[RD] Abortion, once again

[Sommerswerd]

Yeah, it does. But once they're dead, survivorship bias has fixed one inequality.

No it hasn't not if you don't have ****

Survivorship (potentially) "benefits" people who have something to inherit... otherwise all you get is the usual suck of being a survivor... and/or worse.

 

[Farm Boy]

That's not the unit of inequality fixed. Problematic remainders just mean it hasn't been applied liberally enough.

 

[Sommerswerd]

So... kill'em all? God would have a lot of sorting to do...

EDIT: Also... thinking about it some more... wouldn't unwanted pregnancies be the pinnacle of "problematic remainders"? Or was that your point?

 

[Farm Boy]

It is a finalizing solution of sorts.

 

[Sommerswerd]

*in CinemaSins voice* Thaaat's racist! *ding*

 

[Farm Boy]

Doesn't have to be, just need to think about it rightly.

Testing enables miracles. Look at the progress we've made against FAE and FAS. At the expression of downs. Tomorrow, maybe deafness, blindness. Then, maybe autism. Hell, we might even get to gender dysphoria if we dream big enough, someday.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Of course, too specific... can't forget eugenics... "rightly" indeed. That was a good word choice.

 

[Farm Boy]

As that one character said in The Boys, we like that just fine. We just don't like the word.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Correct... thinking about it... that would also potentially end the debate about race, I'd say... if some folks are "dreaming big"... like it's 1938.

 

[The_J]

The editors at both Nature (a few pages back) and Science have published the editorials with (obvioulsy) an opinion against what the high court proposes.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adc9968

[...]
In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy argued that there were “no reliable data to measure the phenomenon” of potential abortion regret, and the Court thus upheld the law.

[...]
My colleagues and I resolved to find that data—so that Supreme Court Justices and policy-makers could base their decisions not on conjecture, but on hard science. To that end, the Turnaway Study followed almost 1000 women across the country for 5 years to see how having an abortion, or being denied one, affected their physical health, mental health, finances, relationships, and children.

[...]
The research revealed that patients who were able to receive an abortion were more than six times more likely to report aspirational 1-year plans than those who were denied one. They are more likely to have a wanted child later and better able to take care of the children they already have. Because the majority of abortion patients are already parents, this means that being able to obtain an abortion has powerful, multigenerational impacts.
By contrast, if people are forced to carry a pregnancy to term, they are more likely to experience lasting financial hardships. After being denied an abortion, women had three times greater odds of being unemployed than those who obtained abortions and had four times higher odds of being below the federal poverty level.
Their physical and mental health are also at risk: Women unable to obtain an abortion said they had more symptoms of anxiety, lower self-esteem, and lower life satisfaction. They were more likely to report “fair or poor” health than those who had received abortions. And, again, their families feel the effects: Patients report more difficulty bonding with their baby, and their older children have worse developmental outcomes and are more likely to live in poverty.
The clearest finding from the Turnaway Study is that people know what is best for themselves and their families. The results are not theories or guesses. They are not anecdotes to be trotted out at politically expedient moments. They are based on a large set of data in which statistically significant patterns emerged across many people. [...] Science is clearly relevant to the controversial issues of our time, including abortion access in the United States—in fact, science is especially critical in these moments. The highest court in the United States should not ignore it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If a society requires entering buildings to participate in it, and some buildings have stairs, and some citizens are in wheelchairs, then in some senses it just isn't useful to ask how the stairs got there, or if they were placed with malicious intent.

Better to build a ramp than to claim that the stairs are somehow neutral or natural because they are noones "fault".

This is one reason why I advocate for disabled voters' rights. But that's something for another thread, if anyone wants to start one.

 

[bernie14]

Of course, too specific... can't forget eugenics... "rightly" indeed. That was a good word choice.

Historically, Planned Parenthood was intimately linked with the eugenics movement.

In 1920 Sanger publicly stated that "birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives."

EDIT: damn...this is even worse...(historically, of course)

"I consider that the world, and almost our civilization for the next 25 years, is going to depend on a simple, cheap, safe, contraceptive to be used in poverty stricken slums, jungles and among the most ignorant people."

 

[bernie14]

I mean tbh you aren't ready for critical theory anyway, you need remedial history education first

Why don't you start a "ask a critical theorist" thread so as to defend all of that unfalsifiable garbage?

 

[stinkubus]

Luckily for us it's no longer the 1920s and no one has to listen to what Margaret Sanger had to say.

 

[Farm Boy]

One rarely needs to hear that things fall down once you've absorbed the concept.

Water is wet.

 

[Senethro]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/bill-cassidy-maternal-mortality-rates

“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”

Its bad, and I don't think its neutral or natural factors causing racial disparity.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So hopefully, we can agree that a policy that makes abortion more difficult, ie., cost more, will disproportionately affect people with less means. As an aside, I'd think it is a safe assumption that our lawmakers are aware of this. I'd also expect, that it is uncontroversial, to state that black people are, disproportionately of lesser means than white people. So a policy that makes abortion cost more, in terms of time, resources, money, etc., will disproportionately affect black people, and our legislators are aware of that. So if they act to make abortion more difficult, they act to make it more difficult for black people. This is what exposes the policy to claims that it is racist policy.

the problem with this line of argumenting wrt abortion policy is that the "pro life" states consider fewer abortions a good outcome, generally. thus, similar to your emancipation example, *according to them* this policy is benefitting minority populations/poor populations disproportionately. i don't take their statements at face value, but it seems conspiracy-theory level of reach to think that texas legislature passed anti-abortion law with intention to harm black & hispanic populations with the presumed outcome of having more of those populations that resent + vote against them. that's a really strange "explanation", mechanistically.

there are other holes in the argument as presented too. for example, you correctly point out that many variables are correlated to each other...thus it does not follow even in principle that a policy that explicitly benefits poor is also necessarily designed to attack any arbitrarily selected co-variable. people in this thread didn't claim the policy was anti-race, anti-poor, and anti-8 other things simultaneously or similar. the discussion singled in on race, yet the limited information we have does not support it, and arguably presents an outright opposing explanation more convincingly.

again, disproportional effect has been demonstrated as refuted *by itself*. i'm still open to a mechanistic explanation, but you're still repeating the observed disparity and conjecturing the motivation for policy was therefore racist.

Killing the poor as a policy, results in disparate outcomes for black people I'd say.

this directly contradicts the supposed mechanistic explanation you give though :/. fewer abortions = more people, objectively. insofar as there are disparities, the stratifications getting fewer abortions as a result of the policy will have proportional population increase more.

What a great mechanistic explanation.

it isn't though. "i think their motivation is racist because we observe the disparity" doesn't change the assertion, at all.

whether something is innately racist or not isn't actually as important as whether it's executed with racism or having racist outcomes.

outcomes themselves are not "racist", by definition. it is the policy that may or may not be racist.

in regards to whether they actually are racist or not, or whether they care about racism or not. then they can high five themselves to hell and back about something not technically being racist, but lack of action when pushing a policy with racist outcomes... ain't a good luck, imo, and more relevantly, ain't a good policy.

if you took this rationale to its logical conclusion, you could literally claim every politician is racist, period. no exceptions. because we observe disparity of outcome from almost every policy wrt race. an "explanation" or model that (according to the arguments presented here) literally predicts hilary clinton, donald trump, desantis, and ortasio-cortez, whitmer, and kamala harris as identically racist, probably has something wrong with the model. no matter who among those names you like, if any, a model that uses rationale which applies to them equally is probably not functioning properly.

even in the context of abortion specifically you can make the same case against all of them, because all of them advocate a policy whereby, depending on your opinion of abortions in general, disproportionately impact some racial group.

so let's use a "mechanistic explanation" that doesn't actually equate aoc to trump and biden at the same time please.

If a society requires entering buildings to participate in it, and some buildings have stairs, and some citizens are in wheelchairs, then in some senses it just isn't useful to ask how the stairs got there, or if they were placed with malicious intent.

this is consistent with my argument, though the conclusion you come to only follows sometimes.

“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”

Its bad, and I don't think its neutral or natural factors causing racial disparity.

more misinformation, in this case quoted is objectively false. maternal mortality is not much higher for "people of color". it is higher for black americans, specifically.

Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2020 (cdc.gov)

notable that hispanic mothers had an even lower abortion rate than black mothers in the earlier article, too. so that doesn't predict this outcome either.

you are correct to note that it's unlikely purely natural/genetic factors leading to a different observed outcome. but that doesn't mean that it's useful to misattribute cause without basis to do so. in fact, doing so is harmful.

 

[Senethro]

this is consistent with my argument, though the conclusion you come to only follows sometimes.

Really? Under what circumstances are barriers to participation in society acceptable to label as neutral, or natural then? Additionally, when are they permissible to do nothing about, regardless of whose "fault" they are?

more misinformation, in this case quoted is objectively false. maternal mortality is not much higher for "people of color". it is higher for black americans, specifically.

Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2020 (cdc.gov)

notable that hispanic mothers had an even lower abortion rate than black mothers in the earlier article, too. so that doesn't predict this outcome either.

you are correct to note that it's unlikely purely natural/genetic factors leading to a different observed outcome. but that doesn't mean that it's useful to misattribute cause without basis to do so. in fact, doing so is harmful.

Louisiana, not the whole US.

 

[Angst]

the problem with this line of argumenting wrt abortion policy is that the "pro life" states consider fewer abortions a good outcome, generally. thus, similar to your emancipation example, *according to them* this policy is benefitting minority populations/poor populations disproportionately. i don't take their statements at face value, but it seems conspiracy-theory level of reach to think that texas legislature passed anti-abortion law with intention to harm black & hispanic populations with the presumed outcome of having more of those populations that resent + vote against them. that's a really strange "explanation", mechanistically.

there are other holes in the argument as presented too. for example, you correctly point out that many variables are correlated to each other...thus it does not follow even in principle that a policy that explicitly benefits poor is also necessarily designed to attack any arbitrarily selected co-variable. people in this thread didn't claim the policy was anti-race, anti-poor, and anti-8 other things simultaneously or similar. the discussion singled in on race, yet the limited information we have does not support it, and arguably presents an outright opposing explanation more convincingly.

again, disproportional effect has been demonstrated as refuted *by itself*. i'm still open to a mechanistic explanation, but you're still repeating the observed disparity and conjecturing the motivation for policy was therefore racist.



this directly contradicts the supposed mechanistic explanation you give though :/. fewer abortions = more people, objectively. insofar as there are disparities, the stratifications getting fewer abortions as a result of the policy will have proportional population increase more.



it isn't though. "i think their motivation is racist because we observe the disparity" doesn't change the assertion, at all.



outcomes themselves are not "racist", by definition. it is the policy that may or may not be racist.



if you took this rationale to its logical conclusion, you could literally claim every politician is racist, period. no exceptions. because we observe disparity of outcome from almost every policy wrt race. an "explanation" or model that (according to the arguments presented here) literally predicts hilary clinton, donald trump, desantis, and ortasio-cortez, whitmer, and kamala harris as identically racist, probably has something wrong with the model. no matter who among those names you like, if any, a model that uses rationale which applies to them equally is probably not functioning properly.

even in the context of abortion specifically you can make the same case against all of them, because all of them advocate a policy whereby, depending on your opinion of abortions in general, disproportionately impact some racial group.

so let's use a "mechanistic explanation" that doesn't actually equate aoc to trump and biden at the same time please.



this is consistent with my argument, though the conclusion you come to only follows sometimes.



more misinformation, in this case quoted is objectively false. maternal mortality is not much higher for "people of color". it is higher for black americans, specifically.

Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2020 (cdc.gov)

notable that hispanic mothers had an even lower abortion rate than black mothers in the earlier article, too. so that doesn't predict this outcome either.

you are correct to note that it's unlikely purely natural/genetic factors leading to a different observed outcome. but that doesn't mean that it's useful to misattribute cause without basis to do so. in fact, doing so is harmful.

i'm gonna skip a point of proportionality with the "identically racist" thing here; we don't have to touch on that. what i do wanna say is just... yes! there is a structural disparity regarding minorities by result of accumulated action. like, you're almost there

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i'm gonna skip a point of proportionality with the "identically racist" thing here; we don't have to touch on that. what i do wanna say is just... yes! there is a structural disparity regarding minorities by result of accumulated action. like, you're almost there

different groups perform differently or do different things based on their culture all the time, throughout history, regardless of what makes up those "groups".

there must be at least some method/reasoning to differential outcome disparities due to discrimination by humans vs disparities that arise from interactions with inanimate objects. this thread hasn't managed that yet, in the context of abortion.

Really? Under what circumstances are barriers to participation in society acceptable to label as neutral, or natural then?

in order to claim barriers, you must demonstrate barriers in that particular case.

in order to claim racism, you must demonstrate discrimination of the policy itself on basis of race. that is not possible by looking at statistical disparity alone, for reasons we've already covered (aka doing that takes us back to the moon).

Louisiana, not the whole US.

report from their department of health:

https://www.partnersforfamilyhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2018_PAMR_Report_FINAL_MF.pdf

unsurprisingly, while their overall maternal death rate is higher, the trends otherwise follow the national average. as in, it is still objectively false to claim that it's "people of color" who have a higher maternal death rate. only black americans suffer the increased mortality rate.

looking at a breakdown of what counts towards the statistic, it's easier to see why that is.

• a surprising % of people identified as pregnant/toward maternal mortality weren't, and that was only somewhat up from the previous year. this is a common mistake, apparently?
  
• #1 cause of maternal death was accidental overdose, followed by vehicle crashes and homicides.
• actual pregnancy-related death proportions align more closely to us national average (3.2x)
  • it seems even the government reports fall into the same pattern of mentioning observed disparity, and generalizing outcomes for black americans to "people of color" or "non-white" generally, which is false. They go so far as to claim "implicit bias/racism" as a result, despite that such "logic" implies louisiana is biased in favor of hispanic mothers (do we actually believe louisiana of all states would explicitly favor hispanic americans over both white and black americans?)

ignoring "maternal deaths to weapons or physical trauma" for now, if you are not prepared to conclude that there is systemic bias in favor of hispanic mothers wrt maternal mortality, then you must specifically claim that black americans in particular either have worse health baselines or receive worse care (or some combination). *why* does that happen? have to keep going back along a causal chain until you get there, and will probably encounter dozens of factors making it hard to pin any one factor down.

to claim that it's "systemic based on isolated observed outcomes alone" is to skip doing that work and attribute equal basis to the moon's tidal forces. aka, nonsense. we don't consider that sound reasoning in other disciplines and it doesn't suddenly become sound reasoning for abortion policy either.