Abortion and Recession "Linked" Together, Despite No Evidence [Serge]

What do they really teach in journalism school? This article from Reuters absolutely amazes me. Here is the big headline:

CORRECTED: Recession linked to more abortions, vasectomies

Get that? The current economic conditions have been linked to an increased number of abortions. The article begins with a story of a nurse who is employed deciding to have an abortion. Then, in a strange twist, the article reports:

The recession may be a factor influencing more Americans to opt out of parenthood with abortions and vasectomies, although there is no data available yet to suggest a trend.

What? There is no data available YET. So we have no data that would actually link the number of abortions to the economy, and no available data suggests a trend, but some belief that the data will be coming. Hopefully soon. Sheez. This is truly a faith-based initiative.

Of course a professional journalist is not going to let something like no data to support her headline divert her story, so she does offer some "evidence". Here it goes:

Even so, there is some anecdotal evidence that would-be parents are factoring the rough economic times into the most personal of reproductive choices, some experts said.

Yea! Anecdotal evidence from "experts"! This should be good.

In 2005, the last year for which data is available, the U.S. abortion rate fell to the lowest level since 1974, according to the Guttmacher Institute in New York, a nonprofit group focusing on reproductive issues.

Wait, this is not anecdotal evidence, but real evidence. And it seems to support the exact opposite of what her theory is. Maybe we should just keep reading.

But at the National Abortion Federation, a hotline for women seeking abortion information has been "ringing off the hook," according to the group's president, Vicki Saporta.

"We are currently getting more calls from women who report that they or their partner have recently lost their job, and we are also hearing from more women facing eviction," she said.

Who needs real evidence when Vicki has phones ringing off the hook! How can one even imagine stronger evidence! And we have have reports of as many as three women who have stated that the current economy have influenced their decision to have an abortion.

That's all we need. Go ahead and run the headline saying that they are linked.

Pathetic.

Media Idiocy of the Week Part 3 [Serge]

98% of this article is actually quite good, especially this quote from an adult stem cell researcher comparing the funding of ESCR with that prior to the sub-prime mortgage crisis:

"The scramble to fund human embryonic stem cell experiments looks like the scientific equivalent of sub-prime mortgages," says Raisman. "One wonders how long the large sums of money and hype can go on chasing such a distant goal before the bubble bursts."

That's good stuff, but I still can't let the author get away with this statement, which is just a complete, blatant falsehood:

Under George W Bush, federal funding of ­human embryonic stem cell work was banned in the United States for religious reasons.

:sigh: Here we go again. Bush did not ban federal funding for ESCR - in fact he funded ESCR for the first time in American history. He limited funding to the human embryonic stem cell lines to those that were already existing, enabling continued research in ESCR without the additional federally funded death of human embryos.

Second, I don't recall Bush quoting Scripture or relying on Sacred dictum to make his decision. I realize that in Brave New Britain in may be difficult to imagine that one can still use secular reasoning to defend the intrinsic value of human life, but here in the states we still seem to be able to.

Media Idiocy of the Week Part 2 [Serge]

This comes from the Columbia Journalism Review, which critiques other media outlets. Author Katia Bachko critiques a piece in the Wall Street Journal which discusses this article. On a side note, I've already commented on this article in a recent new project (more about that later). Here is what Bachko has to say (emphasis mine):

The takeaway for parents, Healy says, is to pursue a holistic approach, not a one-time shot deal: “The focus should be on cultivating the teenager’s ongoing home and social environment, rather than on eliciting a one-time, easily forgotten promise.”

The Wall Street Journal is right to call foul on the press for oversimplifying the story and playing down the substantial differences between the religious teens in the study and the rest. But McGurn fails to mention one of the study’s key conclusions: that teenagers from conservatively religious backgrounds tend to forego birth control when they do have sex, leading to greater incidence of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

The study does no such thing. In fact, the two groups studied were chosen specifically to match in their religious characteristics - so it would be impossible to show that teens from religiously conservative backgrounds lead to greater teen pregnancy and STDs (which also goes against all other research in this area.)

Even worse, the Pediatric study did compare the two groups in regards to their STD status, and I quote from the abstract:

Pledgers and matched nonpledgers did not differ in premarital sex, sexually transmitted diseases,

Now maybe expecting a journalist to read all twelve pages of the study, which is available for free online, might be asking too much, but she should at least of read the abstract. Clearly she did not. However, this does not stop her from making this far-reaching conclusion:

In the precede to the study, the researchers note that “the US government spends more than $200 million annually on abstinence-promotion programs, including virginity pledges.” The goal of these programs matches that of comprehensive sex ed approaches: to reduce teen pregnancy and the spread of STDs. The problem is, as the study’s findings strongly suggest, only one method works. It’s too bad that the WSJ chose to side with a moralistic, ineffective approach, instead of a science-supported, value-neutral one. Teens may be teens, but journalists should know better

And journalistic critics? The author has no idea what this article even tries to prove, let alone if her conclusion is supported by the evidence.

Journalists will be journalists, and it is very sad that they seem more clueless than the average teen. Actually, I'm sorry about that last sentence - it was unfair. I owe an apology to teens everywhere.

Media Idiocy of the Week [Serge]

This may be a recurring theme, for there seems to be no shortage of material.

A recent study showed that there was a 3% increase in teen births nationwide in 2006, unfortunately ending a fifteen year trend of decreasing birth rates. No one really knows the reasons for this slight increase, and it may be a data aberration, but the media has a good idea what is causing this problem:

Some advocates also wonder whether the rise is tied to a growing depiction of young girls giving birth as acceptable in fictional and real-life dramas.

Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, got pregnant out of wedlock and recently gave birth to a boy.

Now the conception of new human life is truly a miracle, but it seems Bristol's child has power we had never dreamed of. This child has the power to turn back time and effect the sexual behavior of teens two years before he was conceived! That little guy is powerful!

Meanwhile, in the nationwide press (USA Today) we have a similar retroactive explanation. One of the reasons for the uptick in teen births could be a lower abortion rate. Not so says an "expert" in preventing teen pregnancy:

Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, says she is less inclined to believe abortion is driving higher teen birth rates and suggests that increases in high-profile unmarried births in Hollywood, movies and even politics is a significant factor for impressionable teens.

Her evidence for this assertion? You guessed it:

"In the last couple of years, we had Jamie Lynn Spears. We had Juno and we had Bristol Palin. Those three were in 2007 and 2008 and not in 2005 to 2006, but they point to that phenomenon," she says.

Wow. She even realizes that the years don't add up but she can't help herself. This seems more like something that should run through your head before you actually say something and not a quote given to a nationwide newspaper. I'm sure the teens who became pregnant in 2006 were thinking that maybe an Alaska governor's daughter will become pregnant in the future. Just brilliant.

Next up: Goodfellas and the Sopranos must have influenced the crimes of Al Capone.