# Let's amend the Constitution to ban abortion opponents! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109 "2010-09-17T18:01:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109/181 "2010-09-27T12:14:55Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > I explained my logic, it is simple, sound, and I’m through trying to explain it to someone who just goes in circles trying to get his way. Yep. Sound logic, all right. Or perhaps “simple,” is more accurate. In any event, as **Boyo Jim** helpfully demonstrates with an ACTUAL cite, your sound logic is somehow, mysteriously, reaching an incorrect conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109/182 "2010-09-29T20:07:49Z")
Some things get stuck in my head. I found this interesting[US Justice Department Census](http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/meco04.pdf) of coroner and medical examiner officers, using 2004 data. Some interesting facts: about 2.4 million people died in America that year. There were approximate 1,500 working coroners, medical examiners, and forensic pathologists. For the sake of brevity, I’m just gonna call all these folk coroners. The total buget for all coroner offices is about $719 million. For everyone who died to get an autopsy, all those 1500 coroners had to perform 4 autopsies a day, 7 days a week. The census, however, reports that only about 40% of deaths were referred to a coroner’s office for some type of medical investigation. Coroners concluded that about half of these referrals were worthy of further investigation. This means that only about 20% of all deaths (about half a million in 2004) are even looked at by coroners. Finally, 48% of their accepted referrals end up including a complete autopsy. This would have been about 250,000 in 2004, just a smidge more than 10% of all deaths. I found another reference in the [US Library of Medicine](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9068185) stating that the average fee for an autopsy was $518 in 1997. Note that is a fee for service to a coroner, and would not include any of the overhead or associated costs such as lab tests. I’m gonna guesstimate that this fee is up to $600 by now, which I think is kinda low balling it. So that makes the cost of providing an autopys for every American to about one and a half billion dollars per year, not including the facilities costs, lab tests or any other form of forensic investigation. That would be if there were enough coroners available to do them, which there aren’t. To get back a little closer to the general subject of the OP, according to the CDC about 15% of all pregnancies end in miscarriages. Given about 2.5 million births a year, that means roughly 3 million pregnancies, and about 400,00 miscarriages. Who knows what it would cost to investigate all those “deaths”? Not me. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109/183 "2010-09-29T20:14:56Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > > [@Mozart1220](#): > > > > I explained my logic, it is simple, sound, and I’m through trying to explain it to someone who just goes in circles trying to get his way. > > Yep. Sound logic, all right. > > Or perhaps “simple,” is more accurate. > > In any event, as **Boyo Jim** helpfully demonstrates with an ACTUAL cite, your sound logic is somehow, mysteriously, reaching an incorrect conclusion. I cited the Utah law investigating misscarriages. That should have been enough. As a lawyer, you should know that one law begets another. Not to suggest that you are anything but ethical, but you KNOW there are lawyers in this country that could and would use that Utah law to justify one going just a bit further, and then another goes a bit further…and so on. Pretty soon…well you SHOULD get the idea. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109/184 "2010-09-29T23:23:14Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > I cited the Utah law investigating misscarriages. That should have been enough. As a lawyer, you should know that one law begets another. Not to suggest that you are anything but ethical, but you KNOW there are lawyers in this country that could and would use that Utah law to justify one going just a bit further, and then another goes a bit further…and so on. Pretty soon…well you SHOULD get the idea. > **[Slippery slope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope)** > > In a slippery slope argument, a course of action is rejected because the slippery slope advocate believes it will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect. This is quantified in terms of what is known as the warrant (in this case, a demon [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-amend-the-constitution-to-ban-abortion-opponents/554109.md?page=9)