I don't know about you, but I enjoy Kos's weekly Hate Mail entry. For me it is slightly more amusing than depressing. Anyway, this week he submitted an entry that included this:
Another thing - This guy Tiller that got himself killed. How come I see not one single post about all the babies this guy murdered? I heard it was over 50K of viable children killed by him. God, why didn't these women just have these little lives and give them up for adoption?
and then this:
Let us face it, the Dr Tiller baby Killer or what ever he was called brought this on himself. He killed 50 or 60 thousand viable babies, WOW. I don't feel one bit of pity for him.
One thing that struck me was the sheer magnitude of the numbers quoted that were attributable to one man. It is, in lay-terms, a shit-load.
Let's have some fun with these numbers.
Disclaimer: Since these are mostly "back-of-the-envelope" calculations there is some rounding/estimation that I'm doing to make the numbers easier to work with (mostly when they're stuck in a Shoney's with their in-laws). For those of you outside of a scientific genre, this is something that scientists do all of the time to test the validity of whether an idea is feasible. Many times a "good" back-of-the-envelope calculation will get us within and order of magnitude (power of ten). The following calculations tend to drop a decimal point and as you will see you could adjust the one's digit as much as you want and these numbers are crazy...what I would technically call "fucking crazy".
First of all, notice that accurate sourcing for these numbers: "I heard". And then the writer (I use that term very liberally) advances that number his/herself up to 60K (By the way, using K is a metric unit referring to "Kilo" directly from the Greek. Personally, I find that so funny because, if somebody suggest that the US should convert to metric to this person, their head would probably explode.). Oh, how rumors get started.
Second: as rvdee stated:
50K???
I have more problem with where this figure comes from.
This amounts to 4 fetuses aborted everyday since 1973 (Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays included) without a break (except every four years--not counting 2000--because I didn't include leap year).
By one man. Who specialized in late-term abortions. In Kansas.
50K seems a bit excessive...where does that number come from?
My thoughts exactly.
Doing a little "Ethernets" I was able to find that the total possible time that Tiller could perform abortions is about 37 years (discounting the four months in 1970 and the five months in 2009). rvdee is right, across that time frame and given the upper and lower limits of the hate-mailer that would account to approximately 3.7 to 4.4 abortions a day.
But that got me thinking: let's, for the sake of arguement, assume that since Tiller was based in Wichita, KS that his business was reliant on the nascent population. Let's look at the demographics, here they are (based on the 2000 census):
Wichita Population: 344284 100.00%
Sex and Age
Male 169604 49.26%
Female 174680 50.74%
Under 5 years 27524 7.99%
5 to 9 years 26725 7.76%
10 to 14 years 24688 7.17%
15 to 19 years 23767 6.9%
20 to 24 years 25565 7.43%
25 to 34 years 51619 14.99%
35 to 44 years 53980 15.68%
45 to 54 years 44035 12.79%
55 to 59 years 14377 4.18%
60 to 64 years 11113 3.23%
65 to 74 years 20616 5.99%
75 to 84 years 15297 4.44%
85 years and over 4978 1.45%
Let's have fun with these numbers. Let's assume, because of the available breakup of the numbers, that the age of women able to bear women is 14-55 years. I know that is not completely accurate but it makes the numbers easier to work with. The number of women in Wichita, KS that fill that category is 57.8%. That corresponds to an actual number of women of: ~100650. That's about 1:2 women getting an abortion. To state that 50% of the local female population is getting an abortion is absurd.
The fucker who posted this hate mail is stupid. This person is stupid because this idiot didn't even to bother to run some 4th grade math, much less any research. 'I received this number from my from my friend ipso facto...'.
I honestly don't know how to attack these fuckers. Because what they need is attack, but they have such an idealistic view of life that is impermeable. They don't understand their double standard:
Kill the killer in prison, but don't kill the baby that could grow up to be that killer. It is a double standard.
Let me finish with my personal understanding of the crazy right. When I first met "X" she was (in my view) crazy left, talking about shakras, personal energy, and transcendence. In between the time that I knew her then, and how I know her now, her family's house burnt down. And what did her family do? They clung to religion. Honestly, it was all they had. It was the only way the family found comfort after such a devastating event.
"X" became a neo-christian. She found a community that would provide for her family...and that's a good thing. The down side is that she slowly, one-by-one, started rejecting her friends. I was one of the first out, despite my charity, limited as it was.
My downfall was that I chose reason. I chose science. I think (and I have no evidence for this) that she acted out against me because I was an easy target. Personally, I think that I was the one person who could challenge her ideals, just as I did in the past. In fairness, this shouldn't be interpreted as the truth, just a perception.
Over the years, it has denigrated into the "You hate God" argument, which I've noticed over the years has really become the "I hate religion" argument. Why do I hate religion, because of what it has done to my friend. What it has done to my family.
The reason that we have zealots like Roeder, is because of religion. In our current time, Americans pretend that zealotry only applies outside our boarders, without looking inward.
The people I know are not murders, they are not bigots, they are driven by a singular cause. And it scares me just as much as it scares you. The reality is that this is the America I live in, it is the America they live in, and it is the America you live in.
I will close on this thought: How much support would the Republican Party have with more education? If we have more people with a little education, they would do a little more research before blasting out this crap. I often wonder if a better education of my friend "X" wouldn't have given her more perspective at the time of her crisis. I guess we'll never know (or, to be fair, I'll never know).
What we need in this country is a better education system. And when it needs to, the federal government needs to step in and say "Creationism is crap, teach Evolution...for fucks sake!!!!"
Peace, Love, Dove. I only wish honesty to prevail in the future.