminal sexual conduct, by the descriptions in their publications, whether the sexual offender(s) were identified and prosecuted or not. To trust anything these men or their disciples produce is to put one’s faith in those who use the language of science to accomplish personal, criminal, and/or sexual interests. Hence, whatever Kinsey’s claims of homosexual percentages and normality were, these become, pragmatically, as invalid as his child sexuality data.
Kinsey fathered not only the sexual revolution, as Hugh Hefner and others have said, but the homosexual revolution as well. Harry Hay gave Kinsey that credit when Hay read in 1948 that Kinsey found “10%” of the male population homosexual. Following the successful path of the Black Civil Rights movement, Hay, a long-time communist organizer, said 10% was a political force which could be melded into a “sexual minority” only seeking “minority rights.” With Kinsey as the wind in his sails, Hay formed the Mattachine Society.
But 26% (1,400) of Kinsey’s alleged 5,300 white male subjects were already “sex offenders.”[34] As far as the data can be established, an additional 25% were incarcerated prisoners; some numbers were big city “pimps,” “hold-up men,” “thieves;” roughly 4% were male prostitutes as well as sundry other criminals; and some hundreds of homosexual activists at various “gay bars” and other haunts from coast to coast.[35] This group of social outcasts and deviants were then redefined by the Kinsey team as representing your average “Joe College.” With adequate press and university publicity, the people believed what they were told by our respectable scientists, that mass sexual perversion was common nationwide-so our sex education and our laws must be changed to reflect Kinsey’s “reality.”
Following the release of Kinsey, Sex and Fraud,[36] the then Kinsey Institute Director, Dr. June Reinisch, initiated a “CONFIDENTIAL,” international, 87-page mass-mailing of accusatory materials calling upon recipients to repudiate “Judith Reisman’s accusations.” One of the accusations Reinisch wanted repudiated was the fact that Kinsey’s 10% to 47% or more homosexual data were fraudulently generalized to the “general public.” (Kinsey’s homosexual figures were exposed as wholly false in 1948 by Albert Hobbs et al, as well as by several other scientists then and since.) In her letter to past Kinsey Director and Kinsey co-author Dr. Paul Gebhard, Reinisch denies the Kinsey team’s culpability for the child sex abuse data and states that the Kinsey team never did “conduct experiments.” She asks Gebhard’s aid in discrediting me. She adds:
Unfortunately, Dr. Gebhard wrote back to Reinisch on December 6, 1990 that she was wrong and that Kinsey did use “the gay community,” pedophiles and prisoners to generalize to the population at large. Gebhard writes:
Conclusion
Kinsey is a powerful example of one’s personal orientation affecting one’s science and the moral shape of society. What could be the motive of Kinsey’s fraudulent data, which often found up to even half of average American males homosexual? Quite possibly, it amounts to Kinsey’s wishful thinking, which he quantified in order to recreate others in his own distorted image. Was Kinsey himself a closet homosexual, pedophile or pederast?
In the past, science fraud has taken place for economic and political reasons-but with Kinsey, was his “science” rather the outgrowth of personal morality and sexual proclivity? If that were true, he has certainly not been the last. In recent years, the world has seen other “men of science” (Hamer, LeVay, Pillard et al) whose work lacks objectivity and who seem to be justifying their own lives with their [questionable] findings. Were these scientists making claims about beetles, fauna or supernovae, there would be less cause for alarm; however, the travesty is that-in a culture in which science is the preferred religion (a no-fault religion) and scientists its high priests-these men’s words are being received as “gospel” (no matter how little factual basis they have) on a subject as important and wide- sweeping as human sexuality. Unfortunately, the scientific world and the western world at large has all too eagerly embraced Kinsey’s work.
No matter what Kinsey’s own sexual orientation, scientists and laypersons alike must acknowledge that he engineered a study of child sexuality which was unthinkable. The Kinsey Institute’s data on child orgasms are, at best, a human concoction or, at worst, the results of child molestation. In either case, the Kinsey Institute is guilty of criminal activity and their findings on all subjects are suspect and misleading. Too, science must be re-evaluated, for Kinsey’s work has hijacked an entire body of science for almost half a century, leaving behind untold damage to families, relationships and human souls.
The control of sexuality information has for too long been in the hands of the Kinsey elite-unethical scientists, men without moral conscience or honor, who fathered a bastard sexual revolution. It should come as no surprise then to those on our campuses and in the halls of legislative, judicial and educational power, that as our nation has followed Kinsey and his disciples, we too have become increasingly coarsened to conscience and honor. It is clear that sexual aggression, brutality and hedonism have greater sway in our society post-Kinsey than was the case pre-Kinsey.
No matter what Kinsey’s own sexual proclivities and biases, after WWII Kinsey began to move in concert with a cadre of revisionist educators, lawyers and other professionals who determined with their sponsors to forever alter the American way of life through its educational system (the future) and the legal system (the standard of judgment). Prior to the Kinsey Reports, American law held that not only were sodomy, adultery, fornication and the like transgressions, those who committed such acts were themselves unacceptable. Post-Kinsey, these once-criminal acts and their actors began moving toward acceptability. The new law system used Kinsey as its primary and only scientific authority, and pointed America in a downward direction, promoting today’s entire panoply of sexual deviances more common to the Pre-Christian era.
In the upheaval of the post-World War II period, Kinsey, for his part, refashioned the way humankind looked upon sexuality and separated this most powerful of human acts from its labor-intensive procreational function, pronouncing true human sexuality in the new human nature to be free, self-fulfilling and recreational.
Kinsey lives and reigns today in classrooms across America. The Ten Commandments may be out of our classrooms, but the Kinseyan-based “One in Ten” project is in, and “prima nocte”-the medieval practice of an overreaching government taking a young person’s innocence, modesty and virtue (as depicted in the film Braveheart)-is a pervasive and accepted practice today in the schools of our American village.
Kinsey sold his soul to win his place in time, but now is the time to take back America’s soul which has been led astray by fraudulent and criminal science. It is soon fifty years since Kinsey foisted his hoax upon a trusting and moral American people. The American standard was right all along. Let’s pull the curtain back and call for a proper investigation of Kinsey’s fraudulent investigation into human sexuality. Write and call your political representatives now to begin the debunking and defunding of Kinsey and truth will restore social virtue once again to our nation.
Author’s note: Since the establishment media has largely censored this information, if you have or desire any information on Kinsey, the use of his materials, or his role in your life or the lives of others, kindly call the 800 number listed. Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, The Children of Table 34-a Family Research Council video of the Kinsey fraud (30 min.), and the Reisman & Johnson Report (comparing homosexual and heterosexual personals or “In Search Of” ads) can be obtained via First Principals Press, 1-800-837- 0544.
Endnotes
[1]The Institute For Media Education, Box 7404, Arlington, Virginia, 22207.
[2]Science Magazine editorial, January 9, 1987.
[3]See Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement, ed. Mark Thompson, Stonewall Inn Edition, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, pp. 22, 59-60, 102, 164.
[4]The Lancet (April 1971), as taken from the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Protection of Human Subjects” report, FR 52880, November 23, 1982.
[5]Frank Kofsky, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948, New York: St. Maritn’s Press (1995), p. xvii.
[6]Ibid., p. xix.
[7]Key pages from Kinsey’s 1948 Male volume, pp. 157-192, “Early Sexual Growth and Activity.”
[8]”The Donahue Show,” transcript, December 5, 1990.
[9]The Lancet, March 2, 1991, p. 547. Emphasis added.
[10]Audiotaped phone discussion between J. Gordon Muir, editor of Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, and Paul Gebhard on November 2, 1992.
[11]Male volume, p. 177: The nine men “have observed such orgasm. Some of these adults are technically trained persons who have kept diaries or other records which have been put at our disposal; and from them we have secured information on 317 pre-adolescents who were either engaged in self masturbation, or who were observed in contacts with other boys or older adults.” The Washington Post (December 8, 1995, p. F1, F4) reports Dr. Bancroft saying, “Kinsey gives the impression that the data came from three or four men, but it was just the one.” He speculates that Kinsey “kept that bit to himself because he thought the public might not react well to his use of data from a sex criminal.” Elsewhere Bancroft is reported saying, “I have looked at the data on which these tables appear to be based, and I am fairly confident that the data for all 317 cases came from the one old man…” (September 19, 1995, Indianapolis Star, A1, A4), etc.
[12]The Indianapolis Star, September 19, 1995, p. 4, col. 1, “an elderly scientist.”
[13]Activities such as “forcing” correct answers from subjects and suggesting that investigators might find some way to treat the data should they find these answers unacceptable is not science, Male volume, Op. cit., p. 55.
[14]Ibid., p. 58.
[15 ]Pomeroy, Wardell, Dr. Kinsey and The Institute For Sex Research. Harper & Row, New York (1972), pp. 208-209. “By 1946, he, Gebhard and I had interviewed about 1,400 convicted sex offenders in penal institutions scattered over a dozen states.” (On this page Pomeroy notes Kinsey’s explanation that all American males are really sex offenders, by law, hence the need to largely eliminate sex offender laws). Kinsey’s data included these deviants and prisoners as average American men. In court documents, former Kinsey Institute Director, Dr. June Reinisch writes that Kinsey “never used data from the special samples, derived from such populations as the gay community or prisons, to generalize to the general public” and Dr. Gebhard replied, “I fear that your final paragraph will embarrass you and the university if it comes to Reisman’s attention…. This statement is incorrect. Kinsey did mix male prison inmates in with his sample used in the Male volume.”
[16]See Maslow and Sakoda, “Volunteer Error in the Kinsey Study,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 47, 1952 (pp. 259- 262).
[17]Writing in Our Sexuality, (2nd edition), Menlo Park, California: The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co. sexologists, Crooks & Baur, offer a sexological view of the term “direct observation:” A third method for studying human sexual behavior is direct observation. [Original emphasis.] This type of research may vary greatly in form and setting, ranging from laboratory studies that observe and record sexual responses to participant observation where the researchers join their subjects in sexual activity,” (p. 64).
[18]Kinsey, Male volume, p. 181.
[19]Ibid., pp. 160-161.
[20]Letter to Judith Reisman from Lester Caplan M.D. (Baltimore, Maryland), Diplomate, the American Board of Pediatrics, reviewing the child data.
[21]See exhibit E, Pomeroy’s letter to Reisman, para 2, “Some of these sources have added to their written or verbal reports photographs, and, in a few instances, cinema.” The Kinsey Institute is on record as possessing a selection of child pornography films and photographs.
[22]Kinsey, Male volume, p. 181.
[23]Ibid., p. 180.
[24]”Was Kinsey a Fake and a Pervert?,” The Village Voice, December 11, 1990, p. 41.
[25]Op. cit. fn #9.
[26]Kinsey, Male volume, p. 177. Moreover, as Lewis Terman pointed out in his critique of Kinsey, “The author lists (p. 39) “many hundred” persons who brought in “delinquent groups: male prostitutes, female prostitutes, bootleggers, gamblers, pimps, prison inmates, thieves and hold-up men. These, presumably, would have brought in others of their kind, but in what numbers they did so we are not told.” Terman also notes “a dozen prison populations” included “a state school for feeble-minded, two children’s homes, and two homes for unmarried mothers….plus “more than 1,200 persons who have been convicted of sex offenses.” (Kinsey’s “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male: Some Comments and Criticisms,” Lewis Terman, Sexual Behavior in American Society: An Appraisal of the First Two Kinsey Reports, NYC: W.W. Norton & Co., 1955, p. 447).
[27]Ibid., p. 37.
[28]Ibid., p. 177. Emphasis added.
[29]After I asked these questions in 1981, the Kinsey Institute launched a 12-year-long national campaign to undermine my investigation. The 87- page Kinsey Institute “confidential” package mailed worldwide, and especially to those who might interview Reisman on the issue are available.
[30]Beyond Kinsey, Sex and Fraud (1990), the recently released video, The Children of Table 34, narrated by Ephrem Zimbalist Jr., is a very important tool for understanding the way in which the Kinsey data have been used to mislead the nation. This half-hour video documents the history of the Kinsey fraud and establishes Kinsey as the foundation of current homosexual advocacy and classroom sex education and AIDS Prevention.
[31]Gebhard letter to me, March 11, 1981.
[32]In the Male volume, Kinsey describes the children’s trauma (which he saw as orgasmic), claiming to also have data on “a smaller percentage of older boys and adults which continues these reactions throughout life,” p. 161. Gebhard also says they have the names, Op. cit. fn #9.
[33]In most of their recent news releases, Indiana University denied they received any federal money which served to support Dr. Kinsey’s research efforts. [
]However, in addition to other grants, in 1957 the National Institute of Mental Health granted approximately $50,000 per year for three years to the Institute, several years before Kinsey’s sex study concluded.[] Furthermore, many millions of dollars from tax-free institutions were diverted to Dr. Kinsey’s research during his lifetime, and millions of federal, state and tax-free funds continue to be funneled into the Kinsey Institute.
“[I]n 1957, under Gebhard’s leadership, new sources of federal and private funding were found….During the 1970s, with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Kinsey Institute was able to develop an information service,” SIECUS Report, September 1985, 6-7.
The Official Brochure, Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University (1970) reads, “News of Kinsey’s efforts reached the National Research Council’s Committee for Research on Problems of Sex when he applied for a grant….in late 1940 [and was awarded] $1,600, the monies being provided by the Medical Division of the Rockefeller Foundation….increased to $7,500….by 1946, reached $35,000….the National Institute of Mental Health awarded the Institute the first in a series of grants which were destined to continue for years and to constitute the major financial support of the [Kinsey] research. In the Customs case a federal district course ruled in favor of the Institute, empowering it to import for research purpose any sort of erotic material and allowing such materials to be sent through the mails…regarded as a landmark in the history of the relationship between science and law.” pp. 3, 6. (Emphasis added.).
[34]Wardell Pomeroy, Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research, New York: Harper and Row (1972), p. 208.
[35]Ibid. Also see British Broadcasting Company’s biography of Kinsey, released on Arts and Entertainment, August 7, 1996.
[36]Judith Reisman, Kinsey, Sex and Fraud (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House, 1990). The British medical journal, The Lancet, said: “In Kinsey Sex and Fraud, Dr. Judith Reisman and her colleagues demolish the foundations of the two [Kinsey] reports.”
[37]Letter to Paul Gebhard, December 3, 1990.
[38]Letter from Paul Gebhard, December 6, 1990. Both letters are official deposition exhibits.
Good lord, what a copypasta. And why are we bringing up LGBT people again, when it’s not relevant, and apparently trying to condemn them? Kinsey is completely irrelevant to this thread, as discredited his fifty-year-old research is, so I don’t know what the possible relevance could be to this conversation.
Deluded:
The relevance is obvious. Speech codes (“Politically Corrected Speech”) are enforced on college campuses these days, and none of the enforcers of these Codes are at all aware that they are enforcing Kinsey’s research upon Freedom of Speech. You even see in kindergarten and Pre-K today the enforcement of Kinsey, mainly because the latency period in the kindergartner must become the threshold for the Brave New World to conquer so that all the other pieces of the Sexual Anarchist’s Handbook (Kinsey’s Research) will fit, including contraceptive use and the back-up to failed contraceptive use, abortion. If, as you say, Kinsey’s research has been discredited, then we wouldn’t see the obvious trend among academics to, Puritan-like, seek out, in the middle of the night, any and all those who defy the Speech Codes being enforced today upon Freedom of Speech.
Kinsey discredited or my speech shamed? Which one? America used to condemn homosexuals, now we are being called “Hate Speakers” when we do. This enforcement of the rejection of condemnation as a means to expose the deviant actor in society is having the result desired by sexual anarchists: just as busing was enforced on the unwilling to “integrate” society, it has now become necessary for the heterosexual community to “more fully integrate” with homosexual acts to become “gay-tolerant.”
Kinsey is the Original Wound that has NEVER been healed. It broke into the human sexual response and perverted it, with obvious results being the breakup of families through “no-fault” divorce, the acceptance of ” The Sex-Without-Consequences Pill,” the legalization of the murder of the natural consequences of heterosexual sexual intercourse, and Kinsey’s 50 year old research is now being introduced to kindergartners.
Women are being ruined by Kinsey every day. Kinsey, imho, hated women almost as much as he hated men. The problem is, though, that the female vagina is not politically correct. Women take more of the consequences of the Kinsey worldview than do men, simply because of female biology and emotional make-up. Women are emotionally different than men as they are physically different. Women are emotionally set-up to be caregivers of children. Men are emotionally set up to be protectors of mother and child. Men actually enjoy being bread-winners and protectors, and flourish in that role. When men are rejected in their proper role because women are being told to reject their proper role, the entire culture is the worse off for it. Kinseyite Sexual Anarchists use academic “studies” to support their belief that women and men are the same on the physical and emotional level. To enforce the Kinsey Code of Conduct, it is necessary for women to be able to reject responsibility for the consequences of sexual activity. This rejection and destruction of offspring hurts women more than it does men. But men are hurt, too, because they no longer have any reason to slay any dragons, and have now essentially allowed the Dragon to become the ruler of all, metaphorically speaking.
Reality,
Sorry for the delay; real life intrudes, a bit!
I’m getting a bit crunched for time, so let me try to summarise:
1) Dr. Huang made the claims that: (a) IA is significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Chinese females, and (b) the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases. (I’ll address the rest of his conclusion in a moment; patience, please.) You’d asked, “What claims?” These claims. Does that clarify?
2) Perhaps your understanding of English syntax differs from mine, but I see the words “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases” not only as a clause, but as an independent clause (i.e. not modified by the word “associated”, or by any other word in the first independent clause). It also seems quite bereft of other qualifiers; as such, I’m forced to conclude that Dr. Huang really does believe his research to be sufficient grounds to make the claim(!) of an increased risk of breast cancer as the number of induced abortions increase. Had he said something to the effect of, “The data might possibly suggest an increased risk, but the correlation between the factors is not sufficient to make such a claim with certainty”, I would understand completely why you say as you do. As it is, I wonder if you’re reading a different article, and having someone else cut/paste the real one for you!
3) The issue of attenuation of correlation as IA’s increase is perplexing; I don’t have a ready explanation for that (and I don’t have access to the full paper, as yet–I suspect it’d require some sort of subscription, though I may be mistaken). All right, so far? But when I think of the fact that Dr. Huang is *also* well aware of that attenuation (by all reasonable readings of his paper–he mentions it, after all!), I’m forced to wonder why he made such a bold claim, in the sentences before (especially “the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases”); why would he make that claim, if the described attenuation (if taken alone and at face-value) flatly contradicts the claim? Either the risk of breast cancer increases as the number of IA increases, or it does not; no one can have it both ways. Surely you see that?
4) Now, pick up from #3: I see only 3 possible explanations for this state of affairs:
a) Dr. Huang is too stupid (or insane) to realise the contradiction, and he published the paper (with a contradiction that a school-aged logic student could easily see) for peer-review and world-wide consumption. It would also follow that the editors of the paper (and all who pass it on to others without pointing out the alleged flaw) are too stupid, insane and/or incompetent to pick up on that fact.
b) Dr. Huang’s paper was altered by someone else (perhaps “hacked” by ghost writers?), and Dr. Huang is not yet aware of it or concerned about it.
c) Dr. Huang’s full paper includes further data/information/reasoning which explains the apparent discrepancy.
Now, let me anticipate you (Reality), if I may: you would doubtlessly introduce a fourth possibility: that I am mistaken on one or more counts. That’s a fair point to consider (I’m far from infallible); however, do consider this reasonably, and do not be too hasty:
1) Dr. Huang’s “results” section mentions the attenuation of the association (between BC and IA’s), but the “conclusion” section (which immediately follows it) makes no mention of it, nor does his conclusion seem to be modified by it in any way. That, as Sherlock Holmes would say, is as significant as “the dog that did not bark”; i.e. that’s a clue, I think.
2) The attenuation being mentioned was for THE CONTROL GROUP. Are you familiar with these sorts of things? An experiment on a population involves a control group (which is theoretically not subjected to the new factors being tested) and an experimental group (which is subjected to the new factors being tested), where the purpose of the control group is to serve as a contrast between “normal” subjects (so to speak) and “modified” subjects–i.e. to normalise the data. With me, so far? Now, take an unrelated example of testing for danger in smoking; what do you suppose would happen if the control group happened to be chain-smokers? The introduction of “smoking” into the experimental group would yield very little contrast, I’d think… yes?
3) Given the above, and given the fact that plentiful data is not accessible to us (i.e. neither of us, I assume, have read the full paper), I do think that this puts your (forgive me for stealing your phrase) “conspiracy theory” to rest… as well as your misunderstanding, I think.
Now, let us look at the final sentence in the conclusion: ”If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates.”
1) “Confirmed”… by what? By whom? You automatically assume that this refers to “the data confirming the risk factor”–which would make sense, but for three things: (a) Dr. Huang already *said* that there *is* an increased risk (i.e. it’s a risk factor, in his mind); (b) there is no such thing as a total and complete “confirmation” of any conclusion, in a study such as this; and (c) “confirmed” can (and usually does) refer to an official RECOGNITION of the risk factor by the relevant powers-that-be (i.e. the official journals, hand-books, text-books, etc.), much as the disease of same-sex attraction disorder was once “confirmed” as a disorder in the DSM, but is so no longer.
Another thought just occurred to me while re-reading this thread. PAS-deniers here have said both Kinsey and Reismann’s research have been discredited. This sounds like a real logical dilemma. They both can’t be discredited. To discredit Reismann is to give credit to Kinsey. To discredit Kinsey is to give credit to Reismann.
That Reismann studied Kinsey after his death doesn’t mean anything because Kinsey’s co-conspirators (Pomeroy, etc.) still defend Kinsey’s “research.” Either Kinsey used proper scientific methodologies or he didn’t. If he didn’t, then Reismann’s methodologies must be proven to be inadequate, too. But she uses Kinsey’s own charts and observations as her starting point.
The only explanation for Kinsey’s research still being used while apologists for the psychological cadre in science say he is discredited is that science is divided and double-minded. There was a near universal deception and cover-up of Kinsey’s methods until the Sexual Revolution was well underway and the damage became apparent.
I’m not a “PAS-denier” (though I think it’s possibly PTSD that women who have problems after abortion are experiencing, not a specific disorder), I just object to your random interjections about a topic we weren’t even discussing (Kinsey and LGBT?). Who cares about Kinsey? That research is decades old and there’s been much more recent studies on sexuality to look at. And he used improper methodology in at least one case, which probably means he used it in more cases. But anyway, I wish people would stop taking every single opportunity they can to make sure non-heterosexuals feel as bad as possible. I don’t know what y’all get out of it, just seems like bullying.
My comments are directed at showing that science has been co-opted by an anti-life cadre of reality deniers. As Kinsey was the Father of the Sexual Revolution, which has apparently begun to set in to threaten the innocence of born children as well as the innocent preborn, any reference to him as an example of how false science can have general acceptance among large segments of the academic community is appropriate on this thread. PAS is as real as the preborn person in the womb, and just as both are denied, both need to be affirmed.
Lives are at stake. Science, falsely so called, can be as deadly as a bullet to the brain. Denying false science and exposing it as such can be as life-saving as false science is deadly.
And, excuse me, this blog has moderators. Let them moderate. At any rate, I don’t need your permission and affirmation to make comments here, thank you.
Someone saying they disagree with your comments isn’t taking away your permission to post. If someone disagrees with you they are just as entitled to say so as you are to post whatever you want. Don’t pull that “you disagreeing is infringing on my speech!” thing.
Thanks Christine. While my preference is to provide information for peoples benefit there are times when I’m quite comfortable with just letting what some people say stand for itself.
The bottom line Paladin –
Now, let us look at the final sentence in the conclusion: ”If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates.” – exactly. ‘If’ it ‘were’……high rates…..’may’ ‘contribute’. That’s it.
“Confirmed”… by what? By whom? – medical/physiological/biological/chemical type stuff would be my guess. An actual identifiable causal link of some sort.
(a) Dr. Huang already *said* that there *is* an increased risk (i.e. it’s a risk factor, in his mind); – without saying what any cause may be. He’s responding to the statistical indicator. It’s a meta-analysis.
(b) there is no such thing as a total and complete “confirmation” of any conclusion, in a study such as this; – well that’s obvious.
(c) “confirmed” can (and usually does) refer to an official RECOGNITION of the risk factor by the relevant powers-that-be – which in this case does not exist beyond recognising a possible staistical correlation. No causal links.
Two hypotheses –
1/ in a few, some or most of the provinces in the study rural women have less access to contraception than urban dwellers, therefore having more abortions. They also have a much higher level of exposure to agricultural chemicals.
2/ the one child policy is more relaxed for rural folk, therefore urban dwellers have more abortions. Urban dwellers have a higher level of exposure to various pollutants.
I’m sure there are a number of hypotheses which could be postulated given that the statistical analysis was distinctly shallow.
And I’d still like to know where Dr. Huang’s comments about China being far less prone to reporting bias than the USA, etc., would be expected to be can be found. Please.
Deluded:
Your comment ,”I don’t know what y’all get out of it, just seems like bullying. ” is the rhetorical equivalent of bullying, which may or may not result in infringement on free speech. This approach has been tried and found successful on college campuses for too long. This isn’t one of those situations, and I don’t respond to bullying like yours with agreement and retirement. Hopefully, you feel ashamed for your conduct. If not, there’s nothing that will help you overcome that pride of yours except a great fall. I only hope for the best for you, in that case.
Ah, so you’re the one who wants to whine about not being able to condemn LGBT people (which you still can, all you want, it’s been legally held up in court that you can say just absolutely horrible and degrading things and it’s perfectly legal), but I’m the bully for calling you on it. Gotcha.
If anyone talked about Christians the way that LGBT people are talked about on this blog then you’d all be getting the vapors daily.
Condemn people? No, condemn people’s sin. Big difference. You should know that Christians are called to condemn sins in themselves first, but to never affirm others in their sins. That would not be doing unto others as you would want done unto you. I’m afraid you can’t use the rhetorical trick of making a straw man and then knocking that straw man down. Justice requires a standard that is unassailable. I’m afraid that is a situation that has never been knocked down by humankind except once. And that proved, after three days, to be completely unsuccessful. I stand on that Witness as my judge, not you. Or anyone else.
It’s a mindset Jack. One which is hopefully withering and expiring. They squeal when people call them out for for their bigotry, discrimination and bullying, claiming that that is what is being done to them.
“lock up the gays and throw away the key!”
“that’s not a very nice thing to say”
“how dare you attack me you bigot!”
Ugh I wouldn’t care that much if there were any way to escape it. For a sin that affects such a minority of the population people certainly obsess on it all the time. I don’t understand why it has to be brought up every five seconds, as if LGBT people are going to forget that so many people dislike their “lifestyle” and think they are perverse.
For a sin that affects such a minority of the population people certainly obsess on it all the time.
Jack, why in the world would you even say “sin,” there? Fears and superstitions from thousands of years ago?
Folks,
Maybe we can put this LGBT issue to rest once and for all. I’m reading a fascinating book on gays in history. Ironically, King James of King James Bible fame was gay. As were some popes. As were some great kings, conquerors, and military minds. As were some of our Founding Fathers. As were some of our greatest and most talented entertainers. Gay and Bi people have been parents since the dawn of creation.
Now, since we know gay people have long played very important roles in the history of the world, much to the betterment of mankind (Abraham Lincoln may have been bisexual) can we let this issue go?
:-)
That’s a nice idea Mary. The problem is that some people will dig up any old stuff from anywhere which supports their prejudices and bigotry.
They’ll massage the stories of the lives and actions of historical figures from their ‘team’ in an attempt to abate or accomodate (or even deny) that persons homosexuality.
Look how popular Cary Grant was. Then we find out…….
“Jack, why in the world would you even say “sin,” there? Fears and superstitions from thousands of years ago?”
Because I don’t care if people think it’s sinful to act on same sex attractions, maybe it is, I just want people to stop acting like LGBT people are the worst things ever to exist in the history of ever. And I’m pretty sure some people who are opposed to it think about gay sex more than anyone who is actually LGBT.
I thought that it was never proven “what” Cary Grant was, that some people reported he was bisexual or gay but others claimed those were just rumors. Whatever, don’t know why it would matter. Doesn’t make his acting any different.
Whatever, don’t know why it would matter. Doesn’t make his acting any different. – exactly!
“I don’t want to get graphic — that guy on Duck Dynasty got graphic and it got a little disgusting — but when you see what they do, it’s not very pretty.“ – Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, Feb.19th, 2014.
Oh yes, do tell Pat, Pat?
I’m sure Pat was just watching for “research”.
But really, I don’t see how the disgustingness or not-disgustingness has any bearing on whether something is wrong or your business or not. I don’t find morbid obesity particularly attractive and I think overeating is unhealthy, but you don’t see me shaming overweight people and discussing their sex lives with apparent disgust + relish. Weirdest thing. If it’s really just like any other sin then people should treat it like one, instead of this national obsession.
I wonder if he has ever employed the services of a ‘luggage lifter’ ;-)
It’s like I’ve said before LDPL, some people simply can’t stand the thought that someone might be having more pleasure than them. Particularly if it’s something they’d really like a piece of but can’t…..
Let’s see,
Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brandon, Wally Cox, Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Marlena Detriech, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert. Just a few I can remember off the top of my head.
oh,
and Barbara Stanwyck.
You all are acting like a pack of wolves. Shame on you all.
“Shame on you all. ”
The shame is in perpetuating the old-time prejudices.
My comments are directed at showing that science has been co-opted by an anti-life cadre of reality deniers. As Kinsey was the Father of the Sexual Revolution, which has apparently begun to set in to threaten the innocence of born children as well as the innocent preborn, any reference to him as an example of how false science can have general acceptance among large segments of the academic community is appropriate on this thread. PAS is as real as the preborn person in the womb, and just as both are denied, both need to be affirmed.
Lives are at stake. Science, falsely so called, can be as deadly as a bullet to the brain. Denying false science and exposing it as such can be as life-saving as false science is deadly.
All those who think this is just about homosexuality are splitting hairs and taking a narrow focus. When women take their lives after an abortion, after reality deniers have told her that the science behind post abortion depression is all lies, then that blood will be on the hands of the reality deniers who perpetuated and enabled the lie.
The mob mentality comes out to attack anyone who would bring light on the reality of Post Abortion Syndrome. Just like wolves smell blood, you crave the blood of innocents and the depressed ones who were misled into thinking ”it was just a blob of tissue,” when, after all, they found out that they were, are, and always will be mothers of a dead child, and they were deceived, felt lonely and abandoned, and the pain was too much, and they took their own lives.
I share in the feelings of the abandoned and lonely. Just like Jesus on the Cross. He’s my friend, even if the mob surrounds me. May Jesus have mercy on the depressed ones, and may the mob that screams for Barabbas get Barabbas.
“I share in the feelings of the abandoned and lonely. Just like Jesus on the Cross.”
Oh brother….
While some women do experience some post traumatic stress after having an abortion, if you want an actual, recognized syndrome, then Postpartum Depression is right there. What’s next – you going to say women should not have kids?
You going to say that “people should not be gay”? That’s like somebody saying “You should not be heterosexual.”
You want to generalize about women who have abortions, but you’re doing it incorrectly. Nobody can say that no woman will have regrets – people are not like that – but of the million+ women in the United States that have abortions each year, it’s a relative few that end up wishing they didn’t. Some will have more unwanted pregnancies, and again choose to have abortions. There is no big mystery here – of course it is not right for everybody, but for many it is.
DocKimble: you had a good run there for a minute and I recognized you for that a number of comments above. Unfortunately though, you ended that with that whopper of a post on Kinsey. As an individual who works with sex offenders I can attest that no pro-family individual/organization is to take this long-discredited “research” as valid. Kinsey’s methodology was so flawed that thankfully in 1981 it was totally exposed.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/u-n-set-to-recognize-kinsey-sex-research/
Aside form the nut jobs at the UN, that above article describes in full detail the flawed methodology. Read up.
Thomas R.—
That link you provided supports what I’ve been saying, that Kinsey’s research is still having an influence because Reismann’s research, though discrediting of Kinsey, is ignored.
Until the moderators ban me from this site, I will remain here to defend Reismann’s research, point to it as confirmation that science, falsely so-called, has been deceiving, purposely or out of some other motivation, another generation.
The last three paragraphs of the article you linked sums it up pretty well: Kinsey is currently STILL influencing our culture. I will not have that blood of innocents on my hands.
“Kupelian writes that Kinsey “science” remains influential because, as E. Michael Jones explained in “Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control,” today’s experts have built their careers and livelihoods on assumptions made by Kinsey.
“To sum it up, today virtually everything have to do with sex – from attitudes toward extramarital affairs and homosexuality to the nation’s sex-education curricula, to the ways medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and even the criminal justice system define and deal with sexual pathology – is rooted firmly in the ludicrously fraudulent ‘data’ of Kinsey and his cult of criminally deviant sex ‘researchers,’” Kupelian wrote.
Such influence was seen in recent headlines, including in the Washington Post, after a Vanity Fair profile revived 22-year-old questions about actor Woody Allen’s behavior with his daughter with Mia Farrow, Dylan.
Allen was accused of abusing Dylan when she was a child in the early 1990s, but a Connecticut prosecuted ultimately declined to press charges.”
As I said DocKimble – you have some great thoughts to share and you had me hooked until Kinsey. You may post what you think is appropriate but I cannot discredit my good name by agreeing with it. I’ve worked with sex offenders/sex victims much too long to know better…His research methodology was flawed and at best, it is very/very inconclusive.
Pro-family organizations are mobilizing to boycott the UN. What does that mean DocKimble? Influence is sometimes deceiving…..
Thomas R.—
I thinkest thou doth protesteth too much. YOU may post what you think is appropriate here but I cannot understand what you’re trying to get at. If Kinsey is discredited, I assume your work is not influenced in any way by his influence. If it’s not, then how in the world do you keep your job in light of the fact that Kinsey’s work is of virtual universal acceptance, even though it’s long been thoroughly disproved?
“Pro family organizations are mobilizing to boycott the UN. What does that mean? ”
It might mean, just hoping here, that those who still use Kinsey’s long-discredited research will soon find themselves jobless, exposed as frauds. Here’s hoping you feel the same.
Regards
Oh dear Lord:
– Kinsey forced his subjects to provide the answers he expected.
– Kinsey thrashed 3/4 of data that did not confirm his expected outcomes.
– Kinsey based his claims about normal males on roughly 86 percent aberrant male population including 200 sexual psychopaths, 1,400 sex offenders and hundreds each of prisoners, male prostitutes and promiscuous homosexuals.
The influence you speak of is just for a lack of a better term, deceiving. The UN is short of a full deck on this one, on second thought if that’s what they want in Europe……
Thomas R.—
Not what I asked, and I see you don’t feel compelled to answer, which leads me to believe you are not wanting to publish YOUR methods of working around Kinsey’s discredited research. Either that, or you are using his research, the same as your colleagues. If such is the case, then I’d suggest, “Psychologist, heal thyself.” I was wondering how you kept your job.
You can’t, seriously, see the flawed methodology that resulted in years of quack research and how Kinsey was less than professional in his approaches that affected the validity/reliability of it? Really? DocKimble – seems to me you need to drop the Doc and just go by Kimble :)
Gerald,
There are a couple of post abortive women who regret their abortions who comment regularly on this blog. I am one of them.
Just a heads up. :)
Nobody can say that no woman will have regrets – people are not like that – but of the million+ women in the United States that have abortions each year, it’s a relative few that end up wishing they didn’t
“a relative few” to you means me and my post abortive friends to me. The ladies of Silent No More, the women of Operation Outcry, those that volunteer for Rachel’s Vinyard and countless other groups of women that tell their abortion stories so that others might not pay someone to end the life of their innocent, fully alive and growing preborn human child.
Real people. Real struggles. Real pain and suffering over the abortions that ended the lives of our children. Real post abortive women who offer help and hope and healing to those of us that genuinely hurt after we pay someone to end the lives of our children.
“Doc” stays. I earned that nickname in ‘Nam, thanks for the suggestion, though.
You are a difficult one to take without that proverbial grain of salt. Must be your training.
How do you keep your job when Kinsey’s thoroughly discredited research is still in universal use in your profession?
I don’t have a problem seeing Kinsey’s work for what it is. I do have a problem with calling someone a “professional” who won’t answer a straight question, though. That’s being “less than professional,” deceptive and appears to be motivated out of a desire to hide something sinister.
“but of the million+ women in the United States that have abortions each year, it’s a relative few that end up wishing they didn’t. ”
Actually many studies indicate that women who seek abortion who were not able to get one don’t regret giving birth in any significant amount.Only about five percent of women denied abortions wish they had gone through with it. It is true that economics suffer for those who carry their unwanted pregnancies to term, but apparently most women who have their baby are okay with the sacrifices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/magazine/study-women-denied-abortions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thomas R, DocKimble is not at all defending Kinsey….
Carla, “There are a couple of post abortive women who regret their abortions who comment regularly on this blog” – I don’t doubt that.
I did say, “ There is no big mystery here – of course it is not right for everybody, but for many it is.”
Reality,
Sorry again for the delay; I’m in bed, sick (again! The students are remarkably generous with their microbes, this year!), so it (ironically) not only delayed me, but it gives me a chance to reply at all!
You wrote:
The bottom line Paladin –
:) You’ll forgive me for looking also at the lines *before* that, to check for soundness of conclusion?
Now, let us look at the final sentence in the conclusion: ”If IA were to be confirmed as a risk factor for breast cancer, high rates of IA in China may contribute to increasing breast cancer rates.” – exactly. ‘If’ it ‘were’……high rates…..’may’ ‘contribute’. That’s it.
From what I understand, this is your interpretation: “By saying that IA is not confirmed as a risk factor, Dr. Huang is saying that it’s not a risk factor in his mind.”
…whereas this is my interpretation, at least at present, given the data at hand: “By saying that IA *is* a risk factor [without qualifiers–he did not say ‘may be a risk factor’, ‘could possibly be a risk factor, etc.’], and then following that with a statement that IA is not a *confirmed* risk factor, he’s either being inconsistent (which I’m loath to claim, especially given the fact that it’d be a spectacularly easy and utterly basic gaffe to be seen by anyone), or he means something else by “confirmed”–i.e. I think it’s highly likely that he’s using the word “confirmed” to refer to “official recognition by authorities in the field”.
I do not dispute the wording; I merely suggested that your interpretation does not fit the facts as well as mine does.
“Confirmed”… by what? By whom? – medical/physiological/biological/chemical type stuff would be my guess. An actual identifiable causal link of some sort.
You keep saying that sort of thing, but with nary a bit of evidence that you know (forgive me) what you’re saying! Data does not simply leap off of computers and clip-boards and speak for itself; it needs human beings to be able and willing (note that second condition!) to reach a conclusion… AND to accept it as “canonical”, as such. However do you suppose “causal links” are ESTABLISHED, save for human beings RECOGNIZING and PROCLAIMING them as such? That was my point exactly, re: my hypothesis that Dr. Huang is referring to “official recognition by organs of dissemination such as papers, communities of specialists, etc.
(a) Dr. Huang already *said* that there *is* an increased risk (i.e. it’s a risk factor, in his mind); – without saying what any cause may be. He’s responding to the statistical indicator. It’s a meta-analysis.
Of COURSE he is! (To what else would he be responding?) But isn’t the CONTENT of his response rather the POINT? His response is that “there IS an increased risk”; any talk of IA being a “sole cause” (or even a primary cause) is spurious, at this point; the main claim is that IA’s increase the risk of breast cancer… and Dr. Huang claims that his data supports that claim decisively (without qualifiers).
You don’t like his claim? I sympathise (at least insofar as I know it’d be disappointing to you). You’d like more explanation for possible mechanisms, etc.? I concur. But my dear fellow: do remember the original point or the article: an increase in IA’s results in an increased risk of breast cancer. You’d asked (so to speak) for an example of a peer-reviewed, methodologically-sound, etc., example of research which establishes that claim (of IA’s increasing the risk of BC); and you now have one. A rather large one with statistically significant results, I might add.
(b) there is no such thing as a total and complete “confirmation” of any conclusion, in a study such as this; – well that’s obvious.
Good. So when, in the future, you pull out the idea that the ABC link is not “confirmed” in any way, shape or form, I can remind you of your response, here, and take you to task for talking nonsense.
(c) “confirmed” can (and usually does) refer to an official RECOGNITION of the risk factor by the relevant powers-that-be – which in this case does not exist beyond recognising a possible staistical correlation. No causal links.
…and again: that’s hardly necessary. If it can be shown that IA’s increase the risk of breast cancer, that’s more than sufficient for our purposes.
1/ in a few, some or most of the provinces in the study rural women have less access to contraception than urban dwellers, therefore having more abortions. They also have a much higher level of exposure to agricultural chemicals.
Both may be true… but neither would negate Dr. Huang’s claim… right?
2/ the one child policy is more relaxed for rural folk,
I think you’d find more than a few people who’d contest that statement! It may be possible that remote areas have more sparse *enforcement* (due to lack of personnel, lack of communication networks which would inform the powers-that-be of pregnancies, etc.), but I think it’s rather a stretch to guess that anyone *intends* a more lax enforcement in rural areas. But that’s an aside.
therefore urban dwellers have more abortions. Urban dwellers have a higher level of exposure to various pollutants.
Perhaps. But surely you see that this changes nothing, re: Dr. Huang’s central claims?
I’m sure there are a number of hypotheses which could be postulated given that the statistical analysis was distinctly shallow.
You’re welcome to your opinion, of course; but peer-review is not dependent on “satisfying Reality’s opinions/personal tastes re: depth”; it has been peer-reviewed and published, without satisfying that lofty standard. :)
And I’d still like to know where Dr. Huang’s comments about China being far less prone to reporting bias than the USA, etc., would be expected to be can be found. Please.
It’s sounding as if you’re thinking Dr. Huang to be less and less erudite! But do consider this reasonably:
1) Dr. Huang certainly did make (within a study which satisfied all of your previously-stated requirements for legitimacy) the claim that IA’s increase the risk of BC. Do you agree with that fact, at last?
2) Dr. Huang’s report about “attenuation of risk” (which you had previously found to be so intriguing–and, if I may surmise, “damning”–to Dr. Huang’s conclusion) is stated to happen when the CONTROL GROUP has had more numerous IA’s; as such, it’s no surprise that any “increase” in BC risk in the experimental group would be less pronounced when compared with an IA-intense control group. Can you agree with that fact, at last?
3) You’d “over-shot” your mark in supposing that a clear-cut claim of “causality” (forgive the alliteration!) between IA and BC was necessary for the pro-life side of things; that is simply not the case. It would have been even more strong of a tool to show the clear truth of the pro-life view of this matter, yes; but half a loaf is far better than none.
I’ll say this much: there is quite a bit which still perplexes me about Dr. Huang’s claims. For example: I fully understand why a larger number of abortions in the control group would diminish the results; what baffles me is *why* he mentioned (or tested for) such a blatantly *obvious* thing in the first place! (Though, in this age where there are warning labels to warn against pressing one’s shirt with a hot iron while *wearing* it, I suppose I shouldn’t be quite as surprised that some people need to point out the painfully obvious.)
I know Gerald that DocKimble is not defending Kinsey, as he admitted this research being discredited. I just can’t figure out his support for the “influence” given how the research played out….
EDIT: this is what DocKimble supports:
“Reisman herself explained: “Kinsey solicited and encouraged pedophiles, at home and abroad, to sexually violate from 317 to 2,035 infants and children for his alleged data on normal ‘child sexuality.’ Many of the crimes against children (oral and anal sodomy, genital intercourse and manual abuse) committed for Kinsey’s research are quantified in his own graphs and charts.”
The amicus brief written by the American Psychological Association defending “Gay Rights” in the matter of “Lawrence v. Texas” shows them using Kinsey’s research to develop their brief to the Court. All those named as “experts” in the brief are using language that is very familiar to those who have read Kinsey. Even a layman like myself can spot it. This is a relatively recent matter (2003).
The US Penal Code is shot through with thousands of laws and judgments, orders and disorders that are the result of “courts” and “legislatures” relying on Kinsey’s research.
As Kinsey’s research deals with the mind and sexuality, it’s easy for anyone with common sense to see how simple a matter it is to form a Brave New World Order by means of the legal, psychological and medical manipulation of the human sexual response.
Kinsey’s research is the Sexual Anarchist’s Handbook. When used as the bible of the New World Order, it is a very powerful weapon against human beings made in the image and likeness of God. It’s amazing more people aren’t talking their own lives, considering the condition of the minds of those in power today, who wield very powerful means of trying to control our imaginations.
“Imagination governs the world.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte~
http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/lawrence.pdf
Oh man, I sat put and read DocKimble’s comments all over again, every word twice. “The blood of innocents” summation resulted in a Eureka moment. So yes, Doc, you don’t support his “research” but your further evaluation that the work I do is influenced by him is incorrect. People like me know better.
Paladin, good luck and I hope you feel better. My wife teaches high school and she didn’t get a flu shot this time around – says next year she’s definitely getting one.
You and I didn’t finish our conversation from the Jan. 30 thread – you replied on Feb. 13 and then the thread timed out for responses.
The posts were getting long, but we’re only talking about 2 or 3 pretty simple things. This thread is already long, but I’ll find a place to reply; perhaps one of the “buzz” or “brief” threads, as they are generally “grab-bags” anyway.
From what I understand, this is your interpretation: “By saying that IA is not confirmed as a risk factor, Dr. Huang is saying that it’s not a risk factor in his mind.” – no, that is not my interpretation. I’m stating what the analysis actually manages to demonstrate.
You keep saying that sort of thing, but with nary a bit of evidence that you know (forgive me) what you’re saying! Data does not simply leap off of computers and clip-boards and speak for itself; it needs human beings to be able and willing (note that second condition!) to reach a conclusion… – indeed it does. And the work done says ‘no’.
any talk of IA being a “sole cause” (or even a primary cause) is spurious, – that’s the point.
at this point; the main claim is that IA’s increase the risk of breast cancer… and Dr. Huang claims that his data supports that claim decisively (without qualifiers). – it supports a statistically correlative risk, nothing causal. All he has shown is that when there is a high number of abortions there is a high number of breast cancers.
Someone else could do the same sort of study making statistical correlations between breast cancer rates and frog numbers, the number of pink cars, the volume of ice-cream eaten, smoking levels etc. etc. etc.
You don’t like his claim? – his claim itself isn’t any great issue. He makes it clear that it’s a meta-analysis, a statistical indicator of association. It’s the attempts at portraying it as proving that abortions cause breast cancer which are invalid.
Good. So when, in the future, you pull out the idea that the ABC link is not “confirmed” in any way, shape or form, I can remind you of your response, here, and take you to task for talking nonsense. – and others will stop claiming that there is a link? The overwhelming body of evidence says ‘no’, It’s not just that studies have failed to prove a link, it’s that studies have shown there is not a link.
If it can be shown that IA’s increase the risk of breast cancer, that’s more than sufficient for our purposes. – yet it hasn’t.
Both may be true… but neither would negate Dr. Huang’s claim… right? – right. Because his only claim is that there is s statistical correlation between IA and breast cancer. Where are the frogs? The pink cars?
I think you’d find more than a few people who’d contest that statement! – it is permitted due to the need for labor on the farm and inheritance.
Perhaps. But surely you see that this changes nothing, re: Dr. Huang’s central claims? – which are very limited. Where are the comparative studies?
You’re welcome to your opinion, of course; but peer-review is not dependent on “satisfying Reality’s opinions/personal tastes re: depth”; it has been peer-reviewed and published, without satisfying that lofty standard. – it doesn’t require my being satisfied. I’m not questioning it’s validity or accuracy. But it in no way proves any link between abortion and breast cancer other than statistically, which does not prove cause.
It’s sounding as if you’re thinking Dr. Huang to be less and less erudite! – don’t avoid. You claimed he said that “China (is) far less prone to reporting bias than the USA, etc.,” – I cannot find where he said such and have asked you twice to show me where he does so.
and, if I may surmise, “damning” – no I did not. I simply asked the question.
You’d “over-shot” your mark in supposing that a clear-cut claim of “causality” (forgive the alliteration!) between IA and BC was necessary for the pro-life side of things; that is simply not the case. – ah but of course. No need for evidence, just the claim. Says it all.
All the report tells us is that statistically, as the number of IA’s increase so does the incidence of breast cancer. It doesn’t address why. It doesn’t demonstrate how. It doesn’t conduct the same analysis on other factors in the lives of those suffering breast cancer. Therefore it fails utterly to demonstrate that abortion contributes to breast cancer. This, and many other studies, have been examined and reviewed numerous times and the conclusion is repeatedly drawn that there is no demonstrable link.
I grew up in the sixties when women were out there in droves fighting for their rights to choose and I was just a teenager so I had not yet formed a strong opinion of my own. Of course that changed a few years later when I started my own family at the age of 19 and as I felt that life growing inside me I knew there was no way I could ever have an abortion. I was a strong willed and opinionated young woman who became interested in helping anyone who was disadvantaged in any way either by disability or had no voice. I met a lot of women along the way who told me stories of things that had happened to them which resulted in pregnancy and they were either pressured into having an abortion or decided to have one. Nearly all of them were very young and most of them did not have all the information they needed to make such an life altering decision. When they would speak to me they lowered their heads, at first I thought it was due to shame but soon realized it was sadness I was seeing. These women were still grieving many years later. My own Mother told me that she got pregnant at the age of 15 and because abortion was illegal she had to have the baby. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like back then when there was absolutely no one to go to for help and even worse you were called the town whore if you didn’t marry the father of your child. She told me about one of her best friends who had what they called a back alley abortion because she too got pregnant at the age of 16 and just couldn’t face the ridicule and shame of her family. This young girl bled to death. So here I am now a senior citizen and still as opinionated as ever but my heart has softened towards the difficult decisions some women have had to make in their lives. My heart breaks for both the women and their unborn babies. Even though I could never have an abortion myself I would not judge someone who did because it is precisely those type of judgments that caused women to feel such shame that it leads to a lifetime of depression and in some cases suicide. When I think of the things we women have done for a man, the parts of our lives we have given up, the dreams we have given up it just breaks my heart that we didn’t value ourselves enough to say no. But when a man ask you to end the life of your unborn child because it is not convenient is just appalling and disgusting. My heart goes out to this woman’s family as I imagine they had no idea how deep her pain ran that this had not just broken her heart but it left it shattered.