Bill From INDC's Got A Point

Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt, two great bloggers/authors, have been making hay over the deaths associated with RU-486.

Bill from INDC points out that that rate of death is extraodinarily small. Far less than the death-rate for anti-depressants, for example.

One thing that I don't like about liberal argumentation is their tendency to avoid addressing issues head-on. They instead, rather deceitfully, choose to argue around the edges, to make proxy arguments while avoiding their real arguments.

I think that Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt are both much more concerned about the 100% death rate for the embryo than they are about the 0.00108% death rate for the women taking the drug.

I just don't think this is a very compelling line of argument. If abortion is wrong, argue that. If the wide availability of RU-486 will increase abortions, which one believes to be a bad thing, say so.

But making back-door kind of arguments about a very low risk of death for the woman taking the drug (a risk that she is of course informed of)... that doesn't seem to really address the central issue.

These risks should be publicized, of course. And let's be honest, it's not like Brian Williams is going to tell you about them. So Michelle and Hugh are performing a service here.

But such a small mortality rate hardly justifies taking a drug off the market. Unless you're talking about the very high mortality rate for the embryo, but that's not the argument that's explicitly made here.

posted by Ace at 01:31 PM

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