I see you got some Steve Derangement Syndrome there, eh Paul.

And I see you dishonestly moved the goal posts too. Gee what a surprise.

It just goes to show that some humans will go to any lengths to save the whales, contain twenty cats in their homes and murder human children.

What was dishonest and how did I move the goal posts?

The issue in Malkin's original post was the danger of RU-486 to the women who take it, not the effects on the fetuses. That initial post was misleading. Michelle even admits that she should have noted the points Bill Ardolino brings up in her latest post. By shifting the focus to the intended purpose of RU-486 and to abortion in general you have employed, knowingly IMO, a red herring.

The data right now shows that RU-486 appears safe to the women who take it as an abortifacient. On the intended purpose of RU-486--i.e. causing a very early term abortion--I don't dispute. Arguing against RU-486 on the moral/ethical nature of the drugs intended purpose is an honest argument. Trying to portray the drug as unsafe when by all appearances it isn't is dishonest.

I also like how you go from the fake Alar scare to the (based on the evidence so far) fake RU-486 scare without blinking an eye and come out in favor of the fake scare after deriding your first fake scare.

Steve: Every drug is unsafe to some degree. What makes those risks acceptable is the benifit that those drugs offer. Thus, while the risks of chemo-therapy are far less that of leaving agressive cancers alone and therefore justify their use, it would be unreasonable to use a medicine/treatment with a similar risk in order to treat the common cold. This is the principle that Paul was arguing on. Yes, penicillin does have a higher mortality rate, but that's acceptable because of what the mortality rate would be WITHOUT penicillin.

The issue is not how safe RU486 is in regard to any other medicine. The issue is is what we are getting from RU486 worth the 1 in 92,000 deaths, or is that cost excessive? If it is excessive, then RU486 is unsafe, regardless of how many people have been killed by penicillin.

I wouldn't want my wife to eat that apple.

I am not a big fan of abortion. But when you say RU486 doesn't save lives you are forgetting the statistics on mother mortality during birth. They are about 1 in 10,000 for natural birth and several times higher for c-sections.

Two things:

First of all, as you said, the risk of mortality standards for food versus those for pharmaceuticals are vastly different animals--so why bring it up at all?

Secondly, as much as I hate supporting the pro-choice movement, both the government and the medical community agree that the unborn children killed by RU-486 don't count as human beings. Further, it's the law in this country that women have the right to first-term elective abortion--thus whether or not you and I see a need for RU-486, so long as it's deemed safe by the FDA (which is what this whole circus is over, I know), women have the right to it. Period.

Cheers,
Bob

The issue is is what we are getting from RU486 worth the 1 in 92,000 deaths, or is that cost excessive? If it is excessive, then RU486 is unsafe

So, JSchuler (and possibly Paul, but who knows with all that equivocation), essentially you think the FDA should be making moral decisions for all of us, and restricting the public from purchasing certain products based on those decisions? If so, are you sure about that?

The issue in Malkin's original post was the danger of RU-486 to the women who take it, not the effects on the fetuses. ... By shifting the focus to the intended purpose of RU-486 and to abortion in general you have employed, knowingly IMO, a red herring.

No No No No... Nonsense.

You can do the same cost vs benifit for the automobile or any other product. You want to do a cost vs benifit by only looking at that fact that (by your metric) the cost is cheap. That's silly.

A band new Ping Zing for $1 is not a deal for me... I don't golf.

I'm not shifting the focus to abortion. The pill is used to create abortions. It is imposible to consider the cost vs benift without mentioning abortion... be realistic Steve.

The data right now shows that RU-486 appears safe to the women who take it as an abortifacient.

Safe compared to what?

You want to compare it to an antibiotic which have saved (probably) millions of lives. Undeniably antibiotics have an incredible benefit.

Here's the crux of it Steve: Can you genuinely compare the benefit to society of antibiotics to the benefit of RU-486?

If you can't, then your comparing the cost is the red-herring.

Make sense yet?

JSchuler:

So, I guess Viagra should be looooooong gone then, since it saves 0 lives and has a significantly higher mortality rate.

On the other hand, RU-486 essentailly replaces abortion, thus saving lives and certainly saving anguish, time, and money for the person taking the drug.

Until you make abortions illegal, the very, very small risk of this drug becomes moot. Comparing it against what it is replacing makes sense, and that's still a big win from every perspective.

Paul,

From your last post, you seem to be saying the same thing that I did, but you fail to make the comparison that you yourself call out for. Compare the safety of RU-486 to the safety of abortions. Then you'll see why suggesting pulling it from the market while abortions are legal makes no sense.

Make sense now?

Steve- see also JSchuler at August 18, 2005 08:21 PM

Mantis:

essentially you think the FDA should be making moral decisions for all of us, and restricting the public from purchasing certain products based on those decisions? If so, are you sure about that?

Welcome to reality mantis. (why don't you capitalize that m? ;-)

Every decision government makes is a moral one. Tax the rich guy and give it to the poor guy? Smacks of a moral decision to me. (ok so you want something less extreme?)

Murder? More moralism from government. (Still less extreme you say?) Child p0rn? Moralism. Rap Lyrics? More of the same.

The FDA (really by definition) decides everyday the cost to society vs the benefit. Remember a few months ago they banned all those decongestants because of the heart damage? (Wasn't it decongestants?)

That's a moral decision. How many people will we let have their hearts damaged so a greater number can use the product????

I know you get there often mantis, but welcome to reality.

So, I guess Viagra should be looooooong gone then, since it saves 0 lives and has a significantly higher mortality rate.

And this applies to your other post too.

You blew it. I'm not coming out for or against RU-486. I SPECIFICALLY said that.

I AM absolutely saying that comparing the costs of 2 products without comparing the benefits is bogus.

Hence the name of the post.

Oh and Steve...

I also like how you go from the fake Alar scare to the (based on the evidence so far) fake RU-486 scare without blinking an eye and come out in favor of the fake scare after deriding your first fake scare.

The only thing I "came out in favor of" was an analogy without a hole in it the size of New Hampshire.

First, comparing RU-486 to penicillin is silly. You and I agree on that. It would be as stupid as comparing it to apples.

However, I believe you wrote this: "So why don't we ban Amoxicillin? Simply because it saves many times more lives than it costs. The good outweighs the bad."

And yet you fail to then make the obvious comparison of RU-486 vs what you later admit it would be "impossible to consider the cost benefit without", the very thing that RU-486 is replacing in many cases, an abortion. If RU-486 is saving lives by obviating the need for abortions, then that's a pretty obvious case fornot talking about banning it. Is this getting through?

And I blew it? I didn't make a post with the above analysis and then totally fail to carry it through...

Oh, and my Viagra point was to JSchuler's post, not to anything you said. If you read the first line, that should have been clear.

No No no... You are still assuming I'm arguing FOR something...

And yet you fail to then make the obvious comparison of RU-486 vs what you later admit it would be "impossible to consider the cost benefit without", the very thing that RU-486 is replacing in many cases, an abortion. If RU-486 is saving lives by obviating the need for abortions, then that's a pretty obvious case fornot talking about banning it. Is this getting through?

I'm not arguing for or against RU-486 so you can't fault me for my argument not being complete.

I AM absolutely arguing that their numbers are completely flawed. They only want to look at one set of numbers and not the other.

That is no different then what they accuse Malkin of doing... No?

P.S. If anything, your pointing out another variable they did not consider supports my point that their argument is flawed. Is that getting thru?

(in different words)

If I made the following statement; "More people die in cars than after taking Viagra so we should ban cars" you would think me crazed.

Or

Video games are cheaper than food so we should buy food instead of video games.

If you can eat a video game it is a good argument. If it ain't you're gonna by mighty hungry.

You can't say that antibiotics and RU-486 cost the same so they are of the same worth to society. It's just a flawed argument.

OK, let me try again with another direct quote from you:

"We derive good from Amoxicillin. Do we derive good from RU486? Well, I'll leave that to you the reader.. I don't see any."

If RU486 is safer than having an abortion and is used instead of having an abortion by a person that would have otherwise had an abortion, isn't that an obvious and unequivocal good? Failing to realize that simple and obvious fact while writing the above sentence is just plain bad analysis. You can try to deny it and claim that you were writing about something else, but it's there in black and white.

As I stated before, I also disagree with the comparison of any anti-biotics to RU-486. There is just no logical comparison. Making that point is fine. Let's not try to pretend you didn't make other less sensible ones as well.

jyt: please indicate where in my post I made any statement that said RU-486 should or should not be banned. You would need that to justify your sarcastic statement that Viagra should be banned.

I was simply backing up Paul's point that you do not determine the safety of a drug simply by comparing its mortality rate to the mortality rates of dissimilar treatments. Instead, you look at a cost/benifit analysis for that particular drug. This was the ENTIRE POINT of Paul's article. Man, this is why I hate argueing about abortion. Everyone always jumps to the wrong conclusions, build straw men and then proceed to beat the crap out of them without actually listening to the other side's arguements, and nothing ever gets accomplished. It's like everybody just turned into Lefties.

Every decision government makes is a moral one.

Ok, and I have no objection to that when it is elected officials who are making those decisions, like laws. My problem is agencies like the FDA making those decisions for us. Plus I didn't say that they didn't already make moral decisions for us, I asked if they should.

But the problem here is the idea of the FDA making moral decisions for us well outside its purview. The decision by that agency should and does center around whether a drug is safe and effective. Does it do what it is supposed to do, in this case terminate a pregnancy, and does it do that safely? If you consider the safety in question to be that of the zygote or embryo, then the question of effectiveness becomes paradoxical. You can no longer consider the effectiveness of the drug if you have to consider the well being of the unborn when the drug is designed to destroy the unborn. Thus the FDA is then making a moral decision rather than a practical one based on their calculus of "safe and effective".

In any case, my point is, if a government body is going to make that decision, it ought to be Congress (or do we want activist FDA officials in addition to activist judges?).

"Instead, you look at a cost/benifit analysis for that particular drug. "

That's what I've been inviting Paul to do for a few posts now. Compare the cost/benefits of RU-486 to its legal alternative, abortion. If it's eassier, safer, less painful, and less costly than abortion, then it's an obvious win? Perhaps you'd like to pick up that argument for Paul.

And, feel free to tell me about how Viagra's CBA works out to the benefit of society to refute my "sarcastic" point. I admit that I did make tha assumption that a drug that failed your CBA test would be banned by you. If you plan to do the analysis and then say that it doesn't matter, then why do the analysis?

mantis: how do you determine safety? You still need to make a moral decision. As the example Paul gave: how many lives is it worth for people to be free of nasal congestion? It's a moral decision. Safety is always a relative term that relies on moral judgements. Thus, the question really is should government be involved in regulating drugs at all?

Uh, jYt, I've got news for you: I didn't do a CBA in my post, I simply said one was required. That means the CBA you're challenging came from you. So, I guess its up to you to answer your own question about Viagra. ;)

JSchuler,

From CBA to CYA, I see.

I also see that you're unwilling to actually address the issue of CBA that I gave for RU-486 vs abortion. Good choice on your part, since it totally destroyed the issues you raised above.

So, I guess we're agreed then that RU-486 is an unequivocal good, assuming that abortion is legal. In that case, you can keep taking your Viagra, and I promise I won't try to take it away. See how easy that was.

mantis

Should the EPA make environmental rules?

Should the IRS make make tax rules?

Should everything be an act of congress?

"Instead, you look at a cost/benifit analysis for that particular drug. "

That's what I've been inviting Paul to do for a few posts now. Compare the cost/benefits of RU-486 to its legal alternative, abortion.

---

I also see that you're unwilling to actually address the issue of CBA that I gave for RU-486 vs abortion. Good choice on your part, since it totally destroyed the issues you raised above

jYt you are being an idiot.

You are trying to bait people into a discussion of abortion. This post actually has nothing to do with abortion. Either you are incapable of understanding that or you are being a troll. Either way, I'll be quick on the delete/ban button.

For the second time. Your pointing out ANOTHER variable that Steve/Bill did not consider only supports my point that their argument was flawed.

We are not discussing abortion and you are invited not to.

Have I made myself clear?

Hey, I chose the battles I can win :)

Although we are not in agreement that RU-486 is an unequivocal good "assuming that abortion is legal." You would have to demonstrate to me that the existance of RU-486 has not facilitated abortions that otherwise would not have happened before I would agree to that, a subject that is not at issue here. However, I would agree with you that RU-486 is an unequivocal good assuming there were no moral issues in regards to abortion.

mantis...

Some federal agency (If I thought about it I could figure out which one) has made a law that says that for every N number of parking spaces you have in your parking lot, X of them need to be handicapped.

Clearly being nice to handicapped people is a moral issue and it is a federal law. Should congress have to make this rule or can the agency make the rule?

Paul: I believe that was the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was passed by Congress and would meet mantis's requirement that moral decisions be made only by those directly accountable to the voters. Of course, I could be wrong.

Paul,

To quote Al Pacino in GlenGarry GlenRoss, "What a big man you are."

>"This post actually has nothing to do with abortion."
Need I remind you AGAIN, your words, not mine were "It is imposible to consider the cost vs benift without mentioning abortion."

>"For the second time. Your pointing out ANOTHER variable that Steve/Bill did not consider only supports my point that their argument was flawed."
For the third time, I agree that their argument was flawed. Yours is too, dummy.

I'm sorry that neither you nor JSchuler can address this point. I truly am. I'm sure that you're willing to ban people in all threads for posting items that were off the topic of the original post in your judgement. You may have your hands full. I can see -S-'s post above (not to mention countless others) is going to get her banned as well.

So, be quick on that delete/ban button, my friend. It's easier than addressing this simple, simple point, I'd guess. You've proven yourself a coward just by raising the spectre. If you can't take the heat, by all means, get me out of your kitchen and then delete the fact that I was ever here to cover up your ineptitude. Please show everyone, especially Jay Tea, who has much, much higher standards for logic, writing, humor, and banning that you're totally undeserving of any respect whatsoever by carring through with your little threat.

And I admit that last paragraph is a blatant ad homenim. That's the kind of crap you should consider banning people for. When they bring up points you foolishly didn't consider, you just make yourself look stupid. Oops, too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

JSchuler,

"However, I would agree with you that RU-486 is an unequivocal good assuming there were no moral issues in regards to abortion."

Excellent. Thank you. We are agreed. I better post this fast, I may not get another :-)

Need I remind you AGAIN, your words, not mine were "It is imposible to consider the cost vs benift without mentioning abortion."

sigh... Please google 'use mention distinction' and get back to me. You can MENTION abortion but not be speaking ABOUT abortion... see I just did it again.

Talk about looking stupid.

So, I guess banning is off the table again :-)

I'm glad to see you've calmed down and don't have to get so huffy when you think I've strayed from the holy grail of the ultimate topic as defined by you.

I understand that you're still unwilling to take up this topic and bizarely want to change the subject to "use-mention distinctions" because the word "abortion" is meaningful here somehow while the actual relationship between RU-486 and the medical procedure abortion is not.
However, the simple fact is that RU-486 is often a replacement for abortion. Perhaps you can now sensibly agree with us as well that "RU-486 is an unequivocal good assuming there were no moral issues in regards to abortion."
If so, I'm done on this thread, which I'm sure will make you happy.

Though, since you brought up "use-mention distinction", here's a good example from Wikipedia:

For example, the sentence
"Cheese is derived from milk."
is a statement about the substance cheese, and involves the use of the word cheese, while the sentence

"'Cheese' is derived from a word in Old English."
is a statement about the word cheese, and involves the mention of the word cheese.

Seo, when you used 'abortion' before, 'mentioning' it, I assume that you were talking about the derivation of the word or somesuch. Surely not the medical procedure.

Yes that makes much more sense. How stupid you have shown me to be, Paul :-0 Next time, please know a little bit more about the new topic you're adding to the mix before asking me to Google it.