Outrage
27 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: abortion, craziness, politics
This is, umm, interesting:
his proposed statute reads, “No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.”
There are two ways to go with this and I can’t decide between them, so I’ll do both:
- Damn, there goes my business plan.
- So, it’s ok to sell food made out of people?
A bit more seriously, here’s what this is about:
These accusations began with an action alert issued by Largo, Florida-based Children of God for Life, a nonprofit, pro-life organization focused on the “bioethical issues of human cloning, embryonic, and fetal tissue research.” In the alert, Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God, calls for the public to “boycott products of major food companies that are partnering with Senomyx, a biotech company that produces artificial flavor enhancers, unless the company stops using aborted fetal cell lines to test their products.”
…
Though Rosenberg states there is nothing on the company website linking Senomyx with HEK293, a little Googling turned up a patent issued in 2008 for “Recombinant Methods for Expressing a Functional Sweet Taste Receptor,” in which a line item mentions HEK293.
So what exactly is HEK293? It’s a cell line that started in the 1970s from human embryonic kidney cells.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry:
HEK 293 cells were generated in the early 70s by transformation of cultures of normal human embryonic kidney cells with sheared adenovirus 5 DNA in Alex Van der Eb’s laboratory in Leiden, The Netherlands. The human embryonic kidney cells were obtained from a healthy aborted fetus and originally cultured by Van der Eb himself, and the transformation by adenovirus was performed by Frank Graham who published his findings in the late 1970s after he left Leiden for McMaster University in Canada.
The patent actually doesn’t say that this cell line was used in the process, just that the patent applies if they are used. Thus, the reason for the freakout is that a company might be using cell lines in research that are descended from a fetus that was aborted 40 years ago.
Update: The patent actually does say it’s preferable to use HEK 239 cells, so the outrage is completely justified.
Torture and state secrets
24 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craziness, torture Tags: State Secrets, terrorists, torture
The Obama administration is going after another leaker:
The Justice Department on Monday charged a former Central Intelligence Agency officer with disclosing classified information to journalists about the capture and brutal interrogation of a suspected member of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah — adding another chapter to the Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks.
In some sense, it’s hard to feel bad for this guy since he was one of the advocates of torture. The reason I care is the same prosecution would have occured if the guy had leaked the information to show the government was doing something illegal. What makes this irritating is the fact that the Obama administration has not gone after any of the people who actually tortured or allowed torture. Glenn Greenwald notes the problem here. John Cole comments here.
Newt Gingrich?
22 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: craziness, Newt Gingrich, politics, Republicans
Newt Gringrich easily won the South Carolina primary. Newt Gingrich! And they think he’s likely to beat Obama:
Almost half of voters said the most important trait they sought in a candidate was the ability to beat Obama in November. And even though Romney argues that he is the most electable Republican, those voters also favored Gingrich.
That’s a stunning thought. This is the man who made partisan rhetoric so divisive, coming up with words to use about opponents such as anti-family, corrupt, destructive, greed, intolerant, and traitors. This is the man who helped shut down the government partially because he felt snubbed by President Clinton. This is the man who helped lead the impeachment against Clinton for his actions with Monica Lewinsky … while he was having an affair that ended his second marriage. And he left the Speakership in disgrace with these lovely words:
I’m willing to lead but I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals. My only fear would be that if I tried to stay, it would just overshadow whoever my successor is. Frankly, Marianne and I could use a break.
He said this at the end of 1998, he divorced Marianne in 2000.
Oh yeah, Newt also thinks we should get rid of child labor laws because children of the poor don’t have a work ethic. And that the war against drugs should be made harsher:
Here are Newt Gingrich’s nuanced, compassionate drug policy ideas: Constant drug testing for everyone (especially poor people) and stiff “economic penalties” for use. (Yes, obviously, what poor people need are more ways to incur economic penalties and more barriers to either aid or employment. Newt Gingrich has so many IDEAS.) Also, the U.S. should be more like Singapore, where people carrying enough drugs to qualify for “trafficking” charges are put to death.
Yeah, Democrats would be very worried if he was the candidate.
Scott Brown confused about Senate
21 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: filibusters, politics, Scott Brown
This is interesting in a very confusing way:
US Senator Scott Brown kicked off his reelection bid tonight with a call to send him back to Washington so that he can fight both “the machine” in Massachusetts and the partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.
“At times, I’ve been the 41st vote to stop a bad idea, other times I’ve been proud to be the 60th vote to pass a good idea and move our country forward,” Brown told a full crowd of supporters at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, the site of a rousing rally two years ago, just days before he surprised the nation by winning the special election.
One of the reasons for the partisan gridlock is the routine use of the filibuster and here’s Scott Brown talking as if it’s just the way things are. Given that his main issue in his first run for the Senate was to filibuster against national healthcare, I guess that’s to be expected.
Martin Luther King
16 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in politics Tags: Martin Luther King, politics
It’s Martin Luther King day, here are some quotes:
- It is in this area (politics) of American life that labor and the Negro have identical interests. Labor has grave problems today of employment, shorter hours, old age security, housing and retraining against the impact of automation. The Congress and the Administration are almost as indifferent to labor’s program as they are toward that of the Negro. Toward both they offer vastly less than adequate remedies for the problems which are a torment to us day after day.
- Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
- Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.
- A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
- Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
- It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
- I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even the enemy.
- And one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
- There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right-to-work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining… We demand this fraud be stopped.
Burma changes
14 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Burma, World Tags: Burma, human rights
The speed of the changes in Burma is stunning:
The government of Myanmar signed a cease-fire agreement on Thursday with ethnic Karen rebels, whose fight for greater autonomy is one of the largest of the brutal civil wars that has bedeviled the country since it gained independence from Britain more than six decades ago.
…
Since its installation in March, ending nearly 50 years of military rule, the government has held talks with the political opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, approved the registration of her political party and her candidacy in a by-election in April, and suspended plans for a huge Chinese-backed dam that drew strong opposition both from within and outside Myanmar, formerly Burma.
…
Now the government says it is negotiating peace pacts with the other major ethnic rebel groups — the Chin, the Mon, the Kachin and the Kayah — and is determined to achieve a permanent peace with them in three to four years.
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In another move, Myanmar state radio and television said 651 prisoners would be released under a new presidential pardon starting Friday, according to The Associated Press, raising hopes that those freed would be political prisoners. In the past two weeks, The A.P. said, the government gave amnesty to 6,656 prisoners and reduced the sentences of 38,964.
These actions have led the US to start restoring full diplomatic relations. Even a year ago these actions would have been impossible and now they’re happening. Hopefully it will continue.
Class warfare
13 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in economy, Free Markets, politics Tags: class warfare, obama, politics
Alan Krueger, the Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, gave a speech on the problems of income inequality, which included the following slide show:
If you look at the second slide, you see how things have changed–economic gains were distributed fairly evenly from 1947-1979, while most of the gains have gone to the rich since then.
Mitt Romney, I’m sure, is upset at this talk:
QUESTIONER: Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?
ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.
QUESTIONER: Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?
ROMNEY: I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It’s a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach and I think it will fail.
You see the usual Republican idea: talking about helping the rich is the proper order of things, talking about helping the rest of us is ‘class warfare’. It’s unfair if we try to blame the rich for the recession, even though (really, especially because) it was their fault (Republicans like to call the rich ‘job creator’s', but they are also job destroyers–pretty much all recessions are caused by the rich).
Bread and Roses
11 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in economy, Free Markets, politics, unions, wealth Tags: Bread and Roses strike, Free Markets, politics, unions
Today is the 100th anniversary of the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, MA:
In 1912, Lawrence was a land of haves and have-nots. Immigrants worked 12-hour days in hot, dusty, dangerous textile mills, spending their $6-to-$8-a-week salaries to buy bread and beans and rent disease-ridden tenements from mill owners, who were raking in profits as the wool business boomed in Massachusetts.
But when the state reduced the workweek from 56 to 54 hours, and mill owners responded by speeding up machines and cutting pay accordingly, some 25,000 workers walked off the job on Jan 12.
This should tell you that things don’t really change: when legislation is passed to restrain corporate greed, the corporation will respond to circumvent the intent unless they’re pushed. The same thing happened last year after legislation was passed to make bank fees more transparent and when some fees were restricted–banks tried to raise other fees to keep their profits sky-high.
And things are starting to look very much like the early twentieth century in some ways. Extreme poverty is coming back:
More than 57,000 Illinois children were homeless in 2010, up from 30,636 in 2006, according to a December report from The National Center on Family Homelessness.
Nationally, 1.6 million U.S. children lived in homeless shelters, motels, with relatives or other families or living on the street in 2010 — a 38 percent increase since 2007, according to the center.
and it is now helps politically to campaign against the poor and disadvantaged:
Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess – an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states.
Specifically, the Department of Public Welfare said that as of May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings and other assets would no longer be eligible for food stamps. For people over 60, the limit would be $3,250.
Houses and retirement benefits would be exempt from being counted as assets. If a person owns a car, that vehicle also would also be exempt, but any additional vehicle worth more than $4,650 would be considered a countable asset.
Notice that this is a purely punitive move, since it makes it less likely that people will be able to get out of poverty–you need to save money to better yourself. As this article notes, this is a fairly widespread phenomenon.
Ron Paul, who thinks that free markets police themselves, and Newt Gingrich, who likes child labor, should be specifically asked about what they think about the strike.
Republicans: cut taxes for the rich
10 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in politics Tags: Income Tax, Republicans
Kevin Drum has a handy post (look here for some links) showing what we already know: Republicans like the rich. Romney has the smallest cuts for the rich, so let’s look at him (the table is fromhere):
and then there’s this:
The Romney plan would reduce federal tax revenues substantially. TPC estimates that on a static basis, the Romney plan would lower federal tax liability by $600 billion in calendar year 2015 compared with current law, roughly a 16 percent cut in total projected revenue. Relative to a current policy baseline, the reduction in liability would be roughly $180 billion in calendar year 2015.
which means he would have to make large cuts if he wants to balance the budget–yeah, I know, Republicans aren’t really serious about that.
Democracy
08 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in craziness, education, politics Tags: craziness, education, New Hampshire, politics
Republicans in New Hampshire seem to want to capture the craziness vote. They think there isn’t enough democracy in education:
Under the terms of the bill, which was sponsored by state Rep. J.R. Hoell (R-Dunbarton), a parent could object to any curriculum or course material in the classroom. The parent and school district would then determine a new curriculum or texts for the child to meet any state educational requirements for the subject matter. The parent would be responsible for paying the cost of developing the new curriculum. The bill also allows for the parent’s name and reason for objection to be sealed by the state.
Hoell stressed the new law could allow parents to address both moral and academic objections to parts of the curriculum. The lawmaker said he could imagine the provision being utilized by parents who disagree with the “whole language” approach to reading education or the Everyday Math program.
“What if a school chooses to use whole language and the parent likes phonics, which is a better long-term way to teach kids to read?” Hoell said to HuffPost.
I’d be curious to see what happens if some parents object to a ”whole language” approach and others object to phonics–would they not teach reading at all?
On the other hand, they think there’s too much democracy in elections (Kingsbury says he is a libertarian–I thought that meant he would want less government, but not when it might go against his wishes I guess):
The lawmakers have introduced a bill calling for state legislative caucuses to select candidates for the Senate primaries, ending an almost century-old practice of Granite State residents filing to run in Senate races. State legislatures elected senators until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913.
“This is original intent,” said state Rep. Bob Kingsbury (R-Laconia), the bill’s lead sponsor.
Kingsbury said the bill would align the state with the original intent of the Constitution by letting the legislature play a role in the selection of Senate candidates. He stressed that the bill would be in the same spirit as the 17th Amendment because it would leave the final say up to the voters.
The original intent of the Constitution was to allow slavery and not allow women to vote, will Kingsbury push to get rid of those amendments next?
They also think that separation of powers is for the birds:
A group of Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire have recently proposed state constitutional amendments that have the goal of overhauling aspects of the court system. The bills would give the state legislature the power to dissolve the state’s Supreme Court and Superior Court and raise the minimum age to be a state judge to 60. Proponents said these proposals would allow for a check on the courts and for more experienced judges in office.
New Hampshire used to be the old-fashioned conservatives (as in, don’t change things)–obviously they felt left out from all the craziness that’s taken over the Republican party.
Happy New Year
01 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in miscellaneous Tags: New Year
Happy New Year. I’m off to South Carolina for a bit.
Drones
29 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in politics, World Tags: drones, politics, State Secrets, terrorists
Via here, this is very unsettling to say the least:
In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force cockpits in the Southwest and clandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents.
Other commanders in chief have presided over wars with far higher casualty counts. But no president has ever relied so extensively on the secret killing of individuals to advance the nation’s security goals.
…
On Sept. 30, Awlaki was killed in a missile strike carried out by the CIA under Title 50 authorities — which govern covert intelligence operations — even though officials said it was initially unclear whether an agency or JSOC drone had delivered the fatal blow. A second U.S. citizen, an al-Qaeda propagandist who had lived in North Carolina, was among those killed.
The execution was nearly flawless, officials said. Nevertheless, when a similar strike was conducted just two weeks later, the entire protocol had changed. The second attack, which killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, was carried out by JSOC under Title 10 authorities that apply to the use of military force.
When pressed on why the CIA had not pulled the trigger, U.S. officials said it was because the main target of the Oct. 14 attack, an Egyptian named Ibrahim al-Banna, was not on the agency’s kill list. The Awlaki teenager, a U.S. citizen with no history of involvement with al-Qaeda, was an unintended casualty.
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The outdated procedure reflects the agency’s effort to comply with Title 50 requirements that Congress be provided with timely, written notification of covert action overseas. There is no comparable requirement in Title 10, and the Senate Armed Services Committee can go days before learning the details of JSOC strikes.
Neither panel is in a position to compare the CIA and JSOC kill lists or even arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the rules by which each is assembled.
The senior administration official said the gap is inadvertent. “It’s certainly not something where the goal is to evade oversight,” the official said. A senior Senate aide involved in reviewing military drone strikes said that the blind spot reflects a failure by Congress to adapt but that “we will eventually catch up.”
Here’s a secret war, killing hundreds including US citizens, with little oversight. What could go wrong? And the idea that the long delay on strikes is inadvertent? That’s so stupid it’s laughable–just because something isn’t mandated doesn’t mean it’s prohibited. The person basically said they only give notification when they have to–again, what could go wrong?
Antibiotics use on farms
28 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: antibiotics, craziness, FDA, politics
This is very disappointing:
For 34 years, the FDA has been contending that administering small doses of antibiotics to healthy animals is an inappropriate use of increasingly scarce drugs — a position in which it is supported by organizations as mainstream as the American Medical Association. With this withdrawal, it backs away from the actions it took to support that assertion — which may indicate there will be no further government action on the issue until after the 2012 election.In the Federal Register, the FDA says that it plans instead to “focus its efforts for now on the potential for voluntary reform and the promotion of the judicious use of antimicrobials in the interest of public health.” That’s a reference to a draft guidance that the FDA put forward in the summer of 2010, which proposes that large-scale agriculture voluntarily stop using those “subtherapeutic” small doses, and also stop giving any antibiotic doses to animals unless veterinarians prescribe them.
Two things to note there: After 18 months, the guidance is still in draft, and has never been finalized; and even in draft, the industry opposes it, calling into question the likelihood of “voluntary” adherence if it were to become final.
To make this even crazier, here’s one of the stated reasons for this action is:
Third, the body of scientific information relevant to the use of penicillins and tetracyclines in animal feeds has grown since 1977. If the Agency were to pursue the NOOHs, FDA would need to provide notice to the sponsors that the information available since 1977 would be used to support the proposal to withdraw the approved uses of the drugs.
For example, in the early 1990′s FDA began collaborating with other government agencies to track antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria through a national public health surveillance system, known as the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System or “NARMS,” established to monitor antimicrobial susceptibility among enteric bacteria from humans, retail meats, and food animals. (Ref. 22) Also, since the 1977 NOOHs published, there have been numerous reports, including those by the National Academy of Sciences (Ref. 13), the Institute of Medicine (Ref. 15), the World Health Organization (Ref. 17), and the National Research Council (Ref. 18), that have reviewed available information and made recommendations. In addition, there have been advances in our understanding of the genetics of resistance (e.g., ways in which bacteria accumulate multiple resistance genes).
They are dropping the effort to curb the use of antibiotics, partially because the evidence that it causes problems is stronger now. Really. If you want to comment on this, go here.
Merry Christmas
24 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
Wishing all a merry Christmas and hoping for Peace on Earth (via NASA and the Earth Observatory):
Some pics
24 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in nature, pictures, technology Tags: pictures, stars
It’s Christmas break, so I’ve been lazy. Here are some pictures–the first is a picture of interacting galaxies (this was taken in celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble, credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))
and the second is an impressive picture of a Soyuz rocket (Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi):
Merry the day before Christmas everybody.
How a plane flies
20 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Math, science Tags: Math, science
I’m not sure why I’ve never seen this, but I haven’t. Here’s an explanation of why a plane can fly. It can’t really be summarized, but has to do with the angle of the wing which diverts air down and Newton’s laws–it does not have to do with the shape of the wing or the difference in air speed above and below the wing. Fun stuff.
You’re a terrorist
15 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: craziness, England, Occupy Wall Street, politics
Unfortunately, this is not surprising:
The document issued by City of London police, headed “Terrorism/extremism update for the City of London business community”, included a detailed account of recent and upcoming Occupy London activities and was sent to “trusted partners” in the area.
The document, dated 2 December, which was passed on to Occupy London’s Finsbury square encampment over the weekend by a local business owner, gave an update on foreign terrorist activities including that of Farc in Columbia, al-Qaida in Pakistan and the outcome of a trial into the Minsk bombing in Belarus.
Below that, a section headed “Domestic” was dedicated wholly to the activities of the Occupy encampments and singled out anti-capitalists as a cause for concern.
You would think the fact that the Occupy movement is not a terrorist would stop this, but you would only believe that if you don’t know of how police have historically treated leftist protest. And remember, once someone is defined as a terrorist then all the terrorist laws apply. Lots of fun.
Santorum ignores facts he doesn’t agree with
12 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in craziness, healthcare, politics Tags: craziness, healthcare, politics, Santorum
This is pretty bad:
The student said he didn’t “think God appreciates the fact that we have 50 to 100,000 uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of healthcare every year,” citing a 2009 study out of Harvard University.
“Dying?” Santorum answered before going back and forth about the validity of the study.
“The answer is not what can we do to prevent deaths because of a lack of health insurance. There’s — I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance,” Santorum said to a crowd of 100.
“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to,” he said. “And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit.
For a supposed Christian, that’s not very Christian (when Jesus cured the sick, did he first check to see if they had made ‘good’ decisions?). He also ignores reality, since studies have shown about 45,000 people a year die because of a lack of health insurance. To be charitable (although Santorum doesn’t seem to believe in charity here if people make ‘bad’ decisions), he probably means that anyone who is actually dying can get care. Most of the deaths in the study don’t come from one point but from an accumulation of delayed care. You can’t go to the emergency room to have someone check your cholesterol level and then prescribe a change in lifestyle or medication if there’s a problem. You need to talk to a doctor, and pay money, to get this information. And then you need to pay for the medication. Santorum obviously doesn’t care about this stuff.
Block, block, and then block
10 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in craziness, politics Tags: craziness, filibusters, Republicans
I haven’t talked about filibusters in a while, mainly because Republicans don’t need to filibuster much anymore since they control the House. Still, appointments don’t go through the House so they still do come up:
The debate involves Mari Carmen Aponte, who has been functioning as ambassador under a recess appointment by President Obama that runs out soon. The Democrats plan to make a last-ditch attempt to approve the nomination, but the Senate Republicans seem determined to block it.
“All of us think we should have an ambassador in El Salvador, but all of us are concerned that we get people who we know are the right people,” said Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. DeMint claimed the Republicans needed more information on Aponte’s relationship with Roberto Tamayo, a Cuban-American insurance salesman with whom she lived in Washington long ago.
This would be a boyfriend that Aponte broke up with in 1994. By the way, this would be one of the Senators that supported the military coup in Honduras–when DeMint talks about the right people he really means people of the right, at least as conservative as him.
They gave DeMint access to Aponte’s F.B.I. file, even though instances of DeMint’s being placated by anything are about as frequent as confirmed sightings of space aliens.
DeMint then complained that the file was out of date. But, by then, he seemed to be losing interest in the boyfriend issue and had moved on to fuming that while she was in El Salvador, Aponte had written an op-ed essay in a Salvadoran newspaper “lecturing their people on the need to accept and support the gay lifestyle.” Actually, Aponte praised El Salvador for signing a U.N. declaration for the elimination of violence against gays and lesbians. In response to a directive from the State Department urging ambassadors to do something in recognition of Gay Pride Month.
So DeMint is for violence against gays and lesbians? Anyway this is all for show, the real reason that there’s a filibuster is that Republicans try to vote against anything supported by Obama. It’s part of their plan to keep the economy a mess by blocking everything.
If you ignore the studies I don’t agree with, you’re wrong
09 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in healthcare, politics, religion, statistics Tags: abortion, depression, healthcare, statistics
The largest study to date on the link between abortion and depression has found (the Guardian is a lefty newspaper, so here’s another link):
“The best current evidence suggests that it makes no difference to a woman’s mental health whether she chooses to have an abortion or to continue with the pregnancy.”
Women who have abortions are more likely to have depression, but this study concludes that this is because women who have an unwanted pregnancy are more depressed (whether they have an abortion or not). If this is correct then this is a classic example of a confounding factor–an unwanted pregnancy makes it more likely for a woman to have an abortion and more likely to have depression making it look like they are related when they are not.
Now to the pro-lifer:
Anthony Ozimic, of the anti-abortion Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, dismissed the study’s findings as predictable, accused its authors of ignoring key studies and said evidence showed that abortion involved an increased risk of depression and post-traumatic stress.
“Clinical case studies and stories written and told by many women confirm empirical findings of the psychological harms of abortion,” he said.
Interesting. Notice he has said that these studies are wrong because they ignore key studies. How does he know those are the key studies? My guess is because their findings agree with his beliefs.
