Teen Pregnancy Drops as Planned Parenthood Vanishes

pat · October 16, 2013, 4:30pm

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Another 35 percent is spent on contraceptive services, which would seem counterproductive for an organization devoted to killing babies. How are you gonna kill 'em if they aren’t around to kill in the first place?
[/quote]

Exactly.

If I’m not mistaken, though, there is some paranoid drivel floating about that avers that contraceptives are “designed to fail” in some kind of “plot.” I may have interpreted that incorrectly, but for some reason, I really don’t think so.

And well, if that’s the case, I’m probably shooting blanks, seeing as how I’ve been using contraceptives since the get-go. I guess there are no small smh_23’s on the horizon.[/quote]

Except for the fact that pp is the largest abortion provider in the U.S. The fact they they provide other services does not preclude the fact that they are the largest abortion provider in the U.S.

flipcollar · October 16, 2013, 4:35pm

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:
Are these correlated? Statistics give Apple vs S&P 500 perfectly correlated with a Beta of 1.0

Just because a chart does not look correlated does not mean it is not.

Now I am not smart enough to do the statistical analasis of the two charts to state whether they are correlated or not.

[/quote]

Yes you are smart enough. The amount of depth we’re looking for here can be got at with the eyeball. We’re not authoring research papers here. It is pretty damn clear that those two lines in the picture you posted could be linked by an inversely correlative relationship. And it is even clearer that the two lines in the two graphs that I proffered early on in this thread are moving with absolutely no regard for each other, i.e. that they are not correlated either directly or inversely in any way.[/quote]

The two lines were not inversely correlated. A beta of 1.0 is perfectly correlated. Inversely or negatively correlated is a -1.0 Beta.
[/quote]

Where are you getting that Apple had a beta of 1.0 from Nov. 2012 to Oct. 2013?

Edit: anyway, that graph means nothing to me. I can’t plot the points in a chart and there is an unmanageable number of them anyway. Beta is calculated retroactively, right? So what was it for those exact dates? That chart is hieroglyphs whereas the graphs on the first page is See Spot Run. Can correlation exist over the long term even when it appears not to in the short run? Yes, it can. But that isn’t the argument here. The argument here is inductive: do those two graphs imply a correlative relationship between the data they respectively represent? And the answer is absolutely not. This is not the same as saying that if you were to wait until the year 2400 and plot 450 years worth of this data, you would not see a correlative relationship. This is saying that none can be averred from what we’ve seen.[/quote]

Based on what you posted, they are correlative. Both trending downward over the same period of time is a correlation. It doesn’t speak to the nature of the correlation or how much correlation, just that one exists. It may be a minute correlation, but still it is one.[/quote]

if it’s minute, it’s not statistically relevant. The number of K Mart’s in the US has a downward trend since 1988. That doesn’t mean it correlates to the downward trend in PP’s or teen pregnancies in any significant way. More importantly, IT STILL DOESN’T IMPLY CAUSATION, so it doesn’t further any argument implying that reducing the number of PP clinics will reduce the number of teen pregnancies.[/quote]

Not true. Minute still may be statistically relevant. As lifters we hang on correlational data no matter how small to affirm that something we are doing is working.
Aside from your K-mart analogy these two factoids do have more in common than just the downward trend. Both have something to do with female reproduction. You have two charts whose data both have something to do with female reproduction and both trend downwards. So they have at least two commonalities implying a correlation. It doesn’t say which way the correlation is going, nor how much of one there is, just that their is one.
Never said anything about causation. [/quote]

I’ll use your correlation rules. teen pregnancy is at a 40 year low. There are more Planned Parenthood clinics today than there were 40 years ago. According to your logic, this means that over the last 40 years, there would be an inverse correlation between PP and teen pregnancy, since one graph would end up higher than the start, and one would end lower. Correct? If I use your logic, I get to say that increased PP clinics positively correlates to fewer teenage pregnancies, regardless of what the graphs look like in that middle part.

Varqanir · October 16, 2013, 4:45pm

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I thought everyone hated the government on here?? [/quote]

How I feel about the government is immaterial. I took an oath, as I know you did as well, to uphold and defend the Constitution. I have never rescinded that oath, nor is it contingent on who occupies the seats of power.

The Constitution is silent on the subject of any god-given unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The words “god” or “creator” do not appear anywhere in the document. We just assume that all rights not specified as belonging to the federal government belong to the states, and by extension the people, as guaranteed by the 10th amendment.

But again, who is guaranteed ANY rights according to the constitution? Well, the people, of course. But which people? Only the citizens? Or everyone in the United States? Let us say that not only US citizens are guaranteed rights under the constitution, but that citizens of all nations have equal protection under US law.

What is a citizen? How does one become a citizen of any nation?

Try to answer that question without using the word “born”.

The unborn have no rights. They are citizens of no country. Nobody will issue a fetus a passport. They are not considered persons under the law. You may not like it, but this is the legal reality in this country right now. If you want to change the law, then you will need to speak to someone who can either write a new law, amending the constitution to include the unborn into the umbrella of equal protection, or else speak to the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution so that the People also includes those who haven’t quite made it out of the birth canal.

This is why I said that the burden of proof is on the antiabortionists. If you want the law changed, you will have to prove why it should be.
[/quote]

Burden of proof is such a highly misunderstood thing. The moral\ ethical burden of proof is on the pro-abortionist to prove that the human life inside the uterus is not a human being when there is no scientific or objective proof that it is not.

The law already accepts that the child in utero is a human in many cases as in the case of Kermit Gosnell and Scott Peterson are in prison for murder of unborn babies.
The legal precedent is there already. Both of the above cases the individuals were tried and convicted in court of murder of unborn children.[/quote]

Then you need to go and lobby congress to support Rand Paul’s fetal rights bill, which would effectively confer “personhood” and citizenship on all embryos at the moment of conception.

Of course, that would mean that all an illegal alien would have to do is get knocked up on US soil and bam! Her fetus has automatic US citizenship. She couldn’t be deported, because you can’t deport an innocent US citizen, which would by biological fact be an integral part of her body.

Have fun with that.

smh_23 · October 16, 2013, 4:47pm

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Da Man reloaded wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
lol on the graph fail.

The peak closing of clinics correlates very well with the teen pregnancy drops. You illustrated kneedraggers point to the T.[/quote]

What?

From 1990 to 1996, the number of PP clinics in the United States rose from about 880 to 936. Concurrently, the teen pregnancy rate fell from 120 to 100 (per thousand).

Again, the number of PP clinics rose and fell and rose and fell and this is not reflected in the teen pregnancy rate even slightly.

The study cited in the OP is about as shoddy as this kind of thing can get.[/quote]

overall trend is down. curve fit that bitch.[/quote]

Not in the years that correspond with the teen pregnancy-rate graph. The overall trend is effectively static. A net change of essentially nothing.

And even if the two were both trending down overall, this would say exactly nothing about correlation. If statistically significant, sustained peaks and valleys don’t match up, then you’re fighting an uphill battle trying to tell anyone that correlation is present.

Alright, I’m done arguing over statistics and graphs. If you can look at those two data visualizations and see correlation, then you need to reevaluate your understanding of basic mathematics, or the bias-blindness which allows you to ignore your intelligence–because I know for a fact that I’m arguing with intelligent people here–and instead conclude what you’d like to conclude. Also, I consider a math debate to be over once Dr. Matt weighs in on it, which he has.

Next time, let’s argue about the quadratic equation.[/quote]

Incorrect. You can make a correlation with anything that has a commonality with another. In this case the common thread is a downward trend. To show that the two data sets do not correlate you have to show they have nothing in common.
The correlation may be low, but it’s still there based on that very small amount of data which objectively we don’t even know to be accurate.[/quote]

You are incorrect. A correlation is a statistical measure that indicates the extent to which two variables co-fluctuate. Direct correlation inplies both co-rise and co-fall. Absent one of these, and assuming that the rises and falls were statistically significant–which they were–you’re grasping at straws that aren’t there when you start averring correlation.

The fluctuations of the PP clinic set of data have exactly no analogous fluctuations in the teen-pregnancy-rate set of data. If the two were correlated, a statistically significant and sustained rise in one of them would coincide with a statistically significant and sustained rise in the other. It doesn’t.

If one variable trends up and down alike, in effectively equal doses over a given amount of time, and the other trends only and almost perfectly uniformly down over that same given amount of time, they are not correlated over that given amount of time.

I urge you to consider this: you are essentially defining correlation as “well they both ended up below where they started, no matter how they got there and no matter that one fell by a statistically minute downtick while the other nosedived.” This is meaningless and not correlation. Want to know why? Because, by that standard, any two variables, any two sets of data no matter how disparate or different or baldly unrelated, are correlated, either directly or inversely. Number of left-handed rodeo-clowns and number of abortions in the United States? Correlated. Average penis size of Senegalese ranchers and average height of German street performers since 1900? Correlated. All correlated, either directly or inversely. Cause look–one ended up, the other ended up. One ended down, the other ended down. One ended up, the other ended down. Correlation.

No. It has been explained again and again that those two graphs do not betray the rudest outline of a correlative relationship. This is manifestly clear in that their fluctuations do not match up, match-up of fluctuations being the very definition of correlation.

“The correlation may be low”–when you said they were correlated, you were saying that the correlation was high. If the fluctuations do not match up, we say that they are not correlated. If they do match up, we say that they are correlated.

Jewbacca · October 16, 2013, 4:48pm

[quote]Karado wrote:
What about Muslims, do they believe in a Woman’s right to choose?
What does their book say about it, if it does?..I never see them holding up signs or praying at those clinics.[/quote]

We can pussyfoot around with theology, but in reality, in Islamic countries, it’s the man’s choice whether the woman gives birth. The baby and the woman are his property.

If it’s not a husband who owns her, it’s her father.

Now sing “Kum Ba Yah — all cultures are equal.”

smh_23 · October 16, 2013, 4:55pm

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

I’ll use your correlation rules. teen pregnancy is at a 40 year low. There are more Planned Parenthood clinics today than there were 40 years ago. According to your logic, this means that over the last 40 years, there would be an inverse correlation between PP and teen pregnancy, since one graph would end up higher than the start, and one would end lower. Correct? If I use your logic, I get to say that increased PP clinics positively correlates to fewer teenage pregnancies, regardless of what the graphs look like in that middle part.[/quote]

Thank you, sir. Exactly.

We don’t say two things are correlated just because they either land up or down in some arbitrary span of time. Correlation is about the journey more than it is about the end.

[b]Everything ends in a position A relative to its starting point B. If correlation is simply a tautological outgrowth of that banal observation, it is utterly meaningless. But thankfully, it’s not. It’s about watching the lines rise and fall together. This clearly didn’t happen in the present case, and so it isn’t really worth arguing over anymore.

dmaddox · October 16, 2013, 5:03pm

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]Karado wrote:
What about Muslims, do they believe in a Woman’s right to choose?
What does their book say about it, if it does?..I never see them holding up signs or praying at those clinics.[/quote]

We can pussyfoot around with theology, but in reality, in Islamic countries, it’s the man’s choice whether the woman gives birth. The baby and the woman are his property.

If it’s not a husband who owns her, it’s her father.

Now sing “Kum Ba Yah — all cultures are equal.”[/quote]

(In bleeding heart liberal speak) But JB Islam is a Peace Loving Religion. You have to be wrong because Obama says they are Peace Loving.

Varqanir · October 16, 2013, 5:09pm

[quote]Jewbacca wrote:

[quote]Karado wrote:
What about Muslims, do they believe in a Woman’s right to choose?
What does their book say about it, if it does?..I never see them holding up signs or praying at those clinics.[/quote]

We can pussyfoot around with theology, but in reality, in Islamic countries, it’s the man’s choice whether the woman gives birth. The baby and the woman are his property.

If it’s not a husband who owns her, it’s her father.

Now sing “Kum Ba Yah — all cultures are equal.”[/quote]

Jewbacca, just out of curiosity, what is the orthodox Jewish stance on abortion? Is a fetus considered a full person, with equivalent rights as a born baby? Is abortion considered murder according to Rabbinic tradition?

pat · October 16, 2013, 6:25pm