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- Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!uwvax!cabrales.cs.wisc.edu!rawdon
- From: rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Subject: Re: Some useful statistics
- Keywords: statistics abortion
- Message-ID: <1992Jul21.184046.11942@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
- Date: 21 Jul 92 18:40:46 GMT
- References: <q0cm=rj.ray@netcom.com> <Brpwvq.H19@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Jul21.080224.5034@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
- Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu (The News)
- Reply-To: rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu
- Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI
- Lines: 31
-
- In <1992Jul21.080224.5034@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> tjoa@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Tjoa) writes:
- >I was wondering... Every time you used the word "abortion" to describe your
- >statistics, did you mean induced/surgical or were there some "spontaneous
- >abortion" stats thrown in there, too? (Spontaneous abortion! Time to
- >prosecute someone!)
-
- >Yes, there are substandard clinics out there, but I don't think that
- >motel rooms and back-alleys would be better.
-
- I was struck by the scarcity of sources from the last decade (i.e., 1982
- or later).
-
- Also by the qualifications he (Steve Kellmeyer, for those just joining us)
- placed on many of his statements, for instance, the claim that based on
- reported statistics alone, abortion is the fifth leading cause of maternal
- death in the US. Fifth out of how many? Fifty? Fifteen? Five? What
- fraction of maternal deaths are caused by abortion? 10%? 1%? .001%? He
- doesn't say.
-
- While there is some useful information in there, most of it is quite old
- (have there been no developments in the abortion industry at all since
- 1982?). The article seems calculated to generate hysteria rather than be
- genuinely informative.
-
- --
- Michael Rawdon
- rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu
- University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department, Madison, WI
-
- The difference between the radical right and the radical left is that the
- radical right is scary and the radical left is silly.
-