This is the continuation to http://www.progressiveu.org/052011-my-conversation-abortionno-org
Well well well... I just checked my email and wow, they DID reply. In fact, they even signed their response. "They" are in fact "he", and "he" is not just some random person who looks through the survey responses and harrasses people who think abortion is okay. He is, in fact, the Director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. In other words, the guy who runs this whole thing.
Interesting that he even bothered to send me an email in the first place.
Anyway, this is his reply to my response:
"Your argument isn’t with us regarding survival rates, it is with the government agency quoted by the NYT. Again and again you dispute the findings of peer-reviewed clinical studies published in the periodic literature of medicine. Please visit www.abortionbreastcancer.com and www.afterabortion.org and you will see studies and meta-analyses which refute your contentions. As for the issue of the personhood of the fetus, humanity is an indisputable attribute of embryonic and fetal life. It is recognized in teaching texts used in textbooks in medical schools everywhere. But personhood is a political status which society can grant or withhold arbitrarily. This denial of rights of personhood has victimized African Americans, Native Americans, European Jews, etc., etc. You are objectively when you say the studies on which we rely are incorrect without any evidence to support those claims. We have never said women don’t die from illegal abortions but we do say that the abortion industry has admitted to greatly exaggerating the numbers (i.e. Bernard Nathanson, “Aborting America”)."
Notice how he basically ignored half the stuff I said? Sigh...
This is what I responded with:
"How is my argument not with you? You are the one claiming incorrect things, such as that viability generally begins at 21 weeks.
Regarding the supposed link between breast cancer and abortion - abortionbreastcancer.com admits that the main reason for this "link" is because a completed pregnancy adds protection (as I said in the previous email). The page http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_canc2.htm explains why many of the studies that find a link between breast cancer and abortion are flawed (primarly because they are case-control studies, not cohort studies). The National Breast Cancer Coalition, the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Insitute, and the World Health Organization, among many other prominent health organizations, all say there is no link between breast cancer and abortion.
I did not explain precisely why each of your "facts" is incorrect because you did not ask me to. You simply sent me a demanding one liner telling me to state one fact. I stated several. Since you asked, though:
The claim that abortion causes uterine damage is incorrect. Your source for that claim is from 1989 - almost 20 years ago. Abortion methods have changed significantly since then, and many are no longer performed surgically, thus there is no risk to the uterine wall at all.
All your sources claiming that abortion causes future problems with pregnancy are over 20 years old - abortion methods have changed. Also, you're basing that claim off only three articles - do you even know the size of the studies? What type of studies they were? How accurate they were?
Allow me to repeat: "According to the World Health Organization, botched abortions account for 13% of pregnancy-related deaths worldwide (65,000 girls and women per year). In Latin America, the percentage jumps to 21%. In Mexico, it's 31%. In Egypt, abortion-related problems are responsible for about one-fifth of all obstetric and gynecologic admissions. In some countries, women suffering from complications from botched abortions make up two thirds of patients in maternity wards." These numbers are NOT from "the abortion industry." Are you or are you not claiming that when abortion is illegal, more women DON'T die from it, and it's NOT an extremely dangerous procedure?
You also claim that outlawing abortion would dramatically decrease its frequency. As I said in the previous email, this is completely untrue, and I explained why. If you are interested I can also provide you with studies that back this up.
Also, you didn't reply to this bit: "Do you usually reply to survey comments? I was not expecting a response, let alone one in such a demanding tone." Although I certainly don't mind explaining my views further to you and explaining why I disagree so strongly with yours, I am a bit concerned about this apparent practice of responding to survey comments. If a woman responds to the survey and admits she's had an abortion and doesn't regret it, do you then email her and call her a murderer, or something of the like?"
What're you guys thinking of this little debate, so far? :) If you like it so far, please give it a high rating! :)
Just be considerate that as the Director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, he may not have the time to respond to everything you say.
Center for Bio-Ethical Reform = AbortionNO.org.
And, Kiota (and everyone else), I found this little tidbit of information you might find interesting and/or amusing. It's their entry in the Better Business Bureau.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
I see a long lasting argument waiting to happen. You and the Director should exchange IM screennames. Then you could argue back and forth without having to wait for an answer!
Thanks for posting the reply! This was ...enlightening? Nah...just entertaining. This Director sounds like a pouting schoolboy.
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
No, he wants to show my emails to his staff and so forth. Easier to print out my email and pass it around than to print out an IM convo. Plus I think he knows I could destroy him in a IM convo so much more obviously than I am here. It's much harder to just totally ignore what someone says in an IM convo.
And pouting schoolboy? LOL, wait till you see what I post next. The guy is CRAZY. I mean, I'm not the most mature teenager in the world, but jeez. He makes me look like a freaking monk as far as emotional maturity and debating skills go. Just BASIC stuff like no personal attacks, keep it on the FACTS, don't attack each other, attack the FACTS... he doesn't get that! I'm going to have to explain those rules to him if his behavior continues to deterioate.
This is too totally wildly humorous for words!!
Although when you wear your long black furry embroidered coat with the crimson-lined sleeve zippers and tip your hoodie up ... ... lol
Amaf I don't think you could be a "freaking monk", rather a Sister Francesca Polymorphia of the Wild Misunderstood Rabbits or something like that.
You've run into the common norm in legal fancydancing: if you can't attack the facts because they're too powerful against you, attack the person stating them.
This Bioethics Director does not sound too bio*ethical* to me. sounds more like a playa ...
"To be on the wire is life. Everything else is just waiting." :Joe Gideon
You go girl. I half expected him to only respond to certain aspects of your previous email, but I didn't think he would say you were arguing with the wrong person. Strange, I enjoyed this and gave you a good rating (or Great!). I cannot wait to see what he says about the fact he responded to your survey, and if he always does that.
Après la pluie le beau temps. ♥
Check out my latest blog! :]
I never really understood why there was so much debate about abortion. I mean...it's legal. So the Pro-Choice have what they want, but I see on a lot of occasions Pro-Choice folk voicing the fact that abortion should be legal, or kept legal, or why it should always be legal. Or maybe, that it shouldn't be bad? Or maybe that it should be socially acceptable? I don't get it.
I may be biased, I may be wrong, and I am a male.
I also don't get picketing planned parenthood. Or signs with aborted fetuses on them.
What happens if abortion is illegal? Forced adoption? OK, but the threat of illegal abortions is still present. So which is better, an illegal abortion that endangers both lives, or a legal one? I think often, what would the victory be in God's eyes? (This a part of who I am) To have a lower abortion rate because abortion is illegal? Or is it something more then that? Like a culture that does have legalized abortion, but choses not to abort because there is no need to. We have to look at the root of the problem (I see abortion as a problem. I don't think many people don't..?), but that root is HUGE. Culture, Society, Community...all of these contribute. Most abortions would be avoided if Men (and our culture) didn't have a perverted look on sex. Or if Mothers and Fathers (or community) were there in support of the impregnate. Or Woman had respect, respect which was compromised in those sultry commercials, or pornos.
I don't think I pointed a finger in this...I wasn't trying to if i did.
I mean...it's legal. So the Pro-Choice have what they want
The debate is that pro-life people want to make it illegal and are very vigilant about it. AbortionNO.org is one of those types of sites. They also have a tendency to make pro-choice people look like pro-murder people by making it out that because we advocate for it to be available, we also try to force people to make use of it, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Most pro-choice people understand that our views are not everyone's views and that by making abortion illegal, we would be forcing our views on someone else, whereas, by making them legal, we give people the choice.
I may be biased, I may be wrong, and I am a male.
Nah, you just sound a little confused because it doesn't affect you directly until your girlfriend tells you she's pregnant and wants an abortion, so you haven't given it much thought.
I also don't get picketing planned parenthood.
Extremists and fundamentalists who not only are against abortion, but are against preventing pregnancy in the first place. :idk:
To have a lower abortion rate because abortion is illegal?
That's supposedly the idea, unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
Most abortions would be avoided if Men (and our culture) didn't have a perverted look on sex. Or if Mothers and Fathers (or community) were there in support of the impregnate.
I agree, it's a cultural thing, as well. It all stems from the community, which in turn stems from the family.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
The thing is, just because abortion is legal doesn't mean it's available, and just because it's legal doesn't mean it's always going to be legal. And it's not legal everywhere - it's not legal in most of the world, which is why so many women die from it.
Thing is, this guy I'm debating with doens't believe that illegal abortions are unsafe, or at least, that illegal abortions in the USA are safe. He firmly believes that the back-alley abortions are a myth, that the coat-hangers never existed, at least not in the USA. He believes that if abortion is illegal, less women would have abortions, thus less unborn babies would be murdered.
For some mysterious reason he doesn't try and lower the abortion rate by, say, educating people about contraception. He tries to lower the abortion rate by focusing on the women who already ARE pregnant and are trying to make a decision. Which is really ineffective if he wants to lower the abortion rate long-term. Plus he's completely wrong about the mortality rate and so forth (we go into that more in the next email... and in the next, that I'm gonna post as soon as I finish writing my reply for him).
Abortion rates aren't high because women don't have respect for the unborn or somesuch. They're high because there's a high rate of unwanted pregnancies. Cut down that rate (through education about contraception - abstinence only have been proven not to work, and besides, most women who get abortions are actually not teenagers anyway, and you really can't tell an adult woman to abstain. Besides, what if she's already married and doesn't want more kids? She needs to know about contraception, not abstinence. etc. I could go on about that for hours) and you cut the rate of abortions. But anti-abortionists don't seem to realize that. They approach it from the completely wrong end.
I think you oughta write a paper on this. [*Another* paper??]
From the completely RIGHT end, of course lol. It will be wasted on this so-called Director ---- but at least you oughta get academic credit !! !!
"To be on the wire is life. Everything else is just waiting." :Joe Gideon
Those are some great links he provided you with. ;-) I rated highly, and I'm interested to see where this goes.
read my blogs!
My ProU Blog
My Other Blog
Life is a moderately good play with a badly written 3rd act.~Truman Capote
I hope that was sarcasm? The links were to totally biased sites. :(
Well, considering the winking smiley (though it didn't become graphical since there's not graphical winking smiley), I think it was sarcasm.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
that one sentence was completely made up of sarcasm. :-)
read my blogs!
My ProU Blog
My Other Blog
Life is a moderately good play with a badly written 3rd act.~Truman Capote
You go, girl!
TTFN,
percivale
-------------------------
Check out Progressive PRIDE, a Gay-Straight Alliance for the Progressive U community.
After reading his response, it sounds as if he's ready to lobby for a fetus' right to vote. I wonder how that will work out for him.....
I don't know. It would probably put more thought into voting than a lot of 18+ year-olds. ;-)
read my blogs!
My ProU Blog
My Other Blog
Life is a moderately good play with a badly written 3rd act.~Truman Capote
pro-lifer here! i see no one else standing up for the other side ofthe arguement so i will. why dont you try a real pro-life site? try www.standtrue.com
Well, the other side of the argument is the website person saying that his information, although questionable, is ok to present as fact. The other side of the argument consists of name calling and twisting information around until it resembles something that agrees with him.
I'm not going to stand up for that, and I don't know anyone who would.
read my blogs!
ProU
Not ProU
Some mistakes can't be undone/ it'll never be like it was/ and wishing for it only makes it worse
Rocky Votolato