Red herrings in abortion

Florida is considering another abortion restriction bill.  During the hearing, they asked what happens if a live baby is born as the result of an abortion.  The answer has raised accusations of infanticide, which is a red herring.

Before 24 weeks, the fetus wouldn't be viable.  After 24 weeks, abortion is exceedingly rare:  only 1.3% of all abortions are after 21 weeks, and even fewer after 24 weeks. 

Abortion after 24 weeks is illegal in Florida unless two doctors approve and agree that the abortion is medically necessary, which is unconstitutional.  No woman is having an abortion after 24 weeks unless the fetus is unlikely to survive in any case.  This particular "born alive" red herring has been used for over a decade, most recently against President Obama in his elections in 2004 and 2008 because he opposed a similar bill in Illinois.  This medical care for accidental babies issue just hurts women facing already difficult and often traumatic circumstances.

When politics turn personal

A Republican senator now favors gay marriage because his son is gay.

He framed his reaction in terms of equality of opportunity: ""It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that's of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have."

The story is similar to how one of the legislators who blocked a bill that would legalize abortion in Indiana later came to my grandfather (a pediatrician), asking for a referral to an illegal abortion for his 16 year old pregnant daughter.  Naturally this politician wanted to ensure that his daughter had the opportunities to succeed, in spite of any mistakes she may have made. 

Same-sex marriage is a wonderful example of where John Rawls' concept of the veil of ignorance applies:  we don't know whether our children will want to marry someone of the opposite sex or same sex, but we all want them to have the opportunity to marry.

About 3-5% of children of conservative politicians are likely to want to marry the same sex --- the same as in the general population --- so we may continue to see evolution like this on same-sex marriage.

It's too bad that conservative politicians are unlikely to have the same experiences for social policy.  Now that social mobility in the US is at a stand-still, the children born in the top quintile of income are likely to end up there themselves, and likewise for the bottom quintile.  Few policy makers make decisions informed by the personal experiences of people who are disadvantaged by the current system.  They are unlikely to know adults trying to support a household on minimum wage, and may truly believe that health and economic disparities are due to personal failings.

About 3-5% of the US population is gay, and aside from some predictors (e.g., having older brothers), gayness is more-or-less randomly assigned.  Not even 3% of children makers are randomly assigned to be socially disadvantaged.  If they were, we would have a situation paralleling Rawls's veil of ignorance, and we might have fewer social disparities.

Cognitive dissonance in faculty recruiting

The University of South Carolina has what I understand to be a very high quality School of Public Health. They are looking for a tenure-track faculty member with a description that matches my own research fairly well, studying "sexualities, sexual behavior, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, LGBT disparities or other sexuality and health issues." Particularly, they want someone who advocates and engages with community, state, national, and global organizations.

I checked their sex ed laws, and according to this profile, they are one of 7 states in the US to prohibit positive depictions of homosexuality in public schools, not a favorable start for any researcher who studies LGBT issues to advocate or engage with the community and local institutions. They also prohibit contraception information other than in the context of future family planning, which is better than nothing. SC is also one of the minority of states to apply for the federal abstinence-only sex education funding, meaning that the programs funded by that funding cannot even mention contraception in any positive way at all.

On the bright side, they also applied for the federal evidence-based sex education and pregnancy prevention funds, which they could certainly use since SC has the third highest gonorrhea rate in the country, and 8% of women ages 15-19 get pregnant each year, and 5% give birth. Looking at the gap between pregnancy and birth rates, it's particularly remarkable because 72% of SC women live in a county without an abortion provider (93% of counties lack an abortion provider), Medicaid does not fund abortions, they mandate a 24 hour waiting period and all procedures 12 weeks and after are a felony with mandatory minimum of 5 years in jail and/or $5000 fine.

Thanks to NARAL and Kaiser for the facts. The SC ACLU also has a long access guide listing all the sexuality, family planning, and related resources (e.g., PFLAG) in the state and neighboring states. So the state fortunately has some resources, even if they get an F by NARAL.

Emerging Adulthood in the Onion

According to the Onion, emerging adulthood never ends, and the country is down to its last 100 adults. The article does raise a serious point. When politicians cite emerging adulthood as a sign of the decline of civilization, do they wonder at what kind of model modern politics sets for adolescents and young adults?

In other Onion news, the Planned Parenthood Abortionplex in Kansas is finally open, offering movies, pedicures, shops, and a million abortions a month. I wonder how many people will think that this article is serious.

** UPDATE ***
Some people do think the Onion article about the abortionplex was literal, such as this person who says REPENT AMERICA.

13 year old girl performs abortion with a pencil

So many things wrong in this news story: in Pennsylvania, a state requiring parental consent for abortions, a 13 year old girl pregnant by her 30 year old "boyfriend" attempts to perform an abortion with a pencil, goes into labor, boyfriend buries the stillbirth or baby in a plastic shopping bag in the woods, and girl goes into hospital.

Things wrong:
1. Sexual coercion of minors often happens in families where parents just aren't paying attention. Parents are so out of the picture here that this 30 year old "boyfriend" has been with this girl for 1 year.
2. Even in the best of cases, adolescents have undeveloped judgement. Where teens will not involve their parents, doctors are the next best alternative. Not allowing doctors as an alternative, teens turn to their own judgement. Adolescents' brains aren't fully developed, so they may not see consequences of their actions.
3. Shady characters like pedophiles have poor judgement. This fellow may even be a murderer if baby was born alive, and yet the boyfriend is the only adult acting in this story. A legal abortion would involve doctors and nurses.
4. Finally and most importantly, illegal abortions are dangerous. On top of the trauma of pregnancy which is usually unsafe for a 13 year old, she had to be hospitalized.

Laws have to work at the borderlines. Most pregnant minors are 17 or so, many parents are supportive, and most teens tell their parents about their pregnancies, but 12 year olds do have sex and get pregnant, and often it's in crazy cases like this where the parents are just not paying attention. In my 8th grade class of 70 children in the best-funded school district in Illinois (at the time), we had 1 pregnant girl, and same in the year before us class of 60 children, a pregnancy rate of about 3% for those two years.

In Utah, a similar case of a woman asking to be attacked in order to induce abortion created a new anti-abortion law.

Could this case possibly cause Pennsylvania to alter its abortion laws so that parental consent was no longer required? I wish, but somehow it seems unlikely.

Next abortion restriction: must name the baby before abortion

Onion News Network: "New Law Requires Women To Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion". The piece includes many other abortion law spoofs including 3 week post nursery-painting reflection period, a law that requires a woman who gets an abortion to donate a kidney, and pharmacists dispensing birth control in a blood red box with a skull on it while chanting "god have mercy on us" in Latin.

Abortion in Washington Heights

I hadn't known this existed: Dominicans in Washington Heights are taking half of RU486 without prescription in order to induce abortion because they are uninsured or afraid of community disapproval or of immigration consequences, so unable to get a legal abortion. The most surprising thing is that women getting an illegal abortion have been arrested, one in Massachusetts.

[I'm not sure who is reading, so to be up-front about my bias: I'm the standard moderate "Abortion should be legal, but rare.", a 3rd generation Planned Parenthood supporter: my grandfather was a pediatrician very active pre-Roe, and even found an illegal abortion for the teenage daughter of a leader in the state legislature who had six months earlier blocked the bill that would have legalized abortion in Indiana.

I also donate to a fantastic organization, Efrat, that helps poor women in Israel who want more children but are considering abortion for economic reasons. (Israel is also the only country whose national health insurance pays for IVF; they cover I believe two completed pregnancies by IVF, without limit on the number of IVF cycles, and even for women who already have several children.) I know someone whose mother was coerced by his father into ending two pregnancies that she wanted, and they always wondered what these younger siblings would be like. No one regrets being alive and no women who choose to keep their pregnancies regret it. But choice is the key issue.]

All that said, I can't imagine not doing something to ensure that these women in Washington Heights and elsewhere have access to legal and safe abortion. How awful.