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sheesh, jbryan, read through this thread! more than one person questioned if i really am a journalist, and not in a friendly way. :rolleyes:

and i cannot believe that you think my questioning of john's credentials is the worst that has been done in the coffee room. not by a long shot! :rolleyes:

now, excuse me, but if i spend any more time here today, i won't be a journalist any longer. got a deadline and have to go. 'bye!

I can't think of a single medical or health-related procedure that doesn't carry some amount of risk. In some cases, failure to undergo a procedure carries a statistically higher risk than the risk from complications, side effects or aftereffects of undergoing a procedure. These complications, side effects or aftereffects may be either physical or mental. Every patient, regardless of the procedure, deserves to be as informed as possible of any risk, both from the procedure or foregoing the procedure in order to make an appropriate decision by weighing the various risks against each other.

The question at hand, though, is not about the ethics or morality of any procedure, nor of comparing the procedure's risks against the risks of another procedure. It is, rather, one of the wisdom of allocating research funds to determine if, in fact, there is any statistically provable causality between a procedure and a latent risk.

But, unfortunately, abortion is a hot-button issue, and the rhetoric on both sides often flares up and obfuscates the real issue. So, if we were to examine the same question about the worthwhileness of research and apply it to a similarly complicated but less divisive procedure, perhaps this can be discussed in a less acrimonious manner.

So, let's discuss whether it is worthwhile to fund research that seeks to determine if there is an identifiable risk of developing breast cancer after undergoing tonsillectomy*. A possible causality has already been identified linking tonsillectomy to changes in the body's immune system. Another causality has been identified linking changes in the immune system to the development of breast cancer. The research in question would seek to prove or disprove a statistically valid correlation to undergoing tonsillectomy and a subsequent increased risk of breast cancer.

Regardless of the motivation of the person proposing the funding of such research, and regardless of one's personal ethics regarding tonsillectomy, does it sound like research in this area should be funded by the public? Then, by extension, should surgeons feel compelled to inform their tonsillectomy patients about the possibility of an increased risk of breast cancer even if the research is not even underway?

So, have at it, boys and girls. Reread this entire thread and replace the word "abortion" with "tonsillectomy" in every post. Do anyone's arguments ring true? Or, has nearly every poster in this thread had more to say about their opinions regarding tonsillectomies?

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*-Please note that I am in no way attempting to trivialize the moral and ethical implications of abortion by comparing it with tonsillectomy.

The government pays for both tonsillectomies and abortions. Those who feel that they should have a say in how monies that are voluntarily or involuntarily collected from them are spent, might be more likely to articulate an opinion about abortion.... at least it has proved so thus far.

Intense national debate is necessary on many issues. We arrive at a consensus, (kicking and screaming sometimes), through the politicians we elect to legislate the parameters of our freedoms and regulations. So .... I don't know if any surgical procedure should be examined as thoroughly as we do this one.

In Berlin, near the end of WWII, 10,5 miles of Russian artillary surrounded the city, ready to invade. Within the parameters of the city were 2.5 million women and not many men to protect them. You can be sure many, many abortions were performed without much public scrutiny or protest.

I think this an issue that demands intense debate and scrutiny.

Gee, I'd like to sit in on one of pique's college classes, especially when the subject of journalism and ethics arises.

Let me see if I get this right...

1. A woman who denies her Jewishness consatntly harps upon the intentions and ethics of those who would question anything Jewish.

2. A woman who would subvert the normal, legal channels, in her efforts to obtain her bootleg piano, at the lowest possible price.

3. A woman, who can define morality, the precursor of ethics, yet bases her morality on nothing more than the whim of the moment. Her whim, of course.

4. A woman who tends to post her thoughts, then will rapidly erase her writings, as if they were not there - leaving many of us in the old days before Frank stopped letting us whack the response line, scratching our heads.

Is it ethical to lash out, and then not stay to back it up?

5. A woman who will question the training and ethics of others, yet not hold herself to the same standards. There is no doubt that Dr. Moonlight is a physician, that I can determine.

I do have trouble considering someone a "journalist" who can't recognize a shift key on a keyboard.

6. A woman who champions Planned Parenthood, an organization built on the same Eugenics thinking that propelled the Waffen SS - guess those 6 million Jews didn't matter after all, did they?

Nah pique, I think you are a fine, upstanding paragon of virtue.

Larry you really ought to read before you spout. When I said I had quickly done the research to provide the links I provided, I was referring to the statistics comparing the relative risks to the woman of abortion vs. full-term pregnancy, and the sites I gave were from: World Health ORganization, Women's News, National Library of Medicine and CDC.

As to the breast cancer link which IS from Planned Parenthood, it is a very thorough article (which I'm sure you also didn't bother to read) and probably has a better and more thorough summary of the the whole issue than anything else you'd be able to find short of scouring the medical journals and redoing their research. One thing I will agree with you on - they have an agenda all right - women's health, and to suggest that they would hide evidence such as this is ludicrous.

Yeah, they have an agenda all right. Do a bit of research, and find out a few facts about their founder, and her prinicples at the inception of the organization.

She and Himmler would have been great buddies.

Eugenics creates strange bedfellows. Or maybe not so strange.

Jolly,

Was that mean-spirited personal attack on pique really necessary? :rolleyes:

Yes, it was.

I did not write a single word, that was not true.

Stone, cold, truth.

Right now, after pique's silly attack on Dr. Moonlight's credentials, and her pooh-poohing of the motives of those in the healing profession, I have lost my patience.

I am most certainly in an Old Testament mood.

Fortunately, we live in an era of dispensation....

She sounds pretty admirable to me. This, of course, is from PP's website. Let's see what you can come up with. A snippet:

"Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, both nurses, and a third woman, Fania Mindell, open the first birth control clinic in America in the Brownsville community of Brooklyn, New York. They provide contraceptive advice to desperately poor, immigrant women who line up hours before the clinic doors open.

All three, Byrne, Mindel, and Sanger are arrested and indicted under New York State's 1873 "Comstock Law," which forbids the dissemination of birth control information. Sanger's arrest is her second for violating a Comstock law: two years earlier she was indicted under a federal Comstock statute for sending birth control information through the U.S. mails in her publication, The Woman Rebel."

Read the whole history. It's not only fasinating but makes me all the more grateful to the people who founded the organization and keep it going.

History or Reproductive Rights


P.S. Their director (can't remember her name anymore - maybe JF will) spoke at our law school commencement in 1990. She was dignified, well-spoken and keenly intelligent - I was honored.

I know JBryan said this a while back, and I'm signing on late (somebody's gotta go to work around here!) but I think it's very well stated. Good job, dude.

And to other news:

kathy's: "Tom, as utterly cadish as you will be,"

or pique's: "not too bright, are you, tommie?"

aren't very nice statements either.

I was hurt.

Tom, Sweety, I thought you took pride in being cadish.

I'm an OPTIMIST, not a cad! (Same thing only the former is better phrased!)

kathy, when you're not PO'ed you're cute...when you're PO'ed..your beautiful.

Jack can come over to my house and beat me up any time he chooses.

Matt G,
I appreciate your recent post ..... You have the ability to see through the rhetoric, re-focus my thinking, and provide insight through your analogy ..... Thank you.

Then, do get out the "good" book and read from the New Testament. Your mood needs a change.

Science Schmience! This pretty well sums up what Brownbeck's proposal is all about - politics as usual - been there done that!


With Friends like this . . . ?

Some of you guys would really like to put us (at least us women) back in the Stone Ages.

nope. you got every single last one of them wrong. and in so posting, you revealed just how closed-minded and blindered you are. everything you wrote is a distortion.

i've never denied my jewishness. if i had, you wouldn't know that i am jewish. and "constantly" is hardly an accurate characterization. when someone makes an anti-semitic remark i point it out. that's the only way people learn.

i purchased a piano for sale at a dealer's, and took the known risks that it might turn out to be the equivalent of buying a used piano. there's nothing illegal about that, nor unethical. plenty of reputable dealers buy european pianos without going through the u.s. distributor. altenburg's who you have recommended, does the same thing.

you obviously know nothing about my moral compass. but i can tell you that as solid as it is, it has nothing to do with god, jesus, or the bible. if that makes it "whim" to you, then you are entitled to your definitions, but that doesn't make them accurate.

i haven't removed a single line i've written here. and most of us at piano world have removed a post at one time or another. there's nothing wrong with that.

here i am. however, i don't think any of us is obligated to hang around here indefinitely answering inane responses that reveal that the poster didn't read what we wrote in the first place. it becomes pointless after a while. furthermore, some of us actually have better things to do than spend all our waking hours at piano world.

i question the training and ethics of others when the evidence suggests it is appropriate. i still maintain it is appropriate here. you are free to disagree.

as for holding myself to the same standards, my professional training and ethics have been questioned here plenty of times. i've stuck around and explained myself. i've never taken it personally. it really doesn't matter to me whether people believe i am what i say i am or not, because i already know who i am. so, why should it bother johnnie one bit if i question who he is? i don't see what all the fuss is about, really.

no, don't bother trying to explain it to me.

this one has been explained before. i type very quickly, usually while doing telephone interviews and there is no time to use the shift key, plus my word processor is programmed to provide capital letters automatically after periods. therefore, i've fallen out of the habit of using the shift key. i don't need it for my work, because the computer takes care of it for me. and i don't need it here, because if it bothers any one of you, you can just skip my posts. i don't care if you read them or not.

by definition, someone who has to constantly invoke hitler and the holocaust to make their point doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. that's a weak-minded way of making an argument. surely you can do better than that? i believe kathyk's done an admirable job of answering this one already.

too bad i can't return the compliment. you are about the worst excuse for a christian i've ever encountered. i just love it how you cloak yourself in the bible and then go around being about as uncharitable as they come. what a joke!

obviously you find my very existence as someone who lives outside the bounds of your narrow, religiously defined universe offensive. there's nothing i can do about that. there's many, many kinds of people in the world, and if you want to avoid everyone who isn't like you, you probably shouldn't come here.

but don't even try to pretend that you understand who i am.

and tommie, if i hurt your feelings, i apologize. frankly, i didnt' think a small statement like that would make much of an impression on you, in light of some of the things you have said to me!!

Here is an article talks about the abortion/ breast cancer debacle and other deceptions that has been going on in the Bush administration. I might add that although this article casts the current administration in a bad light, I have read elsewhere about exactly what the author is talking about. Take a look.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/11/opinion/meyer/main605270.shtml

how you can state that the links you provided have more veracity than planned parenthood's or the cdc (which is clearly where planned parenthood's came from, if you look at the cdc website), is beyond me.


Where on earth did you get the idea that Planned Parenthood came from the CDC? This is ridiculous.

Tonight, I'll show you where Planned Parenthood came from. You won't like it, but it will be facts - isn't facts what you're after?