Fellow ranters, help me with a LTE.

[nolawitch58]

Here is the text of the twerp's letter of yesterday:

Re: "The ban plays on," Other Opinions, March 9.

Most Americans do not favor abortion during all nine months of pregnancy. Roe v. Wade allows for abortions for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy.

How long will Ellen Goodman continue to ignore the research of post-abortive women who suffered from a host of problems including depression, suicide, abuse, despair and infertility as the result of past abortions?

Simply examine the evidence and read the testimonies of women who regret their abortions.

Charles P. Stiebing III

Here is my reply:

Regarding Charles Stiebing III's letter full of truthiness on 03/11/2006, presented here is the factiness of abortion for those whose minds aren't closed.

Roe v. Wade does not allow for abortion for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy. Abortion is allowed freely during the first trimester (three months) of gestation. The second trimester can be more regulated with regards to the health of the woman. The third trimester is greatly restricted due to fetal viability. For those who wish to actually read the ruling before risking sounding clueless, the text can be found online here: http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/ or in your local library's reference section.

How long will those unAmerican groups who wish to institute a theocracy here continue to ignore the Constitution? How do they ignore the facts that abortion is safer than childbirth with only 1 in 200,000 women's deaths for abortion as opposed to 1 in 13,500 women's deaths for childbirth? Further, taking into account the increased likelihood of being murdered while pregnant increased to 20% over the 11% rate of non-pregnant women, abortion is a much safer path for many women to take.

If nearly 75% of women having abortions gave the reasons such as too young, bad timing (unfinished education), mental health problems, financial troubles, wrong partner, etc., are those frivolous reasons? And what if they are? Do we want frivolous people having children, especially against their wills?

The regret issue is as bogus as the cherry-picked intelligence the Bush Administation used to get us into war with Iraq. In fact according to scientific studies, most women don't experience any regret. Perhaps the ones who do have been shamed into it by their anti-choice friends, family and church members. Those with a theological axe to grind can use push polls to obtain the results they want by framing the questions in specific ways to get the answers they want and not the facts or the truth. In the same manner, there are those who purport to be scientists who are tasked with the job of cooking the data to come up with statistics which support anti-choice organizations' goals. A quick perusal of websites dealing with regrets about abortion cannot turn up one without a religious theme. Most women don't regret their abortions so much as they regret getting pregnant in the first place.

As for regret, advice columnist Ann Landers asked her readers in 1976 if they would have children if they had it to do over. Seventy percent of her readers said they wouldn't. TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw did a more recent study and came up with 30% who said they wouldn't have had children. Nearly thirty years of safe, legal abortion has reduced the number of people regretting being parents from 70% to 30%. That 30% are probably the same people who abuse, neglect and otherwise do a bad job of parenting. Which regret has a more detrimental effect on society? Simply examine the evidence on both sides and read the words of women who don't regret their abortions at http://www.imnotsorry.net if you truly wish to make an informed and not emotional or theological opinion.

One last thought, another disturbing issue is that a government which can force women to give birth will have the same power to force them to have abortions. Both are equally horrific. In another decade or so, the problem of overpopulation will be as evident here as it has been in China for decades. Our government will likely be forced to institute similar draconian measures as China. Do you want to leave that legacy for your children or grandchildren who will be of reproductive age then?

Is there anything I've left out? Anything I should remove? Cross posted to cf_hardcore.

Comments

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

it looks good to me. You go girl!

going off topic for a second

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

I made the mistake of reading some other posts in cf_hardcore (mostly to figure out what "cf" meant). It's always a lot of fun to find out one is being denigrated by an entire class of people of which one is unaware (unaware of the denigration, not the class of people). My brain is full of retorts, but I'm going to keep them to myself. Well, OK, I have to just get ONE off my chest...

I hope none of these people's health care practicioners will ever be more than 15 years younger then they are, and that they "walk their talk" and refuse any help from anyone in a younger generation as they require geriatric care. The little shithead kicking their seat in the movies this weekend might be the nurse giving them a catheter later in life (and hopefully they'll remmeber to lube the thing before inserting it).

Please excuse me, I have to go chew my cud now.

Re: going off topic for a second

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

That is a rant community and as such, very few references are made of PNBs (parents not breeders) as opposed to the BNPs (breeders not parents). If your kid doesn't act like a chimpanzee on crack (and from what I've seen of her posts over on UF, she doesn't), then you aren't the kind of awful person being decryed over there. You don't sound like you've ever been the kind of person to put up with obnoxious behavior by your offspring in public. Sadly, your numbers are dwindling and being replaced by people producing the aforementioned chimpanzees.

Re: going off topic for a second

[voxwoman.livejournal.com]

yeah, I know people like that exist (both the chimpanzees on crack - although that's giving chimps a bad name - and people that don't appreciate kids) - but there are parents that get annoyed with other kids that aren't being raised right, too.

It was, shall we say... unexpected, that's all.

Wait a gosh darn minnut

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

I was raised right and look what the heck happened.

Long live the crack chimps!

[celticess.livejournal.com]

I'd add in something about the stats on children with FAS from parents that shouldn't of been aloud to have babies. The problems with poverty induced by having huge volumes of children because all forms of birth control or dealing with things is forbidden. Also the amount of both parent and children traumatized knowing the child was concieved by rape. As well as though it can be traumatizing to abort when a child is wanted because there is medical need... if it's early in the pregnancy it will likely save the womans life and she can have more children if she wants one or adopt.

In countries where abortion is aloud and strongly regulated and there is adaquate sex education there is probably less poverty and abuse going on, and less family stressors. It amazes me in this day and age that a person can get pregnant and not realize it. But the state of sex education in some places is such it does happen. Not because a person is ignorant but because they've been denied the education to make reasonable choices for themselves. If they hadn't of been denied that perhaps a few less abortions would of been needed or a few less unwanted children born into families where they are abandoned, given up, or abused.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

It's already too long and I have to cut it. The shame is that so many people have such an appallingly short attention span to where newspapers limit the word counts. I could go on at length about the subject, but space would prohibit it being printed.

[celticess.livejournal.com]

They really limit you in word count? Typically editors here might slight spelling changes or gramatical changes and only make the odd snip. I think my big letter that replaces the professional writers colum one time only had 2 lines snipped from it but was otherwise presented as is. Then again it was a smaller local paper.

People have been really active in mine because the MP wants a snail mail poll on gay marriage because conservatives want to vote on it... They know they'd likely loose but all the same they want a vote. There was talk they might also bring up abortion again but right now it's just gay marriage.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, they limit your word count. Most people can't write very much anyway. They're not like us.

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

A couple of suggestions, but otherwise looks good. (Now will your blood pressure go down? ;)

from: presented here is the factiness of abortion for those whose minds aren't closed.
to: presented here are the facts of abortion.
Factiness carries the sense that your facts havebeen manipulated, as his "truthiness" has.

from: second trimester can be more regulated with regards to the health of the woman.
to: can be and most often is more regulated...
Forestalls the 'well, no one regulates 2nd trimester even if they can' retort.

from: are those frivolous reasons? And what if they are? Do we want frivolous people having children, especially against their wills?
to: are those frivolous reasons? Would you force your daughter to bear an unwanted child under any of those conditions?

from: The regret issue is as bogus as the cherry-picked intelligence the Bush Administation used to get us into war with Iraq. I
to: The regret issue is bogus, manipulative and misleading.
Um, I'd leave George out of this one... just another can of worms that would create a tangent from the real issue

from: One last thought, another disturbing issue is that a government which can force women to give birth will have the same power to force them to have abortions. Both are equally horrific. In another decade or so, the problem of overpopulation will be as evident here as it has been in China for de
to: One last thought, a government which can force women ... are equally horrific.
Reads with more impact; reference to China dilutes. Leave them with the thought of forced abortions.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Good suggestions. I've whittled it down to 517 words. I'd like to get it below 500 if possible to make it more likely to be printed.

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

Take another look at the paragraph that begins "As for regret, advice columnist...." It could use to be a little cleaner and would come close to providing you with 17 words to cut.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I've reworded it and gotten the whole thing down to 442. I took out the whole paragraph about reasons. I'd like to get it closer to 200 which is the newspaper's desired upper length.

[krikkert.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, you're going beside the point with the Constitution reference -- when I first read through, I was left with a notion of "WTF? There's nothing in the Constitution about abortions!"

I would change it to "For how long will we let the unAmerican groups who wish to institute a theocracy talk their illogical talk?

[thewrongcrowd.livejournal.com]

Um no. Legal abortion in the US is based on a constitutional right to privacy and self-determination with the 9th and 14th amendments used as the legal foundation.

Tho' you're right in the suggestion, as at least half of the readership will be of the "if it doesn't say pink day-glo in the Constitution, there can be no pink day-glo legally" ilk.

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I took that out. If they actually read the decision, they'll see for themselves that the justices at the time referenced those amendments. If they don't, they're fuckwits anyway.

[lab-rattus.livejournal.com]

Fuckwit?? I love it! May I borrow?

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

Take it. I stole it too.

[happydog.livejournal.com]

nope, I think you covered it all. Fire it out there.

[kelli217.livejournal.com]

I think the sources that say that one in every nine (11%) non-pregnant women are murdered and one in every five (20%) pregnant women are murdered are either living in a VERY violent society and should be advocating everyone to be packing heat, or else they are misrepresenting the statistics.

It's very hard for me to believe those numbers, as that would be a per-capita rate of 200 homicides per 1000 for pregnant women, and this page lists the per-capita murder rate for the population as a whole as only being 0.042802 per 1000. That takes at least 11,682 people in a random sample to even get the likelihood of even one death by murder to be over the 50% probability mark.

In general, I recommend leaving the specific numbers out. Just say that it's more likely that women will be murdered while pregnant.

[tomo2k.livejournal.com]

'More likely' is different to 'actual rate of'

If the normal rate is 1%, then increasing that by 20% gives a new rate of 1.2%

[kelli217.livejournal.com]

And that would be fine if the baseline weren't supposedly 11% for non-pregnant women. So, in other words, 11% as a ratio of what? 20% as a ratio of what? Best to leave out the numbers unless you can explain them.

As Susan's original post says, "20% over the 11% rate of non-pregnant women." So, then sure, you can say, okay, 20% more than 11% is 13.2%—but there's still the issue of the 11% to start with. Does that mean 11% higher than the average for the whole population? Is the 20% number compared against the same baseline of the whole population (20% more likely to be murdered than the general population), or against the 11% (13.2% more likely to be murdered than the general population)?

So that whole reference to those specific numbers needs to either be expanded with an explanation of what the numbers mean, or else snip them out. Given the restrictions of space, I vote for snippage. If it simply must be included, then it should probably be phrased something like this: Further, taking into account the increased likelihood of being murdered while pregnant, abortion is a much safer path for many women to take. The murder rate for non-pregnant women is 11% over the national average, which is bad enough, but the murder rate for pregnant women is 20% [higher, at 13.2%].

[nolawitch.livejournal.com]

I think I cut that sentence. Let me check. Nope. I didn't cut it. Maybe they'll cut that out. It's over the word count and I haven't heard from them about printing it yet.

[applauds]

[real-skeptic.livejournal.com]

Wow, wonderfully written.

[the-real-egaeus.livejournal.com]

The last paragraph is a slippery slope argument. It's typically considered a logical fallacy.

[ozanbaba.livejournal.com]

at least there is people that still knows something about liberity.