General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Please allow me, a woman who just had a baby, to fact-check Justice Samuel J. Alito"
Link to tweet
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/science-alito-opinion/
In his draft opinion striking down the constitutional right to an abortion, Justice Samuel Alito says a lot of things about pregnancy, women, and fetuses. As someone who has recently given birth, it was easy for me to spot several places where he was wrong. If Alito is going to set back the rights of people who can become pregnant by 50 years, he could at least do us the courtesy of getting the science right.
Alito Fallacy No. 1: Quickening Time
We begin with the common law, under which abortion was a crime at least after quickeningi.e., the first felt movement of the fetus in the womb, which usually occurs between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy.
As someone who just had a baby, I can tell you that people in early pregnancy Google when will I feel my baby move? every damn day and the answer is not somewhere between 16 and 18 weeks. Theres no source in Alitos footnotes except the long-dead British authors of common law he is taking inspiration from, including Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th century judge who sentenced two women to death for witchcraft and defended marital rape. Most sources suggest that those first sensations are most common between 18 and 22 weeks of pregnancy. The UKs National Health Service pegs the normal range at 1624 weeks, broader and later than Alitos claim. His numbers allow Alito to contend that, under common law, it suffices for present purposes to show that abortion was criminal by at least the 16th or 18th week of pregnancy. Maybe 17th century fetuses did more kicking earlier?
Alito Fallacy No. 2: Early Heart Beat
The legislature then found that at five or six weeks gestational age an unborn human beings heart begins beating;
The case at hand, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, asks whether a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks gestation is constitutional. In tearing up Roe and upholding Mississippis ban, Alito summarizes what he calls the Mississippi legislatures factual findings, including the assertion that an embryos heart begins beating at five or six weeks of pregnancy. This is false. What anti-abortion activists call a fetal heartbeat is in fact electrical activityno heart has developed at this time. In fact, the pregnancy is so underdeveloped at this stage that it is not even called a fetusits an embryo.
Alito Fallacy No. 3: Abortions after 15 Weeks Are Dangerous
The legislature also found that abortions performed after fifteen weeks typically use the dilation and evacuation procedure, and the legislature found the use of this procedure for nontherapeutic or elective reasons [to be] a barbaric practice, dangerous for the maternal patient, and demeaning to the medical profession.
Theres a lot going on there, but lets zero in on the medical BS. Alito is once again citing the Mississippi legislatures so-called facts, including their finding that abortion is dangerous for the maternal patient. At another point in his opinion, he adopts the notion himself, by noting that states have an interest in limiting abortion for the protection of maternal health and safety. But the truth is that abortion care in the United States is very safe. What makes the procedure riskier, according to a landmark 2018 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is states interfering by instituting arbitrary rules that drag out the process.
*snip*
keithbvadu2
(36,775 posts)..
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)ShazzieB
(16,370 posts)Which I still haven't finished (damn, it's long). But I did get through the part discussed in yhisxsrticle and noted many of the same points (but I missed a few, and this piece deals with them all quite nicely).
The other thing I noticed was that the only sources he cited for all this garbage science were legal and legislative. He did not bother to even check those sources against any medical or scientific one, and as a result, he just ended up quoting all the bloopers his sources contained. Lazy bastard!
SergeStorms
(19,195 posts)strike again. They fabricate sets of erroneous data that they present as "facts" to support their preconceived outcome.
They then repeat these fabricated sets of erroneous data ad nauseum on their propaganda outlets: Fox "News", Breitbart, hundreds of right-wing talk-radio channels, church pews, etc. etc.
That Alito would use this erroneous data to support their preconceived outcome of overturning Roe v. Wade is disingenuous and in my opinion, criminal.
We need a higher court in the United States in order to keep the politically jaundiced republican "Supreme Court" honest.
Gamecock Lefty
(700 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)is just looking to reinforce the lies they already believe.
Ford_Prefect
(7,888 posts)This is the false assertion of a so-called truth in support of RW dogma. Like when we are told about how "the Bible says", when it does not, or about back in the day when patriotic Americans did it the Right Wing way.
When taking the Right to task we should break down their reasoning by pointing out statements of Alitofact. As in "how many Alitofacts were used to explain this finding?"
If an artifact can be said to be:
4. a spurious observation or result arising from preparatory procedures.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/artifacthttps://www.thefreedictionary.com/artifact
Then an Alitofact is something which is made by artificial reasoning. Being man-made (sic) it has no basis in the measurable real world. It is thus a form of Observer Bias reflecting the underlying assumptions and conclusions of those using it to support their contentions.
https://www.scribbr.com/research-bias/observer-bias/
Just sayin'.....
eppur_se_muova
(36,260 posts)sounds like a meme to propagate.
Rebl2
(13,492 posts)Alternative facts. Republicans are really good at that.
WhiteTara
(29,704 posts)kept telling him throughout his childhood that she should have aborted him. jmo
LiberalFighter
(50,890 posts)They used witchcraft?
Martin68
(22,791 posts)demigoddess
(6,640 posts)between a miscarriage and an abortion.
niyad
(113,263 posts)woman-hating piece of scum, scalito.
May he, and all his enablers, supporters and cheerleaders, receive everything they deserve.
housecat
(3,121 posts)So the Dems have to run with it and don't look back or overthink this opportunity with six months before the elections.