[RD] Abortion, once again

[TheMeInTeam]

rulings on gerrymandering and asset forfeiture are good examples that while scotus can make nuanced rulings, it can also simply ignore the constitution when it feels like it. when it does, there's not a lot we can do about it.

 

[Lexicus]

I still Boggle at this ruling.

it makes a lot more sense if you know the history and purpose of the conservative legal movement.

 

[EgonSpengler]

NPR, 15 May 2022 - "A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion — or being denied one"

Some interesting stuff here, which won't budge the hardcore pro-life side because they're not really interested in things like science and improving the lives of living, breathing women and children, but for those who are on the fence and looking for more information...

The idea for the Turnaway Study emerged from a 2007 Supreme Court abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart. In the majority opinion upholding a ban on a specific procedure used rarely in later abortions, Justice Anthony Kennedy speculated that abortions led to poor mental health. "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained," he wrote. "Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow."

Kennedy's speculation — and admitted lack of evidence — captured Foster's attention, "because you can't make policy based on assumptions of what seems reasonable without talking to a representative sample of people who actually wanted an abortion," she said. The Turnaway Study fact-checked the justice's guess, finding that not having a wanted abortion was more likely to lead to the mental health outcomes he'd described than having one.

So [access to abortion is] changing fundamental aspects of people's lives, including their chance at having children later under better circumstances.

I'll be honest, I'd never thought of this before. It makes some intuitive sense to me. afaik, some of the women who have an abortion would want a child eventually, just not now, and having a child now would hamper their ability to provide for that child. Imagine, if you will, a young woman who's forced to give birth and thus forced to drop out of college or even high school, or forced the raise a child alone, or forced to stay with a partner they don't want long-term. Give that same woman another 5 years to get her life together, and she's more likely to be having a baby with a decent job and a long-term partner (who's also had 5 additional years to get their life together). Either way, the pro-life crowd gets the baby they seem to so desperately crave*, and they could either put that child with parents who have educational degrees, stable jobs, better incomes, and stable relationships... or not.

I wonder: Are parents who have a first baby when they're not ready to less likely to have a second baby than parents who had their first a little bit later? That would be an interesting follow-up. I can envision a scenario in which restricting abortions slows population growth, by making it more difficult to raise a second child for parents who otherwise would have wanted two. (And this is in addition to all of the negative outcomes for any child born when their parents aren't ready, whether it's their first or not.)

* A baby somebody else will have to care for, of course.

 

[Samson]

NPR, 15 May 2022 - "A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion — or being denied one"

Some interesting stuff here, which won't budge the hardcore pro-life side because they're not really interested in things like science and improving the lives of living, breathing women and children, but for those who are on the fence and looking for more information...



I'll be honest, I'd never thought of this before. It makes some intuitive sense to me. afaik, some of the women who have an abortion would want a child eventually, just not now, and having a child now would hamper their ability to provide for that child. Imagine, if you will, a young woman who's forced to give birth and thus forced to drop out of college or even high school, or forced the raise a child alone, or forced to stay with a partner they don't want long-term. Give that same woman another 5 years to get her life together, and she's more likely to be having a baby with a decent job and a long-term partner (who's also had 5 additional years to get their life together). Either way, the pro-life crowd gets the baby they seem to so desperately crave*, and they could either put that child with parents who have educational degrees, stable jobs, better incomes, and stable relationships... or not.

I wonder: Are parents who have a first baby when they're not ready to less likely to have a second baby than parents who had their first a little bit later? That would be an interesting follow-up. I can envision a scenario in which restricting abortions slows population growth, by making it more difficult to raise a second child for parents who otherwise would have wanted two. (And this is in addition to all of the negative outcomes for any child born when their parents aren't ready, whether it's their first or not.)

* A baby somebody else will have to care for, of course.

Is this saying that white women are having all the illegal abortions? From table 1 of the paper, comparing turnaway-birth to turnaway-no-birth by race, 34% of white women who were turned away did not end up having the baby compared to 20% of black women, 13% of hispanic and 27 of other women.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Is this saying that white women are having all the illegal abortions? From table 1 of the paper, comparing turnaway-birth to turnaway-no-birth by race, 34% of white women who were turned away did not end up having the baby compared to 20% of black women, 13% of hispanic and 27 of other women.

The study included patients at 30 facilities in 21 states.

The gestational limits of the 30 final participating facilities ranged from 10 weeks through the end of the second trimester.

So that's a pretty big range. I think even under Roe, the rules or guidelines can vary by state. I guess it's also possible different facilities in the same state might have different guidelines, maybe based on their equipment, personnel, ability to provide after-care, etc. I think there were some states that required physicians who worked at a clinic have admitting privileges at a full hospital, just to make it harder to provide abortions. That one requirement right there would disproportionately impact poor and rural communities. Anyway, I would guess that White women are more likely to have other options, most likely by being able to travel to another facility, city, or state.


p.s. And that's without even getting into the disparities in medical treatment between White and Black patients, all up and down the healthcare system.

 

[Samson]

p.s. And that's without even getting into the disparities in medical treatment between White and Black patients, all up and down the healthcare system.

I would expect that to have the opposite effect. But yeah, if the thresholds are different the outcomes will be.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I would expect that to have the opposite effect. But yeah, if the thresholds are different the outcomes will be.

The 'turnaway-no-birth' group combined women who eventually got an abortion somewhere else with women who miscarried, and there are more miscarriages among African-American women than among White women (iirc, it's almost twice as many, 185% or something). So if we're just trying to see how many of the women had abortions after being turned away from one clinic, the difference between the White women and the Black women has to be higher than 14%. The more draconian restrictions on abortion are innately racist, on top of everything else.

 

[Lexicus]

The 'turnaway-no-birth' group combined women who eventually got an abortion somewhere else with women who miscarried, and there are more miscarriages among African-American women than among White women (iirc, it's almost twice as many, 185% or something). So if we're just trying to see how many of the women had abortions after being turned away from one clinic, the difference between the White women and the Black women has to be higher than 14%. The more draconian restrictions on abortion are innately racist, on top of everything else.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/anti-abortion-white-supremacy/

For white nationalists, meanwhile, as Carol Mason wrote in Killing for Life, Jewish people replaced Catholics as targets for groups like the KKK. “Now that abortion is tantamount to race suicide…naming Catholics—whose opposition to abortion has been so keen—as enemies would be counterproductive,” Mason wrote. Militant anti-abortion and explicit white nationalist groups came together prominently in the 1990s when a wing of the anti-abortion movement, frustrated with a lack of legislative progress, took on a more violent character fed by relationships with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

 

[EgonSpengler]

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/anti-abortion-white-supremacy/

I don't have access to that article, but yeah, I'm sure everyone would be shocked to learn that White Nationalists and Neo-Nazis are also frequently misogynist in addition to being racist and antisemitic.

 

[Samson]

I don't have access to that article

12 foot ladder is your friend.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

New Thread?

 

[Farm Boy]

Why would we need a new thread? The people who are wanted to talk about personhood can talk about personhood and the people who are wanted to call others genocidal monsters can. Seems the thread that's wanted.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Thread is fine.

 

[Farm Boy]

See?

 

[Samson]

It is only serial threads that get split at 1000 posts, to stop us being able to search for old posts or something

 

[Lexicus]

Why would we need a new thread? The people who are wanted to talk about personhood can talk about personhood and the people who are wanted to call others genocidal monsters can. Seems the thread that's wanted.

LMAO, one of the common pro-life talking points is that abortion itself constitutes genocide or mass murder.

 

[The_J]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01249-2

One claim made by abortion opponents in this case is that abortions no longer benefit women and even cause them harm, but dozens of studies contradict this. In just one, health economist Sarah Miller at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her colleagues assessed around 560 women of comparable age and financial standing who sought abortions4. They found that, five years after pregnancy, women who were denied the procedure had experienced a substantial increase in debt, bankruptcies, evictions and other dire financial events — whereas the financial standing of women who had received an abortion had remained stable or improved. A primary reason that women give for wanting an abortion is an inability to afford to raise the child, and this study suggests that they understand their own situations.

Abortion bans will extract an unequal toll on society. Some 75% of women who choose to have abortions are in a low income bracket and nearly 60% already have children, according to one court brief submitted ahead of the December hearing and signed by more than 150 economists. Travelling across state lines to receive care will be particularly difficult for people who do not have the funds for flights or the ability to take time off work, or who struggle to find childcare.

[...]Already, the United States claims the highest rate of maternal and infant mortality among wealthy nations. Should the court overturn Roe v. Wade, these grim statistics will only get worse.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The more draconian restrictions on abortion are innately racist, on top of everything else.

that's not how logic works.

observed differences in categories from x policy does not imply causation any more than correlation implies causation.

at best, you're guessing.

 

[Senethro]

that's not how logic works.

observed differences in categories from x policy does not imply causation any more than correlation implies causation.

at best, you're guessing.

Oh, its this song again. Its not exactly controversial, and you're never able to offer an alternative explanation for racially disparate outcomes seen.

Whereas:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780732/

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oh, its this song again. Its not exactly controversial, and you're never able to offer an alternative explanation for racially disparate outcomes seen.

Whereas:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780732/

correlation =/= is not controversial, correct. yet we do this song again, because this is an error multiple people seem inclined to repeat for whatever reason.

here have a random alternative explanation:

"more black people live in urban environments/cities. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

there you go. enjoy! best part is that it is at least as logically sound and supported as a "reason/cause", lol.

or perhaps alternatively: "according to senethro's logic, cities are racist". not the people running them, not policies, no. to be coherent, your position must assert the objects themselves (the buildings/locations etc) are inherently racist. have fun with that, but can we stop pretending it's sound reasoning to apply generally? probably not, but i'll try.