Yes, but that at that point it was a minor frontier theater in a much larger conflict. But yeah, Missouri was known for its bushwackers.
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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Necronic
Staff member
In a turn of events that should surprise no one, it looks like Texas women are using dangerous methods to self induce abortions now that clinics have all been closed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/texas-self-abort/416229/
For the first time in my life I'm honestly ashamed to be a texan.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/texas-self-abort/416229/
For the first time in my life I'm honestly ashamed to be a texan.
GasBandit
Staff member
On the one hand, I'm in favor of abortion being legal. On the other, I'm very curious how this woman who claims she didn't have enough money to get across town much less to San Antonio had plans to pay for her abortion at her former local clinic. Obviously she was not. So if she wasn't paying, who was?
I don't have a problem with abortion. I have a problem with government funded abortion.
And, of course, I feel obliged to lament all these spontaneous pregnancies that happened completely innocently to these poor women through no fault, decision, or action of their own. If only there was a way to prevent that from happening when it is obvious to the woman that she cannot support a child.
I don't have a problem with abortion. I have a problem with government funded abortion.
And, of course, I feel obliged to lament all these spontaneous pregnancies that happened completely innocently to these poor women through no fault, decision, or action of their own. If only there was a way to prevent that from happening when it is obvious to the woman that she cannot support a child.
That would imply people are responsible for their own actions. We can't have that.
Why are you referring to medication induced abortion as a dangerous method? It's what many abortion clinics give to their earlier stage pregnancy patients and then have them go home with instructions to present at the hospital if certain conditions are met about bleeding. They don't even bother to complete the abortion, they just let the hospitals pick up the tail end of the abortion if things don't go well. There are many pro-abortion websites that proclaim that taking the medication abortion drugs doesn't and shouldn't require a medical doctor, center, or hospital. The fact that the abortion clinic itself tells patients NOT to come back if things aren't going well, but to go to a hospital, suggests that Texas's legislation requiring hospital admitting privileges or similar support, and/or requiring the abortion clinics to maintain emergency standards of care and facilities to provide such is reasonable. If the drugs are, in fact, dangerous, then the abortion clinics shouldn't be providing them, and they should be provided in a clinical setting that has emergency services.
Even Planned Parenthood touts its safety this way, "The risk of death from medication abortion is much less than from a full-term pregnancy or childbirth."
We're not talking about coat-hanger or back alley abortions. The abortion industry is trying to change legislation by convincing people that the higher standards abortion clinics must abide are endangering women's lives, but so far there's nothing suggesting that this is the case.[DOUBLEPOST=1447789537,1447789216][/DOUBLEPOST]https://www.womenonweb.org/en/page/482/is-it-difficult-to-do-a-medical-abortion-by-yourself
GasBandit
Staff member
Don't worry, so long as Nanny Government has anything to say about it, nobody will ever have to worry about the consequences of their decisions.
I'm not even going to get into my opinions on this, except to say that the amount of people I know who proclaim that women should not have to be worried about being punished for having sex when men don't frustrates me. Both because of the lack of personal responsibility and the fact that they are partially right.
Necronic
Staff member
I'm not sure if you read the full article, but I'll quote this:
That's no bueno.
The problem is that Texas had something like 600k pregnancies a year last year, which was handled between some vastly larger number of clinics. Now there are 12 clinics. This is mathematically impossible to meet the required demand.
How do you feel about government funded poison control hotlines?GasBandit said:
GasBandit
Staff member
Are you equating pregnancy to accidental poisoning?
Forgetting the whole debate on the ethics of abortion, providing abortions to people that can't afford it is one of the best investments the government can make. An abortion costs so much less than the frequent outcome of an unwanted child growing up in an impoverished upbringing.
GasBandit
Staff member
The thing is, how things generally go is that activity you subsidize, you get more of. By subsidizing abortion, you are (pragmatically speaking) subsidizing irresponsible behavior that leads to unwanted pregnancies.
I know how harsh and cruel this sounds, but I can't see how anybody would be in favor of federal spending to bail out pregnancies if they're not also in favor of bailing out big banks/corporations with federal money. It's the exact same thing writ large - "oh no, let's take the sting out of making bad decisions, lest there be unpleasantness in the short term - the long term is somebody else's problem after my term is up."
There's a difference between bad decisions made by - often, in the US - uneducated teenagers, and deliberate gambles made by experienced, specially-trained experts who know full well what risks there are and how to avoid them.
Necronic
Staff member
Blotsfan pretty much nailed my point.
Except at the end of the day regardless of whether or not it's free or legal or whatever, no one actually wants to have, or give, an abortion. This is something the other side seems to forget. Even if you are the most fiercely pro-choice person out there, an abortion is a pretty emotionally rough experience and its not something you want. It's a port of last resort. There is also no profit motive in giving them. The point being that even if the supply increases exponentially I don't think the demand will increase to match it. The two are not linked, which should be a learning taken from what's happening with a reduction in supply. This market is inelastic. It's far better to focus on the demand than the supply, decrease the demand for abortions, by giving useful sex ed and you will actually see a drop in it.
Supply side economics fails again.
GasBandit
Staff member
The teenagers have parents who can cover the abortions. The sadsack story in the opening of the article that was meant to short circuit any actual debate by fallaciously appealing to emotion was not an uneducated teen, she was a 24 year old low (or perhaps no) income woman who decided to have sex with no thought to the consequences - or perhaps because she assumed some entity would alleviate the consequences for her.
GasBandit
Staff member
Which is why that Planned Parenthood exec was caught on video talking about the sports car she was gonna get, right?
I don't agree with that at all.
It's just people are too uncomfortable with the fact that you're going to have to let real consequences actually be felt before people start to realize "holy shit I could actually ruin my life and nobody would bail me out."[DOUBLEPOST=1447799393,1447799312][/DOUBLEPOST]
I will, soon as "the math" stops coming from people desperately trying to keep the gravy train rolling.[DOUBLEPOST=1447799523][/DOUBLEPOST]Look, let me step back from that line, and say, I'm all for there being more abortion clinics in Texas.
I'm just not for subsidizing them with taxpayer money.
GasBandit
Staff member
Necronic
Staff member
What's wrong with an executive of a non-profit getting a sports car? Anyone competent enough to manage a million dollar organization deserves somewhat fair compensation. It's the only way they can maintain talent. As for the second point I'm pretty sure history is on my side. Abortion has been illegal and socially taboo for a very long time, and there have always been people willing to risk a LOT to provide that service. And it's not because they want sports cars. There are lot's of analyses out there showing that your line of thinking about consequences is pretty spectacularly wrong (see Freakonomics).
So I looked up my numbers and I was off my a factor of 10, it's actually roughly 80k abortions per year in texas. My bad. Still leaves you with like 80k for 12 clinics, which simply can not be done. Interesting fact though, abortion rates had been dropping for years without outside intervention. According to you that shouldn't have happened since they were so easy to get:
https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/texas.html
So I looked up my numbers and I was off my a factor of 10, it's actually roughly 80k abortions per year in texas. My bad. Still leaves you with like 80k for 12 clinics, which simply can not be done. Interesting fact though, abortion rates had been dropping for years without outside intervention. According to you that shouldn't have happened since they were so easy to get:
https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/texas.html
GasBandit
Staff member
Not a thing. I just used it to show how patently ridiculous it is to assert that there is no profit motive to providing abortions. Of course there is. There always is, in any major endeavor.
or non-abstinence-only sex ed so that number drops from 80K tot 60K?
I was actually reading about this in my Society and Law textbook: look up the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis.
For the record, this same textbook just went on a three page author tract against the dangers of Marxism and communism. It's literally the most conservative thing I have ever read... they even call Supreme court judges that aren't strict constructionists "judicial activists". I have NO idea how this got approved at my left of center community college or past my professors... like if they just didn't read the book or were intellectually honest enough with themselves to admit the book is pretty useful despite these tirades.
Necronic
Staff member
Yeah I think that number must have been for the entire US. 80k is still way more than I expected though. It's like 4 times the population of Pampa. Texas aborts 4 Pampas every year.[DOUBLEPOST=1447813104,1447813006][/DOUBLEPOST]
Not really sure that applies in this case. I don't think people are going to intentionally get pregnant to get those sweet sweet abortion bux.
It's not about the money, it's about the fact that they might not as thoroughly consider the consequences of their actions if they know there is an "easy out," regardless of how easy it might (not) be in reality.
--Patrick
At least you're like, transparent about wanting to punish women for having sex
I would think the results of an abortion would be punishment enough. Sex != pregnant, pregnant != abortion. Sure, they're prerequisites, but the progression is in no way automatic.
See, there are those people who will think, "I don't need birth control, I can just have an abortion later." These people have probably never had an abortion and don't know what it'll do to them (mentally and physically), or else they'd take the extra 45min to go down to the local pharmacy beforehand, and anyone with any sort of prohibition on birth control was probably prohibited from aborting anyway so that group doesn't count. The ones who view abortion as some sort of "safety net" are the ones targeted by the closings/removal of subsidies, since with that temptation removed, surely they will be forced to reconsider their spontaneous hedonism, right? That's that cobra effect.
Unfortunately, there are the occasions that are deemed "medically (or socially) necessary," and these do not discriminate based on geography nor income bracket, and measures taken to obstruct the group above will have the unfortunate side effect of preventing this second group from getting care they need, and the more attention group A gets, the more group B will suffer. Group A is a thing that happens, a fact which cannot be denied except by those deliberately ignoring it, and removing barriers to abortion will increase the number of A's. The ethics question becomes whether the expected future reduction in A's is worth the increased suffering of the B's.
As I said: I would (prefer to) argue against the A's...if there wasn't proof that they exist. Which there is.
--Patrick
See, there are those people who will think, "I don't need birth control, I can just have an abortion later." These people have probably never had an abortion and don't know what it'll do to them (mentally and physically), or else they'd take the extra 45min to go down to the local pharmacy beforehand, and anyone with any sort of prohibition on birth control was probably prohibited from aborting anyway so that group doesn't count. The ones who view abortion as some sort of "safety net" are the ones targeted by the closings/removal of subsidies, since with that temptation removed, surely they will be forced to reconsider their spontaneous hedonism, right? That's that cobra effect.
Unfortunately, there are the occasions that are deemed "medically (or socially) necessary," and these do not discriminate based on geography nor income bracket, and measures taken to obstruct the group above will have the unfortunate side effect of preventing this second group from getting care they need, and the more attention group A gets, the more group B will suffer. Group A is a thing that happens, a fact which cannot be denied except by those deliberately ignoring it, and removing barriers to abortion will increase the number of A's. The ethics question becomes whether the expected future reduction in A's is worth the increased suffering of the B's.
As I said: I would (prefer to) argue against the A's...if there wasn't proof that they exist. Which there is.
--Patrick
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GasBandit
Staff member
If a store provides two services, and subsidizing thing A is illegal but not subsidizing thing B, so you subsidize thing B, you are in fact subsidizing thing A because subsidizing thing B frees up the store's resources that it would otherwise have had to expend in favor of thing B, and can put those resources toward thing A. Monetary fungibility is a thing.
If the only thing you are concerned about is not supporting services you dislike with your money, then the current status quo does this. But if you are also willing to defund other vital services because they are provided by the same provider and you want that provider gone, then you need to admit that you are willing to cause public harm for a private opinion. There is no denying it: Planned Parenthood does A LOT more than just provide abortions and their other services are worthwhile public health measures that help combat the spread of venereal disease and other issues. By taking that away, you are doing a lot more than preventing abortions.