From:    Chris Lyman
To:      All                                    Jan-07-94 01:49PM
Subject: Re: LATE-TERM ABORTIONS: the monthly call for

Organization: Cypherpunks
From: lyman@stpaul.gov (Chris Lyman)
Message-ID: <2gklds$gb4@agate.berkeley.edu>
Newsgroups: talk.abortion

verrill@plains.NoDak.edu  Donovan D Verrill writes:
> Mark Ira Kaufman (aa824@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) wrote:
> : Donovan Verrill writes...

> : DV> Surgeon General Koop estimated approximatley 4000 occurred per
> : DV> year (this was back around 1984).

> :     This figure is preposterous.
> :
> :     All third-trimester abortions don't add up to this, let alone
> :     those not medically indicated.
> :

>         I'm more than willing to believe you if you can come up with
> some documentation for your assertion.  Unfortunately, this type of
> data is not always readily available from an *unbiased* source.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, less than 100 abortions occur
after the 24th(?) week of pregnancy per year in the U.S.  I'm not sure
about the exact number of weeks, btw.

Now let's see some documentation for _your_ assertion, bucko.  And please
include Dr. Koop's research methods.


--
Chris Lyman             / "Careers in Computers -- No longer for nerds only,
email: lyman@stpaul.gov / this heady, high-tech world is where brilliant, sexy
substandard disclaimer  / dynamos work, play, earn megabucks!" -- Cosmopolitan


--------
Disclaimer: Neither Eric Hollander nor the University of California is
responsible for this post. Please don't throw knives.

====================================================================

Apparently, more providers report to NAF than to AGI.  The stats given
by the AGI, at least according to Chris Lyman's undocumented claims,
were 100 per year after the 24th week, and this was the figure attributed
by Larry Margolis to AGI as well, as I recall--also without documentation.

That figure is contradicted by a claim by Barbara Radford, Executive
Director of the National Abortion Federation, in a letter to the
NAF membership dated June 18, 1993 on the subject of D&X abortions.
Excerpts follow:

  Dear NAF Member:

   [...]

  The language and graphics used in the latest anti-choice propaganda
  to describe this procedure are disturbing to some readers.  Much
  of this negative reaction, however, is the same reaction that might
  be invoked if one were to listen to a surgeon describing step-by-step
  almost any other surgical procedure involving blood, human tissue,
  etc.

  Here are a few talking points that may help you in discussing this
  procedure:

   [...]

      5. This is not a common procedure.  Very few women have
           abortions after 20 weeks: one-half of one-percent of all
           abortions are performed after 20 weeks; some 300-500
           abortions a year are performed after 24 weeks of pregnancy.


Interestingly enough, the percentage given by NAF for over 20 weeks
is smaller than that given by the AGI for over 21 weeks, and yet
the number after 24 weeks is several times as great for NAF as for
AGI.  I wonder why.

================================================================

Koop    :    4000 per year, nationally    (roughly .3%)
AGI     : 100-200 per year, nationally    (roughly .01%)
NAF     : 300-500 per year, nationally    (roughly .02-.04%)
Tiller  :   10-36 per year, by Dr. Tiller (one of the three specialists)
GDHR+CDC:     1.5 per year, in Georgia    (.0043% within Georgia)

Needless to say, Koop is poorly informed.
===================================================================
From:    Susan Garvin
To:      All                                    Jan-17-94 10:25AM
Subject: Today's idiocy from Verrill

Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin)
Message-ID: 
Newsgroups: talk.abortion


I honestly doubt that anyone else is having the same troubles
understanding the CDC/GA DHR report that Verrill is, despite
his attempts to assign the same lack of understanding to
me and Larry.  I would imagine that most people who were
interested in reading the entire report would trundle on
over to the library and read it, rather than asking others
to read it for them, or failing that, to type the entire
article in for them.


For those not interested enough to read the article, I'll
summarize once more.  Georgia reported 86 third-tri abortions
in a two-year span.  Investigators looked at 78 of these
cases, the only ones for which medical records were available.
The researchers adopted a more conservative definition of the
third trimester than the state of Georgia uses, and used
their definition throughout the study.  Three of the cases
were genuine third-tri abortions.  Given that the researchers
were using a more conservative definition, they also checked
the records of 170 more cases.  These cases were reported
as second-tri's under GA's definition, but the reported
gestational age on the abortion certificates was 25 weeks
or greater, which would classify them as third-tri's under
the study's definition.  The physician's estimate in all
these cases was 24 weeks or less or unavailable.  Examination
of the 143 cases for which medical records were available
showed that these were all second-tri's under the definition
used in the study.  There is no mention of clerical errors
in the study (this is Verrill's invention.)

The article is, "Reporting Errors Inflate Third-Trimester
Abortion Rate in Georgia;  True Rate is Four per 100,000,"
_Family Planning Perspectives_, 15(4), July/August 1983,
p. 196.   FPP is available in most libraries either on
the shelf or through ILL.


I am convinced that Verrill's inability to understand the
reports is probably based on his complete ignorance of
research methods and statistics in general.   (I'd have
to see his SAT scores to be absolutely convinced, of course.)

Susan