Comments on: Debunking Dorries http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/ Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:22:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: North of 49 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25447 North of 49 Sat, 17 May 2008 08:16:29 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25447 Very interesting post, Unity. I wonder how your Dorrie would incorporate Canada into her hypothesis that stricter laws create fewer abortions. Here we have no national laws on abortion, yet the statistics are much the same as Western Europe's: 2004, 14.5 abortions per 1000 women (all age groups trending down from previous years, except women over 40, which stayed level) -- see this chart from Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070713/d070713b.htm 2004, rate of abortions was 29.7 per 100 live births, which seems high but Statistics Canada notes that since no nation of origin is recorded, there is no way to determine how many are abortion tourists from the USA. Chart is here: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/health42a.htm. Why do we have no national laws on abortion? Well, when our Supreme Court struck down the last one (decades ago), Parliament could never get up the nerve to try it on again, it being clearly impossible to accommodate both the fetus-fetishists and the sensible people, and just let it languish. We still have our Dorries (try www.lifesitenews.com), and worse (http://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com), but so far all our Republican-lite Conservative minority government has done is promise to "revisit" the question. What they'll do if they ever get a majority is another issue, but it seems unlikely Canadians collectively are quite stupid enough to give them the keys. Election coming soon (probably), so we'll see. I found your place by following link trails beginning, I believe, at The Yorkshire Ranter's digs. Found quite a few worth revisiting, yours and Bloggerhead's among them. Fascinating how the left v. right dust-ups are the same here as at home. We even have Guido Fawkes types running around loose. One thing: no Preview? Jeez, I feel like I'm writing naked. Be seeing you.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25447','North of 49'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25447','North of 49','Very interesting post, Unity. I wonder how your Dorrie would incorporate Canada into her hypothesis that stricter laws create fewer abortions. Here we have no national laws on abortion, yet the statistics are much the same as Western Europe\'s:\r\n\r\n2004, 14.5 abortions per 1000 women (all age groups trending down from previous years, except women over 40, which stayed level) -- see this chart from Statistics Canada: http:\/\/www.statcan.ca\/Daily\/English\/070713\/d070713b.htm\r\n\r\n2004, rate of abortions was 29.7 per 100 live births, which seems high but Statistics Canada notes that since no nation of origin is recorded, there is no way to determine how many are abortion tourists from the USA. Chart is here: http:\/\/www40.statcan.ca\/l01\/cst01\/health42a.htm.\r\n\r\nWhy do we have no national laws on abortion? Well, when our Supreme Court struck down the last one (decades ago), Parliament could never get up the nerve to try it on again, it being clearly impossible to accommodate both the fetus-fetishists and the sensible people, and just let it languish. \r\n\r\nWe still have our Dorries (try www.lifesitenews.com), and worse (http:\/\/bluewavecanada.blogspot.com), but so far all our Republican-lite Conservative minority government has done is promise to \"revisit\" the question. What they\'ll do if they ever get a majority is another issue, but it seems unlikely Canadians collectively are quite stupid enough to give them the keys. Election coming soon (probably), so we\'ll see.\r\n\r\nI found your place by following link trails beginning, I believe, at The Yorkshire Ranter\'s digs. Found quite a few worth revisiting, yours and Bloggerhead\'s among them. Fascinating how the left v. right dust-ups are the same here as at home. We even have Guido Fawkes types running around loose. \r\n\r\nOne thing: no Preview? Jeez, I feel like I\'m writing naked. \r\n\r\nBe seeing you.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Very interesting post, Unity. I wonder how your Dorrie would incorporate Canada into her hypothesis that stricter laws create fewer abortions. Here we have no national laws on abortion, yet the statistics are much the same as Western Europe’s:

2004, 14.5 abortions per 1000 women (all age groups trending down from previous years, except women over 40, which stayed level) — see this chart from Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070713/d070713b.htm

2004, rate of abortions was 29.7 per 100 live births, which seems high but Statistics Canada notes that since no nation of origin is recorded, there is no way to determine how many are abortion tourists from the USA. Chart is here: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/health42a.htm.

Why do we have no national laws on abortion? Well, when our Supreme Court struck down the last one (decades ago), Parliament could never get up the nerve to try it on again, it being clearly impossible to accommodate both the fetus-fetishists and the sensible people, and just let it languish.

We still have our Dorries (try http://www.lifesitenews.com), and worse (http://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com), but so far all our Republican-lite Conservative minority government has done is promise to “revisit” the question. What they’ll do if they ever get a majority is another issue, but it seems unlikely Canadians collectively are quite stupid enough to give them the keys. Election coming soon (probably), so we’ll see.

I found your place by following link trails beginning, I believe, at The Yorkshire Ranter’s digs. Found quite a few worth revisiting, yours and Bloggerhead’s among them. Fascinating how the left v. right dust-ups are the same here as at home. We even have Guido Fawkes types running around loose.

One thing: no Preview? Jeez, I feel like I’m writing naked.

Be seeing you.

Reply | http://www.lifesitenews.com), and worse (http:\/\/bluewavecanada.blogspot.com), but so far all our Republican-lite Conservative minority government has done is promise to \"revisit\" the question. What they\’ll do if they ever get a majority is another issue, but it seems unlikely Canadians collectively are quite stupid enough to give them the keys. Election coming soon (probably), so we\’ll see.\r\n\r\nI found your place by following link trails beginning, I believe, at The Yorkshire Ranter\’s digs. Found quite a few worth revisiting, yours and Bloggerhead\’s among them. Fascinating how the left v. right dust-ups are the same here as at home. We even have Guido Fawkes types running around loose. \r\n\r\nOne thing: no Preview? Jeez, I feel like I\’m writing naked. \r\n\r\nBe seeing you.’); return false;”>Quote
]]> By: Small Beds and Large Bears » Blog Archive » We must deploy troops immediately http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25444 Small Beds and Large Bears » Blog Archive » We must deploy troops immediately Fri, 16 May 2008 17:55:47 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25444 [...] and, by proxy, Snopes, Dorries has generally been considered something of an idiot. Most recently, Unity has taken her apart over at the Ministry of [...]<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25444','Small Beds and Large Bears » Blog Archive » We must deploy troops immediately'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25444','Small Beds and Large Bears » Blog Archive » We must deploy troops immediately','[...] and, by proxy, Snopes, Dorries has generally been considered something of an idiot. Most recently, Unity has taken her apart over at the Ministry of [...]'); return false;">Quote</a></div> [...] and, by proxy, Snopes, Dorries has generally been considered something of an idiot. Most recently, Unity has taken her apart over at the Ministry of [...]
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]]> By: Unity http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25442 Unity Fri, 16 May 2008 17:36:11 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25442 And does the UN/WHO provide any data on abortion tourism? Ireland may prohibit abortion, but that doesn't prevent just over 5,000 women a year coming to the UK to access abortion services, plus another 1700 or so from Ulster where abortion remains illegal... ...and while I haven't scouting around for data (yet) I'm willing to bet that the main effect of Poland's adoption of prohibition has been a rise in Polish women accessing abortion services in neighbouring countries. However the main problem with your point is that it relies on an easily disproved correlation implies causation fallacy, just watch... Sweden has a higher abortion rate than the UK on the back of a lower upper limit and has a lower maternal mortality rate than either the UK or Poland, while Portugal has the second lowest abortion rate in Europe and an MMR a third higher that of the UK/Poland, three times that of Sweden and 11 times higher than Ireland. So what conclusions do you suggest we draw from that?<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25442','Unity'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25442','Unity','And does the UN\/WHO provide any data on abortion tourism?\r\n\r\nIreland may prohibit abortion, but that doesn\'t prevent just over 5,000 women a year coming to the UK to access abortion services, plus another 1700 or so from Ulster where abortion remains illegal...\r\n\r\n...and while I haven\'t scouting around for data (yet) I\'m willing to bet that the main effect of Poland\'s adoption of prohibition has been a rise in Polish women accessing abortion services in neighbouring countries.\r\n\r\nHowever the main problem with your point is that it relies on an easily disproved correlation implies causation fallacy, just watch...\r\n\r\nSweden has a higher abortion rate than the UK on the back of a lower upper limit and has a lower maternal mortality rate than either the UK or Poland, while Portugal has the second lowest abortion rate in Europe and an MMR a third higher that of the UK\/Poland, three times that of Sweden and 11 times higher than Ireland. \r\n\r\nSo what conclusions do you suggest we draw from that?'); return false;">Quote</a></div> And does the UN/WHO provide any data on abortion tourism?

Ireland may prohibit abortion, but that doesn’t prevent just over 5,000 women a year coming to the UK to access abortion services, plus another 1700 or so from Ulster where abortion remains illegal…

…and while I haven’t scouting around for data (yet) I’m willing to bet that the main effect of Poland’s adoption of prohibition has been a rise in Polish women accessing abortion services in neighbouring countries.

However the main problem with your point is that it relies on an easily disproved correlation implies causation fallacy, just watch…

Sweden has a higher abortion rate than the UK on the back of a lower upper limit and has a lower maternal mortality rate than either the UK or Poland, while Portugal has the second lowest abortion rate in Europe and an MMR a third higher that of the UK/Poland, three times that of Sweden and 11 times higher than Ireland.

So what conclusions do you suggest we draw from that?

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]]> By: Frank Farmer http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25441 Frank Farmer Fri, 16 May 2008 17:03:18 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25441 Interesting you mention UN/WHO statistics – I took a look at some of the same stats compiled on maternal mortality rates (supported by the IPPF) and contrary to your suggestion that “Abortion saves lives”, the safest country in the world is Ireland with a maternal mortality rate of 1 in 100,000 in comparison with the UK’s rate of 8 in the 100,000 (a rate it shares Poland, who also prohibit abortion).

See: http://www.who.int/whois/mme_2005.pdf

The indication being that maternal safety is no safer in the UK where abortion is legal, than it is in Poland where abortion remains prohibited. And in Ireland, where the health system is far more akin to the UK’s, it is far superior.

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]]> By: Unity http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25440 Unity Fri, 16 May 2008 16:31:02 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25440 Simple answer here - it's because the owner of the site does a pretty good job of aggregating statistics from a range of credible sources and is entirely open about both their scope and limitations. I did, on first coming across the site, do a bit of cross-checking against national archives and UN/WHO datasets everything checks out give or take the odd statistical variation - Johnston's data tends to be raw rather an age-adjusted so there may be some variations between his quoted abortion rates for countries and the normalised figures provided by government agencies, which might present problems were I trying to correlate abortion data with other social indicators but for the illustrative purposes for which they're used here then they're more than adequate. And if the guy also like Star Trek, so what - he's a space physicist and they're all Trekkies, so what does that prove. And if the Guttmacher paper is one th old side... let's face it, I called it an 'oldie but goldie' and gave the publication date, so I'm hardly hiding trying to conceal its age, and again, so what! If you've got a specific critique of its methodology or evidence to show that the report is in error or that a significant change in circumstances has taken place that invalidates some of the data, then feel free to elucidate further. If not then I'll take it that you're nitpicking because you lack any substantive counterarguments and we'll leave it that.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25440','Unity'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25440','Unity','Simple answer here - it\'s because the owner of the site does a pretty good job of aggregating statistics from a range of credible sources and is entirely open about both their scope and limitations.\r\n\r\nI did, on first coming across the site, do a bit of cross-checking against national archives and UN\/WHO datasets everything checks out give or take the odd statistical variation - Johnston\'s data tends to be raw rather an age-adjusted so there may be some variations between his quoted abortion rates for countries and the normalised figures provided by government agencies, which might present problems were I trying to correlate abortion data with other social indicators but for the illustrative purposes for which they\'re used here then they\'re more than adequate.\r\n\r\nAnd if the guy also like Star Trek, so what - he\'s a space physicist and they\'re all Trekkies, so what does that prove.\r\n\r\nAnd if the Guttmacher paper is one th old side... let\'s face it, I called it an \'oldie but goldie\' and gave the publication date, so I\'m hardly hiding trying to conceal its age, and again, so what!\r\n\r\nIf you\'ve got a specific critique of its methodology or evidence to show that the report is in error or that a significant change in circumstances has taken place that invalidates some of the data, then feel free to elucidate further.\r\n\r\nIf not then I\'ll take it that you\'re nitpicking because you lack any substantive counterarguments and we\'ll leave it that.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Simple answer here – it’s because the owner of the site does a pretty good job of aggregating statistics from a range of credible sources and is entirely open about both their scope and limitations.

I did, on first coming across the site, do a bit of cross-checking against national archives and UN/WHO datasets everything checks out give or take the odd statistical variation – Johnston’s data tends to be raw rather an age-adjusted so there may be some variations between his quoted abortion rates for countries and the normalised figures provided by government agencies, which might present problems were I trying to correlate abortion data with other social indicators but for the illustrative purposes for which they’re used here then they’re more than adequate.

And if the guy also like Star Trek, so what – he’s a space physicist and they’re all Trekkies, so what does that prove.

And if the Guttmacher paper is one th old side… let’s face it, I called it an ‘oldie but goldie’ and gave the publication date, so I’m hardly hiding trying to conceal its age, and again, so what!

If you’ve got a specific critique of its methodology or evidence to show that the report is in error or that a significant change in circumstances has taken place that invalidates some of the data, then feel free to elucidate further.

If not then I’ll take it that you’re nitpicking because you lack any substantive counterarguments and we’ll leave it that.

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]]> By: Frank Farmer http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25439 Frank Farmer Fri, 16 May 2008 16:09:27 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25439 Interesting post, and one which caused me some mirth. At the risk of spoiling the party however, I must confess to some confusion as to why this critic begins by basing their arguments on statistics gathered by someone who merely describes themselves as "a Star Trek fan" and as a student of space physics ("the excellent Johnston Archive"), rather than either national statistics archives or the medical research literature: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/faqusage.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/about.html The second reference cited, which is seemingly from an academic source albeit arguably a biased one, relates to data that is from 1995 - hardly up to date! When it comes to the "estimates" of abortion in other countries, one needs to ask how exactly the estimate has been estimated, using what actual real data. Otherwise, one person's guess is no better than another person's unsubstantiated opinion.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25439','Frank Farmer'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25439','Frank Farmer','Interesting post, and one which caused me some mirth. At the risk of spoiling the party however, I must confess to some confusion as to why this critic begins by basing their arguments on statistics gathered by someone who merely describes themselves as \"a Star Trek fan\" and as a student of space physics (\"the excellent Johnston Archive\"), rather than either national statistics archives or the medical research literature:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.johnstonsarchive.net\/faqusage.html\r\nhttp:\/\/www.johnstonsarchive.net\/about.html\r\n\r\nThe second reference cited, which is seemingly from an academic source albeit arguably a biased one, relates to data that is from 1995 - hardly up to date!\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to the \"estimates\" of abortion in other countries, one needs to ask how exactly the estimate has been estimated, using what actual real data. Otherwise, one person\'s guess is no better than another person\'s unsubstantiated opinion.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> Interesting post, and one which caused me some mirth. At the risk of spoiling the party however, I must confess to some confusion as to why this critic begins by basing their arguments on statistics gathered by someone who merely describes themselves as “a Star Trek fan” and as a student of space physics (“the excellent Johnston Archive”), rather than either national statistics archives or the medical research literature:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/faqusage.html
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/about.html

The second reference cited, which is seemingly from an academic source albeit arguably a biased one, relates to data that is from 1995 – hardly up to date!

When it comes to the “estimates” of abortion in other countries, one needs to ask how exactly the estimate has been estimated, using what actual real data. Otherwise, one person’s guess is no better than another person’s unsubstantiated opinion.

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]]> By: OFMN http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25432 OFMN Thu, 15 May 2008 20:47:22 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25432 The funny thing is: Nads would never come here and debate with you. Not only would she not have a fucking leg to stand on, but her Christian overlords probably wouldn't let her loose anyway.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('25432','OFMN'); return false;">Reply</a> | <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('25432','OFMN','The funny thing is: Nads would never come here and debate with you. Not only would she not have a fucking leg to stand on, but her Christian overlords probably wouldn\'t let her loose anyway.'); return false;">Quote</a></div> The funny thing is: Nads would never come here and debate with you. Not only would she not have a fucking leg to stand on, but her Christian overlords probably wouldn’t let her loose anyway.
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]]> By: Paul.Ferrari http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2008/05/14/debunking-dorrie/comment-page-1/#comment-25411 Paul.Ferrari Thu, 15 May 2008 08:33:23 +0000 http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?p=1630#comment-25411 “the Vatican has no abortion laws at all, because there’s obviously no shagging allowed… and Altar boys rarely, if ever, get pregnant anyway.”

This is a fantastic statement that will make me smile all day long. As usual a well researched and thought through blog entry. Keep up the great work.

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