None of my arguments are based on this observation. Not a single one. It's simply an observation, and one that's spot on.

And you accuse me of building strawmen? I did not say not to think; I said that your claim was not one that can be justified merely with thought. You made a positive claim about a worldly cause; that position requires evidence for it, not just a willy-nilly thought experiment about how it conceptually could be true.

Apparently, I've got children, because I've had intercourse with the opposite sex. Lakrite says that's what happens. Thing is, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed.
Please check the other active thread for my comments about gross oversimplification, which has bitten you right in the XXX once again. And I don't mean with just this statement; I mean with the rest of the argument, too.

As a reminder, let's see the claim Lakrite is trying to support:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakrite If a man wants to have sex with a woman, he will more likely do so if he knows the woman can just get an abortion.

This "evidence" also says that men are more likely to get a woman pregnant when the calendar year starts with "20" than when it starts with "19." (We should rework the calendar to reduce pregnancy! Wow, who'da thunk we could solve an overpopulation issue with a new calendar?)
The only thing you've shown here are numbers of pregnancies. You have not shown numbers for instances of sexual intercourse to show a correlation. You have not shown any numbers for likelihood of having sex. You also haven't shown how many of these pregnancies were planned, unplanned, and/or unwanted. Even if you did, though, you've forgotten the age-old mantra, "correlation does not mean causation." Your numbers do not constitute evidence. Your claim refers to desire, likelihood, and pregnancy, so you need to establish a relationship between all three.

You said that there are numerous ways to support your claim, but you led with this? This is trash; this is scientifically worthless. This is laughable and pathetic. Can you actually support your claim with one of these "numerous" ways?

My original objection was based on the soundness of your argument in a philosophical sense, not on the effect. However, I think I might have previously misinterpreted what you meant by "responsibility," but you can let me know by giving some clarification if my new understanding is incorrect.
If you're using "responsibility" as hyperbole for accountability then it seems that you're arguing that an abortion wrongly relieves a man of the accountability of impregnating the woman.
Let's presume that this interpretation is correct so that I can continue. What if the man pays for an abortion the woman is willing to have? Then he has accepted accountability for his actions. If the woman accepts such an offer, how does that qualify as abuse? Further -- though not to discount the physiological effect of an abortion -- why doesn't the woman bear accountability in the same way? You anti-choicers are always screaming that it takes two to tango, so why do we now hear that the man must be abusing the woman?

Once again, my (probably now defunct) objection was not based on results but on the wording of the argument itself, which should have been clear from the emphasis I used via font style. You took what I said and ran it in a different direction; if either of us is guilty of the strawman fallacy, it's you.

Oh, look another positive claim. If it actually had any relevance to the discussion, I'd ask you to provide numbers. I don't think you can, because I think you pulled this idea right out of your bum. I find myself wondering why it is that you associate abortion-prohibiting countries with rampant crime yet still want to make this country abortion-prohibiting.

What the hell does this mean? It means squat. It's irrelevant. Random rambling, stumbling, and bumbling to stall and hope that I can't produce the numbers to support my point. You're in for a rude awakening.

See below, after I finish responding to your statements.

No, I don't. I have to show statistics that support my claim. You have to show statistics that support your claim. You haven't. In fact, you said that you could, you said that you could do it multiple ways, and you selected a "way" that showed nothing relevant to the conversation. How pathetic.


Read the following article regarding a study from the WHO.

Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare

Published: October 12, 2007

ROME, Oct. 11 — A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.

The results of the study, a collaboration between scientists from the World Health Organization in Geneva and the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a reproductive rights group, are being published Friday in the journal Lancet.

“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview. “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”

But the legal status of abortion did greatly affect the dangers involved, the researchers said. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Dr. Van Look said. “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available, said Sharon Camp, chief executive of the Guttmacher Institute.

In Eastern Europe, where contraceptive choices have broadened since the fall of Communism, the study found that abortion rates have decreased by 50 percent, although they are still relatively high compared with those in Western Europe. “In the past we didn’t have this kind of data to draw on,” Ms. Camp said. “Contraception is often the missing element” where abortion rates are high, she said.

[snip]

Here are the compiled numbers and conclusions.


Follow the link and read the whole thing. Three things become obvious:
1. Outlawing abortion does very little -- if anything -- to actually reduce the number of abortions.
2. If you want to reduce the number of abortions, educate the citizenry about contraception and make contraception widely available. This means that asinine abstinence-only education needs to end and that sex needs to be un-demonized by the ultra-conservatives so that people aren't ashamed of obtaining contraception and aren't afraid of punishment for possessing it.
3. If you want to reduce the number of complications from abortions, those abortions should be legalized procedures performed by standard medical protocol and subject to standard medical oversight.

So when we look at the rightwing nutjobs who say they're trying to save the unborn and the psychological health of mothers, but they protest Roe v. Wade and promote abstinence-only sex ed, they're actually having an effect opposite of their stated desire.

Upon being shown this information, do they change their tactics?
Well, Lakrite, will you?

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

A known fact is that the fast majority of all countries that have abortion outlawed are in South America and Africa. Countries in these regions are developing countries, and developing countries tend to have increased poverty and crime rates. The few that do allow abortion still have high crime rates. South Africa has very high crime rates, a known fact. You cannot compare the statistics of a developing country with the United States.

Outlawing anything does very little in developing countries. However, in more recent years, crime rates have began to decrease in developing countries, but the abortion statistics I was given in the article were from 2003, when developing countries did have higher crime rates.

But even if all of what I said above is totally false, you still cannot compare the abortion rates of developing and developed countries. The economic systems are entirely different. One reason for abortion is poverty, and developing countries have more poverty and would be more willing to break that law and have an abortion.

In order to more fairly compare abortion rates, we must look not at countries in Africa but countries in Europe. This article explains why it makes little sense to say that by making something that had been legal illegal, more people will do that something. Ironically, it disputes the actual source of evidence you cited in your argument. Even if that evidence is completely valid, your own source disproves the point you are trying to make.

Time to compare countries in Europe with more similar economic structures. Let us compare not Africa and the United States, but Ireland (Illegal Abortion) with England and Wales(Legal abortion)
Actually, upon reading the whole article, it is stating what I was stating at the start of the post. Read the whole article, it touches on the main points that:
1. Abortion rates are higher in developing countries whether or not it is illegal or legal.
2. Developed countries have lower abortion rates.
3. When comparing developed countries with illegal and legal abortion rates, countries with illegal abortion have less abortions than countries with legal abortion.

This point is correct, but the problem is that women should not be getting abortions when abortion is illegal. That is their own fault for breaking the law. It reminds me of court cases were burglars sued homeowners for slipping on their sidewalk when trying to break into their house. If people do damage to themselves as a result of breaking a law, that is their own problem.

I have more to say, but I do not have time right now to type anything else or even proofread this post for typos etc. So I will be back later tonight to finish up.

__________________
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
-Ronald Reagan
"Life is a story; if you stay on the same page forever you will never finish it."
"There are days you are the pigeon and days you are the statue."

Watch as I prove that the majority of people in my residence are safer from eyesight damage than average:
1. The majority of people in my house have brown hair.
2. Many people with brown hair also have brown eyes.
3. People with brown eyes often experience less negative retinal impact from exposure to bright light than people with lighter colored eyes.
Thus, I have proven that the majority of people in my house are less prone to eyesight damange from the sun than average.

Or at least, that's how your argument is structured. But perhaps the brown-haired people in my house don't have brown eyes. See, I didn't provide any actual data for the susceptibility for the people in my house. It's a nice trick that works on people who aren't very smart. You think it's a sound argument; I know it's not.

I maintain that the point is irrelevant to our discussion, but the fact that you can posit such nonsensical "evidence" and belief that it is sound should serve as a warning. You're not too good with logic.

Calling something a known fact does not make it true. For example, I could say, "It's a known fact that brown-eyed people should be exterminated." Pretty dumb, huh? Provide some actual evidence.

I most certainly can. The fact that those statistics don't always work out in your favor is just tough beans for you. You conveniently ignored this line, written in plain and simple English for plain and simple people like you:

Quote:

Originally Posted by WHO/Guttmacher study On the other hand, a woman’s likelihood of having an abortion is similar whether she lives in a developed or developing region; in 2003, there were 26 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in developed countries compared with 29 per 1,000 in developing countries.

Is that so? Then you can show the difference of the effects on outlawing something in a developing country versus outlawing something in a developed country. Or can you?

or irrelevant...
Now this is interesting. You think that we can ignore the fact that these people who want abortions will get them regardless of the law. You want to gloss over it because you have made an unsubstantiated claim that these people do so because they live in poverty. Thus, I propose a new plan that you can promote: Instead of outlawing abortion, give poor pregnant women who lean toward abortion free money. I know that idea'll catch on like wildfire in rightwingville.

Seriously, you're making so little sense, you're actually making other conservatives look bad; now that's impressive.

It makes little sense to argue against a strawman, unless of course you can't argue against the facts.
You and your blogger buddy have made a humongous, boneheaded mistake. Nowhere do the data -- or the interpretation -- suggest that outlawing abortion increases the rates. The study shows that the rates compare; that is, there is no significant correlation between abortion rates and abortion's legal status.
Seriously, that's damn near as dumbass a mistake as somebody can make. I mean, you've already made yourself look downright moronic with your inability to understand numbers, but this is comedy gold.

Only to those who are scientifically illiterate. That'd be you and your buddy.

Cherry picking. Let me help you out once again:

Quote:

Originally Posted by WHO/Guttmacher study Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence. For example, the abortion rate is 29 in Africa, where abortion is illegal in many circumstances in most countries, and it is 28 in Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds. The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions.

This is not in dispute; what is in dispute -- among other things -- is how large that disparity is. The numbers show a difference, but certainly a small one.

Once again, true. Yet, first, the disparity is once again not as large as I suspect you'd like to hope; second, I'm pretty damn sure my reason for citing the article was to contest the rationale behind outlawing abortion.

Please provide the specific data you used to draw this conclusion, and explain why your conclusion follows from those data.

No, the problem is that abortion should not be illegal. Can't you keep up?

What the hell are you talking about now? Did I miss a memo about a recent rash of formerly pregnant women who have sued their abortion doctors for "damage"?

I hope you read my post first. Any more of your rubbish without realizing your mistakes will just be a waste of time.

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Please explain how. Show the evidence.

South Africa DOES have high crime rates. That fact is not disputable, just as the fact that the earth has oxygen is not disputable. I do not need to display charts of oxygen levels in the air to prove oxygen is on earth.
Just because you do not know something that many people know does not make me wrong.
Here is a site with many crime rate statistics looked at, specifically South Africa.
South Africa's Position in Africa's Crime Rankings - African Security Review Vol 9 No 4, 2000

Remember when you said you cannot simply "think" about something? Well you cannot just show evidence and not analyze it either. Although a wikipedia article, the following
does help explain characteristics and locations of developing vs. developed countries.
Developing country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now you must understand that developing countries have totally different social, political, and economic structures than developed countries. It would be more accurate to compare the United States to Europe than to compare the United States to Africa.
It is fallacious to say the failure of something in Africa will result in failure in the United States, especially considered how Ireland (pretty much the only illegal abortion country in Europe besides Poland, which also has similar results)has succeded in reducing abortions while abortion is outlawed.
I didn't ignore it...and I don't ever recall saying that abortion rates in developing countries and developed countries are not similar. They are similar, but not equal. What I said:
Is true, as shown by your and my evidence. My main point is that you cannot justify the effects of outlawing abortion in the US by citing comparisons in Africa.
This conclusion is invalid. It assumes that:
1. Outlawing abortion in Africa and other developing countries has little effect on the number of abortions in Africa. False In order to assume this you must have the number of abortions that took place in Africa while abortion was legal. It is logical to say that if abortion were made legal in developing countries, more people would have them.
2. Therefore if abortion were illegal in the United States the abortion rate would be about the same as it is now. Once again, incorrect. You must compare the amount of abortions during a time period in which abortion was legal and one in which abortion was illegal IN THE SAME COUNTRY.

The argument made is essentially this:

1. Abortion is illegal in most developing countries
2. Abortion is legal in most developed countries.
2. The abortion rate of developing and developed countries is similar.
3. Therefore, the legality of abortion in developing and developed countries not affect the number of abortions that take place.
Just because the legality of abortion seems to have no affect on Africa does not mean it will not have an affect on other countries. This logic is very similar to the fallacy of composition.

So to judge the likelihood of illegal abortion creating less abortion rates in the United States, we must now turn to comparing data within the United States.

But how does one find illegal abortion rates? They are illegal, and thus they will not be reported. In a murder or rape, somebody reports them, so those rates do exist. But nobody would report or even find out about an illegal abortion. To get an idea, we can look at women dying from illegal abortions, but then again we could not use that data as we do not know how many abortions a woman would have before she died.
This article explains in detail the problems with finding illegal abortion statistics.
This site shows numerous abortions statistics.
In 1960 there were 292 legal abortions, with roughly 100,000 illegal abortions, coming out to 100,292 total. That is compared to 1,206,000 abortions today. There are 12 times the amount of abortions today now that abortion is illegal than in a time when it was illegal. Even if I said that there were 1,000,000 abortions occurring illegally in 1960, there would still be 206,000 more abortions today. That is a 20% increase in the number of abortions, which, despite the fact that the numbers 1 million and 1.2 million are similar in size, is not insignificant at all.

It is impossible to give actual illegal abortion rates during the 1960s because of the fact that they of course would not be recorded. The estimated number of illegal abortions is the only data to go off of.

__________________
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
-Ronald Reagan
"Life is a story; if you stay on the same page forever you will never finish it."
"There are days you are the pigeon and days you are the statue."

Africa and Europe are continents, not countries

__________________
" ... It's not as though he proved anything, he only refuted my evidence. ..." Archangel 04.01.09

" ... this egregiously ignorant christian ... Archangel 03.09.09

" An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" Annie Dillard

Is there something I said that leads you to believe I think otherwise?

__________________
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
-Ronald Reagan
"Life is a story; if you stay on the same page forever you will never finish it."
"There are days you are the pigeon and days you are the statue."

Okay:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakrite A known fact is that the fast majority of all countries that have abortion outlawed are in South America and Africa.

Most of A are B.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakrite Countries in these regions are developing countries,

(Most of) B are C. (But we could go ahead and suppose that this were an absolute, if that's what you meant.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lakrite and developing countries tend to have increased poverty and crime rates.

Cs tend to have characteristic D.

Most of A are B.
If B, then C.
If C, then sometimes D.

"Most of A are B" is equivalent to "Not all of A are B" and "Some of A are not B."
"If B, then C" and "If C, then sometimes D" is equivalent to "If B, then sometimes D."

P1: Not all of A are B.
P2: If B, then sometimes D.
C1: [null]

Congratulations! You've shown precisely nothing.

You missed my point entirely. Your post was laced with phrases like "known fact" as if that's a freebie. The statement can be challenged, so when someone asks you for data, you'd better provide them.

If someone challenged you to provide evidence that there is oxygen on the earth, you could provide said evidence in a number of ways. A chart is not a necessary component. Citations and experiments work equally well.

The irony here is that you get all pissy when I point out that you'd better have data when you're challenged, so you provide data for this claim that I didn't actually dispute (why would I? I've argued and still maintain that it's irrelevant), yet you continue to take the conversation farther and farther away from the original challenges I made to you.

Look, I posted the quotation right in my post for you to read. The numbers do compare. Have I -- or has anyone -- tried to argue that legislation is the only factor at work? Absolutely not; not even you would come out and make that accusation. Instead, you just imply it.

What's wrong, Lakrite? You don't know what cherry picking is? You're pointing at one example and raising it above the rest without justification. That, Lakrite, is so fallacious that it has its own name.

But, hey, if you demand to compare the abortion rate of North America (defined by this study as the U.S. and Canada) to those of Europe instead of to those of Africa, we could do that:
2003 abortion rate in North America: 21
2003 abortion rate in Europe: 28
Is North America's abortion rate lower because North America has outlawed abortion? Considering North America hasn't outlawed abortion, I'm pretty damn sure the answer is no.

Some interpretation:

Quote:

Originally Posted by WHO/Guttmacher study The most dramatic decline in abortion incidence occurred in Eastern Europe, a region where abortion is, for the most part, legal and safe: the rate fell from 90 to 44.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WHO/Guttmacher study The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions.

The study makes it clear over and over again: The legal status of abortion is a lousy predictor of abortion rate. A factor with a larger impact on abortion rate is availability of contraception (including knowledge of its proper use).
What the anti-choicers are doing is akin to trying to move a pile of sand by throwing one grain at a time up in the air -- such that it might be moved away by wind, but might not -- while refusing to use a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Even if we suppose that your main point is correct, that's not what I'm doing. I'm citing worldwide evidence. You're pretending that I'm cherry-picking.
You insisted that we compare using Europe instead of Africa, so I did, and it didn't help you.

No, those numbers are not required. We have data for countries where abortion is legal and where it is not. It is a valid contrast.

Only if you can provide evidence for such.

1. This is not a lab experiment. We can't manipulate the system and take measurements before and after as if trying to burn a match in an anaerobic atmosphere and then trying with oxygen present. In non-lab examples such as this one, we take large sample sizes and use the law of large numbers to increase the reliability of the data. This is simple statistics.
2. There is fluctuation of abortion rates within single countries when abortion's legality is not changing. A huge one is the availability of contraception.
3. Finally, and most importantly: You call this italicized statement a required assumption, but it is nothing of the sort. In fact, the argument here is that the legal status has minimal impact on the abortion rate; thus, the "assumption" you've created is antithetical to the position.

Ignoring your apparent inability to count... your argument is a strawman. Statement 3 is not the argument, nor is it the basis for the argument. The low abortion rate in Western and Northern Europe -- definitely not developing countries -- deals a serious blow to your arguments.

Please try to pay attention, Lakrite: You can try all the special pleading and cherry picking your little heart desires, but Europe's numbers show that your overall conclusion is wrong.

So you're saying that we could be counting a woman only once when she might represent multiple abortions, meaning that we've establish minimum values? So rates in countries that outlaw abortions might be even higher than thought? (I'm actually guessing not, because I presume the statistics used in the report used some model to account for this, but I don't know that methodology. I just thought it would be humorous to readers to show Lakrite the consequence of the rationale for his objection.)

Thank you for proving your statistical ignorance. High school science teaches about significant figures, which should have instilled in you the understanding that 292 plus around 100,000 does not mean 100,292. It means around 100,000.
Evidence for statistical ignorance, part II: You're comparing absolute data instead of comparing rates. Shame on you.
Evidence for statistical ignorance, part III: You missed the part where the numbers represented by your source do not represent all states. Even through the 70s, not all states' abortion statistics are available, meaning the real numbers are higher.

And there are only about two-thirds as many abortions (rate-wise -- after all, that's the honest way to compare) today than nearly thirty years ago, when abortion was also legal.
Considering the rate was going up before Roe and continued going up well after Roe, then declined, it's clear that there are factors other than legality. You're champing at the bit to refer to developing vs. developed, and you insist that we must compare time when legal vs. time when illegal, but you want to ignore the other effects of that time change, such as actual birth and abortion rates (as evidenced by your citing absolute data), availability of abortion, safety of abortion, stigma of abortion, availability of contraception and comprehensive sex education, etc.

By the way, I didn't see where you got the 100,000 number. Where was this from? Did it include the states that didn't report any numbers at all? How large would this number be if it represented the entire country? To what abortion rate does that correspond?

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Yes.

" It would be more accurate to compare the United States to Europe than to compare the United States to Africa."

__________________
" ... It's not as though he proved anything, he only refuted my evidence. ..." Archangel 04.01.09

" ... this egregiously ignorant christian ... Archangel 03.09.09

" An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" Annie Dillard

Electrolyte & Penfold,

Using logic against a True Believer (Thank you, Eric Hoffer.) is not going to get anywhere.

Her/his mind is made up, not to be confused with facts.

Besides which, the True Believers absolutely run away and refuse to deal with the key question of why they believe that the government is better able to determine the future of a woman's pregnancy than she herself is.

Did I ever say Africa and Europe were countries? No. What I said was true, and you can compare a country to a continent. It would be more accurate to compare a country with a continent that is similar than a continent that is very different, hence what I said...You assumed that by comparing a country to a continent, I believed that the continent was a country.
If you keep hitting your head against a wall, you wont get any smarter. The government has a duty to protect the life of the developing child. That is like asking "Why is the government better able to determine the future of a possible murder victim's life than the murderer is?"

__________________
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
-Ronald Reagan
"Life is a story; if you stay on the same page forever you will never finish it."
"There are days you are the pigeon and days you are the statue."

You may do so, but anyone else would have to abandon all logic and common sense.

__________________
" ... It's not as though he proved anything, he only refuted my evidence. ..." Archangel 04.01.09

" ... this egregiously ignorant christian ... Archangel 03.09.09

" An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" Annie Dillard

Electrolyte, before I continue I would like to request something. What is the logic behind the idea that outlawing abortion will not reduce the number of abortions? Evidence is used to support a claim based on logic, and I would like to see that logic to better understand what it is exactly you think. Evidence is important, but it will cause ambiguity if there is not sufficient analysis behind it.

I believe that if something is made illegal and enforced properly, less of it will occur, including abortion. Can you please tell me why you think outlawing abortion will not have any effect on the number of abortions? Thank you.

__________________
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."
-Ronald Reagan
"Life is a story; if you stay on the same page forever you will never finish it."
"There are days you are the pigeon and days you are the statue."

Historically, the abortion numbers have never been lower than they were just before elective abortion became legal. To claim the numbers will increase as a result of elective abortion being banned is simply not supported by the historical facts.

__________________
"How can a government that has the authority to grant or to deny "personhood" to a prebirth child not also have the authority to define "marriage" as it sees fit to address the general welfare of the nation?" - Chuz Life

Something smells!

Translation: "I've had a couple of days now to look at your previous post, and I can't really figure out how I can still defend my argument. It's pretty damning."

Translation: "I need something else to argue against, because my XXX is grass if we continue talking about the data."

What is the "logic" behind wave-particle duality? One could easily argue that there is none. Our understanding of quantum mechanics is based wholly upon evidence gathered by experimentation. That experimentation supports our current QM-based predictions to a level that is beyond reproach, yet the layman likely sees no logic in the fact that a moving particle has a wavelength.

Easy. The data show that the legality of abortion has minimal effect on the number of abortions performed. Period. It's that simple. What don't you understand about this?

What your or my predictions happen to be are irrelevant. For example, I predict that outlawing abortion in the U.S. will not lead to "proper" enforcement of that law. Arguing that that's my prediction means nothing; arguing that that is the likely result based on data means everything.

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.

Historically, the abortion numbers were never lower than before contraception and abortion became hot-button topics in the 1960s. Why do you think legislation started changing then? People didn't start getting abortions because the law changed; the law changed because people started wanting abortions. Check the damn numbers already. It's not even a phenomenon restricted to the U.S. As these "family planning" options became understood, safe, and affordable, the demand for them increased, irrespective of law.

To claim that I've argued that the numbers will increase as a result of elective abortion being banned is not only not supported by the historical facts, it's a big fat lie. Your insinuation is awfully dishonest. Why do you have to build a strawman to attack? Is it because you can't counter my actual argument?

__________________
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds that crawl.