NVR - American Feminism - Women's Rights in the U.S.
Posted by cutething on Oct 11, 2007 · Member since Sep 2007 · 139 posts
More and more women's rights are coming under attack in the United States. Lot's of misinformation is floating around about the morning after pill, and contraception. I find it chilling that political powers are trying to enforce abstinence only programs (which give negative/misinformation about contraception, in addition to being generally ineffective) over sexual education while at the same time limiting contraceptives for WOMEN specifically, but men as well, and then trying to make it criminal to get an abortion. How can it be criminal to get an abortion when these people are systematically removing all other options?
/rant
What do you guys think about this?
this IS an interesting discussion. I'll be quick with my comments.
fact: people are going to have sex. teens are going to have sex. no matter how much abstinence is pushed, sex just happens - it's a fact of life, inside and outside of a marriage. the ONLY way to reduce unwanted pregnancies is to teach SAFE SEX. we all need to be properly educated.
that's my piece. simple, direct. the end.
@Firefightress: I agree! And great points. I think the word you're looking for is "responsible." Additionally, what about women who are raped? The men should be ENTIRELY accountable for the woman and child's welfare. I love it how the cause of the pregnancy is entirely ignored, and instead the burden of responsibility becomes that of the woman's.
What's scary is how women in America have sort of forgotten what a B.F.D. (big f'n deal) it was before Roe v. Wade. Women have become very complacent in the past 15-20 years. Feminist has become a dirty word for some reason.
disclaimer: this post is really long and pretty unrelated to the topic of women's rights. To summarize the post, it urges readers to stop believing and using statistics without first understanding where said statistics come from. And also, correlation does NOT mean causation.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/statistics/marital.asp
This link is EXTREMELY biased, and I think any stats/"facts" that come out of it are a bit sketchy. I certainly don't believe anything it says. Look at one quote from Dr. and MRS. J.C. Wilke:
"First, there has never been a human clone. It may well be that man, the highest species, can never be successfully cloned. However, even granting that possibility "
That is ridiculous........
I don't mean to hijack this thread or anything, but I really want to urge people to asses stats and "studies" more carefully when you read/hear about them. Are they coming from reputible sources? You can skew just about any statistic to your favor.
http://www.usga.org/turf/green_section_record/2003/may_june/statistics.html (not the greatest of sources but it is a starting point for further research into my point that statistics can be easily misused)
AND CORRELATION does NOT MEAN CAUSATION! If a is changed, and b randomly changes along with it, it does NOT mean a affects b! There are a million different reasons why b can change! So in other words, if abortions were illegalized and crime rates magically dropped, the abortion legality does not necessarily effect the crime rate. Maybe the percieved crime rate dropped because police were too busy running around arresting girls getting illegal abortions, instead of catching criminals. Or a big part of the crime rate in that area was rape, and if raped women couldn't get abortions any more, maybe they didn't go reporting their rape! They dealt with it secretely, so the crime rate seemed lower.
I know all that speculation seems silly, but my biggest pet peeve in the world is when people misuse statistics/"facts". My blood just BOILS when I here a politician or someone say: "Oh look, we made abortions illegal and the crime rate dropped, so I guess legal abortions cause crimes. We should go tell everyone else now our indesputable fact that abortions cause crimes and therefore they should be OUTLAWED"
Another "fact" that can be misleading: "most prison inmates were in foster care as children". (I'm not disupiting this statements truthfulness) This statement implies a kid who grows up in foster care will become a prison inmate. This is NOT true. A kid in foster care is more likely to go to prison, but this is due to the trend described. Countless and countless of factors play into the kid's voyage to prison. Maybe low economic standings? A coincidince that all particular inmates surveyed from foster care had the crappiest foster parents ever? The inmates all came from particularly bad areas of town, that happend to have large populations of foster families, so their incarceration might be caused by their location instead of their upbrining?
Or could it be the the statement was based off interviews from 1 prison containing 10 people, situated right next to Mrs. Crackdealer's large foster home. Hmm....big surprise the prison would contain a large proportion of kids from foster care ::)
The point is to asses where this "fact", and all other "facts," come from.
cutething I just wanted to see if you were pro abortion or pro abortion when there's no options.
99 percent I knew you were pro abortion but I just had to be sure that's why I asked that question.
Regarding abstinence only education... I would say that it is primarily religious. I don't know why or how it would be financial.
Religious lobby=money=power
Another "fact" that can be misleading: "most prison inmates were in foster care as children". (I'm not disupiting this statements truthfulness) This statement implies a kid who grows up in foster care will become a prison inmate. This is NOT true. A kid in foster care is more likely to go to prison, but this is due to the trend described. Countless and countless of factors play into the kid's voyage to prison. Maybe low economic standings? A coincidince that all particular inmates surveyed from foster care had the crappiest foster parents ever? The inmates all came from particularly bad areas of town, that happend to have large populations of foster families, so their incarceration might be caused by their location instead of their upbrining?
Or could it be the the statement was based off interviews from 1 prison containing 10 people, situated right next to Mrs. Crackdealer's large foster home. Hmm....big surprise the prison would contain a large proportion of kids from foster care ::)
The point is to asses where this "fact", and all other "facts," come from.
I really appreciate this point, (you're 100% correct) but I also wish you would have read my post a bit more carefully. Or maybe I should have been more clear; I've done a significant amount of GOOD research on this and other subjects. That statistic was an example of some of the stuff I had found, if people were interested in knowing more. I in no way meant to suggest that most foster care kids wind up in prison as a conclusion of that statistic. The statistic itself came from several legitimate and good sources. I don't know them off the top of my head since the research done for it was a year ago. I can find it, however, if necessary. I also think that other people should investigate these things independently.
@startaurus: I don't fully understand your post.
@Closeyoureyestosee: Thanks! I wasn't making that connection with the way that question was originally phrased.
Another "fact" that can be misleading: "most prison inmates were in foster care as children". (I'm not disupiting this statements truthfulness) This statement implies a kid who grows up in foster care will become a prison inmate. This is NOT true. A kid in foster care is more likely to go to prison, but this is due to the trend described. Countless and countless of factors play into the kid's voyage to prison. Maybe low economic standings? A coincidince that all particular inmates surveyed from foster care had the crappiest foster parents ever? The inmates all came from particularly bad areas of town, that happend to have large populations of foster families, so their incarceration might be caused by their location instead of their upbrining?
Or could it be the the statement was based off interviews from 1 prison containing 10 people, situated right next to Mrs. Crackdealer's large foster home. Hmm....big surprise the prison would contain a large proportion of kids from foster care ::)
The point is to asses where this "fact", and all other "facts," come from.
I really appreciate this point, (you're 100% correct) but I also wish you would have read my post a bit more carefully. Or maybe I should have been more clear; I've done a significant amount of GOOD research on this and other subjects. That statistic was an example of some of the stuff I had found, if people were interested in knowing more. I in no way meant to suggest that most foster care kids wind up in prison as a conclusion of that statistic. The statistic itself came from several legitimate and good sources. I don't know them off the top of my head since the research done for it was a year ago. I can find it, however, if necessary. I also think that other people should investigate these things independently.
@startaurus: I don't fully understand your post.
@Closeyoureyestosee: Thanks! I wasn't making that connection with the way that question was originally phrased.
ahh it's not important
...stop believing and using statistics without first understanding where said statistics come from. And also, correlation does NOT mean causation.
I completely agree Ashley.
It's been over a year since a read the book, but Freakonomics'author is an American award winning economist who questioned the standard way of thinking by his peers and from what I remember footnotes legitimate studies and statistics. It's always a good idea to check into what and who are behind any presented "facts," where they come from, and yes, that there are always numerous factors in play to keep in mind, although one certain thing might play larger roles than others. Keep an open mind, in other words.
It is also useful to take numbers that are presented a step further and find if the statistics are significant in any way. I only read the results section of the link BP posted (because I didn't see it at first glance with the other site posted) and really only skimmed that article anyway, but I mean, there are a lot of numbers, but we don't know if they really mean anything from a significance standpoint.
So, basically what AshleyKimball said.
The numbers don't tell us much except how ages/races/etc are distributed in regards to abortion over a LONG span of time.
But I guess that statistics wasn't really the point of this whole thread. For that I apologize.
And CYETS, I appreciate your breakdown- I'd forgotten about religious lobbying as well and was also pondering the religious portion of CuteThing's post.
But I guess that statistics wasn't really the point of this whole thread. For that I apologize.
well, maybe not, but i think it is important to discuss how statistics are used. what the CDC presents are descriptive statistics-- telling us the profile of abortions that occur. i think it is erroneous to claim that "we don't know if they really mean anything from a significance standpoint" because that isn't the arrangements/case the sites are trying to present. if i had all the data for each individual woman who had an abortion, it would be easy for me to open up SPSS (a stats program) and run some statistics to see if there are "traits" or whatever that predict abortion vs. live birth. i'm sure someone has done this already. but my point is is a) yes, we need to see where data comes from/who is sampled and b) one can't dismiss good statistics (i would say the CDC are good) because they are descriptive. we still get a really good idea about abortion from these-- that a majority of abortions are unmarried women in their early-mid 20s. that's helpful.
I guess I was trying to state that, BP, but you said it much better. I meant, for example, that we are not being presented with p values and alphas and whatnot (ie SPSS data) but I didn't know the term for "descriptive statistics". That is exactly what we are being shown, and it is what it is- straightforward numbers. I am just knee-deep in a statistics class running t-tests and ANOVAs and such, and my brain is stuck on p < .05, which is not what the aim of the CDC article is.... So, thank you for educating me on descriptive statistics.
Edit: I should probably mention that I have only read two chapters of my statistics book this semester... :-\
huh, what stats are you taking? because descriptives are like the first thing you learn. (unless those were covered in the two chapters you didn't read :P ::) 8) ;) ). but the point is is that they aren't making an argument here that would require any t-tests or p values. as you all know, the US gov'ment doesn't care about research, statitics, or anything that doesn't support whatever they think it right.
Well, lets just say descriptives sounded familiar... I'm in Advanced Psychological Statistics (Psyc 504) and I really believe it's only called "advanced" because it's grad level... there are only two really "advanced" persons in the class; it's a required class.
I said I've only read two chapters out of the 8 we've covered ;) I get so overwhelmed with the homework (about 10 hours of it per week, typically) that I just dive into that rather than do the background info as to why we're doing what we're doing. It doesn't help matters that one of the TA's tells me, "oh you'll never use this, you'll just use SPSS". Not very motivational.
I get it now, and seriously, thank you! I really like stats but I'm so stuck on "significance" and "range of rejection" and such.
Research as to why I missed this when BP says it's "the first thing you learn"--
Descriptive and Inferential statistics- A little part in Chapter ONE (haha) ok, so I did read that chapter, but we didn't have homework for it, and from there we jumped into plotting data and frequency distributions. *sigh* I'll go back and re-read... ;)
ha ha, psych stats are WACK (IMHO) ;D ;) i'm such a sociologist. t tests? good stuff.
Hey, I just think it's fun. I have no opinion on other matters ;)
I got my minor in sociology; I loved it!!
T-tests ARE fun!! We're on F tests now, and I like those as well.
sorry, CuteThing, for hijacking your thread to discuss stats, but I learned something great that I can apply to real life thanks to BP!
(too bad I didn't read my book in the first place) :-\
I did my undergrad in sociology and I'm not in a psychology related masters program. I never thought I could be a sociologist AND a psychologist!
I majored in Psych with a minor in Soc... what's THAT about?
i majored in sociology and women's studies AND minored in psych. i've got issues
you win.
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