I was reading a very interesting post that listed the leading causes of death in the US. The results and the post were interesting, but a comment really made the point. First the list.
15. Assault (homicide): 16,591
14. Parkinson’s disease: 20,552
13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (high blood pressure, kidney failure caused by high blood pressure): 25,651
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 30, 444
11. Septicemia (systemic infection): 35,587
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,547
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease): 48,714
8. Influenza and pneumonia: 53,582
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes): 68,504
6. Alzheimer’s disease: 78,889
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,176
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke): 128,603
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases (emphysema, chronic bronchitis): 137,082
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer): 568,668
1. Diseases of heart (mainly heart attack): 598,607
Interesting. Now the comment.
Anonymous said…
The leading cause of death in the world is abortion, not disease.
There are approximately 1.2 million abortions per year in the US. Compare that to all the other leading causes and you realize there is no comparison. Over twice as many people die from abortion each year as the next leading cause. Double.
Think about how many lives we would save if we could just cure abortion.
September 1, 2011 at 3:28 am
Thanks guys. This puts everything in perspective.
September 1, 2011 at 4:02 am
Wow. Just..wow. Poor babies..
September 1, 2011 at 4:23 am
I am actually really surprised that suicide is number ten. I had no idea so many people took their own lives. What a shame.
September 1, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Someone lied and told people that abortion and suicide are health. Give us Justice and Freedom
September 1, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Someone lied and told people that abortion and suicide are healthcare. Give us Justice and Freedom and an ability to use the computer. Thanks for listening
September 1, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Don't see euthanasia – perhaps suicide is so high because of the number of elderly refusing "treatment" – but usually their death certificates say "alzheimer's" etc.
September 1, 2011 at 2:19 pm
>Over twice as many people die from abortion each year as the next leading cause. Double.
Except that fetuses aren't babies or people so no, not really.
Anyway didn't your god kill a whole mess of Egyptian babies, who were actually born, for the crime of their parent's tyrannical government? How many babies died in the Flood? Sodom and Gomorrah must have had children as well.
15-20% of women have miscarriages, isn't that your god doing aborting of his own?
Of course that stat used to be much higher, it's only been in the last 100 years or so that the risk of birth giving has been reduced. That would be thanks to medical science, your god never bothered to "design" woman to give birth safely.
I know, I know, Eve ate the magic fruit and your god punished her for it, makes perfect sense.
September 1, 2011 at 2:30 pm
So many of those causes of death (which we ultimately can't avoid, I know) are linked to the relative luxury we enjoy in this country. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases are not luxury oriented…but cirrhosis of the liver? diabetes? emphysema? I would count even suicide–not, oddly enough, a leading cause of death in Calcutta. Abortion causes the death of a baby so that someone else can maintain the lifestyle that they feel is owed them. I know there are exceptions, I know. But largely, it's a luxury death.
September 1, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Salvage,
Glad to have you visit.
I hope that by hanging out here you will come to the realization that the unborn are, indeed, people with the same right to life as the rest of us. (Not to mention liberty and the pursuit of happiness!)
It is a long, and often dark, road from your current state of mind. I wish you well!
September 1, 2011 at 4:42 pm
No, the unborn are the unborn, people are people and I find it truly bizarre that you can't tell the difference.
Now while a fetus isn't a person that doesn't mean it doesn't have value, it most certainly does. A woman who loses theirs certainly grieves but not to the level they would if it were a born child.
Not even close, that's a big clue to the difference by the way.
I'll let you in on a slice of my personal opinion; I don't like abortion, I would never have an abortion nor would I council someone to have one.
I will also never tell someone what to do with their own bodies hence the term "pro-choice" not only because our bodies are our own business not yours or your god's but because it's a foolish thing to try and do.
See the "drug war" for details.
Now if you were truly against abortion as I am you would be supporting birth control, that of course prevents abortion in the best possible way.
But alas your superstitions prevent you from adopting a clearly sensible solution.
I hope by my hanging out here you'll come to the realization that life is indeed a wee bit more complex than what the Bible describes and what you think it describes.
It's a great trip out of the darkness of the Bronze Age mythology you're in, enlightenment is quite the high and I don't wish you luck, I wish you reason.
Cuz that's much better, it's the sort of thing that cures diseases, discovers stars and works out the real mysteries of the universe.
September 1, 2011 at 4:43 pm
"15-20% of women have miscarriages, isn't that your god doing aborting of his own? "
Well, 100% of humans die, let's make murder legal. With all due respect, this logic kind of sucks.
September 1, 2011 at 5:20 pm
"No, the unborn are the unborn, people are people and I find it truly bizarre that you can't tell the difference."
What I find "bizarre" is that you apparently skipped your fetal stage (otherwise you were not a person at some point in your existence). Do you think that if your mother killed the fetus in her womb eight months prior to your birth that you would still be here? You are a real person, right?
September 1, 2011 at 5:39 pm
@salvage: Yes, God the Creator of all men has power over life and death. When men murder, they arrogate to themselves the power over life and death that is god's alone. Jesus said: "He who hates his brother is a murderer" because you know it is going to happen. Our Creator created all men equal in sovereign personhood(go read The Declaration of Independence)Please, go read The Declaration of Independence upon which is written our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. all men are created eqyual, not born equal as Roe v. Wade would have it. Being created equal when two become one with its own DNA and infused with an immortal soul by our Creator, infused with sovereign personhood, virginity and innocence, the standard of Justice and the compelling interest of the States in the newly begotten individual with a rational nature.Now stop acting like a creature with no immortal soul and acknowledge our Creator that all men may live and prosper.
Mary De Voe
September 1, 2011 at 5:43 pm
@ Mary De Voe"…that is God's alone." mdv
September 1, 2011 at 7:43 pm
"15-20% of women have miscarriages, isn't that your god doing aborting of his own? "
Well, 100% of humans die, let's make murder legal. With all due respect, this logic kind of sucks.
Um… yes that it true but not the point I was obviously making that your god seems to be rather indifferent to fetuses.
>killed the fetus in her womb eight months prior to your birth that you would still be here? You are a real person, right?
I'm not saying fetuses don't become people, they do but until they do they are not. See how that works?
>DNA and infused with an immortal soul by our Creator,
And you know this how? I don't recall much about DNA in the Bible.
>and acknowledge our Creator that all men may live and prosper.
I'd love to but since your Creator as described in the Bible is clearly the product of a deranged imagination I cannot.
It's weird how your god made me not believe in him both literally and figuratively. Why'd he do that I wonder?
September 1, 2011 at 8:12 pm
"I'm not saying fetuses don't become people, they do but until they do they are not. See how that works?"
No. It doesn't just "work." You have arbitrarily decided that at one point in your existence own existence you were not a person (but were just a potential person). Why do you get to determine that you were not a person at 1 month existence, but you were as a 4 year old, or ten year old, or twenty-one year old. You were an embryo, then became a fetus, then became a child, then became an adolescent, then became and adult. I guess you think that at one point you were worthless tissue.
Of course, given that you are here supporting abortion, you are probably butchering the meaning of person. Maybe you don't think that person means a human being. Otherwise, how could you say you were once not a human being.
Of course, that religion that you so hate (Christianity) is the basis for the entire Western ideal that all men are created equal (they are created in the likeness and image of God). What horror Christianity has caused! It makes people believe that all human beings have equal worth despite their size or stage of development.
September 1, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Salvage,
I would suggest that looking upon a person as a person 'from conception to natural death' is a more holistic and logical view than to look on a person as a clump of cells that at some point (viability, birth, brainwaves, graduation from a four-year college) *becomes* a person. I suspect you would disagree with this, and so, there it is.
I don't have a problem with you thinking my (or others) point of view on the matter is incorrect, but it's a bit much for you behave as if you, from the Delphic heights of your Atheistic enlightenment, are urging the huddled masses of Catholics to come forth from Plato's Cave. It is especially strange since you don't quite seem to know that Catholicism isn't a Fundamentalist religion, so, therefore, your lobbing of random scriptures at us and hoping to confound us with what you have seen in the Bible (and apparently none of the rest of us have for the last 2000 years,) is more likely to produce sighs of resignation (or less charitable eye-rolling) than careful consideration of your point.
I am an intelligent, well-educated, logical person. So are the readers of this blog, from what I can see. So, I'm sure, are you. Why don't you climb down from your high horse and engage in real debate about this subject, instead of dishing up ad hominem attacks in a way that is likely to stop all rational discussion?
September 1, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Must we feed the trolls?
federoff10
September 1, 2011 at 9:34 pm
I apologize if I am 'feeding a troll,' but this statement from "salvage" needs to be addressed:
"A woman who loses theirs certainly grieves but not to the level they would if it were a born child."
How did you determine this and apply it to all of womankind, across all national, cultural, socioeconomic, etc. boundaries? Perhaps you knew or are "a woman" for whom this is true, but I can assure you that there are mothers and fathers who grieve deeply for a child lost to miscarriage. It is presumptuous of you to judge the quality of another person's grief.
September 2, 2011 at 2:51 am
@Midday: I thought the same thing. salvage does not believe he has an immortal soul and therefore behaves as though he has no immortal soul. It is very possible salvage is a troll. Animals have no immortal souls. Atheists deny immortal souls to all people because atheists deny God, oops they deny their own immortal soul and blame others for it.