h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

red, I just posted some researched numbers of illegal abortions in the 70s DId you read my post?

Yes but I wouldn't trust figures about an activity that is both illegal and secretive. I think it would be extremely difficult to be accurate and would most likely greatly underestimate the true figure.

Any study of illicit activity worth it's salt would take that into account in any estimates given.

"That" being unreported, under-the-radar stuff that is not directly observed. I think sociologists have a pretty good handle on such things.

Ste

Possibly. It would depend on how the research is designed. In the earlier info about abortion in the 1920s/30s the figures were coming from doctors extrapolating from their client base, and there was a wide range. However the thing that made the difference was that health authorities set up systems for recording abortion sepsis and other complications - that's hard data. This hadn't existed before, and it gave them a *much better idea of the lower limit numbers, and probably the overall numbers.

The 1970s research was done by asking women themselves, and depending on the design* I would have no problem trusting the figures, again in the sense of a ballpark figure.

* eg if the research was designed to guarantee anonymity.

I think both sets of information are valid and useful if one keeps them in context.

Good point Ste. I might see if I can track down the actual survey.

I agree statistics are useful when the question being put to someone involves something fairly neutral and above board. I don't have so much faith in statisticians ability to predict error when it involves questioning people about something they may feel ashamed of or even fearful about because they have broken the law.

Various statistical predictions about election results are often wrong for something as simple as people being honest about how they have voted or intend to vote.

I've been involved in a research project asking women about their health experiences. That and what I've read leads me to believe that women are often quite forthcoming about such experiences. I think this is both because they are often relieved to finally talk about something that they haven't previously been able to, and with issues like abortion women who have had difficulty accessing service often understand only too well the importance of society having truthful information.

I'm sure that there are people who will not tell the truth in such a situation, but I don't think this is a problem to the extent that such research is rendered invalid.

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I don't have so much faith in statisticians ability to predict error when it involves questioning people about something they may feel ashamed of or even fearful about because they have broken the law.
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The quality of the research is down to the skill of the questioneers, and the design of the study. Neither of those is solely about statistics. Like Ste said, there are ways of dealing with the issues you raise.

<> (Della)

Why "surely" Della? If casual sex (sex outside a relationship) wasn't so enjoyable for many people then I doubt it would be as popular as your television shows make it out to be.

Restricting sex to relationships (well, you've said before that sex should only take place in marriage) is very unfair for those people who either aren't interested in having a serious relationship or those who have not yet met the 'right person'. Why should these people abstain from a perfectly natural and healthy activity?

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Loathsome??? Wow. That word speaks volumes about your attitude towards sex, Della. Meanwhile, I don't believe that 'casual abortions' happen much. Women may make the decision to have an abortion for reasons that you don't find acceptable but I doubt they take that decision lightly.

I wonder if it's possible to find stats on the marital/relationship status of women who have opted for abortions.


az

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My point was, that until Erich Geiringer and his pro-abortion group started up, in the late '70s (kea will know who he was) 13 and 14 year olds weren't out trying to practice 'illegal and unsafe means'...
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Erich Geiringer was a man who founded a group in (I think) the early 1970s, to campaign for abortion. He was convicted of rape. He lived near my ex-the-lawyer, who had known him, and according to Ross, he was not a nice man! I admit knowing a bit about his background made me doubt the honesty of his motives, and the extent to which he really wanted to help women...
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Obviously Geiringer wasn't all there was to it! One of those women who went to Australia, was my youngest sister - and she suffered physically and emotionally as a result, so I hope you'll understand if I am not real happy about that... More about Geiringer, who, when I just googled him, I found was one of the first campaigners for the legalisation of marijuana...
His comments on the Cartwright enquiry.
"Geiringer argues that a motive for the feminist criticism of Professor Green can be found in his maleness:
Indeed had his [Green's] first name been Hermione he would at this point have been a shoo-in for the pantheon of fearless feminist fighters against male medical mutilators. Her opposition to wholesale womb-snatching, her questioning of the medical establishment's determination to 'upend all women' for an annual smear, would have earned her a rave in Broadsheet."
From http://www.womens-health.org.nz/cartwright/fryingpan.htm




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You're right that there must be adequate social and financial support, absolutely.

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Premarital, yes - I already mentioned my mother, and of course there are well-known ones, like Sonja Davies (as told in her biography, Bread and Roses). But I think that they were much less likely to be *casual* than happens today.

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Nevertheless, my mother never mentioned abortions, and she was very frank indeed about such matters. She also was a medical worker in the 1940s and early 1950s.

<< Obviously there are major differences in the choices to day than in the past, but the reality is that women will always make such choices unless they are restricted from doing so.>>

As Bernard Nathanson and others have mentioned, during the campaign for free abortion in the 1960s and 1970s, the number of backstreet abortions was grossly exaggerated for political purposes. That being so, and from the (surprisingly frank) conversations I've had with old women, I truly do not believe that controlling their fertility meant abortion as often as people now believe.



Judging by conversations I have had with my own Mum and my sisters' mothers-in-law, there wasnae as much sexual repression in the 1950s as you might think.

Redpeck, I had already said that my parents got married for the same reason as your grandparents. (I can say that now they and their families are dead, there's no one that can be hurt by it.)
But I also know that they were the odd ones out in their families...

I am not as naive as you seem to think.

Della you have twice failed to respond to any of the questions posted here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=919324&post=13143440#p13065764 Is this because they are too difficult for you to answer them honestly and still maintain your position that terminations should be restricted. I have other questions too. When you say you knew heaps of girls who got preganat when they were 13-14 roughly, in numbers, how many is heaps? I used to volunteer in a project for young women leaving care the majority of them having been in care because they were minors with children who their parents did not want or could not cope with at home. In all I know 8 women who became pregnant a those ages and none below that. Is a "heap" more than 8? Going back to that subject no girl of 13 or fourteen could get an termination without social services being notified under "Child Protection" legislation, they would have to launch an investigation and even if the girl did not want a prosecution any further action would be at the discretion of the authorities judged on the merits of each individual case. Under these circumstances can you see any reason for these girls, whether pregnant through, consensual sex, rape, or even incest to have their human rights to choose their own destiny restricted by the state? one love

We've already heard here of two couples who married when the woman became pregnant. it's possibly relevant to consider that in a time when unmarried mothers were regarded as scandalous, marriage may have been for some, an alternative to abortion. This, for some people, could have had equally life-long unfavourable repercussions.

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Or not... Some of these marriages could have been very happy! My parents was at first, but then there were substance abuse issues.

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Obviously Geiringer wasn't all there was to it!
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Then why did you imply he was? Quote: >>>My point was, that until Erich Geiringer and his pro-abortion group started up, in the late '70s (kea will know who he was) 13 and 14 year olds weren't out trying to practice 'illegal and unsafe means'...
<<<




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Nevertheless, my mother never mentioned abortions, and she was very frank indeed about such matters. She also was a medical worker in the 1940s and early 1950s.
<<<

My Aunt had an abortion as a young woman (probably in the 40s). Virtually no one in my family, and certainly none of her direct family, knew about it until after she died a few years ago. Women of that generation often didn't talk about such things, so it's likely that your mother had contact with women who had had an abortion but didn't talk about it. Also I doubt that women would have talked about illegal abortions to health workers *unless they knew the worker was sympathetic. Was you mother anti-abortion?

Of the three close friends I've supported through abortions, two have tried home abortions (one successfully, one not). Amongst the circles I move in the knowledge on how to induce miscarriage is still available despite medical abortions being much easier to access than prior to the 80s. Like I said, women have always controlled their fertility including using abortion. The fact that you don't have access to this information is about *you not about the other women in the place you live.

There has been a stigma about abortion for quite some time (hundreds of years). That plus the fact that it's been illegal means that women are *careful about what they say to who. I know that in RL I'm still occasionally careful about who I tell I've been involved in abortion support and lobbying. The thing is, you can tell who it's ok to talk to about this and I have no doubt that when abortion was more illegal than it is now women had their own networks for finding abortionists. But they certainly wouldn't be telling people like you

Oh, and the 1930s figures were based on hospital records of abortion complications. Given the hospital could add up how many abortions it had performed, it was also possible for them to deduce how many complications were from illegal abortions. Do you accept that these are hard facts? Would you like the source of information?

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I am wracking (sp?) my brains, and I honestly don't remember her ever discussing it. However, she put my sister in touch with SOS, so she can't have been against it.

<>

I was in Bethany (you must know what that is) when I was having my first baby, that's where I met the aforementioned girls. The Matron was talking about girls who had attempted abortion once - and she mentioned gin and hot baths. That's all any of us ever knew! (I did hear of a woman who'd jumped off a cliff, broke both legs and gave birth to a healthy baby!) If I'd ever wanted one, I wouldn't have known where to begin.

Certainly the information was underground. Did you consider having an abortion? If your mother could get your sister in touch with SOS then I'm sure if needed she could have found a local abortionist. But also it's likely that by then, because the Australian option was there, that there were less people with the skills than there were in the 30s and 40s.

It's also possible that less women were needing abortions by then. The Pill was available, and the DPB. Plus what Teaswill said about the pressure to marry. The whole post war 50s thing that put much more pressure on women to do the homely wife bit. And perhaps when confronted with the option of risking abortion complications more women were choosing marriages.

I'm also wondering, thinking that the medicalisation of both abortion and childbirth over that time probably had an effect. In the 30s there were still lots of women having babies at home, and so midwives would be having much more contact with women in the community. By the 70s there were very few practicing midwives in NZ, and they were working in medicalised environments. I think there would be way less midwives and nurses able to pass on information to women about where to get an abortion or how to do one themselves.