(Prolifer)ations 8-1-08
by Colleen W.
From the blogs and elsewhere today…
Denny at VitalSigns posted a speech Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) gave July 30 on the House floor….
The bill Pence supported, HR 1370, was a “Resolution calling on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to immediately end abuses of the human rights of its citizens, to cease repression of Tibetan and Uighur people, and to end its support for the Governments of Sudan and Burma to ensure that the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games take place in an atmosphere that honors the Olympic traditions of freedom and openness.”
One of the abuses of human rights in China that Pence cited was “the horror of forced abortion.” He stated:
In the committee we heard the most horrific stories of these so-called family planning technical service workers literally breaking into homes, dragging women in the ninth month of pregnancy off to clinics, forcing abortions on them and in one case after another, going to horrific means to ensure that the newly born child’s life had been completely snuffed out.
The resolution passed 419-1 with only “Dr. No,” Ron Paul opposing it.
Read the speech in its entirety here.
In a lengthy preamble entitled “The Problem,” the draft argues that state laws too often coerce health-care workers into providing services they find immoral….
Even if the draft is never implemented, activists on both sides consider it a potential momentum shift.
“[P]remature babies – babies born too soon and too small – accounted for a growing proportion of infant deaths. When linked with previous studies that have shown that abortion increases a woman’s chance of having a baby prematurely, the conclusion is that women who have had abortions are more likely to bear children who die as infants or suffer from severe health issues.”
She also points to a Catholic News Agency article reporting that 90% of Down syndrome babies in Spain are aborted.
[Beijing Olympic illustration courtesy of Family Research Council]
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.
Anybody know why Ron Paul would oppose the bill?
The “Pill as abortion” thing is starting to really get on my nerves because both sides are arguing from bad science. If we chucked the bad science the argument would vanish.
Yes, the people who originally put out The Pill believed it had a tertiary, abortifacient effect. But if there is breakthrough ovulation, the corpus leuteum pumps out more than enough hormones to drown out the potentially abortifacient effects of The Pill. Liken it to spraying bug spray in somebody’s face. If it’s a calm day, the bug spray will surely be breathed in and will poison him. But if you spray bug spray in his face during a wind storm, the wind will blow the bug spray away because the force of the wind far overcomes the force of the aerosol.
So the whole “Does pregnancy begin at implantation or before?” doesn’t matter, because The Pill doesn’t prevent implantation if there has been a breakthrough ovulation, and conception can only happen if there has been breakthrough ovulation.
This is why The Pill can fail! If the thinning of the endometrium took place even when there was breakthrough ovulation, there would be no pregnancies among woman on The Pill.
So — it’s a non-issue.
You’d think that this would be welcomed as good news — millions of newly-conceived human beings are not being inadvertently or indifferently aborted. But instead of welcoming this good news, we cling to bad science and divert resources onto a battle that doesn’t need to be fought.
I am really confused about why Ron Paul would have voted no on this bill. I am really stunned because he is pro-life. (At least he says he is and was at the March for Life this year).
In Canada 80 to 90 percent of Down’s babies are aborted. We are quite the eugenic lot up here in the Great White North.
Pulled Ron Paul’s statement why he voted against HR 1370 from this blog:
http://scatattack.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/%e2%80%9cdr-no%e2%80%9d-stands-alone-yet-again/
Here’s Paul’s statement:
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China . It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad. Certainly I do not condone human rights abuses, wherever they may occur, but as Members of the US House of Representatives we have no authority over the Chinese government. It is our Constitutional responsibility to deal with abuses in our own country or those created abroad by our own foreign policies. Yet we are not debating a bill to close Guantanamo , where abuses have been documented. We are not debating a bill to withdraw from Iraq , where scores of innocents have been killed, injured, and abused due to our unprovoked attack on that country. We are not debating a bill to reverse the odious FISA bill passed recently which will result in extreme abuses of Americans by gutting the Fourth Amendment.
Instead of addressing these and scores of other pressing issues over which we do have authority, we prefer to spend our time criticizing a foreign government over which we have no authority and foreign domestic problems about which we have very little accurate information.
I do find it ironic that this resolution
Pulled Ron Paul’s statement why he voted against HR 1370 from this blog:
http://scatattack.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/%e2%80%9cdr-no%e2%80%9d-stands-alone-yet-again/
Here’s Paul’s statement:
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China . It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad. Certainly I do not condone human rights abuses, wherever they may occur, but as Members of the US House of Representatives we have no authority over the Chinese government. It is our Constitutional responsibility to deal with abuses in our own country or those created abroad by our own foreign policies. Yet we are not debating a bill to close Guantanamo , where abuses have been documented. We are not debating a bill to withdraw from Iraq , where scores of innocents have been killed, injured, and abused due to our unprovoked attack on that country. We are not debating a bill to reverse the odious FISA bill passed recently which will result in extreme abuses of Americans by gutting the Fourth Amendment.
Instead of addressing these and scores of other pressing issues over which we do have authority, we prefer to spend our time criticizing a foreign government over which we have no authority and foreign domestic problems about which we have very little accurate information.
I do find it ironic that this resolution
“[P]remature babies – babies born too soon and too small – accounted for a growing proportion of infant deaths. When linked with my opinion that abortion should increase a woman’s chance of having a baby prematurely, my conclusion is that women who have had abortions should suffer to bear children who die as infants or suffer from severe health issues.”
I made the quote honest.
“This is why The Pill can fail! If the thinning of the endometrium took place even when there was breakthrough ovulation, there would be no pregnancies among woman on The Pill.
So — it’s a non-issue.”
With all due respect to the wonderful pro-lifers who disagree–I agree with Christine.
My husband’s aunt had all four of her very healthy children while on the Pill, as have other women whom I’ve known.
I also agree, Kel and Christine :)
Hi Sally,
“Women who have had abortions DO suffer to bear children who die as infants or suffer from severe health issues.”
The article said MORE LIKELY.
You said SHOULD.
I say DO.
Sally, it’s not an “opinion” that abortion increases women’s chances of having a premature child, it’s medical fact.
See http://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/rooney.pdf
Kel, Christine, and PIP…Thanks for showing some reason and logic about the matter. Granted, my opinion on the matter extends a little bit past what you’ve presented…but I’ve found that doesn’t matter. No reason for using the pill exists for many of these people…and I’ve seen so many reasoned, rational statements in support of the pill…at this point I’m convinced it has more to do with trying to regulate women’s sexual behavior that they find immoral and enforcing their church doctrine via secular law by using bad science and faulty reasoning as a smoke screen, and I’ve given up. I’ve realized that I owe a lot of pro-choicers an apology, and I plan to find a way to do so soon, because they were right about the motivations of the “pro-life” movement.
No, X, you’re wrong about our motivation.
I would never try to outlaw condoms. I think that birthcontrol is harmful to relationships, but so are alot of other things that I believe we should have the right to do.
However, hormonal birth control does not just ‘prevent’ conception, it can act to prevent an alreaddy conceived individual from further developing. To me this is no different than inducing an early abortion. Indeed, I can not see how a pro-lifer would be ok with this mechinism of “birth control” but not with, say, an early abortion with the abortion pill.
It’s not about controlling women, it’s about insuring that human life is not intentionally ended. Once a person is informed about the mechinisms that “prevent birth” (though certainly not always conception) I believe they have a responsibility to choose an alternative method of birth control that does not interfer with implantation.
x: I wish I had time right now to respond, but I don’t. :( I’ll try to come back later.
Can you explain your religious background in brief, if you don’t mind?
It’s that all X does these days is take cheap shots at pro-lifers who are against the pill. What the heck is your problem? Stop acting like a cry baby. Grow up. I thought you were not going to post here, but you keep coming back, why? Just to insult us once again?
Christina, thanks for your post. I don’t always agree with you but you always rock.
Thank you Christina!
Lauren, Jpands is a well-known fake science journal. Professional epidemiologists don’t even read its table of contents.
In the article you linked to the trick is it lists the studies that because of statistical noise show agreement with whatever they want to propagandize, and omits the studies that show the opposite effect, and also omits the ones that show no connection either way.
It’s a well-known trick, an old chestnut. The technical term for it is one-sided amplification of statistical noise. RTLs do the same thing with breast cancer. RTLs are not the only ones who use it. It becomes available to anyone who wants to claim a connection between two unconnected things as soon as enough small, noisy studies are published.
Hi SoMG,
It’s easy to use statistical noise as an excuse to refute a small study with results you don’t agree with. An OB/GYN I recently spoke with said he doubted the larger studies because those are generally done by groups with a pro-choice agenda. It was a casual conversation, so no, I do not have sources, only his opinion (which I value).
Obvious overuse of this sort of tactic gives the RTL movement a bad name especially among health professionals and educated people.
Janet, a study published in Jpands does not require refutation. No one, including its authors, takes it seriously enough.
x:10:50 AM: If you want to distance yourself from pro-lifers because of the BC issue, you are ignoring the reason you are here in the first place – to stop abortion. If you are unsure of your place in this debate any more, I’d recommend you spend an afternoon outside of an abortion clinic and watch the women come and go. Which is more important, babies dying or birth control?
Obvious overuse of this sort of tactic gives the RTL movement a bad name especially among health professionals and educated people.
Posted by: SoMG at August 2, 2008 10:56 PM
Well, no kidding! Do we care?
Janet, do you want to win?
SoMG: 11:14: Janet, do you want to win?
IMHO, the “educated” and health professionals are not the ones who need to be “won over” at this point in time. It’s everyone else that will be most convertible, so they are the ones to concentrate on. If more people come to the pro-life side and there’s less demand for abortion, the closer we are to a “win”. One heart at a time….
even if you have to tell one lie at a time to do it, Janet?
Phylo:11:58:
No lies. I’d tell the truth but I know better than to try to convert the so called “educated” and health professionals SoMG refers to because they obviously don’t want to hear the truth about abortion.
They have too much to loose professionally by acknowledging the truth.
Ooops, that’s “lose” not “loose”.
Kel, Christine, and PIP…Thanks for showing some reason and logic about the matter. Granted, my opinion on the matter extends a little bit past what you’ve presented…but I’ve found that doesn’t matter. No reason for using the pill exists for many of these people…and I’ve seen so many reasoned, rational statements in support of the pill…at this point I’m convinced it has more to do with trying to regulate women’s sexual behavior that they find immoral and enforcing their church doctrine via secular law by using bad science and faulty reasoning as a smoke screen, and I’ve given up. I’ve realized that I owe a lot of pro-choicers an apology, and I plan to find a way to do so soon, because they were right about the motivations of the “pro-life” movement.
Xalisae, maybe you have missed them, but I have left you comments that I would like to hear your response to, in this post at 4:47:
https://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/07/pregnant_prosti.html#comments
And this post, at the bottom of the page:
https://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2008/07/oreilly_on_mcca.html#comments
You keep claiming that this stance is based solely on religion, but you have yet to respond to the facts we have posted. I have not yet told you that you should quit birth control because of God or religion, and I find it insulting that you continue to perpetuate this lie without even bothering to answer our posts which actually refute what you’re saying.
You seem to want to close your ears to what we’re actually saying, and replace it with what you WANT us to be saying. Did you see all of Jacque’s posts in the first link? She did not use religion to counter your arguments. Why do you keep insisting we do?
Xalisae, why do you keep going away? I would really like to discuss this with you honestly, and I’d like you to hear what we’re saying, and at the very least, even if you disagree, I’d like it to be a respectful disagreement. We don’t have to be enemies just because we disagree on this issue. Let’s discuss this, please.
This is why The Pill can fail! If the thinning of the endometrium took place even when there was breakthrough ovulation, there would be no pregnancies among woman on The Pill.
Doesn’t that assume that all women are taking the pill correctly?
Janet, any health professional who could really prove previously unknown dangers of abortion–would immediately become famous and successful.
Somg,
I doubt that.
Seriously, in whose eyes would that person become famous? Certainly the abortion providers wouldn’t be cheering.
Successful? How? Pray tell…..
Are you kidding? You have no idea what big news that would be. In the eyes of the global medical academic network. If it were significant.
You always succeed in the academy if you successfully disprove the opinion of a very large majority of its members.
Are you kidding? You have no idea what big news that would be. In the eyes of the global medical academic network. If it were significant.
Posted by: SoMG at August 5, 2008 1:54 AM
Of course, I’m NOT kidding. Sure it would be huge news, but it’s never going to happen because who’d believe it when it happened ????? (Look at your qualifier “If it were significant”….) No finding against abortion will ever be “significant enough”. What would it take to convince you that abortion was a bad thing???? I doubt anything could. SoMG, there could be an elephant in the room and these people you are talking about would NEVER see it. It’s never going to happen in a million years. Do you catch my drift? How else can I say it?
Janet, any health professional who could really prove previously unknown dangers of abortion–would immediately become famous and successful.
Posted by: SoMG at August 4, 2008 2:28 PM
What result of abortion could be more dangerous than the loss of a baby’s life????
Nothing. Do you see my point?
Janet, if someone proved that having an abortion caused five percent of the patients to go deaf at age fifty, that would be significant.
And citing fetal death as a “danger” of abortion only makes RTLs look stupid to reasonable readers. Keep it up!
…says the abortionist….
Says anybody with sense.
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