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From: kjm@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Ken Montgomery)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: (belated) reply to Adrienne Regard and Gary Samuelson
Message-ID: <2022@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 02:43:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.2022
Posted: Sat Jul 13 02:43:09 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 00:45:08 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 140

[]

This is a very belated reply to two articles: 470@ttidcc (by
Adrienne Regard) and 869@bunker (by Gary Samuelson), which were
written in reply to the following:

>>From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) in <863@bunker.UUCP>:
>>>[...]
>>>  But more than that, if there is money to be
>>>made with aborted fetuses, this presents a colossal conflict
>>>of interest to physicians.  It is already more lucrative for
>>>a doctor to perform abortions than to take care of mother
>>>and child through a complete pregnancy.
>>
>>False.  Abortions cost around $250.  Hospital birth *alone* is
>>reported to cost at least $1000, to say nothing of pre-natal
>>visits, post-partum checkups, etc.  Your conflict of interest
>>is a straw man.
>>Ken Montgomery  "Shredder-of-hapless-smurfs"

Adrienne Regard replies:

>Uh, Ken, not quite.  Hospital birth is much more expensive to the consumer,
>but that doesn't mean it is more lucrative to the physician.  Fer instance,
>my O.B. reports that insurance companies have just created a new catagory
>for Obstetricians -- the highest premium there is, even higher than brain
>surgeons.  In California, the figure is something like $80,000 for this
>year, and they expect a 70% increase.  Think how many babies they got to
>deliver just to meet insurance expenses (Califoria going rate for O.B.
>services only run approx $1900 - 2200).

OK, I'll buy the figures for malpractice insurance, but many of the
abortionists are also OB's.  The strong distinction between the two 
is probably nonsensical.  Also, the argument about the number of
babies to be delivered in order to pay insurance premiums applies
equally to abortionists.  It may often be worse for the abortionists --
pro-choice people don't bomb maternity wards; self-styled "pro-life"
people do bomb clinics!




Gary Samuelson writes in reply to my reply to his article (whew! :-)):

>The conflict of interest is quite real, and it ain't hay.
>
>The figures you mention are the costs to the *patient*; what I am
>talking about is how much a *physician* can make.  I know that *one*
>hospital birth costs *the patient* more than *one* abortion.  However,
>the *physician* can perform several abortions in the same time it
>takes to attend one birth.

Gee, I was under the impression that OB's could attend to several births
at once; your argument so far doesn't appear to hold water.

>Furthermore, the hospital charges for birth are divided among
>more people than the abortion fee.

OK, but birth costs more than abortion, so there's more money to go
around.

>For example, during my wife's pregnancy, her doctor charged a fee
>of between $600 and $700, which covered prenatal care and delivery.
>[...]
>  So at a minimum, assuming your $250 figure is
>accurate, he could have made $2500 performing abortions
>instead of the $600 to $700 he made.  Therefore, for the
>individual physician, performing abortions is about *four times*
>more lucrative than caring for a pregnant woman through a
>full term pregnancy.

Note, however, that the doctor chose to attend your wife, instead of
making all of that extra money -- perhaps this "conflict of interest"
isn't nearly so bad as you think.

My SO just walked up and advised me that I should probably take
your figures for prenatal costs to be up to an order of magnitude *low*.
For a lay midwife (no hospital), she says, it cost $800 in Austin,
Texas in 1981 (a friend of ours had a child then).  Around the same
time, another friend of hers had a baby in the hospital; it cost
them $3000.  The amount of money paid to the doctor is claimed to
be hidden in a morass of accounting.  Some OB's cost more than
this because they specialize in out-of-the-ordinary cases: first
children (when the mother is over 30), hormonal problems, infertility,
previous difficult births, and the great money-maker: caesarian
sections.  A normal gynecological visit of 10 minutes or less can
run anywhere from $30 to $50, or more.  Abortion clinics incur
costs that other clinics do not: horrendous property insurance,
malpractice insurance sometimes calculated on tables other than
those used for OB insurance, expensive equipment, tissue disposal
services, etc.  This is because abortion is a surgical procedure
whereas a straight examination is not, and does not require the
equipment and caution.  In non-profit clinics, in 1983, a
straight abortion (including followup care) ran $150.  A private
physician could charge approximately $200-$230, for the same service,
depending on anaesthesia (nitrous oxide, used also in dental offices),
etc.  The actual difference in the prices for the same services may not
reflect the doctors' "take" because sometimes non-profit clinics
receive funding from charitable organizations enabling them to
offer lower-cost abortions.  Therefore, it would require a thorough
audit by a CPA taking into account geographical location (reflected
in regional differences in medical costs) to determine the profit
margins of the various physicians.  Also, please note that nurses
and other professionals in non-profit clinics of all types receive
much lower pay than those in the private (for profit) sector.
[End of communication]

If she is correct, your argument doesn't hold water at all, not to
mention being outright insulting to the non-profit clinics.

>[...]
>>[me]
>> Experimentation on live aborted fetuses is wrong and should be
>> stopped.  But that does not imply that abortion should be stopped
>> also.
>
>[Gary Samuelson]
>I am glad you agree that the experimentation on live aborted
>fetuses should be stopped.  But it seems inconsistent; if the
>fetus truly has no rights, is not a person, and so forth, why
>do you oppose such experimentation?

Mostly out of personal revulsion -- I did not intend the statement
to sound like an ethical imperative.  I note, however, a possible
source of confusion: I do not assume that the fetus has no rights,
and I made no assumptions above about its personhood.  The notion
that I do put forward is that there can be no such thing as a right
to violate the rights of another.  An unwelcome fetus is in violation
of its mother's right to control her property; the notion that it
might have the right to remain there anyway is nonsensical.  The right
of the mother to remove the fetus from her body does *not* mean that
it "truly has no rights", only that it may not violate its mother's.

--
The above viewpoints are mine.  They are unrelated to
those of anyone else, including my cats and my employer.

Ken Montgomery  "Shredder-of-hapless-smurfs"
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