Hush, Now

 

In what my husband, at least, regards as a masochistic quest to understand the phenomenon of abortion in America, I watched yet another documentary, this one entitled “Hush.” In it, a pro-choice director, Punam Kumar Gill, investigate the question of whether the health effects of abortion on the women who have them are being generally, even systematically distorted or concealed.

The short answer, it seems, is yes. The supposedly debunked link between abortion and breast cancer hasn’t been debunked at all. And there are excellent reasons to believe that abortion rates explain why our neonatal intensive care units are full of wanted infants delivered too soon. There are also (duh) clear links between abortion and increased vulnerability to mental illness in women. Why aren’t women warned about these risks?

It can’t just be that the data is inconclusive. There are many dangers that are unproven — mere correlation, not proven causality — that we are given urgent warnings about, and told we must make adjustments or even significant sacrifices to protect ourselves from even remote risks. Don’t use plastic in the microwave! Discard your kitchen sponge! Coat your entire body with SPF 50 every day! And, of course, don’t smoke or drink, and for God’s sake, lose some weight and take a walk!

As Gill, to her credit, repeatedly makes clear, “choice” is meaningless unless it is a truly informed choice. If breast cancer, depression or premature deliveries are part of a woman’s family medical history, for example, the possibility that abortion would increase those risks could (and even should) tip the balance in favor of her choosing to continue the pregnancy, for her own sake (if not for the sake of the baby). Given what the data shows, even if it cannot be called “settled science” the way, say, the melting of the polar ice caps can, wouldn’t any responsible doctor want to take a medical history that reveals these risk factors, and introduce them into the cost-benefit analysis that pre-abortion counseling of panicked (if no less “trustworthy”) pregnant women presumably entails?

And surely any truly comprehensive sex education program should include information about these risks, even if they aren’t proven 100 percent, if the aim is to empower young people to make good, healthy decisions about their bodies and lives? My denomination will happily frighten its youth into believing that the sight of a deer in the backyard is a harbinger of doom; wouldn’t you imagine they’d be willing to say “oh, and by the way … it is possible that having an abortion increases your risk of breast cancer, depression, and premature birth?”

Gill is an honest storyteller, and she really does go where the facts lead her. That’s impressive. To her great credit, she documents exactly how strenuously the scientific establishment protects abortion from inconvenient truths; she does not spend as much time as she might on the question of why this is happening.

She primarily ascribes it to the anxiety pro-choice advocates and abortion providers feel over the imminent threat Pro-Lifers pose to a woman’s right to choose.

And indeed, “protecting choice from those religious nutters” is probably the motivation when it comes to physicians, journalists, public health advocates, state regulators and other groups that are not directly concerned with abortion, and yet nonetheless are found helping to maintain the manifold deceptions that the abortion industry demands — e.g., parroting the line that late-term abortion is rare and only used when the mother’s life or health is endangered or the baby is catastrophically deformed.

Because everyone would prefer to believe this to be the case, Americans, in general, go along with it too. Invited not to think too much about the grubby details, we … don’t. Then we dress in pink, join in those “Awareness” 5k fun runs, and encourage our friends and relations to have mammograms and donate to the Susan G. Komen foundation.

However, to put it mildly, this culture of defensive deception is putting the lives of women (as well as babies) in jeopardy.

Published in Healthcare
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  1. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    Kate, it may be too personal a question, but if you’re willing to discuss it, I’d very much like to understand what led you to this “masochistic quest to understand the phenomenon of abortion in America.” My general impression is that your exposure to more conservative ideas here at Ricochet played a part and that concerns about the direction of your denomination played a part, and that political rhetoric directed at cops played a part. There may be several other factors.

    Yes to all of the above. Political rhetoric directed at cops soured me on progressive cant, I happened upon Ricochet (and/or it was an answered prayer, depending), concerns about my progressive denomination was in there, and then simply being exposed to conservative ideas and the underlying facts all led to this. But I’m also sort of fanatical about:

    a.) children

    b.) reality.

    So there’s that.

     

    • #61
  2. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Painter Jean (View Comment):
    The Catholic position has always been pro-life, but isn’t the Unitarian church pro-abortion?

    Basically, yes.

     

    • #62
  3. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    abortion is not clinically riskier to a woman with a problem pregnancy than is adoption or single motherhood.

    But this moves the goal posts, doesn’t it? One of the rationales for abortion (actually, the only real rationale) is that it is better—less risky, preferably considerably so—than adoption or single motherhood. Not just “no worse.”

     

    • #63
  4. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    when it comes to breast cancer, the problem (in theory) lies in exposing the body and, especially, the breast to estrogen and the resulting accelerated cell-division without providing the protective effect of lactation itself.

    So… not breastfeeding also carries with it the same risk?

    How long one must breastfeed to mitigate the risk? I’d say inquiring lactivists want to know, but they’re probably pretty sure they already know.

    Good question. I don’t know. But lactation in itself has a protective effect. Which makes sense—the system was designed with a specific goal in mind, namely a fat, breastfed baby. Not, sadly, an empowered, independent, liberated woman.

     

    • #64
  5. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    The Whether Man (View Comment):
     

    (I have a personal interest here. We’re expecting our first — and given our ages, probably only — child in the next few weeks.

    By the way—-yay!!!!!

    • #65
  6. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    abortion is not clinically riskier to a woman with a problem pregnancy than is adoption or single motherhood.

    But this moves the goal posts, doesn’t it? One of the rationales for abortion (actually, the only real rationale) is that it is better—less risky, preferably considerably so—than adoption or single motherhood. Not just “no worse.”

    It also avoids all the data about who gets abortions. Problem pregnancies don’t rank very high.

    Being an HG sufferer, I was actually very surprised how many of my fellow travelers were going through their 5th or 6th HG pregnancy. Only 1% of abortions are problem pregnancies like this. It seems to me that those who face problem pregnancies would rather see what was worth all that problem.

    And I don’t think report avoidance is an issue with problem pregnancies. They have no incentive to pretend its nothing… I would think that if you are able to provide a sympathetic justification, then you would.

    @Kate about a-priori intent to coerce as many women into a pro-abort state, it doesn’t need to be a conscious intent. I had a friend who pressured me into some poor behavior just to keep me from commenting on his poor behavior. I was gullible and malleable at the time. I learned my lesson. I don’t know if he was intentional, but there is really something to that verse about people leading others (innocents) astray.

    • #66
  7. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    I think there are at least two interesting revelations from the film. First, that the abortion-apologists do not say “look, there’s some evidence that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer; we believe that even if this is the case, abortion is still healthier than having an unwanted child.” Instead, they say “there is no link, anyone who says there is is a religious lunatic and by the way, shut up.” 

    The same is true for the link to premature delivery and to mental health issues. I agree that the connection to mental illness is the weakest, but that’s partly because of the nature of mental illness. A woman may be moved to have an abortion (or to engage in behavior that results in an unwanted pregnancy) because she is mentally ill, thus making the chicken-egg relationship trickier. But it would be hard to see how women with incompetent cervixes, or women who are prone to developing breast cancer in their thirties are also somehow also more likely to have abortions in their twenties.

    It is also true that the the mere possibility of an increased risk of premature delivery or breast cancer ten years hence is unlikely to sway a panicked young woman. In which case…why shut down the discussion and condemn the research/ers?

    The real story here isn’t “women shouldn’t have abortions because of breast cancer.” The real story (to me, anyway) is the fanaticism with which any and all bad news about abortion must be suppressed, and the ease with which the rest of us are persuaded to Not See.

     

    • #67
  8. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Stina (View Comment):
    @Kate about a-priori intent to coerce as many women into a pro-abort state, it doesn’t need to be a conscious intent.

    I think you’re right, Stina. That is, I think there can be a mixture of more or less conscious “conspiracy” on the part of a few  combined with subconscious acquiescence on the part of the many. The Planned Parenthood videos were declared to have been misleadingly edited and then “debunked” by people in a position to know that neither of these things are true. But ordinary people will nonetheless repeat “edited” and “debunked” without looking into the matter let alone actually watching the videos.

     

    By the way, I changed two minds just this week about abortion merely by stating a few facts.

    • #68
  9. Mole-eye Inactive
    Mole-eye
    @Moleeye

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    The lie inherent in abortion is that it’s “good” for women. That it’s harmless to them. That it solves their problem(s). That it’s a benign surgical procedure. All lies.

    This is important. Abortion isn’t presented as neutral. It is presented as a positive good. Since nothing is like pregnancy and childbirth—not physically, not morally, not psychologically, not spiritually— it is always difficult to compare having a baby with any other human activity, or having an abortion with any other medical procedure.

    What I’d love to get my pro-choice friends to recognize, at some point, is how liberating abortion has been for men. Or rather for “men.”

    @katebraestrup, I think everything that separates sex from procreation is liberating for men, with or without quotation marks.  As to the rest of the points you make, someday I’d love to meet you and have a long talk.  You seem very wise to me.

    • #69
  10. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    Mole-eye (View Comment):
    I think everything that separates sex from procreation is liberating for men, with or without quotation marks.

    No. Absolutely not. The men might think it is liberating for them, but it is a lie. Everything that separates sex from procreation is a lie. Those things cannot liberate. Any man who thinks that separating sex from procreation liberates him is wrong, and anyone who thinks it is more liberating for men than for women do not understand what is good for men.

    It is not good for anyone. It is Bad.

    • #70
  11. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    abortion is not clinically riskier to a woman with a problem pregnancy than is adoption or single motherhood.

    But this moves the goal posts, doesn’t it? One of the rationales for abortion (actually, the only real rationale) is that it is better—less risky, preferably considerably so—than adoption or single motherhood. Not just “no worse.”

    No, not moving the goal posts – I’m a little narked you would think so. What The Whether Man said:

    The Whether Man (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    I remember finding out that being widowed or orphaned is—in itself—correlated with a shorter lifespan. Yeah. Ain’t life great?

    Well, exactly. Every choice we make increases risks of something, and lots of horrible things happen in which we have no say and no choice but leave us more vulnerable. Since that’s a given, and any correlation between abortion and breast cancer is going to be a.) small and b.) highly disputed, it’s hard to see that succeeding as an argument against abortion that would realistically change someone’s mind who was faced with that choice.

    As a matter of math, “not riskier than”, or “no worse” unfortunately doesn’t mean =, it means ≤.

    As you yourself said, @katebraestrup, “I remember finding out that being widowed or orphaned is—in itself—correlated with a shorter lifespan. Yeah. Ain’t life great?”

    I’d be utterly unsurprised if it turned out that doing something very bad to their unborn children like killing them actually could be expected to have some non-negligible technical benefits for the pregnant women who sought such a solution. Doesn’t make it right. Merely means Life Sucks. As per usual.

    I’ll repeat what The Whether Man said:

    Since that’s a given, and any correlation between abortion and breast cancer is going to be a.) small and b.) highly disputed, it’s hard to see that succeeding as an argument against abortion that would realistically change someone’s mind who was faced with that choice.

    • #71
  12. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup: It can’t just be that the data is inconclusive.

    Have you heard about the replication crisis in medicine? Yes, it bloody well could be that many medical studies have produced data that’s considerably less conclusive than we thought.

    I know, lives are at stake, and here I am nerdily arguing epistemic hygiene. But the fact that study data concerning abortion is so hotly contested isn’t just evidence that it’s a political hotbutton issue. It’s also evidence that there’s uncertainty in the data, uncertainty which, among other things, may be politically exploited by both sides.

    As @westernchauvinist says,

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Exaggeration can always be a useful ideological tool.

     

    • #72
  13. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    CarolJoy (View Comment):
     

    It makes a person wonder how many other women have been misled by some of these poorly understood tests.

    A lot. I have heard several stories like your friends. Every prenatal test is basically to determine whether to keep going with the pregnancy. Every test, except perhaps the gestaional diabetes one, could lead a women to get an abortion. I had a friend who was told that her unborn baby had an abnormality during a sonogram and she decided to have a D+C .  Again, like your friend was pushed for “emotional reasons” because God forbid you wait, but we will never know if the test was accurate because the baby died.

    All of these tests lead me to believe that this is a new form of eugenics. Look at the rate babies with Down’s syndrome are aborted, and Iceland has determined it has “cured” Down’s by basically killing any baby who has it. Mostof these prenatel tests are there to determine if your baby is healthy enough to be born.

    • #73
  14. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    I don’t know if there’s an a priori conscious intent to make more women guilty

    In many ways it parallels a Faustian bargain.  It may not be a conscious intent by the left (but I suspect there is some of that…) but it seems a useful tool for the dark force.

     

    • #74
  15. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    b.) reality.

    Does this include epistemic hygiene?

    • #75
  16. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    b.) reality.

    Does this include epistemic hygiene?

    Yes, although I admit fully to not being good at math or epistemic hygiene! So when I question you, it is out of genuine ignorance, not snarkiness. I am like most non-math people bumbling along largely at the mercy of people who know considerably more than I do about this and many subjects, or at least can reasonably be expected to know more.  I know you really are good at —and knowledgable about—these things.

    The question I have isn’t actually whether having an abortion increases the risk of a woman having breast cancer, for example.  I think I am relatively easy to persuade with facts and data, and up until I watched “Hush” was inclined to assume that the breast cancer-abortion link really had been disproved.

    The question I have is why Ellis could not find anyone willing to actually discuss it, to really make a case rather than simply slap down the question.

    I am willing to be persuaded that abortion doesn’t cause any harm other than a dead fetus (which is bad enough). My strong impression was that Ellis was willing and even eager to be persuaded too. After all, she had skin in the game.

    But there is more than a whiff of dogma about what Ellis encountered in her own—again, pro-choice—investigations, and that feels both unpleasantly familiar and of a piece with what concerns me most about the present state of American political discourse.

     

     

     

    • #76
  17. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    It’s also evidence that there’s uncertainty in the data, uncertainty which, among other things, may be politically exploited by both sides.

    Definitely!  And that, as I mentioned, appears to be the fear that keeps pro-choicers from permitting an open discussion of the subject. But what is it, exactly, that they fear? That if women know that there could be a link between breast cancer and abortion, they might not get an abortion?

    Is it just me, or does the uncertain data that is suppressed always seems to be that which might tilt the scale in the direction of continuing the pregnancy? The whole point of calling oneself pro-choice, it seems to me, is to declare one’s personal neutrality when it comes to a decision made by someone else, so why the apparent partiality?

     

    • #77
  18. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    It’s also evidence that there’s uncertainty in the data, uncertainty which, among other things, may be politically exploited by both sides.

    Definitely! And that, as I mentioned, appears to be the fear that keeps pro-choicers from permitting an open discussion of the subject. But what is it, exactly, that they fear? That if women know that there could be a link between breast cancer and abortion, they might not get an abortion?

    I suspect a more likely fear is fearing what lawmakers might do in response to a breast-cancer scare. Look what just happened to Imodium – a true but low risk was used to justify a demand (right now just a request, but why trust it will simply stay a request?) that’s truly barmy.

    Of course, fearing that lawmakers will crack down on something in a barmy fashion requires believing that a crackdown would, in fact be barmy. That’s where the real divide is, I think:

    There are pro-life people (I consider myself one) who believe outlawing all abortion is likely to never be practically achievable. Nonetheless, we don’t see anything barmy about applying the moral principle “thou shalt not kill” to abortion. Whereas someone who found such a crackdown barmy must either find something about abortion prohibition either barmy or morally wrong.

    Is it just me, or does the uncertain data that is suppressed always seems to be that which might tilt the scale in the direction of continuing the pregnancy?

    It’s not just you.

    On the other hand, since most of the reasoning I hear about pregnancy and motherhood and so forth comes from conservative circles, I live in a bubble where my subjective impression would be the opposite. And given how popular the pro-life position is in America, while I do see my bubble as a bubble, it also strikes me as a fairly large bubble.

    Altogether, I don’t think that the data is always used one way, or always used the other. I see the data being used to support clashing viewpoints, each of which is pretty popular.

    The whole point of calling oneself pro-choice, it seems to me, is to declare one’s personal neutrality when it comes to a decision made by someone else, so why the apparent partiality?

    As I said, I would guess fear of what lawmakers would do is a bigger factor than informed individual mothers.

    • #78
  19. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    By the way, my mostly-intuitive rule of thumb when it came to what might and might not be best for me and my own babies was “what does the organism expect?”

    For example, it seems pretty obvious that a newborn human infant’s body “expects” to be fed human breast milk. The baby’s mouth is designed/evolved to latch onto a human nipple, the baby’s jaw is designed for suckling, the baby’s digestive system is designed to extract what it needs from this particular substance, the baby’s focal distance is pretty much the span between Mom’s boob and Mom’s face.

    Now, obviously you can substitute a rubber or latex nipple and ersatz milk. You can prop the bottle up against the side of the crib rather than have a human being hold the baby—this is how they used to do it in those horrible Romanian orphanages. You can do all of these things, and the baby won’t instantly expire. But every deviation from what the organism expects will force the system to adjust itself, and the adjustment is going to cost. Maybe a little, maybe a lot, maybe now, maybe later.

    This, it seems to me, can be applied to the matter of abortion. What does the woman’s body (which is the one being considered at the moment) expect when it comes to pregnancy?

    First, that she will probably experience her first pregnancy before her mid-twenties.  That, once pregnant, her cervix will remain tightly sealed and nothing other than human tissue will be introduced (let alone forced) into the uterus. Her body will expect that the hormone (estrogens)  flooding the body to retain the pregnancy and prepare the breasts for lactation will be followed in sequence by the hormones that actually cause the milk to flow and, not incidentally, counteract the potentially damaging effects of estrogen.

    Parturition is the pivotal moment in the biological life of any species. It seems reasonable to assume that evolution has …how shall I put this? “Focused a lot of attention” on the event that is the fulcrum around which all else in life moves and works.

    It seems unlikely that interrupting a healthy pregnancy by forcibly opening the cervix, introducing tools through it,  removing the baby and subjecting the uterus to both scraping and vacuum suction would not challenge and disrupt the system. Obviously, as with the example of feeding a baby formula, sometimes there is no alternative, and whatever negative effects there might be, these are worth enduring for the sake of the positive effect (e.g. a baby with a full tummy).

    Women give their babies formula for many reasons, including “liberation” from the constant presence of a baby that tends to interfere with, say, work or education.  But everyone from the Pope to the National Institutes of Health deliberately encourages women to breastfeed their babies.

    “For infants, not being breastfed is associated with an increased incidence of infectious morbidity, as well as elevated risks of childhood obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia, and sudden infant death syndrome. For mothers, failure to breastfeed is associated with an increased incidence of premenopausal breast cancer, ovarian cancer, retained gestational weight gain, type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction, and the metabolic syndrome. ”

    How strong does the association have to be, how impeccably hygienic the epistemology,  before doctors are encouraged to discuss it with their patients?

     

    • #79
  20. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    There are pro-life people (I consider myself one) who believe outlawing all abortion is likely to never be practically achievable.

    I tend to agree with you, Midge. And I also wondered (again, just wondered) whether a strategy that focuses on outlawing abortion actually makes the discussion of the moral, spiritual and physical risks of abortion more difficult. As I think I’ve said in another thread, it’s not just that “everyone knows someone who has had an abortion.” It’s that many, many people either know, know of, or can imagine situations in which a law against abortion would be disastrous for individuals they know and care about. For instance, the possibility that a woman presenting at the E.R. with a miscarriage will be suspected of or even accused of a crime.  Or that some truly dreadful fetal anomaly could exist that creates terrible suffering for everyone involved (fetus included) to no good purpose.

    At the same time, I think that the legality and acceptability of abortion does alter the sexual landscape in ways that are indeed conducive not only to more unplanned pregnancy without, on average,  improving the sexual, psychological, moral or physical health of women. For one thing, as the Gosnell disaster demonstrated, dangerous “backalley” abortions have hardly been eliminated. It is still the case that wealthy women can have relatively  safe abortions and poor women too often still have dangerous ones.

     

     

    • #80
  21. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    Kate, this is the bigger issue in regards to abortion. Does our society value life? There are always scenarios that you can pick that can show why you can never outlaw abortion but hard cases and exceptions, make for bad law. Also the problem with the Supreme Court taking over this issue is that it takes away the power of states and localities to determine the laws.

    However, the acceptance of abortion in a society degrades life and chips away at the morality of a culture. I won’t go into the gory details that we all know of how the acceptance of abortion has allowed for sexuality to be divorced from life so that anything goes and a little annoying thing like a baby shouldn’t get in the way of a persons pursuit of pleasure.

    Also, If abortion is acceptable then so is euthanasia. The Netherlands has long allowed for euthanasia and it has degraded to the point that people are being allowed to commit suicide (with doctor assistance) for treatable things like depression.

    Humans are expendable, there is no value to life if it is not lived in a certain way it seems. The sanctity of human life has been an important principle in the rise of Christian Western civilization, and I think the acceptance of abortion in many western countries is a further sign of our civilizational collapse.

    • #81
  22. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    How strong does the association have to be, how impeccably hygienic the epistemology, before doctors are encouraged to discuss it with their patients?

    I admit, medical advice tends to be hit-or-miss on strength of associations. Medicine has enough confounding variables to render it more susceptible to fads based on incomplete information than something like physics or even plain ol’ biology does. It’s an applied science, always raising the question “Applied to what?”

    But one reason I want to have good epistemic hygiene is because it helps me understand the other point of view on contentious topics. Having now snuck a cursory glance at Wikipedia’s abortion-and-breast-cancer page, yes, it does appear that people who simply see the science as being on their side have already been fighting what they believe is legislation motivated by pseudoscience. And it’s no wonder they believe the number and quality of studies favors them. So… pervasive bias in those studies? It’s a possibility. How much a possibility? How wrong could they be while still being consistent with these many studies which superficially do sound more methodologically sound?

    It’s not impossible they could all be wrong. The ideal way to test this would be to understand every study and replicate it. I would wager, though, that they can’t be wrong by very much.

    After all, the “Medical Establishment’s anti-motherhood stance” (if that’s indeed what it is) acknowledges downsides to oral contraception and upsides to breastfeeding, contrary to its interests.

    For all the ways in which scientific research is broken, it’s still a method of belief-building that tends, in the domain of its expertise (which is material, not moral), toward the less-wrong. Does that still leave room for doubt? Sure, but I’d estimate the magnitude of reasonable doubt here as fairly modest. Modest enough that it’s reasonable to believe pro-lifers exaggerate the link between abortion and breast cancer. Which isn’t to say exaggeration isn’t politically effective, or that political efficacy for the sake of a good cause is bad.  Just that the suspicion it’s an untrustworthy exaggeration (even if for the sake of a good cause) ought to be understandable, at least as understandable as the suspicion it isn’t an untrustworthy exaggeration.

    • #82
  23. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    That if women know that there could be a link between breast cancer and abortion, they might not get an abortion?

    I think it has a bigger chance of affecting funding and charitable donations, especially after how much we’ve (collectively) done with Breast Cancer Awareness. I remember a big deal happening where there was a study that showed yogurt had a slight chance of increasing the risk of BC and people were demanding the Komen foundation stop advertising on the Yoplait lids.

    • #83
  24. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    Modest enough that it’s reasonable to believe pro-lifers exaggerate the link between abortion and breast cancer. Which isn’t to say exaggeration isn’t politically effective, or that political efficacy for the sake of a good cause is bad. J

    no doubt—and in real life (so to speak) the possibility that abortion might increase the risk of breast cancer is not the real reason to oppose abortion.

    What is interesting to me about this film—and the question—is the matter of what is and is not permitted into this particular national conversation, and why? Not just the scientific “why” but the political “why.”

    What seems to have startled the filmmaker is simply how disinterested everyone on the pro-choice side seemed to be about actively making their case for the long-term benignity of abortion.

    You don’t find this—much, anyway—when it comes to other issues in which Science has a bearing. Al Gore is willing to write whole books, and produce films and generally knock himself out making the pitch for global warming although (indeed, because)  he presumably believes the science to be “settled.” And yet…he is still willing to engage in the argument. Now perhaps this is simply because Al Gore is a powerful, well-connected guy…but oil companies and other Gaia-killers are powerful and well-connected too. So maybe it’s that the pro-life movement is, or appears to be, incapable (at least pro tem)  of forcing  a real debate?

    From my reading, it seems pretty clear that the “pro-woman” feminist abortion industry treats actual women pretty shabbily more often than anyone would prefer to admit. Yes, it’s true that there are crappy dental clinics too, and the poor of color” are disproportionately likely to go to lousy pediatricians and half-assed podiatrists too. But while plain indifference may mean that the crappy podiatrist’s office isn’t inspected as often as it should be, and the poor victim of botched bunion surgery is never adequately recompensed, there isn’t a whole movement insisting that American podiatrists are selfless heroes to-a-man. And (again, as far as I know) no one is imposing omerta over any discussion of whether orthopedic inserts cause cancer.

     

    • #84
  25. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Stina (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    That if women know that there could be a link between breast cancer and abortion, they might not get an abortion?

    I think it has a bigger chance of affecting funding and charitable donations, especially after how much we’ve (collectively) done with Breast Cancer Awareness. I remember a big deal happening where there was a study that showed yogurt had a slight chance of increasing the risk of BC and people were demanding the Komen foundation stop advertising on the Yoplait lids.

    Ah! Yes! And I should think the revenue streams for both breast cancer and abortion bubble up from the same source—that is, women of a certain income bracket.  A link between abortion and breast cancer (if true or even if just rumored) might put a dent in fundraising for both causes.

    • #85
  26. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    So… pervasive bias in those studies? It’s a possibility. How much a possibility? How wrong could they be while still being consistent with these many studies which superficially do sound more methodologically sound?

    If what they are worried about is legislation based on pseudoscience, the smart thing presumably would be to make the argument. To engage Ms. Ellis and say “this is why these other studies are wrong.” Sure, it’s possible they’ve done this a thousand times before, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Every pediatrician has to explain to virtually every anxious mom and dad that immunizing their kid against whooping cough is worth doing despite what they’ve been reading about links to autism and retardation.

    The problem may be that the actual act of abortion is something that no one really wants to talk about at all. The cost-benefit analysis one can bring to the problem of immunization, or hip surgery, or taking antidepressants…. doesn’t quite work for abortion, perhaps?

    • #86
  27. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    For instance… let’s say that I, a 55 year old woman, discover that I am unexpectedly and even downright miraculously pregnant. Abandoned by a husband who would have excellent reason to believe he is not the father, I’d drag my sorrowful, middle-aged self down to the local PP clinic for a consult. There are all the obvious costs to be considered: that elderly ova tend to make for fragile offspring; that an aging body just doesn’t have the vim required to sustain a pregnancy let alone the vigor to chase a toddler; that the poor kid would probably be orphaned by the time he’s twenty-five; that I’d have to give up all the interesting stuff I get to do now because I don’t have small children anymore. There is my present ambition to be a good grandmother, not just a mediocre mother (again).

    But on the other hand,  there’s the baby, and the act of killing him.

    The Pro-Con of any given abortion is so delicately and tenuously balanced…. all those plans, problems, humiliations, postponed or foregone personal goals on one side and on the other…a baby.

    Add just one more thing, even if it’s a featherweight, to the “con” side…?

    • #87
  28. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    That if women know that there could be a link between breast cancer and abortion, they might not get an abortion?

    I think it has a bigger chance of affecting funding and charitable donations, especially after how much we’ve (collectively) done with Breast Cancer Awareness. I remember a big deal happening where there was a study that showed yogurt had a slight chance of increasing the risk of BC and people were demanding the Komen foundation stop advertising on the Yoplait lids.

    Ah! Yes! And I should think the revenue streams for both breast cancer and abortion bubble up from the same source—that is, women of a certain income bracket. A link between abortion and breast cancer (if true or even if just rumored) might put a dent in fundraising for both causes.

    Then I can see why there might not be much interest among pro-lifers in confirming that the rumor is true.

    When donators go ballistic over Yoplait lids, you’re not dealing with reasonable caution anymore, but alarmism, and exploiting that alarmism is a political calculation. So hey, ho, carry on? They’re not being reasonable anyway, so what’s one more useful rumor?

    • #88
  29. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    Then I can see why there might not be much interest among pro-lifers in confirming that the rumor is true.

    When donators go ballistic over Yoplait lids, you’re not dealing with reasonable caution anymore, but alarmism, and exploiting that alarmism is a political calculation. So hey, ho, carry on? They’re not being reasonable anyway, so what’s one more useful rumor?

    I think you misunderstand. I think pro-life has an interest in confirming the rumors because the left that pushes breast cancer awareness is usually similarly inclined to supporting abortion rights and PP. If the rumors were confirmed, I think the two camps would devour each other.

    I think the incentive is to keep it shrouded in confusion because PP doesn’t want to mess with its donation stream.

    • #89
  30. CB Toder aka Mama Toad Member
    CB Toder aka Mama Toad
    @CBToderakaMamaToad

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):
    Yes, it’s true that there are crappy dental clinics too, and the poor of color” are disproportionately likely to go to lousy pediatricians and half-assed podiatrists too.

    Just yesterday I was reading about a government intelligence contractor who was so badly damaged in 2010 by a surgeon after he perforated her bowels in a surgery to remove a benign ovarian cyst that she ended up with flesh-eating necrotisation and lost her hands and feet.

    Now the surgeon is working for Planned Parenthood in Delaware.

    Lovely.

    Oh look! I googled the doctor’s name, and lo and behold, here’s a story about that same doctor damaging a woman at Planned Parenthood in Delaware during her abortion and refusing to call an ambulance.

    That same clinic was shut down in 2013 briefly. The reasons why are not pretty.

     

    • #90
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