Abortions after 32 weeks are a very small share of total abortions-- perhaps 0.5%. Let's say half of those are not due to unsurvivable conditions, so 0.25% of abortions are very late + could have survived if born.

Given ~1 million abortions, that's 2500 such abortions.

There were about 23,000 homicides in the US in 2023.

If that teeny tiny share of abortions covering very late abortions of totally viable kids without lethal health issues were counted, those extremely rare abortions would compose fully 1-in-10 homicides in the United States.
In 2023, there were only 11,000 deaths of all external causes (accidents, homicides, etc) of people under age 18.

Abortions of health viable children make up 18% of all non-natural-causes deaths of children.
Using the CDC's multiple mortality data, these extremely rare late-term abortions...

... are nonetheless the second biggest cause of death among people under 18 (after congenital immaturity)Image
What I'm hearing from many liberals is, "These abortions of perfectly healthy late-term babies who are absolutely babies with thoughts and pain capability would be HORRIBLE if they happened, but it's a conservative conspiracy theory."

But that's not true!
It IS true that these abortions are an EXTREMELY small share of overall abortions!

But the scale of abortions is so absolutely MASSIVE compared to child mortality that even a teeny tiny sliver of abortions would represent a huge share of child deaths.
Assuming we are agreed that "children at 32+ weeks post-conception without any lethal congenital problems" really are equally persons as "children at 45 weeks post-conception without any lethal congenital problems," the scale of killing of the first group IS INSANELY HIGH.
You may wonder if 50% viability rates for late-term abortions is correct.

Well, there are multiple articles with quotes from abortion doctors who do these procedures saying their patients are about 50-50 severe abnormality vs. discretionary reasons. I take them at their word.
But folks, even if only 20% of late-term abortions are discretionary: it would still be one of the single biggest causes of death for children! Especially when you realize the current #1 is congenital defects so should be dropped out of the baseline of "survivable cases"
What I'm getting at here folks is that it barely matters at all what numbers you choose.

At any even vaguely plausible numbers, late-term abortions of otherwise viable pregnancies are in fact an extremely large killer of children compared to other causes of child death.
You can debate if late-term abortion of viable pregnancies is the #2 killer of American children or #11 or #25 or whatever, but folks we're talking about a top-25 killer from a list that includes 828 causes of child death with at least 10 kids killed in 2023.
In any sane world, we would recognize that late-term abortions are about as likely to kill kids as guns or SIDS or car accidents. And most people think 1 or 2 or 3 of those are worth intervening on to protect child lives, whether through gun control, "back is best," carseats

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More from @lymanstoneky

Apr 18
it seems to me many people did not realize that large sections of Decker's post appears to be quotes from founding fathers. i'm not sure how intentional this was on his part but it would have been hilarious watching courts try to be like "quoting the declaration of independence is hate speech"
also i will just lay down a marker:

if any election does not occur on its regularly scheduled day, or if government policies cause voter participation to fall more than 30% as a share of the adult population vs. the average of the last 10 elections

i think that's the line
i just think we should all say these things in public

if a leader suspends elections or widely disenfranchises the electorate, that's it. the system is over, it's time for the second amendment to play its part.
Read 5 tweets
Apr 15
reminder: there continues to be zero scientific evidence of harms from the covid vaccination
lol at the dumdums responding here

my favorite response is "but Lyman some people had some side effects!"

oh no, side effects! wut will we ever do!

this kind of paranoid safetyism has got to go, folks. we need strong, prosocial, risk-taking behavior, such as getting vaccinated
my second favorite response is, "how dare you say there are no harms, the COVID vaccine, like all vaccines, causes tons of harms!"

ah, i see. telling on yourself there. ya paranoid probably-mentally-ill crunchy wacko.
Read 29 tweets
Apr 10
The primary use of artificial wombs if they become available will not be by women to free themselves of biological burdens and thus attain liberation, but rather will be by men to free themselves of relational burdens and thus eliminate the need for decent treatment of partners.
Yes, there are lots of men who would like to have children and happily hire nannies for them 24/7. I regret to inform you this is indeed A Type of Guy.
1) If it's a manufacturing process it won't say prohibitively expensive
2) Rich men whom nobody will tolerate as a spouse already use adoption and surrogacy to do this, but artificial wombs will remove a key friction
3) Yes, the early versions will be for preemies. Look a step ahead.
Read 8 tweets
Apr 1
Today I am dropping some truth bombs.

We should make seniors pay full freight on property taxes. Image
The relationship between too-low property taxes and bad demographic outcomes is not subtle. The states with low property tax rates have MUCH larger gaps between fertility preferences and outcomes than states with other kinds of low taxes. Image
Tax carveouts for seniors are tax hikes on parents in the trenches raising kids.

Property tax cuts are tax hikes on workers.

Healthy societies reward work and family formation, they don't provide bonus subsidies for 25 years of leisure.
Read 17 tweets
Mar 24
Approximately 15-25% of everything we know about global fertility comes from basically one source: the Demographic and Health Surveys.

The contract funding them seems to have been cancelled.

If you're worried about falling fertility, this is a five-alarm fire. Image
This piece is cowritten by me and @MoreBirths . Our take here is basic: the DHS surveys are a well-run program yielding very clear benefits to the U.S. and are a key tool we have on hand to figure out how to tackle low fertility.

Losing this tool is not good at all.
Obviously, there remain a lot of unanswered questions about the long-run status of USAID-financed programs with contract terminations. It isn't clear which are gone forever, which paused, which will be re-envisioned... but the contract for DHS has indeed been terminated.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 19
raising retirement age reduces fertility

there's a TRADEOFF between "adapting" to demographic decline and "solving" demographic decline!

many strategies that help societies cope in the near term make demographic balances worse later on. Image
when grandmas have to work later in life, they provide less childcare Image
when grandma hits retirement, women have more babies, and this effect is largest for the youngest women, meaning later retirement ages feed both reduction AND delay of fertility. Image
Read 5 tweets

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