Regarding Abortion

There may be no greater controversy today than the current trend for red states that got redder in the last election to flex their new-found muscle on abortion rights. Being a nearly life-long resident of NY and a student of its history, NY is a leader in behavioral social engineering. It is not all bad. The NY legislature passed the laws challenging DOMA that led to marriage equality. Leadership on Cell Phones in cars, Seat Belts, Smoking Bans, Bike Helmets and other regulations to keep us healthy find their origins in the bureaucracy created to combat typhoid Mary. So, the recent news of essentially unlimited abortion “rights” in NY is no surprise. (Neither is Gun Control, but I won’t be addressing that here).

The bottom line for me is that I have always been pro-choice. Some may think I am conservative, some libertarian… (curses to you if you think I am a socialist… LOL). I digress. The truth is that I am pragmatic. Being trained in engineering, I understand the difference between the ideal conditions of a “P” diagram and the real world of managing signal to noise ratios to get the science to solve a problem. Furthermore, my mother, I am proud to say (although I would never admit it to her), is a committed feminist who marched for the ERA (after it was a baseball statistic but before it was a laundry detergent). She risked a lot for her beliefs and feminism was part of my culture growing up. I saw the hate mail and threats that would occasionally show up in our mailbox after one of her op eds was published. I have given 10s of thousands of dollars to PPH over the years as a “protest” to United Way "banning" them but stopped and will no longer give them anything following the Susan G Komen Fiasco. (Again, for another article). I remain a committed pro-choicer. (and no, I am not changing pro-choice to the latest buzz-word, whatever it is, thank you very much).

We have this concept in product engineering called the “quality loss function”. It is essentially the fact that nearly everything humans want has the characteristic of “larger the better”, “Smaller the Better”, “Nominal the Best” that drives trends. You see it in our cell phones and LED TVs. Smaller the Better until they are too small... larger the better until they are too large. But Society never really knows when something is “Too” anything until it is “Too” Late. Our social engineering has the same problem. Freedoms and Rights get pushed too far until they impose on other’s freedoms and rights. Hence politics and divides depending on the rights defended or rights restricted.

Pragmatism is the belief the most likely outcome is true. It is not just a statistical exercise. It tends to keep people from moving to the extremes since there is a belief that there is too much noise in the system to create an ideal situation. I always say an Idealist wants perfect which is not probable, and a Pragmatist wants what is probable but not perfect. Therefore, Pragmatists manage the likely outcome and exceptions. On Abortion, if you look at cultures and society since the beginning of time (literally, research it), you have unwanted pregnancies for several reasons. Resulting in many women in a desperate state (for several reasons) and history shows that they have risked their lives and died to end the pregnancy with abortions (legal or not) rather than face the consequences from having the child. Those societies have also ebbed and flowed on tolerance and compassion for these needs as well. Banning abortion altogether will return the risk to the desperate woman resulting in deaths and prosecutions that will waste resources (except lawyers, they always get paid). Technology and process make these deaths totally preventable and society should manage this problem and provide these women protection and services to prevent their death. But taking it too far simply kills another human being for convenience. Our political discussion should be that abortion should be safe and legal up to a point. Should it be on demand up to birth? should society pay for it? should we be "required" to declare it virtuous? Current law makes it safe and legal up to a point. Instead of a practical discussion on how to manage “the point”, the anti-abortion movement has pushed themselves into an ideal position of banning and the pro-abortion movement of killing a viable human life. Each thinking they are equally virtuous…  I think both extremists should chill and believe that we should be having a discussion about “The Point” and how to manage the exceptions… It’s not at Birth and it’s not at conception, then again, I am a pragmatist!