Yeah, that helps.

http://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=1366

Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen
aka Dr. B.L.T., The Pro-life Song Blogger

Calling mr. Stockholm…come in mr. Stockholm…

(Assuming she’s correct of course. Behind-the-scenes puppetry is certainly a strong possibility in such a self hating movement)

Lots of women opposed giving the vote to women too. And lets not forget Phyllis Schlaffy and her successful crusade against the Equal Rights Amendment.

So illegal abortion was fairly safe for most women, yes. (Unless you want to assume that abortion was rare, in which case it was very unsafe).

But it certainly wasn’t as safe as legal abortion. Nor was it safe for the minority of women who ended up going to back-alley butcher types.

Warhawks keep insisting “everything’s fine, only [triple digit number that keeps rising] U.S. citizens have died in Iraq.”

Anti-choicer’s keep insisting “everything’s fine, only [triple digit number that would have kept on rising] U.S. citizens have died in illegal abortions.”

Statements like that don’t comfort the dead or their families. In any case, one preventable death is one too many.

And of course, in both instances, the number of dead foreign citizens (Iraqis/abortion seeking women in third world countries) doesn’t even register in their minds.

I guess there’s the theory that once abortion was legal, all these nice and professional doctors entered the business, and no one would go to the “butchers” any more. But what evidence is there that this is true?

Remember that when states try to make sure that abortions are done by legitimate doctors rather than physicians’ assistants, pro-abortion people rush into court to file lawsuits. See the Montana case, for example. And remember that physicians’ assistants typically don’t even have a college degree; all they need is two years of education. Now why would it be so important to abortionists to make sure that uneducated or untrained people can do abortions? Oh right, it’s because they care so much about widespread access to abortion (read: making more money).

Basically, I’d bet that abortion was done mostly by the same hacks, whether in 1972 or 1974. Even today, I’d bet that smart and decent medical students mostly want to practice real medicine, not hack fetuses to pieces all day long.

So where did these back-alley butchers go? How do you know that they all stopped as of 1973 and didn’t just move into “legitimate” clinics as “assistants”?

“Would have kept on rising”? Huh? Are you able to see the graph that Amp posted? Looks like the number of women killed by abortion dropped drastically in the decade prior to 1973.

As I said, “back-alley butchers” - which I use as a generic catagory for illegal abortion practitioners who had no idea what they were doing and were extremely likely to harm patients - were a minority. As I’ve said twice now, the majority of people who performed illegal abortions knew what they were doing (whoops! That’s three times!).

If I explain it to you a fourth time, will you acknowlege what I’ve written, or will you just continue ignoring it? Enough’s enough, Joe.

To answer your question: The extreme drop in abortion deaths is enough to prove that most of the unsafe practioners left the field as abortion was legalized.

Finally, Joe, in “the decade prior to 1973″ abortion was gradually legalized in the US, as individual states legalized abortion; that’s probably what accounts for most of the drop in abortion fatalities in the 1960s. (An earlier drop was caused by improvements in medical techniques).

Also, and along the same lines, it seems to me that aborions done in clinic with onsite medical support are generally safer than ones done in secret whether backalley (and yeah I know they weren’t done literally in back alleys) or in relatively clean rooms.

That’s just a guess. I have nothing to back my guess up except common sense (an often poor basis for these things).

There you go again. DROPPED, not VANISHED. And for the reasons explained by Amp.

And before you jump to the obvious next statement, there is no way to reduce abortion deaths to 0, just as there is no way to reduce childbirth deaths to 0. You can, however, work lower the number as much as possible, but that’s hard to do under illegality.

Jeez, it’s always quantity over quality with you folks. “We have proof that a majority in this country dissaproves of abortion” you say, never mind the fact that a duped and misinformed “majority” still can’t overrule a woman’s human rights.

Joe sez:
“Oh right, it’s because they care so much about widespread access to abortion (read: making more money).”

Oh not this again! Ok, one more time, if you were a conspiracy that had the power, resources, and influence to pass something as dramatic as Roe vs. Wade, why would you waste them on a high profile, “unpopular”, dangerous, and not that profitable sector like abortion? You would be much better off manipulating finance, or even legitimately endorsing TRULY profitable fields of medicine, as you would make a lot more money and there would be no crusaders and governmental interference (like the abortion restriction laws in most states) getting in your way.

Plus, I know that Amp (who is surprisingly honest) says that back-alley butchers were rare and that most abortions were safe even before Roe. Great. But most pro-abortion propaganda takes the opposite line: Displays of coat hangers over the least little restriction, the pretense that “butchers” would be doing all abortions if the Court reversed Roe (when anyone knows that it would make little difference in the vast majority of states), etc., etc. Amp can’t have missed these sorts of scare tactics; it’s how pro-abortion activists raise their money, after all. That’s more what I’m responding to.

First, she claimed that abortion deaths would have “kept on rising,” even though they weren’t rising to begin with. This is obvious from Amp’s graph. She completely ignores her own falsehood, and instead tries to blame me for supposedly saying that deaths “vanished.” Instead, she says that they merely “dropped.”

Well, gee thanks. That’s exactly what I said: That they dropped.

Second, she pretends that I have theorized about some vast conspiracy to pass Roe. No. It’s really quite simple. What I said was absolutely true: Given the situation as it is, abortionists make more money if they can hire physicians’ assistants to do the abortions, rather than paying a doctor 4 or 5 times as much to do the same thing. The incentives are obvious: They want to make more money, as we all do.

But they’re not going to appear before journalists and say the truth: “We’re going to court to defend our sacred right to make more money by letting unprofessional people do abortions.” No, when they make public statements, it’s all about the sacred right of abortion, and how important it is to preserve access.

It’s a nice gig: Make more money while claiming that you’re just altruistically defending the Constitution. What’s surprising is that anyone falls for it.

What I originally said:
“Anti-choicer’s keep insisting “everything’s fine, only [triple digit number that would have kept on rising] U.S. citizens have died in illegal abortions.”
Statements like that don’t comfort the dead or their families. In any case, one preventable death is one too many.”

I am not saying the RATE of deaths would have continued rising, I’m saying the TOTAL number of deaths would have continued rising, and that quibbling about “acceptable losses” in the name of dubious morality is disgusting.

You then eerily echo my spoof line of anti-choice dialogue (”everything’s fine, only XXX U.S. citizens have died in illegal abortions.”) with this real line: “Huh? Are you able to see the graph that Amp posted? Looks like the number of women killed by abortion dropped drastically in the decade prior to 1973.”

Like that makes it alright.

We must keep abortion legal in order to make it as safe as possible. As I said, 0 deaths is unnatainable, just as it is unnatainable with any major surgery and birth. Our goal is to minimize such deaths, and you are standing in the way.

Indeed, the overturn of Roe would make little difference…for RICH women! Poor women can’t afford to travel to a state or country where it is still legal and safe, especially if they have jobs and already existing children. I can easily see back alley butchers emerging in that scenario. Then again, I can also see JANE being re-activated…

You’re assuming all doctors think the way you do. There are many who would consider the opportunity to give a woman control of her future, not to mention a chance of surviving a flawed pregnancy, a worthwhile endeavor. They’re quite brave, considering that there are many in your movement who are still itching to shoot or bomb them. No brain surgeon has to fear that fate.

How about this obvious incentive: If a doctor costs 4 or 5 times more, then his salary has to be paid at the expense of the patients, which can be prohibitive for poor women.

And my point still stands: If you’re only in it for the money then there are MUCH better and safer ways to turn medical skills and logistics into cash.