BBO Discussion Forums: Nobody has commented on the Ohio abortion bill yet? - BBO Discussion Forums

 nige1, on 2016-December-12, 06:49, said:

Thanks for answering. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

 barmar, on 2016-December-11, 23:51, said:

I found out over my life (yes, I changed viewpoints) that it is easier to start from a neutral position and adjust my beliefs based on facts rather than start with a preconceived notion and discover later that the facts don't support my beliefs.

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 mikeh, on 2016-December-12, 10:24, said:

The full post was interesting but this bit made me raise an eyebrow. You claim that a "large proportion" of prison inmates suffered fetal alcohol syndrome? Do have data to back up this claim?

Obviously refraining from drinking while pregnant is a good idea, but I generally don't favor pushing good ideas with bad information (if it is indeed so).

 billw55, on 2016-December-12, 11:27, said:

I had a number of sources for this, and the most important one, at the time I posted, was more anecdotal than statistical, altho my expectation was that the source of the information did in fact have real world data to back her up.

I spoke, admittedly a few years ago, with a neuropsychologist, someone with whom I have dealt for many years and for whom I have enormous respect. We were then discussing a young man who had suffered a concussion, and my interest, from an insurance claim perspective, was the probable impact of this injury on this man's future, especially in terms of employment.

He had been previously diagnosed with FAS. In British Columbia, the tort system provides for compensation for negligent injury, but it does so by comparing 'no-accident' and 'with accident' scenarios. It was thus central to my task to understand what life would have been like for this young man had the accident not occurred. I knew he was a poor student, and had had minor run-ins with the law, and I knew he had FAS.

I was advised by my expert that his life was likely to be unhappy in the no-accident scenario. People with FAS have poor impulse control. They tend to have significant learning problems. They tend to be unable to hold down jobs, even jobs that they are capable of doing. They tend to simply not show up or to get into verbal or even physical altercations with co-workers and supervisors. I stress that we are speaking of generalities and different people will have different experiences, but I was told that FAS victims (because they are victims) tend to exhibit these behaviours far more than do people at large.

Included in this is a propensity to activity that would be criminal. Getting into fights. Using drugs. Stealing, breaking and entering, etc.

This in term would lead to heightened risk of imprisonment. Fights can lead to serious injury or death, especially when fueled by drugs or alcohol.

That is the anecdotal part of my reason for making my post.

I don't know much about experiences outside of Canada and don't claim much expertise in the Canadian perspective. I do know that inmates with FAS make up a disproportionate share of inmates being provided with specialized assessment/treatment, and one can readily find this out (bearing in mind that I use google from a Canadian location) by googling fetal alcohol and imprisonment.

In addition, and this is me thinking, not statistics talking, it makes sense to me that a population characterized by learning difficulties, impulsivity, low socio-economiuc status, which are all common attributes of victims of FAS, would end up in prison more often than those of us fortunate enough to not have this problem. I concede that this reasoning is not evidence. It does seem to me to be a plausible hypothesis but it would be no more than that absent data.

Edited to correct a typo that I had in FAS....for unrelated reasons I had a different acronym in the back of my mind when typing

 Winstonm, on 2016-December-12, 10:52, said:

We're humans, not Vulcans. We can't just shut off our feelings about things. If a study comes to a disappointing conclusion, why shouldn't we be unhappy about it?

Of course, you have to live with it, just like we'll all have to live with the result of the recent election for the next 4 years. But we can still express our feelings about it.

 barmar, on 2016-December-12, 14:18, said:

Live long and prosper.

In response to MikeH's post:
I would be interested to know if the high rates of FAS are also correlated with race. Certainly I know some people who think so, including one doctor who practised medicine for years in coastal BC, a large part of his practice made up of natives. I knew him in NS, when he was close to retirement and was the "advisor" for a study another student and I were doing on depression. He freely and without any context at all told us that when he was working on the coast, he would automatically do hysterectomies on any native women he could. What we understood him to be saying was that this was often without their knowlege, much less their consent. If he was in there for a gall bladder or appendix, that was a freeby he threw in. Or so we understood him to say and we had no reason to doubt him. We also got the impression this was not an unusual practice but that may have been him trying to justify it, no idea. We were both too stunned to ask if he ever did tell them.

Then the question of abortion doesn't come up, of course.

I have no data to back it up but my feeling would be that if a woman was told that a) her baby would probably be extremely demanding and b) probably not very satisfying to care for, eg. cry constantly, or not recognize or ever respond to her for months, c) they would possibly never be fully functional adults, and in fact d) they would probably be taken away from her anyway because of her drinking, most of them would opt for abortion if it was available without a lot of guilt tripping imposed on her for thinking about doing it. FAS children are often really really hard. I knew someone who adopted 4 of them, all one family and it was a disaster. Excellent intentions and no clue what they were getting into. So sad.

But there is so much guilt and shame still associated with even thinking of having an abortion that many women who probably should, don't even consider it, they can't deal with the stigma. So they have these kids they don't want, can't handle, resent and despise for "making their lives miserable". The life such children lead is often worse than the way most people treat their dogs. Society gets to deal with those unhappy, unloved, unnurtured kids. Although difficult, poverty is often surmountable as a life experience, I'm not sure that being resented and disliked by an unhappy mother is, especially by a child who may have other issues of their own to deal with.

Note: Just because a child is unplanned doesn't mean it necessarilly is or would be unloved, far far from it, even in some situations that to outside eyes look impossible.But doctors know that even if the decision has been made and a child is slated to be given up for adoption by a mother, she often changes her mind when the baby is born and all the reasonable decisions fly out the window, often but not always to be bitterly regretted later by both.

 onoway, on 2016-December-12, 15:28, said:

In Romania there are women who live in religious communities where contraception isn't an option (well it could be, but the women would have to hide that they are using birth control). It's not unusual for doctors to ask women if they want a hysterectomy or other birth control devices after they give birth to their 4th, 5th, etc child. They asked me after I gave birth to twins too. I'm not aware of cases where doctors went ahead and sterilized women without consent, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they would.

Abortions are a complicated issue. There are a lot of social issues that need to be fixed before blaming women for not being careful enough or not reading the label or whatever. Not even talking about young unmarried girls here, for them it's even worse. Perhaps USA is more emancipated, Romania is very traditional and religious. But still... it's complicated, and women who don't want to have a kid they won't have it through much more dangerous methods if they feel cornered.

 onoway, on 2016-December-12, 15:28, said:

Bizarre and I had heard similar stories from decades in the past. I also knew a dentist who told me once, with apparent sincerity, that he was upset at the Provincial Government which had recently changed the billing method for welfare patients. Historically, so he told me, they would pay the same for an extraction as for a filling, so he always pulled the teeth since doing so was quick and easy, while doing a filling could become very time-consuming. The change was to reduce the payment for extractions.

I began my legal career in the Interior of BC, and there was a fairly large 1st Nations population in the small city where I lived. As a young lawyer I did spend more than a few hours in the Provincial Court, where low-level criminal matters were handled, and there was undoubtedly a disproportionate number of 1st Nations people amongst the accused.

I've heard or read stories suggesting that maybe 1st Nations people are disproportionately prone to alcohol addiction for genetic reasons, but I have no knowledge of that and I see no reason to give substance to that story absent evidence: it smacks of the racism that 'your' doctor appears to exhibit. From my perspective, very much as an outsider, it seems to me that socio-economic and geographical factors are sufficient to account for rampant alcoholism and the associated high rate of FAS.

I have known a few 1st Nations people. Eddie John, who has become a prominent national figure, was a lawyer in the same city when he got out of law school. A smart man.

I bought a piece of stereo equipment online from someone high in the politics of a 1st nations band in Northern Quebec, and while we didn't speak, we emailed frequently. He was and no doubt still is a real audiophile and definitely knew what he was talking about, and was a pleasure to deal with (and I hope vice versa). I have acted for members of two different bands in different disputes, and took instructions from members of the band.

But other than that, all I know is from the media or from the limited times I have driven through reserve lands. I have never been to any of the more remote areas.

The reality for many in the 1st nations communities is that educational and vocational opportunities are basically non-existent. Many live in communities far from any urban area. Their role models are often few and far between, or are drunk or addicts or violent, and often all three. They are very likely to encounter racism should they venture off the reserve, or if they already live off the reserve.

We have a paternalistic government attitude, and while that is changing, the effects of such change will take generations to realize. We are, as a nation, only just closing the book on the revelations of decades of systemic and pervasive child abuse within the (to us now) misguided effort to assimilate children via brutal residential school programmes.

All of this, and more, seems to me to more than adequately explain why young 1st nations people end up so frequently as addicts of one kind or another, and why a lot of them appear to have FAS.

Btw, while I claim no personal expertise, I am persuaded by those experts who assert that race is very much a social construct. Yes, there are obvious, inheritable traits from one 'race' to another, but absent social isolation, so as to create a defined subpopulation, it seems to me that racial characteristics, like all other characteristics of humans, tend to merge and meld.

We do like to hang labels on things, including people. This makes a great deal of sense, since we (or our distant ancestors) had to make rapid decisions on limited information, and hanging labels on things allows us to do that...we 'know' that someone is or is not 'us' without having to wait until we see their face or hear their voice, as one example. Whether that tendency remains, on balance, a good thing is another topic. We like 'us' and are afraid of 'them'.....as demagogues know all too well.

 mikeh, on 2016-December-12, 16:17, said:

There does seem to be a genetic component to excessive alcohol consumption: https://www.purdue.e...alcoholism.html

Quote

I also would upvote onoway's post if my tablet let me, and Mike's AFS post was also good. To me, he adds another argument in favor of legal abortion. For a pregnant alcoholic may follow an anti-abortion law and let the baby be born, despite her wish to do otherwise, but she won't stop drinking.

In fact, many a young woman being forced to carry a baby against her will, planning to give it up, may very well care less about the health of her unborn child, and won't let it affect her lifestyle. I can see outlawing abortion being a recipe for more damaged children.

You can't upvote with your tablet? I can with a mini iPad, but maybe there is a mobile version of the app?

which browser do you use, Stephanie?

 helene_t, on 2016-December-13, 06:17, said:

Safari

 Winstonm, on 2016-December-12, 10:52, said:

Have you never been displeased after bidding an excellent 90+% slam that you know the rest of the room will have missed and then go down to a freak distribution?

 Zelandakh, on 2016-December-13, 07:43, said:

That is hardly the same. The position that concerns me is starting with a preconceived notion that a particular hand will produce slam and then finding out that it only makes 2S, and then being disappointed. The problem was not the hand nor the result (conclusion) but caused by starting with a preconceived notion.

If you start with the idea that all abortions are bad and must be stopped, then you would certainly be disappointed to find that laws to halt abortions don't work; however, if you start with the premise that it is none of my business what your daughter chooses to do about an unwanted pregnancy then there can be no disappointment about laws.

 Winstonm, on 2016-December-13, 09:39, said:

You don't seem to understand. The "disappointing" bit is the rusty coat hangars.

 onoway, on 2016-December-12, 15:28, said:

I expect there is, but mainly because race is highly correlated with social status, and I'll bet poor women are more likely to drink during pregnancy, as well as not getting as much prenatal medical care (their doctor is the free clinic).