Point No. 1 - My list consisted of those that practice birth control and those that don’t. This should include everybody in the sample.
If this is not an exhaustive list, who did I leave out? Those whose birth control practices are dependent on level of intoxication?
Point No. 2 - Your implication that my conclusion is invalid as a result of omitting drug addicts is really grabbing at straws.
What is the prevalence of drug addiction among adults in Latino communities? Among these addicts, how many are producing children with fellow addicts? How long can two addicts maintain custody of their children before child protective services steps in?
I think you sell your people short on this one.
Point No. 3 - I don’t claim that there are more law-breaking than law-abiding citizens in Latino communities. My claim is that law-breaking is more prevalent than in other communities as a result of poverty pressure exacerbated by high birth rates.
I believe I provided a rational set of assumptions and facts to back up my conclusion. None of the information I provided has been refuted in your posts.
So the best you can offer up is to say you disagree (with an underline for emphasis) with my conclusion.
I’ll stand by my conclusion until someone offers up a better rebuttal.
I guess the best evidence that I can provide you is my experience as an ob/gyn MD in LA county for a number of years. Illegal aliens do get MediCal when they apply for it. I’m certain there are exceptions. The social workers look the other way.
It might surprise you that MediCal will also pay for abortions for pts with a MediCal card including many a woman who-can-afford-to pay pt who has learned to give an address of a girlfriend and claim no bank account. But now we are detouring from the OP.
I’m sorry to pile on but I can’t resist. Reading between the lines of your statement, I can only come to one conclusion regarding your belief on this issue.
Poverty is a predictor of crime with the exception of practicing Catholics.
If this were the case, Mexico, in spite of rampant poverty should have a lower crime rate than the US.
Skelton: I’m curious, how exactly do you know your patients were illegal? Did they tell you? My (extensive) experience with illegals has been that they are very careful about whom they share this information with. I’m also skeptical that it is that easy for a social worker to just “look the other way,” but I concede not being sure about the process.
I also wanted to address what you said earlier about the cost of caring for a sick newborn. Whether you like it or not, that sick newborn is a US citizen.
And no, it doesn’t surprise me that MediCal pays for abortions. I wish that more states did.
ruadh: Having generated over the years a relationship of trust with many pts and myself, pts tell their ob-gyns a great deal and this often includes the fact they did not cross the border legally.
The newborn of the MediCal pt who delivers in the US is definitely a US citizen and I mentioned above, a sick newborn may run up a bill that often can exceed 250,000. This is paid for by the taxpayers. Many hard working pts who do not have the benefit of MediCal insurance and may go bankrupt with the huge medical bills piling up.
And finally abortion should not be used to replace birth control. I have seen patients who have had 6, 7, 8, 9, and even 10 abortions all paid for by the State of Cal.
I’m all in favor of people who want to have families and produce HUMAN BEINGS doing so. (didn’t you know there is a shortage of workers?)
If you want to spend you money on CDs and SUVs and choose not to adopt (I won’t make digs at sterility here) feel free.
In fact I think America will be a better place when the Indians (Mexicans) take it back. I’m tired of frigid, non-orgasmic, sterile, manic depressive, selfish, needy, mega-consumer, prozac-ed, ADD, lazy, over-educated, in-bred, psychoanalyzed, white-collar crime, over-achieving (that means “secretly stupid”) protestant yuppie scum.
I have learned Spanish in preparation for the take over. I will be selling them CD’s and SUV’s too once they become corrupted and lazy like most white Americans.
Skelton: I’ll cede to your experience. But not without noting that your choice of words, “building a relationship of trust” with your patients, seems oh … ironic when you talk about them like “it’s absolutely disgusting that they breed like rabbits.”
I suppose you consider it trust because you didn’t call the INS on them.
ruadh: I admire your tenacity. Trust amongst its other meanings = To place confidence in. I reserve the right to have opinions right or wrong and to use adjectives right or wrong whether I’m an MD or not. How could I have gotten you and many of the others to read the OP without using a word to spark one’s ire?
In any event, I believe I have made my opinions clear and I will let you have the last word if you so desire.
Wild generalization: crime is committed by the men, but it’s the women who take on responsibility for birth control (if any). Most men will not use a condom if they dont have to - and if they are married, many think that’s a good enough reason… after all, they dont have to carry the child. So - men are sinners, women are not?
I am a redhead, you see, and I do not tempt. I insist. -Cristi
Good point Sassy. My assumption was - and my belief is - that men and women are equally responsible for birth control and I realize this may not be true in practice. I also will acknowledge the unequal burden post-conception.
However, if hubby won’t wear a condom, why does she not have the right to pursue some type of birth control (BTW, I did not mean for my previous post to be gender-specific with respect to birth control methods; artistic license I suppose :)).
In my defense, my original argument was centered on married couples and their respective birth control methods or lack thereof. I believe in this group the responsibilities and burdens are more equally divided than with the out-of-wedlock set.
With respect to the resulting crime from the poverty I contend is aggravated by lack of birth control, a question comes to mind.
Do women who knowingly overbreed relative to their family’s means bear responsibility for any crime that may result from this situation?
Certainly not in their mind if they’re following the teachings of their church.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that we are aware of the many social ills brought about by overbreeding within the lowest classes. The OP focused on the drain on social services as a reason to “stop the mass production” and called on Catholics to speak up against this. I don’t believe this is a compelling enough reason to limit births since it reeks of social engineering.
Whether I’ve been clear or not, I’ve tried to provide a moral imperative for the Catholic church to lift its ban on birth control.
To consign people to an eternal life of poverty as a result of this ban is immoral. Even if adherents of the church’s edicts on birth control are not committing crimes, they are much more likely to be victims of crime unless they are able to escape poverty. Of course they have less of a chance of doing so unless they limit their family size (apologies to Joseph Heller).
Is this really in the best interest of poverty-stricken Catholics?
