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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Almost 100 years ago Margaret Sanger opened a tiny birth-control clinic in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y. Poor Yiddish- and Italian-speaking women, overwhelmed by large families that they could not support, would come for advice about how to avoid pregnancy and the dangers of horrific, sometimes life-threatening, self-administered abortions. The clinic taught women to use the diaphragm. Nine days after it opened, Sanger and two other women who ran the center were jailed for violating a New York State law that prohibited contraception.
This clinic eventually grew into Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest nonprofit supplier of reproductive health services to women and men. A century after its founding, the organization is again at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in American political life. It has come under attack by Republican presidential candidates seeking to revoke the group’s federal funding—almost half of its $1-billion budget comes from federal and state sources. Last year the House of Representatives voted to withdraw some of its support, although the measure was not sustained in the Senate. (Backing for the group, initiated under the Nixon administration, has not always been a partisan issue.) In March, Mitt Romney, the GOP’s presumptive presidential candidate, vowed to end federal funding if elected. This is a worrying prospect for both women and public health.
For some people, Planned Parenthood has come to symbolize abortion, which it has provided since 1970. But in all the rhetoric, facts have sometimes gone missing. For instance, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona declared last year on the floor of the Senate that abortion accounts for “well over 90 percent” of what Planned Parenthood does. The actual figure is 3 percent. (Planned Parenthood clinics perform one in four abortions in the U.S. but use no federal funds for this practice.) To some abortion opponents, that 3 percent is reason enough to gut the organization. If a future Congress and White House were to do so, however, it would drive women once again into the back alleys, without necessarily decreasing the number of abortions.
Stripping Planned Parenthood of federal funding would also sacrifice the 97 percent of its public health work that has nothing to do with abortion, from which many people benefit directly. One in five American women have used the group’s services, and three out of four of its patients are considered to have low incomes. In 2011 it carried out tests and treatment for more than four million individuals with sexually transmitted diseases. It supplied 750,000 exams to prevent breast cancer, the most common cancer among U.S. women. And it performed 770,000 Pap tests to prevent cervical cancer, which was a leading cause of death among women before this screen became widely available. Planned Parenthood is one of the most important public health care institutions in the country, even aside from its work in rational family planning.
Family planning has benefited society in numerous ways. It has saved lives, opened new horizons for women and kept populations from soaring. Since 1965, the year the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that made access to contraception illegal, women’s ability to plan and space out pregnancies has contributed to a 60 percent decline in maternal deaths. By 2002, moreover, only 9 percent of births were unwanted, compared with 20 percent in the early 1960s. As a major provider of contraceptives—it furnished birth control to two million Americans last year—Planned Parenthood serves as “America’s largest abortion preventer,” as one Chicago Tribune writer pointed out.
Access to birth control in the U.S. has helped narrow the income inequality gap between men and women by as much as 30 percent during the 1990s alone. The pill has given women greater choice about when to have children, freeing them up to acquire career skills. By 2009 women procured more than half of all U.S. doctoral degrees, compared with 10 percent in 1960. The health and well-being of a society correlates highly with the status of its women. In many parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa, women are now making gains, to the betterment of all, in access to education and jobs—both contingent on family planning. Now is a particularly bad time for Americans, as citizens of the world, to forget what we have accomplished at home.
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Add CommentThe attacks on abortion and women's rights are misdirected. Abortion is mediated by natural laws that are obvious once they are recognized. For example the "Law of Charity" makes it clear that with 57 million people dying, there are more people dying than can be saved. For that reason any money or time spent trying to save unwanted fetuses is money or time that cannot be spent to save born babies, children or adults. In effect attempting to save a fetus causes a decrease in resources available to save born humans. Saving a fetus simply causes the death of a born person. The "Natural Abortion Laws" control what the impact of abortion will be in most situations and are a valuable tool to understand what should or should not be the role of government with regard to abortion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurrently all abortion laws are based upon non scientific opinion. As a result many lives are lost. The Natural Abortion Laws encourage the use of triage to save the most lives possible.
http://www.naturalabortionlaw.com
http://www.facebook.com/naturalabortionlaw
If the Board of Editors feels that Planned Parenthood requires their support, then by all means they should all donate, but do not argue that my taxes must be used to support PP for your "reasons". You have a right to your opinion, but your "analysis" is a hodgepodge of irrelevant "factoids" that have no place in Scientific American(e.g. what possible logical connection does the number of women awarded Ph.D.s in 2009 have with PP?).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn alternative and equally valid opinion is that women are free to do whatever their conscience individually allows, but not on my dime. If all the "work" done by Planned Parenthood is so laudable, then they should have absolutely no problem attracting voluntary contributions from supporters of their work without using the state to plunder those with opposing opinions or views. In what way is forcing financial support of PP more acceptible than making access to contraceptives illegal? The only difference is who has control of the state power to force their opinions on others. Finally, why is this subject in Scientific American?
Kaizen300--- You must have not read the article you are commenting on. The article makes it clear that there are numerous scientifically based reasons to support Planned Parenthood. Your personal religious belief that abortion is "bad" is not sufficient reason to deny public dollars for public health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can suggest that churches have a much more valuable "exemption" from taxation than any benefit that Planned Parenthood may derive from the public. Perhaps you should be upset about the religious exemptions, that is if your concern is about fairness.
Planned parenthood does public health work in return for public dollars. That is all the justification that is needed for them to continue to receive public funding regardless of your personal religious beliefs. I just don't think you have an argument.
manofmetal--You seem to be the illiterate one. Where in my comment do you read the word "religious"? Not everyone opposed to state plunder in the name of sanctimous self-appointed judges of the "public good" is necessarily religious. Maybe you've just been battling your own religious demons too long and have only one "windmill" to attack, Poncho.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause you believe in PP so strongly, certainly you donate generously, right? Or are you such a superior "manofmetal" that only everyone else deserves to be taxed to support your prejudices?
Where do you get that "law of charity" and "natural abortion laws" bunk anyway...obviously learned in a "classical" education at Peyote U and recorded for all of humanity to see in dayglow on a boxcar somewhere in Arizona?
This article gave me a big smile. Thanks for sticking up for us <3
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFactCheck.org states that 3% of Planned Parenthood's "services" were abortions but that approximately 1 in 10 "clients" received abortions. The column states that in 2002 9% of "births" were "unwanted". I assume the columnist was referring to unwanted "pregnancies". The social implications of unwanted "births" are far more disturbing. I would like to see the source of this statistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKaizen, your reply is vacuous. You avoid the issue. The fact remains, we as a nation have public responsibilities that will always require public expenditure of public monies. Your idea that because "you" are offended by abortion, that there should be no public funding is a flawed conclusion. Your ideas cause the death of born humans. That is where you lose touch with reality. You attempt to save the unborn by killing the born.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisresipsa, the fact that 3 percent of services were abortion and 10 percent of clients receive abortions seems low to me. When one considers that more than 50 percent of the population considers abortion to be necessary, the abortion number seems low. However the fact that 9 percent of births are unwanted seems to confirm their 1 in 10 number for abortions. The important thing to remember is that there are so many people dying in the world, 57 million, that any expenditure of money to force the birth of a unwanted fetus will cause the death of a wanted and born baby, child or adult. It seems foolish for pro lifers to pursue the fetus at the cost of the life of a born person.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour statement has quite a few holes. Taxes pay for all sorts of things that have an interest in some and not others. Because you have an issue with the services Planned Parenthood provides, of which abortion is only a small part, that does not mean it helps to serve the common good in its other services that taxes help pay for. A lot of PP clinics are in remote locations where women would have nowhere else to go. What do you suggest those women do since you don't want to help them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI misspoke slightly. I meant to say that because you don't like PP, that doesn't mean the other services, the ones the taxes help pay for, are not of value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Kaizen300, my sentiments exactly to the Board of Editors. This does not belong in Scientific American. Furthermore, the statement that abortion is "3% of services provided by PP" is incredibly misleading. According to their own factsheet from 2008, they performed 324,008 abortion procedures. CDC statistics recorded 825,564 abortions in 2008. PP was responsible for 39% of all abortions performed in the United States in 2008. CDC stats for death due to heart disease in 2008: 616,828 Cancer: 565,469. In 2008, abortion was the NUMBER ONE cause of death of Americans. A fetus is a person, wanted or not, and abortion is legalized murder, no matter how you try to rationalize it. Gaze upon the tiny arms, legs, and mangled bodies, ie. "products of abortion", and try to deny it isn't so. I could support PP if they stopped performing abortions; and now I'm seriously questioning my support of Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMadscientist2, your information is what is misleading. The fact that 300k+ abortions were performed by Planned Parenthood does not disprove that 3 percent of their services were abortions. In fact, your statements do not support your conclusion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe number one cause of death in America is not induced abortion but miscarriage. 7 out of 10 zygotes die shortly after conception and another 15% of the remainder die before they can be born.
And of course that makes it impossible for any person to know if any particular fetus is human or will in fact be born. So it is not a person. When one looks at the fact, a live sperm and a live egg were brought together at conception. Of that life 70 percent die. Therefore at conception much more death results than life. It is death at conception.
One cannot know before birth if a "person" is in the womb or if a dead mass of tissue or a dying fetus is in the womb. We cannot consider what might be a person to be a person, otherwise we would have to all all sperm and eggs to be persons.
The most horrible part of your fantasy is that in order to save these fetuses you believe are persons, one must ignore starving children. As a result, babies die because pro lifers waste their money on fetuses while babies cry for help.
Perhaps the most important step in the abortion debate is this step by Scientific American to bring this issue before its readers. There should be a search for truth. I do not fear Scientific Americana's involvement in the search for truth, and you should not either.
http://www.naturalabortionlaws.com
http://www.med.yale.edu/obgyn/kliman/placenta/articles/UpToDate.html
Shame on the Scientific American’s Board of Directors for writing a purely political diatribe of the critics of Planned Parenthood. Your readers come to Scientific American to read unvarnished scientific inquiry and research, not slanted political viewpoints in an election year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe larger point regarding Planned Parenthood is why does it require $500 million in government funding to function? With federal expenditures at 25% of GPD and tax collections at 15% this is the defining question. Every major government institution in America will have to answer this question, or we will go broke.
The secondary point is that abortion is a matter of moral principal and to denigrate those who happen to be against abortion on moral and religious grounds tarnishes your board’s message. Taxpayers have every right to question government expenditures that go against their religious beliefs, just as the Boston Tea Party protesters demonstrated 239 years ago. Suggesting that Planned Parenthood federal funds do not pay for abortions is being too cute by half.
Planned Parenthood has many valuable benefits for women, but that does not make it a sacred cow exempt from rational financial analysis. The fact that Planned Parenthood spends 25.9% of its revenues on administrative and fundraising expenses suggests that there are more efficient delivery systems out these for such services.
Richard Wottrich
Well thank you Scientific American for quite a non-scientific, opinionated and biased article.. But now I am left to wonder on quite a few points that you potentially may have excluded or were unaware of..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) Why was not a deeper history of Marget Sanger provided to your readers? Her passion for eugenics? Her aim to breed a "fit" race? To limit the reproduction of immigrants? Her racism? Her hatred towards the black population? In her OWN words: "We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population." This sadly.. was "factually"
the very foundation of PP. Oh and thats right.. how could a science mag like SA publish something like this.. Oh gosh, could you imagine? Yet, you can quote the founding of PP by Sanger, just not the whole story. Very, very biased..
"Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are they being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?" quoted from blackgenocide.org.
2) How about the factual evidence that both induced abortion and the pill are linked to increasing rates of breast cancer? Don't believe it? GOOD! You shouldn't until you've checked the studies: http://www.bcpinstitute.org/epidemiology_studies_bcpi.htm
3) Over half of the women who seek abortions each year report that they were using a contraceptive at the time they became pregnant. Of the nearly 12 million women on the BC pill, 8-9% become pregnant each year, which means nearly a million pregnancies occur annually from Pill failure alone. Those who continue to insist that contraceptives is the answer, should explain why STDs, illegitimate births, and abortion are endemic in America society today, despite the fact that contraceptives are available at any drug store, widely promoted in our schools and are heavily advertised in the media.
I'll close with my utmost favorite quote from Sanger, "The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
What does "Protect Women's Health" have to do with the "Science Agenda" under which header the editorial is written?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no science in this piece, no evidence of causation but suggestion of correlation. The editorial starts with a sanctification of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood whose pro-eugenic policies have triumphed, for example, in the fact that 40% of abortions in the United States are to black women (Sanger believed lighter-skinned people to be superior to darker-skinned people) and in China's brutal one-child policy (at Carnegia Hall in 1922, Sanger said, "China, the mysterious fountainhead of art, philosophy and the deepest wisdom of the world, has been brought down by the breeding and multiplication of the worst elements of the yellow race.").
After that one-sided introduction, the editorial continues with a one-sided (Democratic, anti-Catholic) agenda, with which we are all familiar, and about which we can all vote in the election in November. But that is all politics, not science -- not even thoughtful analysis, as the editorial is replete with assumptions such as the one that the only way we can provide health care to those who currently use Planned Parenthood is through Planned Parenthood. Rather than engage in the moral and political debate that's currently raging, let me simply ask: where is the science? Why is this opinion at all the proper domain of Scientific American's Board of Editors?
I'm angry at the political right. I'm married to a member of the political right. I love, respect and like the person I'm married to. That person doesn't see how the words, deeds, impending power of the political right terrify me. I want to act in retaliation. I want to act as effectively as the level of my terror. HOW?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow. So obvious that this is a political agenda and not a science based one. Where to begin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlanned Parenthood does not offer services to men. There are no prostate exams and no sexually transmitted diseases or infection exams given to men.
Therefore to claim that PP is the "largest nonprofit supplier of reproductive health services to women AND MEN" is a complete misnomer.
Secondly, the key word here is "supplied" as in "supplied" breast cancer screenings. Planned Parenthood does not offer breast cancer screenings. Instead they give you a referral. You can easily receive a referral from any health care provider regardless of whether you are insured or on medicaid/medicare.
While it is true that PP provides birth control, they provide it to minors without parental consent. They provide it without an examination too. And as "scientist" you must be aware the oral contraceptives are considered carcinogens. It's like giving cigarettes to children or to those with asthma. So not cool. And should be illegal. Wait. Being examined without parental consent is illegal, but not for Planned Parenthood.
Speaking of illegal. It's been uncovered that Planned Parenthood across the country violates the law by not reporting instances of statutory rape.
As for your "over population" rhetoric, are you truly not aware that we are below population sustainability because our birth rate is at all time low? Without enough babies born in this world, society as it currently is will cease.
But no, let's make this about women. Let's make this about poor women who need help. I am a women. I do not need PP. I do not need birth control because I can keep my legs crossed. Babies are not horrible dirty things. And staying at home is not a bad thing either.
But forget that if the government stopped funding PP it can use that money to fund government run health centers which offer things like vaccinations and *gasp* family planning.
To say that we need Planned Parenthood is a joke. To make this based on science is a joke. To overlook the obvious law breaking that PP does is horrific. Grow up. You shouldn't call yourselves scientists. Just idiotic brain washed political journalists who want to spin out trash to sell a magazine.
Shame on you!
I agree that the editorial board is entitled to their political, social, religious, and philosophical opinion. I'm not sure if they were trying to make the case it was a scientific one. It clearly isn't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you, Scientific American, for speaking out and standing up for Planned Parenthood, public health, women and science. I’d like to see many more opinions from you. Not standing up to the religious crowd has brought us creationism taught in science classes. Not questioning religious leaders brought us 50 years of priests abusing children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“If God explicitly designed the human reproductive system, is God the biggest abortionist of them all?” :
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-christian-mans-evolution
The US does not lack funds to pay for public health programs -- the Government decides how much money it has :
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2011/04/14/top-marginal-tax-rates-1916-2010/
I at one point was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood - until the money machine started up for support. I don't know about you, but I get a letter about 2x a year that declares me "evil" as well as every other person I may vote for. I'm a business republican working in electronics and biology and as such I seldom have a real choice in an election. Of course, whatever choice is best for business is seldom the best choice for planned parenthood. They alienated me and continue to so, so I keep my money in less political children's organizations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said - most of you are of a science mind and know damn well that an unborn person is just as much a person as you or I - biologically speaking. Abortion is killing - and in some cases it is the merciful thing, but I know no less than a dozen women who have had abortions, not one had an abortion out of need, all were to preserve a lifestyle so my opinion of said women is pretty low.
All that said, a woman MUST have control over her reproductive system and our government must provide a modicum of support (not carry people) for those that need it. Like many of you, I would like to see an agenda based on science and exorcising fundamental rights of liberty.
Do you really need to badmouth Peyote? You need to give it a try - it's like having sunshine flowing right onto your brain WITHOUT having to trepan your skull!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously though, like war and many other functions of government, our individual choices are not really relevant and you know we elect people that choose what to do with our money. We won't often agree with them, but we will always be supporting things we don't believe in in some way.
And for manometal - I'm an atheist and would much rather everyone paid for their own medical and reproductive service. I do not consider health to be a right - but something you create by taking care of the only body you have and making smart decisions. Poor decisions should be met with poor health, suffering and death. It's natures way.
Manofmetal:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA little over sixty years ago my mother and father engaged in sexual congress for the express purpose of having a child. My mother's egg was in the right place at the right temperature, and one of my father's sperm managed to enter the egg after no little effort.
What happened next is an unarguably scientific process:
The egg divided, and at that specific moment, all the genetic information that was my mother, and all the genetic information that was my father combined to create all the genetic information that is me.
I have precisely the same genetic make-up today as I had as a two celled zygote. And I had the sole right to that process from that point onward. Neither my mother nor anyone else had the right to interdict that process. In any other arena human endeavor science and law invariably errs on the side of humanity, of the individual. Every where else but here. Your specious argument asserting a one to one mortality ratio of unborn to post born children is just silly; I could make the same argument banning cars or bathtubs or staircases. As in: every time a car is built, someone somewhere kills an innocent child somewhere with a cars, so we should ban cars.
"All that said, a woman MUST have control over her reproductive system....:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDurazac:
Ever since that vicious Eugenicist Margaret Sanger laid plans to eliminate the halt and the lame and the "lesser races", Feminism's rallying cry has been "to have control over her reproductive system." And yet, what more obvious example of an utter loss of control could there be than an unwanted pregnancy???
Sexual freedom (read sexual irresponsibility)results in $1.5,000,000 abortions per year. It seems today that women have all the sexual freedom they've been demanding,m but a good many of them haven't learned much about the responsibility that comes along with it. And as you say, children die as a result.
Who's attacking planned parenthood? I'm not aware of any person or institution currently doing this, the issues may rely on paying some ways supposedly for this with money of people for whom not all means are acceptable from an ethical point of view. A not very known aspect in abortion may be that it can produce some damage in the self-preservation instinct of the woman suffering the procedure, a harm that possibly she can pass to the offspring that may come after the intervention, not speaking about the dubious voluntariness of some of this actions. A recent medical survey pointed that even in countries where no legal restrictions on things such as abortion exist, nearly 55% of these procedures are done out of the places with the appropiate sanitary means, and never trustable figures about lesions and court punishments for people involved in such procedures have been known. Am I right in this?. Some people multiplied by 1000 or 10'000 or more the number of casualties in illegal abortions to have it legalized, and some are forcing unjustifiable abortions just to make women feel that it's a banal action such as having a tooth filled in. We must not forget that abortion kills, that no 100% efficacious family planning mean exists, and that some sad facts must be accepted the way we accept traffic crashes deaths or AIDS. Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems clear that the Tea Partiers want to kill as many women as possible. Every action they take makes this obvious. I's a woman and I find it very tragic that any women--other than the psychotic--would wish to harm themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBongo:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for signing in and displaying your ignorance with your feeble, insipid left-wing talking point. You offer no context, no logical counterpoint to what has been written; just your certitude that a group of political activists, half or more of whom are themselves women, by the way, "want to kill as many women as possible."
Is there some cogent argument buttressing your position?
Have you any evidence to back up this claim? Was there something in this discussion that you can point to that would shed light on your assertion?
I didn't think so. There are times when I think it best that adult children should put down the bong, come up out of their mother's basement, and get a breath of fresh air. Now is one of those times......
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE EDITORS OF MY FAVORITE MAGAZINE.!!! UNDER THEIR NAME IS A PUFF PEICE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT WAS WRITTEN BY THE NATIONS LEADING ABORTION ADVOCATE AND PROVIDER.PLANNED PARENTHOOD, THROUGHOUT ITS EXISTENCE HAS STRIVED TO COVER UP IT'S AND MARGAARET SANGER'S DEEDS VIOLATING HUMAN RIGHTS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMARGARET sANGER IS BEST KNOWN (SEE HER AUTOBIOGRAPY)AS AN ADVOCATE FOR FORCED STERILIZATION AND AN ISPIRATION TO EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS WHO ADVOCATED ELIMINATION OF THE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY UNFIT.SHE INCLUDED THOSE LARGE JEWISH AND ITALIAN FAMILIES THAT YOU MENTIONED, AND CAMPAIGHNED AGAINST RABBIS AND PASTORS WHO WOULD NOT CONTROL THE SEX PRACTICES OF THEIR CONGREGATIONS. YOU DONT MENTION THAT THOSE (UNFIT) ITALIAN AND JEWISH KIDS BECAME INDUSTRIALISTS, PROFESSORS AND LAWYERS AND POPULATED THE LEGISLATURES AND CAPITOL MANSIONS OF OUR NATION.yOUR MAGAZINE SHOULD BE COMMITTED TO SCIENCE (TRUTH AND REASON). ASK THE ABORTION PROVIDER/ADVOCATE 1)IS A VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TO KILL AN INNOCENT HUMAN BEING?
2) IS A BABY BEING NURTURED IN ITS MOTHERS WOMB, LESS OF A HUMAN BEING THAN A BABY NURTURED AT ITS MOTHERS BREAST? 3)IS AN UNBORN BABY SOME OTHER GENUS OR SPECIES OR STUFF, THAT IS WORTH KILLING . 4) WOMEN , AFRICANS AND JEWS THROUGHOUT HISTORY WERE PERSECUTED AND ASSIGNED STATUS OF LESSER HUMAN BEING. IS THIS WHAT SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN IS ADVOCATING FOR HUMAN BEINGS NURTURED IN THEIR MOTHERS WOMB. WE HAVE A MAJOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROBLEM THAT SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN HAS WRONGLY SUPPORTED. CONGRESS AND REPUTABLE PRO-LIFE ORGANIZATIONS (LIKE AMERICANS UNITED FOR LIFE) HAVE DOCUMENTED THE CHICANNERY OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND HOW THEY HAVE FALSIFIED THEIR REPORTS. SCIENTIFIC aMERICAN OWES TO ITS READERS A BALANCED VIEW, BASED ON TRUTH AND REASON.
Ray, we're right here, you don't have to yell.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf abortion is such a small inconsequential part of their operations why don't they just drop the abortions and then there would be no problem for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere would be no debate about their using public funds to cross fund abortions or profiting from making referrals to abortion providers for underage clients and especially not hiding underage pregnancies from the authorities which by definition is statutory rape.
Stop all these practices and then no problem.
Of course, there would still be the problem of encouraging vulnerable minorities to _self deport themselves_ from this existence. But then that isn't racism that's just white liberals helping out the poor.
A wise man once told me, figures don't lie but liars figure.Planned Parenthood manipulates its records for propaganda purposes. I confronted the Director of PP in my county with their own report that 97% o0f women who came for Pre-natal treatment , ended in abortions. The Director honestly said " That is why they come to us". The next Annual Report lumped abortions with all other "client contact" which included every "client" that got afree condom. Obviously abortions then became a lower percentage of all client contacts.Figures don't lie , but liars figure!! PP hasn't changed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is one editorial I never expected to be published in Scientific American. The editorial is a hideous piece of political trash. Margaret Sanger? Really? She was the most outspoken racist, pro-eugenics supporter in U. S. history who believed blacks, the mentally challenged, and other "unfit" peoples should be subjected to mandatory sterilization and weeded out in favor of more"favorable races."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe statistics are misleading also. If you go back to the Planned Parenthood Annual Reports and the Center for Disease Control Reports, you'll notice there were 825,564 abortions performed in 2008 in the U.S. The PP reports claim 324,008 of those were at PP facilities. Also, the 3% is perhaps accurate since a woman coming to PP for an abortion receives several services, such as a pregnancy test, some sort of counseling, medication, etc., so the actual abortion is only one of many services given to a woman. This still means PP is the largest abortion provider in the U.S., about 23% of all abortions, and over 33% of PP's total income is from abortions.
These numbers do not include several states which refuse to provide reports, including California which recorded more abortions than any other state up to 1998, but has refused to submit reports since then.
I also abhor the fact that my tax money is being spent to support this corrupt organization.
The bottom line is I don't subscribe to S.A. to read political promotions for pet causes. Stick to science.
Truth to power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis opinion piece has no place in Scientific American. Time doesn't permit me to refute some (albeit not all) of the suppositions. The Editors should relate their respective opinions for the newspapers, and not this scientific journal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not know why this article belongs in this magazine. I also can not figure out if Planned Parenthood has a group of women's clinics not related to its abortion services it insists on using the name Planned Parenthood for those clinics. Since it is quite easy to hire a sign painter to change a name and a lawyer to draw up articles of incorporation, why don't the people at the Planned Parenthood headquarters simply split the organization into two distinct units. The few thousand dollars they would spend would return immediately in grants for the women's health clinics. They could keep the name Planned Parenthood for the abortion clinics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh that will not happen because it would make sense.
Exposing fraud and lies and imoral activity is not a political attack
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs is exposing the truth
The govermnent should not support infanticide
I should not pay for something many Americans see as imoral
As a physician I could not disagree more. Stick with science and not politics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis political hit piece is about the biggest pile of horsepoo SA ever allowed to be printed, and at subscibers' expense, at that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe piece is neither 'scientific" or "American".
Very well stated; thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did a search in my home state to see how many Planned Parenthood clinics were in remote locations. I thought your statement was a little odd because locating LOTS of clinics in remote locations didn't sound reasonable if you have limited funds. I found many of the small towns did indeed have family clinics, however, Planned Parenthood clinics were only located in the larger cities which could mean quite a drive from the small towns. I imagine a lot of states are similar to mine. Patients in the smaller communities can get most services at the family clinics from what I found with the exception of abortion. I am surprised to see this article on Scientific American. It seems more appropriate for a political blog. I used to support Planned Parenthood, but I don't any more. I do believe that they have no problem with anyone that wishes to have an abortion for any reason, including gender selection. There seem to be a lot of celebrities, business tycoons, politicians that claim to support the ideals of Planned Parenthood. They should step up to the plate and support the organization financially, relieving taxpayers of the burden.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFoolishness such as demanding the defunding of planned parenthood is the primary reason republicans lose elections to weaker candidates from opposition parties. The Masada complex type of thinking that states that it is ok to lose as long as its for the right reasons has set our country on a general decline and a path to Greek debt status.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisre41. ssm1959
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this05:06 PM 6/5/12
Are you so sure? Perhaps it has been the mental illness of acting as if spending more than income was somehow an entitlement.
re: 40. StemCellPioneers
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin reply to MrsButters2002
04:47 PM 6/5/12
There may be some who forgot the Eugenics/Abortion foundations of "Planned Parenthood"; PP certainly has not forgotten its roots, and works hard to "improve" (PP believes) the human race. Whether PP or Nazi/PP using tax money to support such efforts is just as wrong as what they did/are doing was/is evil.
You are absolutely right! I couldn't have said it clearer or any better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this8 children I have born my self and I am happy about my children. During pregnancy, as difficulties comed, doctors adviced me to murder Joachim the firstborn because I was too young, than Johannes because I finnished just chemtech study, Susanna not, but Lisa because she was 4 child. Anne Marie had a heart disease, her other twinchild died in womb in 4 month. Peter I fought an abortionist, I was not even asked, Peter was born that day they tried to kill him (too big head), Paul should die with pottassium chlorid in the heart, the needle I put in the "doctor", I understand latin, "a liquid test". Noah, I learned my lection was not touched accept "my" doctor. I study biology near finishes--- I think abortion is murder. Planned Parenthood is a dangerous association, and Pro Familia to. Sanger has a nazi history. Contraception for those who think they need, okay. I didnt use contraception, why? But I take HRT in menopauses. What if one my children would not be because of contraception? I cant get children , I am 48 years, started 40+ to study. I nearly died at one birth, placenta rupture, but I would get eight or more children again. Why not? Children are wonderful, now some are grown up and study too... I am intelligent with 8 children. Saw the ultrasonic, how can a mother kill then? But they do, but why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is all true. Thank you for writing this 4RAYRICE :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBabysmiley :-)
That fine. I want to get pregnant, without uterus (being removed because of a early form of cancer) I talkes with a woman on tuesday, she has no children, wants some. She is in menopauses, 42 years old.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHESE FAMILYPLANNING PEOPLE CANT MAKE A CHILD-- THEY ONLY DESTROY FERTILITY and or BABIES: THEY CANT GIVE CONTROLL ABOUT FERTILITY: ITS OVER WE (WOMEN *45 YEARS ARE INFERTILE FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES! THEY CANT GIVE ME FERTILITY BACK...
You also FAIL to read considering tax payer money has never gone to abortions through Planned Parenthood. They are all privately funded through donations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The actual figure is 3 percent. (Planned Parenthood clinics perform one in four abortions in the U.S. but use no federal funds for this practice.)"
It's right in the article itself!
Your article misunderstands her motives Sanger's eugenics agenda was the reason she "helped" poor Yiddish women. She thought they were inferior (along with most minorities. )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't believe a magazine as responsible as SI would not check it's facts better. Her ideas were very close to the nazi eugenics ideas of the time ;but as she states, she wanted abortion and birth control to death camps.
Since this is a Scientific publication the numbers should be based on scientific fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow does reducing funding by something less than 50% "sacrifice the 97 percent of its public health work"? Your wording is very misleading. Most businesses would gladly give up 3% of their business practice to double their funding.
When Row V. Way became law, a third trimester, 28 week old fetus had a 5% chance of survival. Today, a 28 week old fetus has a 95% chance of survival. A 22 week old fetus now has a 5% chance of survival. (Data taken from a previous issue of Scientific American.)
I don’t disagree with the substance of the article. The population of the world has nearly doubled in my lifetime. Almost every problem we collectively face is aggravated by our sheer numbers. The average human being would have more access to water, food, energy and resources of all kinds if there were simply fewer of us. Our impact on the environment would also be proportionally less. Even apart from any considerations of individual sovereignty and dignity, the population question alone merits an advocacy of contraception.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot having looked at Scientific American in years, what caught my attention initially was not the article, but the header: Science Agenda. This is, or ought to be, an oxymoron. Science has but one agendum: to uncover regularities in the empirical world. When further agendas, even well-intentioned ones, are added to this defining purpose they inevitably obstruct that purpose. Science just is the pursuit of empirical truth. Truth stands on its own. Facts themselves are not constrained by questions of whether they are good, nice, fair, or appropriate to anyone’s established cultural narrative. The ability to put aside one’s personal prejudices is an essential prerequisite to doing science. To believe there is a “science agenda” is to reduce the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of cultural aims, and to adulterate a rigorous but clear set of methods with the murky techniques of persuasion.
I believe both that Senator Kyl’s figures are incorrect, and that the editor’s numbers are correct – but I believe this for reasons that have nothing to do with the article. The editor disputes Kyl’s numbers with numbers of her own, but is so smug in her own authority she doesn’t feel a need to cite her sources. Further, she paints a portrait of Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, as a kind of exemplar of human compassion, contrasted starkly against the narrow bigotry of Kyl, Romney, et al. Sanger, all things considered, really did improve the lives of many people – but she was also an avowed racist and a firm believer in eugenics, the “science agenda” of her day. Planned Parenthood’s origin as a functional organ of the eugenics movement is probably not relevant to its current mission, but if this is not relevant then neither is Sanger’s not-altogether-friendly ghost. Such poetic imagery is relevant if one’s purpose is persuasion, but not if one’s purpose is solely the uncovering of facts.
Sadly, the scientific establishment, like any other human enterprise, is not immune to cultural biases.
e.m. cadwaladr
It is a great disappointment to see a magazine that is supposedly dedicated to science taking a stand for the defense of a murderous organization. This is not science. This is dirty politics. Have you considered that planned parenthood is supporting a bill to allow abortions if the parents do not like the sex of their baby? (H.R 3541) It is ironic that in the same issue you address the point that few women pursue tenure track jobs in science. If more female babies are killed because the parents do not want a girl, do you think we are going to have more women in science?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for your short article on Planned Parenthood and the heroine Margaret Sanger. I am continually saddened by the push to take away from women the rights we struggled so hard to obtain. And the loss of the care that PP gives to so many would truly create hardships for so many.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am glad you have the courage to speak against the rising tide of ignorance and hate.
I don't understand why so many people continue to assert that the services provided by PP would be lost to society if tax dollars were refused to abortion-providing organizations. This is not true. The birth control money (Title X) would simply go to other organizations, one or more of which would surely be a descendant of today's PP.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fundamental principle of software architecture is "separation of concerns"--if two objects *can* be implemented separately, they probably *should* be implemented separately. I believe this applies to the case of organizations like PP and their access to public funding. There is one conversation in progress about public funding of birth control and another about abortion. These two conversations have little in common other than artificial jargon ("women's rights," "women's health") falsely asserting inseparability, when in fact these services are now merely joined at the hip unnecessarily like Siamese twins needing to be surgically separated and allowed to live their separate lives.
People often feel very differently about the morality of abortion vs. birth control and therefore about the spending of their tax dollars on each of them. They may also feel very unsettled about the prospect of young teen-aged girls sneaking off to get their free pills from Uncle Sam and at the same time forming an initial client relationship with an abortion provider. Separation of these service might actually provide a more secure future for public funding of birth control services.
Eliminating all public funding from organizations that provide, promote, or counsel for elective abortion will only help the conversations about public funding of such services proceed to a meaningful conclusion that satisfies the greatest number of citizens. PP will have to break into two organizations that fully disengage from one another. Title X and the provision of its free birth control services will not be affected by this. The free pills will not go away any more than gasoline went away after the break-up of Standard Oil of Indiana.
I posted a comment noting that the statistics quoted, the 3%, were very misleading. I gave the numbers and explained why the 3% is misleading. I also noted that Scientific American is becoming more and more political. My comment was not posted. Interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNever mind. I found it.... Apologies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not subscribe to SA, and after reading this "women's health" editorial, I absolutely am not going to be subscribing. I opened the magazine excited to read about science and the first article I see is an at best political opinion piece full of planned parenthood rhetoric, dubious "scientific" statements, an unsubstantiated facts (I would like the editors of SA to show me one PP clinic that provides mammograms - they don't - yet SA is quick to praise them for saving women from breast cancer). This article was nothing more than a regurgitated PP advertisement and not it the least bit scientific or related to science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegardless of an readers opinion on the subject, I think the last thing a "scientific" magazine should be doing is printing the editor's personal, political opinions and touting it as scientific. The editors can submit their political editorials to one of the thousand other political magazines if they feel the need. As for me, I will be looking for a different magazine that keeps "science" to science.
The June editorial was not scientific -but of course it was politically charged.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlanned Parenthood IS in fact a threat to the well being of women.
Exhibit 1: Chicago (CBS) July 21, 2012: Tonya Reaves, 24, died late Friday night. She died after she’d had an abortion at Planned Parenthood at 18 S. Michigan Ave, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Exhibit 2: Cecile Richards, its president, stated that women come to PP “not for abortions” but for “access to basic health care such as mammograms..." But a young woman called PP of Georgetown, and they said: “We do not provide mammograms. We don’t deal with the health side so much. We’re mostly a surgical facility.”
Exhibit 3: Abby Johnson, in her book Unplanned, writes: “As a Planned Parenthood clinic manager, I was directed to double the number of abortions our clinic performed in order to drive up revenue. In keeping with that goal, Planned Parenthood headquarters recently issued a directive mandating that all of its affiliates provide abortions by 2013.”
That’s an abortion mill.
Margaret Sanger? "Planned Parenthood's legacy of racism & eugenics is firmly established through its founder Margaret Sanger." blackgenocide.org/sanger.html
Per the NY Daily News, 2/23/2011, federal statistics show blacks make up about 13% of the American population, and account for 36.4% of U.S. abortions. "...our future is in jeopardy as a genocidal plot is carried out through abortion," said the Rev. Stephen Broden, an official with the anti-abortion group Life Always.
PP may do many good things for women's health, but they do provide abortions. (Sort of like, some murderers may have done commendable things in their lives.)
De-funding PP has nothing to do with altering rights of women to have an abortion. But it does prevent taxpayer's money from paying for PP abortions. The majority of Americans are all for that! Money is fungible! PP can clear the air on funding by our tax dollars by committing irrevocably to not fund abortion or abortion referrals/services.
Last year, they spent over $104 Million on fundraising and public policy. And just like NPR -who said they don't need taxpayer money- neither does PP.
Human conceptions are genetically human. Isn’t the mission of the medical profession to save lives?
Murder, she wrote.
Amen!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe agree, Scientific American is not scientific -as evidenced by this politically charged editorial.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are completely oblivious to the fact that all money is fungible. Look it up!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this