What are your important issues? (1 Viewer)

[wardorican]

Forget the current headlines. Forget the manufactured talking points. What are the big issues you care about? Or the small ones that don't get enough attention?

I'm just going to rattle off a few. I may dig into these more later. In no special order...

1. Infrastructure investment. The major categories being road transportation, flood protection / drainage, electrical grid resiliency, and better mass transit, especially rail. Our rail systems, outside of a few areas like Chicago, NYC, DC.. are just awful. They don't serve enough of the areas. They aren't tying the Suburbs, and towns nearby to the major city centers and major concentrations of Industry.
   1. A - I'd have much preferred no tax cut for the wealthy, and use that money towards Infrastructure. I don't mind some of the corporate tax cuts (not a fan of profitable companies finding ways to pay $0 in taxes.. that's unfair), but take a little back to go towards infrastructure and mass transit, which will boost productivity and lower congestion in major cities.
2. Wage growth. Not just min wage, all wages. Not sure what the government policy could be to drive this, but it's a huge pet issue for me.
3. Technology. Finding the balance between a company being large enough to have stability/security (think Apple, Microsoft, Samsung) to have things work well, but no so large as to stifle all competition and drive up prices. Also, who controls/owns our data. If my data is so valuable, why can't I be compensated for it?
4. Education funding. It's ridiculous how much the States cut from Colleges and how little they controlled their growth since the 1990's. That's why tuition is out of control. So, it's not just the funding issue, but also the lack of forcing public Universities to cap operating budget increases. In college, tuition increases was probably one of the biggest things I tried to fight against when in Student Government. We usually failed, but I did get one win on that topic, when I realized the committee that year was being somewhat dishonest about the increases, and called them out in public about it.

I care about a lot of other things, but I'm going to stop with these four.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

so is your point that you don’t think abortion is pregnancy prevention? Why would it be listed together with all other services. Actually why would it be the first thing listed after the sentence saying 80% was pregnancy prevention. The very next sentence says that 324k abortions were performed.

By definition abortion is not pregnancy prevention. Abortion occurs only after a pregnancy has occurred, which means you can only perform an abortion if there was no pregnancy prevention.

The article was listing all the service PP performs. The point being that most of PP services are not abortion related.

You can back this up by going directly to PP and reading their annual report. It shows that roughly 80% of there services are contraceptives, sex education and other things to prevent people from getting pregnant in the first place. Only 3% of their services are abortion related.

 

[Lazybones]

The problem is that each side frames their arguments a certain way, but you really can't draw a 1:1 parallel between the two. Both arguments revolve around the term "human life" and "killing", but not all "human life" is equal, nor all killing is the same, and the circumstances between an abortion and an execution are very different.

True

1. abortion terminates the life of the 100% innocent, 100% of the time

2. death penalty terminates the life of the guilty “most of the time”.

 

[Incumbent]

I’m not arguing with y’all any more.

most abortions are done for convenience, not health risk or rape and incest. Argue that

I don’t think there’s any real disagreement there. I think most people understand that, though “convenience” is a broad stroke that can be dismissive of reasons why many women decide to not go through with a pregnancy. Financial stresses. Unstable or abusive relationships. Career or other personal conflicts. There are many reasons. I don’t get preoccupied in judging the merits of those decisions, because I’ve already decided that women should have a protected right to maintain agency over their body.

That still isn’t what the information you posted means.

 

[SystemShock]

True

1. abortion terminates the life of the 100% innocent, 100% of the time

2. death penalty terminates the life of the guilty “most of the time”.

Thank you for proving my point.

 

[Lazybones]

I don’t think there’s any real disagreement there. I think most people understand that, though “convenience” is a broad stroke that can be dismissive of reasons why many women decide to not go through with a pregnancy. Financial stresses. Unstable or abusive relationships. Career or other personal conflicts. There are many reasons. I don’t get preoccupied in judging the merits of those decisions, because I’ve already decided that women should have a protected right to maintain agency over their body.

That still isn’t what the information you posted means.

Thank you for proving my point.

I thought “true” was the give away

 

[SystemShock]

I thought “true” was the give away

It wasn't. The statements after that did.

 

[V Chip]

I can provide other similar articles. However, it’s pretty clear. If 80% of what they do is prevent unwanted pregnancies and 3 % of what they do is abortions, that means 80% of the abortions are to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And I want to reiterate, this is only planned parenthood.

If someone had a better source that refuted what I have said above, please provide it.

Your logic is completely wrong on this.

If 80% of people are Christian, and 3% of people are Wiccans, then you're saying that 80% of Wiccans are Christian?

No, that is completely unsound math and logic.

 

[Lazybones]

Your logic is completely wrong on this.

If 80% of people are Christian, and 3% of people are Wiccans, then you're saying that 80% of Wiccans are Christian?

No, that is completely unsound math and logic.

dude you arguing the wrong thing. Argue that most abortions are not a matter of convenience. Don’t get caught up in the red herring.

 

[Lazybones]

It wasn't. The statements after that did.

ok, next time take me at my first word.

 

[Incumbent]

dude you arguing the wrong thing. Argue that most abortions are not a matter of convenience. Don’t get caught up in the red herring.

The realization of that is less significant than what we do about it. Ideally, we find ways to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies from happening. In cases where a woman is facing an unwanted pregnancy, I support her having access to options to deal with that, including safe abortive care.

Obviously it would be great if people only ever made good decisions but we don’t live in that world. What do you propose?

 

[Lazybones]

The realization of that is less significant than what we do about it. Ideally, we find ways to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies from happening. In cases where a woman is facing an unwanted pregnancy, I support her having access to options to deal with that, including safe abortive care.

Obviously it would be great if people only ever made good decisions but we don’t live in that world. What do you propose?

I propose that I live as a good example to our 200+ female students. That our staff is involved with the girls and being here for them whatever they need. I propose that we continue to preach that premarital sex is wrong and dangerous.

I propose that I raise my two girls to know that premarital sex is wrong and abortion is about the worse thing anyone can ever do. I propose keeping my kids in private school to teach them the dame things that I am teaching them at home.

I propose appointing judges who will one day make it illegal to have an abortion out of convenience.

 

[wardorican]

let’s pretend you are correct. How do you rectify the other articles supporting the same thing that I said about this article?

Ok, let me look at the CNN article you posted. https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/health/planned-parenthood-by-the-numbers/index.html?no-st=1573791921

Well, this article is kind of messy on what it is and isn't counting in that 80% of services. You can provide multiple services to one person, so there may be some cute accounting. I can look at this a few ways.

They say 2.5 Million people visit a year. They say in 2014 they had 324k abortion. That means almost 13% of their visitors may have had an abortion (I mean, maybe some had more than one in a year, but that's kinda traumatic, right?).

"
In 2014, Planned Parenthood saw:

• 2 milion reversible contraception patients
• 941,589 emergency contraception kits
• 3,445 vasectomies
• 718 female sterilization procedures

"

That's more than the 2.5M people, so that means some got the reversible contraception and the emergency. so, let's stick with the 2 Million number, That's 80% of their patients got contraceptives, and like 38% got emergency ones. So, some of the 80% were in the 38%.

I think other key numbers to compare are the 324k abortions (I get why people are alarmed by that number), compared to preventing 579k pregnancies (estimated). If they didn't prevent all of those, we could be talking almost 900k abortions a year max. that means they prevent about twice the amount of pregnancies compared to abortions. So, 2 thirds avoided/prevented, 1/3rd terminated.

I think if you added up all of the services they do (again, people can get multiple services), it makes that abortion number 3% of services. However, it's likely more like 13% of their visitors. So, I do think they are deflating their numbers a bit, but overall, their works seems to be more to prevent the need for abortions.

None of that deals with the way you were trying to treat the 80%. I still feel like you were using the math incorrectly. Was there another article?

p.s. the reporter seems to have just blindly copied what Planned Parenthood gave them without thinking about those numbers.

 

[Lazybones]

Ok, let me look at the CNN article you posted. https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/health/planned-parenthood-by-the-numbers/index.html?no-st=1573791921

Well, this article is kind of messy on what it is and isn't counting in that 80% of services. You can provide multiple services to one person, so there may be some cute accounting. I can look at this a few ways.

They say 2.5 Million people visit a year. They say in 2014 they had 324k abortion. That means almost 13% of their visitors may have had an abortion (I mean, maybe some had more than one in a year, but that's kinda traumatic, right?).

"
In 2014, Planned Parenthood saw:

• 2 milion reversible contraception patients
• 941,589 emergency contraception kits
• 3,445 vasectomies
• 718 female sterilization procedures

"

That's more than the 2.5M people, so that means some got the reversible contraception and the emergency. so, let's stick with the 2 Million number, That's 80% of their patients got contraceptives, and like 38% got emergency ones. So, some of the 80% were in the 38%.

I think other key numbers to compare are the 324k abortions (I get why people are alarmed by that number), compared to preventing 579k pregnancies (estimated). If they didn't prevent all of those, we could be talking almost 900k abortions a year max. that means they prevent about twice the amount of pregnancies compared to abortions. So, 2 thirds avoided/prevented, 1/3rd terminated.

I think if you added up all of the services they do (again, people can get multiple services), it makes that abortion number 3% of services. However, it's likely more like 13% of their visitors. So, I do think they are deflating their numbers a bit, but overall, their works seems to be more to prevent the need for abortions.

None of that deals with the way you were trying to treat the 80%. I still feel like you were using the math incorrectly. Was there another article?

p.s. the reporter seems to have just blindly copied what Planned Parenthood gave them without thinking about those numbers.

mother articles were posted which have the same nbrs as I quoted in the cnn article. Sorry to inform you that I was correct in my statement. Also each of you are leaving out the 900k emergency contraception kits. And mind you we are just taking about planned parenthood.

this started when I made the claim that hundreds of thousands of abortion were made each year as a matter of convenience. I was then called out on that info.

no one has or will discredit that assertion (wasn’t really an assertion, I kinda already knew the answer).

 

[Incumbent]

I propose that I live as a good example to our 200+ female students. That our staff is involved with the girls and being here for them whatever they need. I propose that we continue to preach that premarital sex is wrong and dangerous.

I propose that I raise my two girls to know that premarital sex is wrong and abortion is about the worse thing anyone can ever do. I propose keeping my kids in private school to teach them the dame things that I am teaching them at home.

I propose appointing judges who will one day make it illegal to have an abortion out of convenience.

What happens when women still get pregnant who don’t want to be? There’s no shortage of preaching and praying now, and it happens.

 

[V Chip]

I’m not arguing with y’all any more.

most abortions are done for convenience, not health risk or rape and incest. Argue that

That is true. I don't think anyone is arguing against that, but arguing against what you claimed the numbers from PP showed. I commented on the misapplication of logic and math in what you were claiming the PP numbers showed (and I'm sure that UTJ and others were doing the same).

 

[wardorican]

mother articles were posted which have the same nbrs as I quoted in the cnn article. Sorry to inform you that I was correct in my statement. Also each of you are leaving out the 900k emergency contraception kits. And mind you we are just taking about planned parenthood.

this started when I made the claim that hundreds of thousands of abortion were made each year as a matter of convenience. I was then called out on that info.

no one has or will discredit that assertion (wasn’t really an assertion, I kinda already knew the answer).

Why are you apologizing? The way you were applying 80% was mathematically incorrect. You never made a compelling argument on that front.

I was not making a judgement, outside of a misuse of math.

When you state they are matters of convenience, I don't see where any of the numbers state "why" any of the abortions were done. So, I'm not sure you can make that statement from the stats Planned Parenthood gave. I mean, you can just make that your opinion, but I'm not seeing what numbers lead you to that opinion. I mean, if your point is that any reason other than possible death of the mother is "for convenience", then you don't need any numbers at all, and I have no idea why you'd post stats in the first place.

Why would I include the 900k emergency contraceptive kits as an abortion? (I assume that was what you were trying to say, but you're chopping your sentences a bit).

I'd admit, I'm not an expert, but the bit I've read doesn't lead me to see why I would include them. Only reason I ignored them, was because many of the same patients who get regular contraceptives, also get those 900k, so I didn't want to double count the values. Since, we have services, vs patients.. and as I said, it's not 1 to 1. A patient can have multiple services.

How Does Emergency Contraception Work?
Emergency contraceptive pills work by delaying ovulation (the release of an egg during the monthly cycle). If fertilization and implantation have already happened, ECPs will not interrupt the pregnancy.

Levonorgestrel Emergency Contraceptive Kit

my.clevelandclinic.org

LEVONORGESTREL (LEE voe nor jes trel) is an emergency contraceptive (birth control pill). It prevents pregnancy if taken within the 72 hours after unprotected sex. This medicine will not work if you are already pregnant.

Is the Cleveland Clinic lying?

 

[Lazybones]

What happens when women still get pregnant who don’t want to be? There’s no shortage of preaching and praying now, and it happens.

They roll to planned parenthood hood and have an abortion.

 

[V Chip]

dude you arguing the wrong thing. Argue that most abortions are not a matter of convenience. Don’t get caught up in the red herring.

It's not a red herring to refute a completely illogical statement. It's better to say "yeah, I was wrong in how I said it and completely screwed up the statistics from the PP website/statement, but my underlying point that most abortions are elective and not medically necessary still stands" if you're trying to argue that point, rather than dig in your heels and claim other being are being disingenuous or throwing out red herrings (which, by the way, are not actually red herrings).