Not true, abstinence is 100% effective at preventing conception.

Accurate statement: if a woman wants to
make sure that she DOES NOT BEAR YOUNG,
she will have to have an abortion every
time she becomes pregnant.

or she could have a surgical sterilization and not ever become pregnant
again (I'm not recommending this by any means).

Assumed Fact: all pregnancies can go full-term
without suddenly ending.

I don't recall ever making this assumtion, but it's true.
All pregnancies CAN go full-term wihthout suddenly ending.
However, that doesn't mean that they will.

Accurate statement: Any woman who *wants*
to bear young cannot ensure that she will
do so simply by getting pregnant.

I understand that many people that
have unwanted pregnancies use
contraception and it fails, and
that is too bad. However, if 1 out
of ever 100 unwanted pregnancies
results from unprotected intercourse
that is unacceptable and irresponsible.

Women can improve their chances of not
getting pregnant from sex by using
contraception. However, even the
American Life League agrees that you
can't blame women for getting pregnant
on unprotected sex, since unprotected
sex doesn't cause pregnancy almost as
often as using contraception doesn't
cause pregnancy.

I don't recall blaming women for unplanned pregnancy. It is just as much

male's fault as the woman's.

And thats really the point: contraception
improves the chances, sure, but it doesn't
do so in a radical manner because it doesn't
have to. Sex is already so unlikely to
cause pregnancy (78% chance that it won't)
that using a condom (85% chance that it
won't cause pregnancy) only increases the
unlikelihood of pregnancy by SEVEN percentage
points. Thats not negligible, but thats not
very much in and of itself.

Are you opposed to Emergency Contraception?

No

Emergency Contraception does tend to radically
decrease the chance any given sex act causes
a pregnancy, and its not an abortion since
it does not terminate a pregnancy.

Pregnancy begins only when a zygote implants
into the uterine wall, and one of Emergency
Contraception's effects is to prevent
implantation.

I'm not against any form of contraception, and I'm not against women

access to legal and clinical abortions as they see fit. I just think that
abortion is GENERALY immoral, and there is nothing you can say or do to
convince me otherwise.

#############################################

webgiant -- "...while pregnancy is frequently
caused by sex, sex does not cause pregnancy
enough to expect it just from having sex."

response: Before the 20th century there were
very few fertility clinics, if any (I am not
going to bother looking that up, let's just
assume unless you find documentation stating
otherwise).

Actually, before the 20th Century there was a
very large Fertility Clinic, and it was called
the Catholic Church. There were others, but
I'll cover the Catholic Church first.

Within the Catholic Church a system of
predicting the best possible time to cause
a pregnancy was developed. Over time, it has
become the Natural Family Planning Method,
but even in its infancy the Catholic Church's
system of predicting ovulation was very good
at predicting ovulation.

Secondly, every village had a MidWife. While
they are best known for being present at a
Birth to assist in Labor (and human beings
require assistance in childbirth, like every
other species with an extensive aquatic
evolutionary period, such as elephants and
dolphins) Midwives were also skilled in the
knowledge and medical arts of predicting
ovulation and assisting women in becoming
pregnant. As well as assisting women in
not becoming pregnant, but this was a time
when the economy was largely Agrarian, and
pregnancies were preferable since they meant
"free labor" on the farm.

So to fill in the holes of your historical
knowledge of fertility experts, the Catholic
Church and the midwives were present prior
to the 20th Century to assist women in
becoming pregnant, through systems of
determining ovulation periods (Catholic
Church and midwives) as well as advice on
diet and drugs (midwives).

However, some regions in the world during
that era experienced overpopulation.

As would be expected in all regions of the
world wherein the Catholic Church and/or
Midwives were present to increase the chances
of women in getting pregnant and giving birth.

If you look at the regions of the world
in which overpopulation was experienced,
you have to check the reason for the
overpopulation, as well. If it was simply
a matter of population not having enough
resources, the resources themselves may
have simply reduced in size, such as a
famine or other disaster reducing the
available resources, creating overpopulation
without being caused by over-fecundity of
the female half of the population.

There have been instances of overpopulation
wherein fecundity is the problem. One
example that springs to mind is roughly
equivalent to the government making everyone
go to a fertility clinic, but doctoring the
information so that periods listed as
"non-reproductive" are in fact highly
reproductive.

I'm speaking, of course, of the period
following the Spanish Inquisition, in which
there was a purging of Midwives. Without
their assistance, the only fertility game
in town was the Catholic Church and its
doctored NFP system, in which periods marked
as "non-reproductive" were in fact highly
likely to cause pregnancy.

So people had sex when they thought it was
"safe sex", and because everyone had sex
(there being no TV), there were enough
rolls of the percentage dice to result in a
great many more pregnancies. When you look
at an entire population, it can seem like
there is a greater chance of getting pregnant
from sex; but when it comes down to the
individual, there is only a very low chance
of any given individual becoming pregnant
during any given year, let alone any given
sex act.

This would illustrate that having sex does
cause pregnancy often enough to expect it,
or at least not be surprised by it.

All it illustrates is that you are ignorant
of what fertility specialists existed prior
to the 20th Century.

You overemphasise my mention of fertility clinics. When I mention

clinics I mean in the modern sense and people that could not produce
offspring without modern technology.

Most women throughout history have required
assistance in getting pregnant. It is the
exception rather than the rule for a woman
to find the process of becoming pregnant a
fairly easy task.

In fact, some women who found the task
relatively easy were a boon to the locals
in producing more children. There was an
interesting custom in the British Isles,
a nature festival occurring approximately
on the date of what we consider to be
May 1st, called Beltaine.

On this day, it was considered good form to
have sex in the fields, because it was
believed that all that raw sexual energy
pouring out would make the crops come right
up. Not everyone having sex in the fields
was married to each other: as part of the
festival, each man participating in the
sex in the fields was assumed to have
assumed the essence of the Male Deity,
the one who typically dies in the winter
and is reborn in the summer, often depicted
by a Stag or even the Sun. So there were
husbands and wives having sex outside of
marriage.

This was yet another example of primitive
fertility clinics: a couple who had been
heretofore unable to conceive a pregnancy,
could head out into the fields with
different partners to see if their problems
were due to one or the other partner having
fertility issues. If the wife became
pregnant, the husband officially became the
father. If the husband got a woman pregnant,
the husband and his wife would officially
adopt any child (if one was born) as their
own. The woman the husband got pregnant
would be considered not only still a virgin,
but also doubly blessed, for she had given
birth to a Son Of God.

And if two unmarried people had sex in the
fields, and she got pregnant, she'd know
for certain starting in June, when she
missed her next period. Which is the
origin of the custom of June Weddings:
unmarried women would find out that they
were pregnant from sex on Beltaine, and
there would be a marriage.

Young people not old enough to have sex
could still participate in the festival.
They would dance around a giant phallic
pole penetrating the ground (Mother Earth,
Father Sun) waving colored ribbons attached
to the top (base) of the phallic pole.
This was known then (and now) as the
MayPole, though most people don't remember
the phallic origins of the MayPole.

I will not resort to name-calling, although it is tempting. I hope you

continue relying on statistics and pretentious wordiness, rather than

the human factor into consideration.

BTW thanx for the history lesson, not that I needed it. I just wasn't

this was a pass/fail newsgroup :]

I'm not against any form of contraception, and I'm not against women having
access to legal and clinical abortions as they see fit. I just think that
abortion is GENERALY immoral, and there is nothing you can say or do to
convince me otherwise.

"webgiant" <webgiant@rocketmail.com> wrote:

ICE-NINE <ice-nine@anon.net> wrote:

Even if you do not compound the probability
upon each encounter, 22% is still a more
than a negligible probability.

You didn't actually read the website I posted,
did you.

No I didn't read it, why should I? I'm not
arguing the percentages, which are nothing
more than statistical estimations. I am
arguing the fact that there is a more than
negligibale probability of conception
resulting from unprotected sexual intercourse.

Here's the exact reference:

http://www.all.org/issues/ecnumber.htm

In any case, contraception decreases the
chance of any given sexual act causing
pregnancy, yet according to your math,
women using the Pill *will become pregnant*
on the 20th time they have sex, since the
chance of them becoming pregnant at that
point, if we accept the silly argument of
"compounded percentages", is 100%. The
percentage chance of pregnancy while on
the Pill is around 95%.

I could not find online documentation
describing what can be defined as
negligible. However, my lady works in
a pathology lab and she says that
negligible is any probability or percentage
less than 1%. Considering my logical
refutation: people should logically
abstain from sex, or at least use
contraception, if they do not want to
bear young.

Illogical, assumes facts not in evidence:

Assumed Fact: contraception and abstinence
are 100% effective in preventing pregnancy.

I never assumed the afore mentioned fact,
quite the contrary.

Accurate statement: if a woman wants to
*increase her chances* of not getting
pregnant, she can either choose abstinence
or contraception. If a woman wants to
NOT GET PREGNANT, she's out of luck,
nothing is 100% effective.

Not true, abstinence is 100% effective at
preventing conception.

Accurate statement: if a woman wants to
make sure that she DOES NOT BEAR YOUNG,
she will have to have an abortion every
time she becomes pregnant.

or she could have a surgical sterilization
and not ever become pregnant again (I'm not
recommending this by any means).

Assumed Fact: all pregnancies can go
full-term without suddenly ending.

I don't recall ever making this assumtion,

Accurate statement: Any woman who *wants*
to bear young cannot ensure that she will
do so simply by getting pregnant.

I understand that many people that
have unwanted pregnancies use
contraception and it fails, and
that is too bad. However, if 1 out
of ever 100 unwanted pregnancies
results from unprotected intercourse
that is unacceptable and irresponsible.

Women can improve their chances of not
getting pregnant from sex by using
contraception. However, even the
American Life League agrees that you
can't blame women for getting pregnant
on unprotected sex, since unprotected
sex doesn't cause pregnancy almost as
often as using contraception doesn't
cause pregnancy.

I don't recall blaming women for unplanned
pregnancy.

And thats really the point: contraception
improves the chances, sure, but it doesn't
do so in a radical manner because it doesn't
have to. Sex is already so unlikely to
cause pregnancy (78% chance that it won't)
that using a condom (85% chance that it
won't cause pregnancy) only increases the
unlikelihood of pregnancy by SEVEN percentage
points. Thats not negligible, but thats not
very much in and of itself.

Are you opposed to Emergency Contraception?

No

Emergency Contraception does tend to radically
decrease the chance any given sex act causes
a pregnancy, and its not an abortion since
it does not terminate a pregnancy.

Pregnancy begins only when a zygote implants
into the uterine wall, and one of Emergency
Contraception's effects is to prevent
implantation.

I'm not against any form of contraception,
and I'm not against women having access to
legal and clinical abortions as they see
fit. I just think that abortion is GENERALY
immoral, and there is nothing you can say
or do to convince me otherwise.

#############################################

webgiant -- "...while pregnancy is frequently
caused by sex, sex does not cause pregnancy
enough to expect it just from having sex."

response: Before the 20th century there were
very few fertility clinics, if any (I am not
going to bother looking that up, let's just
assume unless you find documentation stating
otherwise).

Actually, before the 20th Century there was a
very large Fertility Clinic, and it was called
the Catholic Church. There were others, but
I'll cover the Catholic Church first.

Within the Catholic Church a system of
predicting the best possible time to cause
a pregnancy was developed. Over time, it has
become the Natural Family Planning Method,
but even in its infancy the Catholic Church's
system of predicting ovulation was very good
at predicting ovulation.

Secondly, every village had a MidWife. While
they are best known for being present at a
Birth to assist in Labor (and human beings
require assistance in childbirth, like every
other species with an extensive aquatic
evolutionary period, such as elephants and
dolphins) Midwives were also skilled in the
knowledge and medical arts of predicting
ovulation and assisting women in becoming