I’ve been charged more for less time seeing doctors who were not “abortionists.” With as many patients as my doctor has, and as much as she charges, I’d honestly be surprised if she didn’t make considerably more than $300 per hour, and she is a general practitioner.
To be fair, doctors may argue for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy for other reasons than greed, especially since not all doctors are limited strictly to abortion services. (Even if abortion was outlawed, they’d still have a clientelle.) Many doctors are sincerely concerned with women’s rights and health issues-- not how much money they can make off of one part of their practice.
Even doctors who do limit their practice to abortion don’t necessarily have to worry about starving if abortion wasn’t legal. They could move on to other fields. Heck, some would even make MORE money if the abortion weren’t legal, because they could perform them in secret and charge thousands.
So you’re saying that you were charged more than $300 for less than 10 minutes? What manner of procedure are we talking about, if I may ask?
Moreover, I think you’re making a false comparison here, on several counts. First of all, the $300/10 minutes refers to the physician’s income, which is less than what the patient is charged. Medications and other treatments can drive the patient charge up.
Second, you’re assuming that your doctor’s other patients are charged in the same manner. That strikes me as highly unlikely – ESPECIALLY if your physician is a general practitioner, as you claim. The types of procedures typically determine the amount of money charged, and with general practitioners, there is obviously much variance in the procedures which they will conduct.
Third, you are also making assumptions about the volume of patients which your physician sees. A physician’s schedule may appear to be well-booked, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into a large number of clients seen – and patients typically don’t have access to their physicians’ booking schedules.
And fourth, even if your doctor does rake in over $125,000 per year for only day of work per week, that only describes his or her situation. It does not automatically mean that the majority of physicians can be as successful. It does automatically support DtC’s assertion that “Most doctors can make just as much money without performing abortions.”
Granted, and I never claimed otherwise. I’m merely pointing out that they have particular reason to be biased. Hence, it is disingenuous to complain about bias on the part of pro-lifers – who generally have no personal stake in this matter – while ignoring the obvious vested interest that abortion providers have in this issue.
Well, actually, I’d prefer not to discuss that. Suffice it to say that the procedure took probably about three minutes.
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Which begs the question: was the example you referred to claiming that $300 was his net, or his gross income? I’m sure there’s some overhead to an abortion procedure as well.
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Her office visit fees are about $160, which means if she only has two patients scheduled for the same time slot, she’s making a killing, and her waiting-room is always packed.
Nevertheless, she’s an awesome doctor, and it’s worth it.
A good many anti-choice advocates have personal religious fervor as their stake. If a practice is repellent to someone to the point where they’re willing to go out advocate on behalf of their beliefs, I honestly can’t see that person as being totally unbiased, or non-invested. Some see it as a crusade.
People have been known to lie, pure and simple, to advance their agenda. So, unless this person is respected by the scientific community as being accurate, I tend to take people’s word with a grain of salt. Being a doctor who was once on “the other side” makes a person’s word no more reliable than a guy you met in line at McDonalds.
I’m one of those people who like to research both sides equally before making up my mind on any issue (and any conclusion I make is always flexible pending further evidence). From what I have seen, it’s my belief that anti-choice, or “pro-life” if you prefe, sites and statistics tend to be less reliable, prone to exaggeration and emotional appeals. Of course, some pro-choice advocates are equally guilty of this, too.
I’m more likely to trust a source like the CDC than one who clearly has an agenda.
Fair enough, but that makes it extremely difficult to say how much your physician would normally take in. We can not evaluate what her incurred expenses would be, for example.
Either way, it’s still less than the charge for an office visit. Since your example involves the office visit charges, we can not fairly draw any conclusions from it.
It may be packed when you visit, but at the risk of belaboring the obvious, this doesn’t mean that it’s always packed. It also doesn’t say anything about the actual number of clients which she sees, or the amount of time that she spends with each one. Obviously, it would be reckless to draw any conclusions based on those meager observations.
Which supports one of the points I made – namely, that we can assume her case to be typical of physicians in general.
Here we go again.
It’s always interesting to see how pro-life data is treated with hard-nosed skepticism, whereas pro-choice arguments aren’t given nearly the same level of scrutiny. Of course, instead of addressing pro-life arguments, it’s a lot easier to say “You people are biased! You could be lying!”
Obviously, I meant to say that we can NOT assume her case to be typical of physicians in general. If your doctor is truly as awesome as you describe, then it’s no wonder that she can charge such exhorbitant rates, whereas other physicians can not.
So once again, please provide cites which show that “Most doctors can make just as much money without performing abortions.” Extrapolating from a single data point (one physician, with one type of procedure) is obviously insufficient – especially without information on the number of patients seen and the types of procedures performed.
I must admit I am not particularly knowledgeable on the topic of abortions. I must stress though, JThunder, that (as I have highlighted before) you do not do yourself any favours with your selection of sources.
It’s difficult to build a good argument when you rely on partisan cites, especially conservo-religious partisan cites, which often rely on a priori “knowledge” and then retro-fit the argument and reasoning to match their conclusions (the other side of the discussion is by no means immune to this accusation, but somewhat less vulnerable to religious, tribal, etc. bias). This is why independent or third-party claims or corroborations are especially useful, particularly over a topic that engenders such a visceral response in some people.
Think of it in terms of science. When the entity making the claim and the entity corroborating or supporting the claim are essentially the same, what credibility do the claim and the corroboration have?
It’s perfectly valid to call for solid, scientific, peer-reviewed evidence in order to help cut through the rhetoric and propaganda. Beyond that, I don’t really know enough about the details of abortion in America to discuss the point. I certainly won’t be improving my knowledge of the matter with some of the sources you bring forward though.
That is certainly the side which has repeatedly resorted to criminal activity under current law, such as assassinations, wanton destruction of property, harassment etc., no?
I would posit that a side which is willing to kill while claiming to be ‘pro-life’ has precious little credibility.
See, it works both ways.
I would posit that what the head of a lobbyist organisation has said is pretty irrelevant. The problem is precisely that people look only at statements by lobbyist organisations in an effort to find either ammunition for arguments or mudslinging
Too bad that lacks any relevance whatsover, since their private endeavors have nothing to do with published and reviewed data.
It is always interesting to see how you confuse data with arguments.
Data isn’t pro-anything. It simply is. It is conclusions that are pro-choice or pro-‘life’. And as long as all you bring is conclusions, and no data presented in context, it will be seen as biased for the simple fact that it is. That has nothing to do at all with anyone’s attitude towards pro-choice arguments.
Entirely true. In this case, the ones lying are those advocating partial birth abortion. Proof of this has already been linked to (and ignored). Did you need it again?
The American Medical Association is on record as supporting a ban on partial birth abortion. (JAMA 280:744-747).
Diogenes, as a resident of Minnesota, you should know better than that.
In 1993, four pro-abortionists were arrested under Minnesota’s anti-stalking laws, for targetting members of Operation Rescue. Ironically, the anti-stalking laws had been passed at least partially in order to defend pro-abortionists from being stalked by the pro-life movement. www.all.org/celebrate_life/cI9309.htm
Of course, you could argue that stalking is not terrorism, but then it would make attacking abortion-clinic protests and “sidewalk counseling” more difficult.
JThunder and beagledave are right - this is like shooting fish in a barrel.
“Advocating” (when done through public policy efforts) is political.
“Lobbying” is political.
Encouraging their members to support or oppose political candidates or judicial candidates is political.
Encouraging donation of funds to political candidates is political.
Planned Parenthood and Right to Life groups do all of these things…right?
They take their political activism so seriously, that Planned Parenthood even has a specific web site to handle their political efforts.
Is there “anything political” about that page? Be honest.
I don’t happen to think that political activism is automatically a bad thing. If you’re going to accuse right to life groups of having less credibility because they engage in it…you have to apply the same standard to groups that you agree with.
The purpose of PP is to provide health care services and information to women. Part of this mission involves making these services known and keeping them available. PP is not primarily an abortion povider. “Advocating” their services mostly means advocating birth control and providing contraceptive services. PP has been forced to defnd themselves against political attacks by anti-abortion groups., but the mission of PP is not political.
Shodan, your link doesn’t work but I’ll take your word for it that you found an isolated case case of of pro-choicers doing something illegal (albeit ten years old and non-violent). That’s a long way, however, from the very real terrorist sub-movement which exists on the anti-abortion side (Note: I am aware that anti-abortion terrorism is not representative of the pro-life movement as a whole. I am aware that most pro-lifers deplore anti-abortion violence, not only because it is morally wrong but also because it hurts the public image of all pro-lifers. I am not accusing pro-lifers of being terrorists, I’m just saying that virtually all of the violence in this conflict is coming from one side).
I remember Operation Rescue, wasn’t that Randall Terry’s group? Wasn’t he convicted of racketeering? IIRC, OR members used to stalk the children of doctors and tell them that their parents were murderers. Real classy group.
I’ve never denied that PP has, as one of its missions…to provide what it considers to be reproductive (and other general healthcare) services to women. It’s not the only mission of PP.
I’ll make it real easy for you. Is this web page about political activism. Yes or no?
If no…please explain why not. (including what your definition of political activism is)
If yes, please acknowledge that PP engages in political activism as part of what it does. Whether it’s to protect women from evil pro lifers, or whatever reason…they do engage in political activism .
It was a response to what Diogenes the Cynic posted. Which is why I quoted him directly above my response.
So when he said:
*quote:
Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic
On the pro-choice side, we have professional health care providers with access to real statistics and real personal experience with the procedures and the reasons for them.
I then quoted “professional health-care providers with access to real statistics and real personal experience” who were on the record as opposing partial-birth abortion.
It’s called “refutation”. Look it up.
No, for me, Shodan, stalking is a form of terrorism. Which was the subject we were discussing.
So you are arguing that the issue of partial birth abortion is “entirely disconnected” from the topic of abortion?
I can’t tell - are you being deliberately obtuse, or are you really as dumb as you are coming across as being?
I find a discussion goes more smoothly if you make the effort to actually read the thread. Even the hard parts, where people disagree with you, and present evidence that refutes your position. I know it is difficult - give it a try anyway.
Failing that, you could go on making a fool of yourself. Your call. Diogenes -
You posted as follows:
Does the same reasoning apply if it were applied like this?
And, FWIW, I am sure that classifying ‘stalking’ as ‘non-violent’ is going to get every battered woman’s group down on your ears in no time flat.
I consider political activism to be the attempt to change or influence existing law. PP is just trying to preserve its own mission, which is to provide reproductive services to women. I would say that any “political” activity that PP is involved in is purely reactionary and defensive and would not play any role in the organization if it were not for anti-abortion activists. To put it another way, PP can exist without politics, NRL hads no other purpose than a political one.
I will assume that this is a grudging admission that Planned Parenthood does, in fact, engage in political activism.
Of course, pretty much all anti-abortion groups owe their existence to Roe v. Wade, so all their political activity is just as defensive and reactionary as PP. And many anti-abortion groups provide “crisis pregnancy” services to women experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, although not abortion referrals, so they have a reason to exist even apart from opposing partial-birth abortion.
Shodan, as I said before your “stalking” link didn’t work, so i don’t know the details of the case you cited or how violent or threatening it was or was not. One cas is still not a refutation of my point that the anti-abortion side has produced hundereds of cases of real violence. If you want to count “stalking” then that figure goes into the thousands.
Citing doctors who don’t like abortion refutes nothing that I said. I said that PP was a healt care organization. How does citing anti-abortion doctors refute the point that abortion providers are also professional, ethical health care professionals?
There’s no such procedure as a “partial-birth” abortion. The procedure is called “intact dilation and extraction” (D&X). “PBA” is purely a political descriptor invented by anti-abortion activists in order to demonize the procedure and the doctors who perform it.
The only thing wrong with your RCC analogy is that I’m unaware of any pro-choice attacks on the Church, per se. I would also say that the RCC initiates its poltical activity vis-a-vis abortion rather than just responding to criticism, but all in all, I would say that no, the RCC is not a political activist group.