Abortion

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John
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Abortion

Post by John »

The politics and theology of abortion

Higgenbotham
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Re: Abortion

Post by Higgenbotham »

In my opinion, the issue of abortion can only be intelligently debated within a larger social context.

My understanding, and I haven't had personal experience with this in some time, is that kids are being given these options by various factions:

1. Don't have sex until you're married. Minority view.
2. Have sex, but use birth control. If birth control fails, abortion is an option. Default option for the middle and upper classes.
3. Have sex and, don't worry, the government will pay for everything if you get pregnant. Default option for the lower class.

Setting aside the moral arguments, due to present economic constraints, none of these options are really viable for the long term continuation of this civilization.

Fifty plus years ago, it was considered a viable option for some kids, if it so worked out that way, to get pregnant as teens, get married young, have the child, then for the man to get a job that supported his family. That option is no longer on the table due to the offshoring of manufacturing jobs, which has hit the lower classes the hardest.

The results of all of this have been documented in the forum, but haven't been tied to a discussion of the abortion issue. One thing that would really alleviate the contentiousness of the abortion issue would be for the country to have an honest discussion about viable options for young people to support families (jobs for 18-25 year old men that would support a family without the wife working, in particular), but the country as a whole is not honest enough, intelligent enough or mature enough to admit that Ross Perot and Donald Trump were right about free trade agreements and Bill Clinton and Al Gore were wrong, which is the first step in opening up such a discussion. Instead, wealthy Democrats want to frame up and control the debate as, "What's wrong with you deplorables out there? You should be reading Who Moved my Cheese and go find more cheese!" when all people want is real jobs that support families.

The key point in the repeat of the data below is: "These two sets of data show that there is virtually nobody with any financial means under the age of 25 giving birth in America today." Eyeballing the data below, it can be calculated that about 8 percent of the births in the United States are to women under age 25 who are not on Medicaid. That's a pretty sobering statistic. It corroborates the fact that there are virtually no jobs in the United States available to support young families.


Higgenbotham wrote:
Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:56 am
Results—The provisional number of births for the United States in 2018 was 3,788,235, down 2% from 2017 and the lowest number of births in 32 years. The general fertility rate was 59.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44, down 2% from 2017 and another record low for the United States. The total fertility rate declined 2% to 1,728.0 births per 1,000 women in 2018, another record low for the nation. Birth rates declined for nearly all age groups of women under 35, but rose for women in their late 30s and early 40s.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr-007-508.pdf
Higgenbotham wrote:
Fri May 21, 2021 11:08 am
Image

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/nata ... hboard.htm

Selecting "Age Specific Birth Rates" on the left gives this chart.

I've posted the below graph before. These two sets of data show that there is virtually nobody with any financial means under the age of 25 giving birth in America today.

Image
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

Higgenbotham
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Re: Abortion

Post by Higgenbotham »

Higgenbotham wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:23 pm
Eyeballing the data below, it can be calculated that about 8 percent of the births in the United States are to women under age 25 who are not on Medicaid.
I went to the CDC site and got the numbers for the data shown. Since the data is based on rate (number of births per thousand), this calculation assumes that the population in each 5 year cohort is the same. The ages of the cohorts are followed by the rate.

30-34 94.9
25-29 90.2
20-24 63.0
35-39 51.8
15-19 15.4
40-44 11.8

All the rates sum to 327.1.

The percentage of births not on Medicaid who are under age 25 is therefore about:

[15.4*(1 - 0.775) + 63.0*(1 - 0.637)]/327.1 x 100 = 8.0%.


Having the majority of births to women aged 25-34, while mostly OK on an individual basis, is probably not OK for the population at large, or at least not as good as the majority of births being to women aged 18-24, who on average are going to be healthier. Most of these births to women aged 25-34 would also be to fathers who are older than the women. At these ages, genetic defects, while still small on an individual basis, are probably increasing enough to have a negative effect on the health of the population, especially if this were to continue for several generations. I am no expert on these matters, but I am also skeptical that there are any true experts, as is the case with many health issues today.
American families changed a lot starting in the 1960s and 1970s. Two years stand out in particular: 1960, when the birth-control pill entered the market, and 1973, when the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. A new study makes the provocative argument that the latter, not the former, is what really prompted Americans to get married and start having children at older ages than they used to. (Hat tip to Tyler Cowen; free draft of the paper here.)
https://nationalreview.com/corner/how-s ... -unfolded/

If this is true (and I'm skeptical about this too), this effect of abortion on the health of the future population did us no favors.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

John
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Re: Abortion

Post by John »

Saturday December 3rd 2022

Re: abortion

you gave the 1960 birth control pill and 1973 roe versus Wade as two crucial years affecting the American family.

I would give another date that I consider even more important than those two and this is something that nobody wants to talk about.

in 1972, thanks to Democrat policy, single mothers were flooded with welfare payments. poor blacks were particularly targeted. since father's were required to pay child support, these welfare payments required that the father be gone. this policy forced the break up of poor intact families.

in the 1960s, 75% of black children were born into an impact family. today, that figure is 25%, and getting smaller. so 75% of black children today have no fathers. this is the so-called core reason why hundreds of blacks are killed each week on the streets of Chicago and other cities run by democrats. the Democrats want them killed, just as they used the KKK to kill them in the last century.

spottybrowncow
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Re: Abortion

Post by spottybrowncow »

Higgy & John,

Those are excellent practical analyses of the situation, and I thank you both for laying it out so clearly.

But the other "lens" through which this is viewed is one of morality, and whether it's just as wrong to kill a baby in the womb as a baby who has been born. Clearly, segments of society are getting more comfortable with death, with one obvious example being the recent liberalization of indications for "Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)" in Canada.

Setting aside the moral issue of whether abortion is murder, there is no question the woman is, at least initially, more impacted by a pregnancy than the biological father, and her feelings must be weighed carefully. But that doesn't mean others should be coerced to countenance or pay for what they perceive (with more than a little justification) as murder.

I have a feeling this topic will continue to generate more valid questions than useful answers, but that's OK, discussion is good.

John
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Re: Abortion

Post by John »

Saturday, December 03, 2022

This is something that I first posted in 2005:
Devil's Advocate wrote: > I am nevertheless a believer that human nature does not progress
> at all. Thus, no matter how "good" life is, there is always going
> to be a tendency to knock it, to want something else or different.
> I think Solomon summed it up pretty clearly: We're born into
> trouble and trouble follows us all the days of our lives.
I have to agree.
Devil's Advocate wrote: > I guess the question might be better rephrased: Do you ever find
> yourself wishing you weren't born?
This question was considered in the play Man of La Mancha. In
this scene, the other Inquisition prisoners have put Miguel de
Cervantes on trial and are threatening to destroy the manuscript of
Don Quixote de la Mancha that Cervantes has written. In his
defense, Cervantes explains the madness of Don Quixote, who is
accused of not seeing "life as it is":
Miguel de Cervantes wrote: > "'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years and I've
> seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief.
> I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature -- moans from
> bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave.
> I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the
> lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment. These were men
> who saw 'life as it is,' but they died despairing.
>
> No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with
> confusion, questioning, 'Why?'
>
> I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they
> had ever lived.

> When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?
> Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this
> may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too
> much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as
> it is, and not as it should be!"
> http://www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O'Toole/otoole2.htm
Play the following MP3 file for full effect:
http://www.reelclassics.com/Audio_Video ... adness.mp3

Generational theory presumably tells us about 'life as it is.' If
Cervantes is right, then perhaps those of us who study generational
theory are the ones who are mad. I'd be hard pressed to disagree.

John

Higgenbotham
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Re: Abortion

Post by Higgenbotham »

John wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:05 pm
Saturday December 3rd 2022

Re: abortion

you gave the 1960 birth control pill and 1973 roe versus Wade as two crucial years affecting the American family.

I would give another date that I consider even more important than those two and this is something that nobody wants to talk about.

in 1972, thanks to Democrat policy, single mothers were flooded with welfare payments. poor blacks were particularly targeted. since father's were required to pay child support, these welfare payments required that the father be gone. this policy forced the break up of poor intact families.

in the 1960s, 75% of black children were born into an impact family. today, that figure is 25%, and getting smaller. so 75% of black children today have no fathers. this is the so-called core reason why hundreds of blacks are killed each week on the streets of Chicago and other cities run by democrats. the Democrats want them killed, just as they used the KKK to kill them in the last century.
It does seem to be something nobody wants to talk about - I never heard or read about the history of how the welfare programs were started. However, I did see some of the early results in the late 1980s when I was on the ground as a landlord in a lower income area in Wisconsin. Many times, single mothers would tell me that they received $440 per month for one child, $517 for two, $617 for three, or $708 for four. Today, in recalling this, I wondered why I never heard about five, having heard the other figures several times during those years. It just so happened that I was able to find a source for those figures - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO ... 09-2-8.pdf - and, according to this source, there was a payment increase for 5 children to $766. As you can see, the increases were rather stout until it came to the fifth child and that bit of social engineering probably effectively capped AFDC families at four children.

What happened to the fifth child? What comes into my head is the song where they repeat number nine, number nine, number nine...could there have been in some cases a number five, number five, number five where that fifth child was aborted and perhaps more than once?

According to this source, it seem possible, even likely, that was the case.
Fifteen years ago, New Jersey became the first of over twenty states to introduce the family cap, a welfare reform policy that reduces or eliminates cash benefits for unmarried women on public assistance who become pregnant. The caps have lowered extra-marital birth rates, as intended but as this book shows they did so in a manner that few of the policy's architects are willing to acknowledge publicly, namely by increasing the abortion rate disproportionately among black and Hispanic women. This book presents the caps history from inception through implementation to the investigation and the dramatic attempts to squelch the author's unpleasant findings. The book contains clear-cut evidence and data analyses, yet also plays close attention to the reactions the author's findings provoked in policymakers, both conservative and liberal, who were unprepared for the effects of their crude social engineering and did not want their success scrutinized too closely. The book argues that absent of any successful rehabilitation or marriage strategies, abortion provides a viable third way for policymakers to help black and Hispanic women accumulate the social and human capital they need to escape welfare, while simultaneously appealing to liberals passion for reproductive freedom and the neoconservatives sense of social pragmatism.
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Rejection
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

John
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Re: Abortion

Post by John »

I believe what you're describing here it's bill Clintons world famous welfare reform program that he announced in the state of the Union address in 1996.

Higgenbotham
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Re: Abortion

Post by Higgenbotham »

spottybrowncow wrote:
Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:20 pm
But the other "lens" through which this is viewed is one of morality, and whether it's just as wrong to kill a baby in the womb as a baby who has been born.
I don't think humans are capable of making absolute moral determinations either as individuals or as a group, yet for many things for which we are incapable, we find ourselves in situations where we must have a view. Having said that, I personally believe every human consists of a body and a spirit, and when a person willfully engages in sexual activity, that person has a duty both to a higher power and to the spirit that will enter any resulting baby to keep it alive. Reason being, I believe a spirit may have been destined or assigned to enter a specific body at a specific time for reasons that I as a human can't possibly understand and it's not for me to defeat the intended purpose or plan by aborting my baby.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

Higgenbotham
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 11:28 pm

Re: Abortion

Post by Higgenbotham »

For many years, there was sort of a social contract put into place where young people understood that the rules of the game were that, first of all, as mentioned previously, family supporting jobs are not for the most part available until someone is in their late 20s and there are hoops that need to jumped through in order to get there. Also, as mentioned, while waiting for that job to materialize, it is an acceptable option to use contraceptives, have sex, and if the contraceptives fail it was legal to have an abortion. That was the deal that was struck and though I don't personally agree with it and would not advocate that my daughter follow this path, it is what happened, and the alternatives for young people who choose not to follow this path or who can't are, frankly, not great either. If conservatives are going to take away abortion rights, then there should have been a head start on some way for this larger issue to be addressed. It's possible, though, that when the Boomers move out of the work force that this could take care of itself on its own, at least to some extent.
Students plan to demand that their school step in and defend their reproductive rights and freedom of gender expression in the absence of action from elected leaders, CalTech graduate student and founder of GSAN, Rachael Kuintzle told ABC News in an interview.

GSAN was born over the summer when Kuintzle started emailing student leaders including grad student government leaders, union reps and advocacy club officers.

"Right after the Supreme Court decision in June, I felt really helpless and I started reaching out to grad students across the country … emailing them, and asking if they wanted to meet together and figure out what we can do to get health into the hands of our students as soon as possible. And so what came out of that was this day of action," Kuintzle said in an interview with ABC News.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/students-50-s ... d=90972293

The speech that high school valedictorian Paxton Smith pulled from inside her graduation gown was not the one she had shown the school. So she took a deep breath before launching into it, wondering whether she would be allowed to share her thoughts about Texas' new restrictive abortion law.

"I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights," Smith said in her speech at the graduation ceremony for Lake Highlands High School in Dallas.

Despite swapping her text, Smith finished her speech and got a rousing cheer from her classmates and staff. In the days since her address on Sunday, video of the event has gone viral, and Smith has been praised for speaking her mind. (You can read a full transcript of her speech below.)

"I have dreams, and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does," Smith said. She later added, "And without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us."

Smith concluded her speech by stating, "We cannot stay silent."
Smith's father, Russell Smith, tells the Lake Highlands Advocate that he's proud of his daughter.

"It was something that she felt was important, and she had the nerve, determination and boldness to put herself out there and say her piece," he said. "So few people demonstrate this level of maturity and poise, regardless of age."
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/03/10028315 ... abortion-l

If these were my daughters, I would not be proud of them, I would be disgusted, though I do understand their positions and also understand that my position is a minority position. In any event, I will be doing what I consider a better job of raising my almost 3 year old daughter than Russell Smith did so that she does not end up like his daughter did.

This is the part of the text of her speech that is most relevant to the violation of the social contract that she understood should not have been violated:
I have dreams and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does. And we have spent our entire lives working towards our future. And without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us. [applause]

I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail, I am terrified that if I am raped, then my hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts for my future will no longer matter. I hope that you can feel how gut-wrenching that is. I hope you can feel how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken away from you.

And I'm talking about this today — on a day as important as this, on a day honoring 12 years of hard academic work, on a day where we are all gathered together, on a day where you are most inclined to listen to a voice like mine, a woman's voice — to tell you that this is a problem, and it's a problem that cannot wait.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.

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