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Sanctity of Life (Abortion Megathread)
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I'm not sure how I feel about it, it's hard to see how this is informative or contributes to the debate in anyway other than as a stunt. On the other hand it is a way of reducing the argument back to what it is really about, real people in a situation they didn't seek and which is being made worse by our laws.
I suppose it serves to remind us that a lot of Irish women (~ 3,500 per year) travel to the UK for abortions, and that Irish abortion legislation really only affects those too sick or too poor to travel, which many of us would consider discrimination against more vulnerable members of out society.
There's an informative paper on Contraception and crisis pregnancy in Ireland published by the HSE here which provides a wealth of information on abortion rates among Irish women, free from media hype and bias. With regards to attitudes to abortion in differing circumstances, the following tables are relevant;
The recommendations of the study are improved sex education and awareness and availability of all contraception options (including emergency contraception) in order to try to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies and hence the need for abortion in the first instance. As things stand, 21% of crisis pregnancies among Irish women end in abortion.0 -
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Not at all, I never said you claimed not to be hyping your statement, or that it wasn't biased. I only pointed out that it's amusing that you'd highlight these features, within your own post which is so obviously hyperbolic and biased.You're misrepresenting me so, as the only thing I claimed to be free of bias and media was the linked HSE report. Anything on this thread, your own posts included, that is either linked media coverage or personal opinion is liable to contain bias and hype in varying measures.
Hence
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Join Date:Posts: 26396
Catholic Linked Abortion advice crowd making up all sorts of crap.The Women’s Centre advertises itself as an impartial source of advice for women who want to travel to the UK to access an abortion but has direct links to a Catholic anti-abortion group…
A woman working at the clinic, who claimed to be a counsellor, told her that breasts and ovaries were connected and that when a pregnancy ended unexpectedly a woman’s reproductive system could be damaged, causing breast cancer…and that abortion could lead to women abusing their children in the future.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/abortions-cause-cancer-women-s-centre-claims-kvkc8qvrs
impartial advise?
yeah...I don't think so0 -
Catholic Linked Abortion advice crowd making up all sorts of crap.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/abortions-cause-cancer-women-s-centre-claims-kvkc8qvrs
impartial advise?
yeah...I don't think so
They will stoop to the lowest levels possible.0 -
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lazybones32 wrote: »Describing all the potential problems associated with the abortion procedure is part of allowing a woman to make a fully-informed decision.
Seeing as you, and others, think the claims are made up (a news article called it "misinformation"), I will recommend a documentary for you - "Hush" by Punam Gill. She is avowedly pro-choice from beginning to end of the documentary but, to give her credit, she brings a lot of information into light and she tackles the topic seriously. I'd recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested in the subject...it shows who is misrepresenting facts. I won't share any information the woman uncovered because people might reject it if it comes from me.
Except that that is not what we see the counsellor doing in the attached video. She makes repeated false statements about the consequences of abortion.
1. On foetal pain
At 0:33, the counsellor states that the conceptus (revealed later in the video to be 7-8 weeks) will feel "considerably more pain than we would". This is demonstrably false. We know what is required, from a foetal development perspective, for the perception of pain in a foetus. The perception of pain requires the development not only of neural connections throughout the body but also the thalamic connections in the brain which registers inputs from the body's nerve endings. This, combined with observational studies have shown that foetal pain is extremely unlikely before week 25.
Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multi-Disciplinary Review of the Evidence
Cortical pain responses in human infants.
Fetal Pain: Do We Know Enough to Do the Right Thing?
A Shift in Sensory Processing that Enables the Developing Human Brain to Discriminate Touch from Pain
Fetal Awareness - Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice
2. On the use of medical abortions
The counsellor then goes on to claim (at 0:58) that the woman in the video could not use a pill because she was at 7-8 weeks. In fact, medical abortions now account for 55% of all abortions and are used at all stages of pregnancy. They are the dominant method (Table 5 in the attached link below) up to 8 weeks and from week 24 onwards with use between these periods ranging from 13-38%. The counsellor seems to be either completely unaware of this fact or confusing medical abortion pills with the MAP. Either way it shows a level of ignorance that should disqualify her from being a counsellor.
UK Abortion Statistics 2015
3. On abortion and breast cancer
The most egregious false claim from the counsellor comes at 1:37 where she claims that abortion leads to an increased risk of breast cancer. Again here I'm not sure whether the counsellor is trying to deliberately scare the patient, wilfully ignorant or has simply failed to keep up with research in the area. The claim that abortion is linked to an increased breast cancer risk dates back to a review paper in 1996:
Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis
The study reviews 21 studies (mostly of very poor quality) and finds a link between abortion and breast cancer. However, the paper failed to include 19 eligible (and more rigorous studies) which fatally undermines its conclusions. Furthermore, in the intervening 20 years there have been a number of large cohort studies and systematic reviews which have demonstrated that there is, in fact, no link between abortion and breast cancer:
Induced Abortion and the Risk of Breast Cancer
Induced and Spontaneous Abortion and Incidence of Breast Cancer Among Young WomenA Prospective Cohort Study
Induced abortion and breast cancer among parous women: a Danish cohort study
Breast cancer and abortion: collaborative reanalysis of data from 53 epidemiological studies, including 83?000 women with breast cancer from 16 countries.
4. On abortion and child abuse
Next, the counsellor claims (2:03) that women who have had abortions are more likely to abuse or neglect their children. The backstory of this claim is long and complicated but it is ulimately untrue. In the 1970s a claim arose among pro-choice groups that abortion would lead to a lower incidence of child abuse since it would lower the amount of "unwanted" children. A number of psychologists investigated this claim and found it to be without foundation. This was demonstrated in a 1979 paper which found that there was in fact positive correlation between child abuse rates and abortion rates.
Relationship between abortion and child abuse
However, since then pro-life groups have seized upon this correlation and used it to claim that abortion causes child abuse. This is untrue, just as untrue as the original claim, in fact, since correlation does not imply causation.
The graph above demonstrates exactly why abortion does not cause child abuse. The graph shows the correlation between lemon imports and road traffic fatalities in the US. There is a strong correlation here (stronger than that between abortion and child abuse) between the two measured factors. However, nobody in their right mind would claim that importing lemons prevents road deaths. Similarly nobody should be making the claim about abortion and child abuse either.
5. On abortion and physical trauma
At 2:20 the counsellor begins explaining about the risks of surgical abortion. There are two problems with this advice. Firstly, as has been previously mentioned, the counsellor is ignorant of the option of medical abortion which doesn't carry the risk of surgical abortion and accounts for the greater percentage of all abortions performed. Secondly, and more importantly, abortion is one of the safest medical procedures there is. The death rate from general surgical procedures in the US is approximately 1.3%. The death rate from abortions in the US is approximately 0.0014%. In 2008, for example, there were 825,564 abortions performed in the USA. In that period there were only 12 deaths from abortions or complications thereof.
Predicting Risk of Death in General Surgery Patients on the Basis of Preoperative Variables Using American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Data
Abortion Surveillance 2009
The risk of damage, in the terms used by the counsellor, is also highly variable but has a frequency of between 1 in 250 and 1 in 1000 abortions.
6. On abortion and psychological trauma
The final advice given by the counsellor is a warning against the psychological impact of abortion. However, once again the counsellor is either ignorant of or deliberately misrepresenting the evidence.
Induced First-Trimester Abortion and Risk of Mental Disorder
The study above examined the incidence rates of psychiatric contact before and after a first time first-trimester abortion and compared it with the rates before and after a first childbirth.
The results show that the before and after rates for induced abortion are 14.6 and 15.2 respectively. However since the 95% C.I. of both results overlapped, it is not safe to conclude that there is any increased risk of mental disorder following abortion.
Live birth on the other hand lead to a significant increased risk of mental disorder with incidence rates climbing from 3.9 to 6.7. This is a not unsurprising conclusion as post-partum depression is a reasonably common occurrence.
There is nothing to see in this video except bad advice, scaremongering and wilful ignorance. At no point does the counsellor offer any useful, truthful or meaningful information to the patient.0 -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFvOoMvpJGE
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