gadgetlady

There are some very compelling arguments in this article. I've highlighted some pertinent points: Worldwide Illegal Abortion Study Relies on Bogus and Biased Statistics by Steven MosherOctober 12, 2007 The abortion fundamentalists at the Alan Guttmacher Institute have an ax to grind. Guttmacher styles itself the "research arm of Planned Parenthood," but it may more properly be called its lobbying arm. In its new report on abortions worldwide, Guttmacher makes several claims. These fall into two broad, overlapping categories. The first consists of ploys to raise more funds for the population control-abortion crowd. The second, intended to pander to radical feminists, consists of veiled pleas to legalize abortion, couched in the form of arguments. Guttmacher claims that the number of induced abortions worldwide declined from nearly 46 million to under 42 million between 1995 and 2003. "Significantly, the abortion rate for 2003 was roughly equal in developed and developing regions ... despite abortion being largely illegal in developing regions." In actual fact, neither Guttmacher nor anyone else knows how many abortions have been performed worldwide in this year or any other year. Guttmacher's numbers may be reasonably accurate for countries with socialized medicine, like Great Britain, where accurate records are kept. But for other developed countries, like the United States, they are at best educated guesses. Abortion may be legal, but its proponents have kept it deliberately shrouded in secrecy. As far as the numbers given for the developing world, they are simply bogus. Take the case of Columbia, for example. In the hysteria surrounding the effort to legalize abortion there, the feminists kept advancing higher and higher numbers. The numbers of illegal [hence "unsafe"] abortions spiraled upward at a dizzying pace--250,000, 300,000, 450,000. All fantasy. I interviewed the Vice Minister for Health of Columbia on September 28th of this year. She informed me that, since the legalization of abortion in that country on May 10th of last year, the Ministry for Social Protection's health clinics had performed approximately 50 abortions. Not 50,000, or 5,000, or even 500. Fifty. This is several orders of magnitude smaller than predicted. Why, you may ask, does the Guttmacher crowd play fast and loose with zeros? Because they are deliberately exaggerating the magnitude of the problem in order to create a "health crisis." After all, the more women they can claim have "unsafe" abortions, the more women they can claim die as a result. The numbers are merely chips in a high-stakes poker game to legalize abortion-on-demand worldwide. Another Guttmacher claim is that the number of abortions has "fall[en] most where abortion is broadly legal." "On the whole, the abortion rate decreased more in developed countries, where abortion is generally safe and legal on broad grounds ... than in developing countries, where the procedure is largely illegal and unsafe." This statement is speculative at best, since there are no hard numbers where clandestine abortions are concerned. Again, Guttmacher invents absurdly large numbers of "unsafe abortions," which then enable it to claim that the abortion rate plummets with legalization (and the collection of real statistics). "We know, and the new evidence confirms yet again, that the best way to make abortion less necessary is to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place." Or so says Guttmacher. Yes, well, in China the number of abortions has declined from 15 million to only 9 million, not because of the wider availability of contraceptives, but because so many women have been sterilized. The same is true in Vietnam and several other countries which have seen government-run sterilization campaigns. Guttmacher's final claim is that "unsafe abortion remains a major global health challenge." Dr. Sharon Camp, president and CEO of the Institute, maintains that " ... we know that the crucial first step in making abortion safer is to legalize the procedure, ensuring that it is performed by skilled providers under the best possible conditions. It's high time for policymakers worldwide to renew their commitment to women's health by addressing these crucial issues." Legalized abortion is never "safe" for the baby being aborted, of course. Neither is there any reason to assume that the legalization of abortion will instantly bring medical facilities up-to-date and start money pouring into rural clinics. Abortion, legal or not, is an invasive medical procedure with the potential for many complications and health risks. This is Guttmacher's first global review of abortion since 1995, perhaps because its numbers the first time around were so risible that they were disinclined to attempt it again. But with pro-aborts in the Congress determined to kill the Mexico City policy, and to give money to International Planned Parenthood Federation and other abortion-performing groups, it probably seemed like an excellent time to trot out the same old tired arguments.

The Guttmacher Institute is the research arm of Planned Parenthood. Follow the money.

I love my doctor :-) My experience has been great. The only problem I had was when another doctor did my fill and he couldn't hit the port (he's no longer with them). They let you come in whenever, and all fills are free for life. Feel free to post or PM me with any questions. If you PM me, I'm happy to give you my phone number so we can chat. Best of luck to you!

It's unlikely you've ever phrased the question that way. I HAVE phrased the question that way in a debate format: "If the 'thing growing in the womb' could be removed from the woman's body to grow elsewhere, would that be an acceptable alternative to abortion?" The answer is almost always an emphatic no, belying the purported purpose of abortion being simply to make the woman not be pregnant any more. That being said, I don't go around asking women in crisis situations this question. It is more of a theoretical question asked in other fora, meant to cause people to THINK about what abortion is and the purpose it satisfies. Many times. And I will continue to do so whenever the situation presents itself. I would happily take a baby (or assist in finding someone who would) than watch the tragedy that occurs for both mother and baby when abortion is the "choice".

Have you ever asked them that question?

It didn't used to be 20 weeks. It used to be much, much later that a baby could survive outside the womb. Are we to say that in the early 1900's, a baby wasn't a life until 36 weeks, but in 2007 that baby is a life at 19 or 20 weeks? The definition of life depends on medical advances? Let me ask you this. If medical technology could take the baby, the blob, the cluster of cells, the fetus, the embryo, call it whatever you want, OUT of the mother's body and grow it in an artificial womb or transplant it into another woman's body, would you find that an acceptable alternative to abortion? In my experience, most people who are pro-abortion answer "no" to this question. The mother doesn't simply want to be "un-pregnant". She wants the baby to not exist, and since this is not possible, she wants what she believes to be the next best option -- a dead baby. She knows what she is carrying is her child, a product of her DNA and the father's DNA, and if she were to have it taken out of her womb and placed elsewhere, it would still be her child and she might have the "misfortune" of having to deal with this child or grown adult later in life. Therefore, the simple state of being "not pregnant" is not the goal of abortion. The goal of abortion is the total destruction of that specific growing human life.

I'm pro-choice for birth control, pro-choice for sterilization surgery, pro-choice for pretty much everything -- but I'm not "pro-choice" when the "choice" takes another person's life.

I think you are a bit guilty of what you are accusing others of. For example: and yet here you DID imply that everyone posted negatively. (emphasis added) No one person made up the 8 pages of posts, so the implication is that all were beating her up. Now far be it for me to have a problem when someone doesn't post "exactly" the right way, but because you brought it up, you should know that you didn't post "exactly" the right way either. And finally, while we're on the subject of communicating properly, I submit that that was the entire problem with the OP. The original post implied that the OP's experience was universal and "the truth". If the OP had simply said, "This is what I'm going through", rather than "This is the truth about the band" (coupled with a dramatic account of spending close to 24/7 over a toilet), responses would have been different.

As have I. The issue is do you throw out the whole discipline of translation because you found an example (or several examples) of a word (or words) translated improperly, or do you research more and find out if it was translated properly elsewhere? Do you claim that there are errors in the translation you've witnessed errors in, or do you extrapolate and claim that the errors are throughout all English translations? Because that's what most people do -- they find one error, stop there, say the English Bible is inaccurate, and never look back -- never bothering to find out if that error was corrected in other translations.

OK, let's look at the facts. There are many different translations. They are not all exactly alike. Therefore, obviously some of them have not captured the correct translation or nuance to match the original language or culture. Some of the translations have translated some things improperly. I have already acknowledged that. These are what I call "poor" translations. They are poor translations because they have poorly translated words or phrases. Not all translations are poor translations, and therefore your statement that some words and phrases don't match is translation-specific. If you're using a poor translation, naturally you would find discrepancies. My challenge to you would be to see if there are other translations that don't have those same issues.

OK then, I'm making the bold statement that I've looked for the supermarket and not found it and in the absence of other information, it is NOT there. It's pretty hard to offend me. I just didn't think weight was part of the discussion and I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't challenging you because you were overweight.

This reminds me of people who wildly repeat the hearsay that the Bible is full of contradictions, but when asked to give some examples, they say, "Well, there are tons of them; everybody knows that" and yet they don't give any. I used to be a little afraid of these claims, thinking that I wouldn't have enough knowledge to defend my position. Then one day, many years ago, I took a deep breath and challenged someone to show me a contradiction. They showed me what they believed was one. I showed them how it wasn't (they agreed). It was actually pretty easy. Then they showed me another. I showed them again how it wasn't a contradiction. This went on for a while until they realized that maybe all of those things that "everybody knows" weren't necessarily "gospel" truth (pun intended).

That's easy. You say, "Here's the Hebrew word. Here's what it means. Look in [XYZ] translation. See, it was translated wrong." It's that simple. Then I go to my English-Hebrew dictionary, see if the word you're looking at is the word you're saying was translated wrong, see if it matches the translation that I read or if you've chosen a poor translation, and if necessary do some research about the nuances of the word. Again, it's not rocket science. BTW, I am aware of some errors translating from Hebrew to some English translations. That's why I've chosen the text I read very carefully, and often refer back to the original language (by dual-language dictionary, obviously) if I'm confused. When translating from a foreign language, your understanding of the subject can only be as strong as the original translator's skill.

And I told you, I have seen examples elsewhere and none of them has been credible. So if you say you have credible examples, how do I know they're different from the ones I've already seen and have been discredited according to my research? No I can't, because I don't know what you're referring to. The examples I've seen previous to this discussion have all been poor and have not convinced me. I'm now more and more firmly convinced that you aren't sharing your examples because you don't think they're strong enough to hold up to scrutiny.

If you, of your own accord, bring up the supermarket and make a wild claim about it, and then refuse to tell me the name of it or give me any details, I must question why you brought it up. If I don't believe it's there or I don't believe your claim about it and you stubbornly refuse to provide me with any details, it leaves me to wonder what your agenda is or whether there really is a supermarket. This isn't rocket science. It's plain logic. And it has nothing to do with weight.

What about ACCURATE translations?

Quite frankly, you've spent so much time on explaining why you won't give any examples that you could have easily spent far less time and given just one teeny tiny example. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I believe you have an agenda, you're lying, you haven't done the research, and you don't know of any discrepancies.

You are absolutely right, but I can only evaluate what you're saying if I can look at the words themselves. Until and unless you give me examples, I can't do this and have to therefore assume you have no proof. I'm not blindly relying on anyone. That's my whole point. I've studied this myself based on examples other people have given me and have found no discrepancies in the translation that I use. You made a statement and yet you refuse to provide even ONE example. Therefore, because I've never found a credible source including you, I must logically disregard what you say and continue to rely on the research that I've done.

No, you're not the only person who THINKS this. I'm looking for evidence, proof, or something to compel me to change my mind. If you can't provide it, that's fine. I haven't found anyone else who can, either. Ergo, I will continue to believe that what you "know" is not verifiable.

I've seen some of the books that give examples and to me they're not credible or accurate based on the translations that I read. I was wondering if you had something specific that I could actually research and see if there was anything more to the claim. In the absence of that information, I will continue along the same path. I have an open mind and am willing to consider other points of view, but not when they're not backed up.

Um, because you won't give examples? That's really how one determines what is true and what is false: by comparing claims using factual information, not the opinions and unverified statements of a random person on a public board.

I don't speak Hebrew and therefore will likely never be privvy to the original text, so I have to depend on translations if I want to read the Bible. I don't have a choice; the only choice I have is which translation to rely upon (and if one studies the different options, there are just a few that rise to the top for accuracy), I've studied several different translations and often use supplemental sources to go back to the original untranslated words if I'm confused. If you can't cite any examples of grossly mistranslated text, how can anyone look at what you're claiming and agree? How should one study the Bible if one does not speak Hebrew or Greek? Or are you saying it's only a text for people who speak those languages?

gadgetlady and mr.gadgetlady have been very busy these days. Starting October 1st, my dh will be part of an international team rowing a gondola from Albany (NY) to Ground Zero. This is a tribute row in honor of the fallen heroes of 9-11. On October 8th, we will be participating in the Columbus Day Parade, towing our gondola in the parade down 5th Avenue in Manhattan. If anyone's interested in the project, visit GONDOLA BLOG for more information.

mbanja, try Band2gether.net (b2g) Lap-band Support Forums - Powered by vBulletin. It's a "kinder, friendlier" version of LBT. It was started by a former LBT member who was banned for being part of some pretty nasty goings-on -- IMO, she was attacked and defended herself. B2G is a much more supportive place to hang out. surfbored, I'm glad you were able to take communion and didn't, ya know, PB or DIE. My guess was that you would be fine, being a former Catholic myself and knowing the consistency of the host. Of course, I'm remembering that you did ask Catholics the question and I'm not sure everyone who responded in the negative was Catholic and knew about how Catholic communion dissolves. Blessings to you on your band journey!

surfbored, what did you choose to do about communion? I'm curious to see if you had a problem with it if you decided to take it.