Who can find the real figure?
Oh dear. In her HoS column attacking the critics of her N&S article on Asian immigration, Deborah Coddington states:
Here’s a disturbing fact: in 2003 four of every five pregnant Asian women aborted their babies. Do we keep abortion as a last-resort method of birth control, or accept it’s a casual approach to contraception?
Now who wants to win a chocolate fish by being the first to post the actual Asian abortion rate in 2003? It’s under half of the 80% stated as a “fact”!
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Tags: Media
November 20th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Where does she get off making up this crap?
November 20th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Try 1.1% overall
Of course it rathger depends on your definition of “Asia” which to a POM includes India and Pakistan & probably Bangladesh etc
November 20th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Lindsay Mitchell posted the actual numbers a few days ago. In 2003 there were 5285 live births and 3502 abortions. The figure dropped down in 2004. Coddington can’t be trusted.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:02 am
But also don’t forget that the gender imbalance in China did not happen by chance. If you can only have one child you make sure it is a male if you can whether you achieve this through aborting female foetuses or “disposing” of girl babies.
So DC actually misses one of the cultural drivers of abortion in at least part of Asia.
Question: If NZ holds itself out as an Asian country, shouldn’t NZ’s abortion stats be included in the Asian figure?
November 20th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Right, so 40%.
So the rediculous cow has rounded up 3502 to 4000, 5285 to 5000, then decided that that means that 4 out 5 asian babies are aborted.
Nevermind that there were a total of 8787 babies concieved.
That is grossly incompetent.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:06 am
AAAHHH, misinterpreted the question! Took it to be Asian women in Asia but now understand that it relates to Asian women in NZ.
(withdraws in embarrassment ….)
November 20th, 2006 at 10:07 am
So she has taken the number of asian abortions, rounded it up to 4000, then divided that by the number of live births and come up with that lie.
The actual number of conceptions is of course 9000, so the actual abortion rate is 40%.
God. Damn. That is so unbelievably incompetent, or so maliciously evil… I don’t know which is worse.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:09 am
(sorry, didn’t mean to double post – stupid cacheing
)
November 20th, 2006 at 10:20 am
I bought the latest copy of North and South yesterday and was considering whether to subscribe to it as I did so a few years ago.
Inside first page was a profile on Ms Coddington and her return to the magazine, made my decsion not to subscribe very easy.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:33 am
100 percent of Deb’s credibility is in the dumpster.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:46 am
I think what Deborah did was take the figure for Asians aged under 20, which is 82%, and misinterpret it as being the figure for all Asians which is around 37%.
Not a hanging offence by itself, but unfortunate when printed in a column as a fact, rebutting criticism of a previous article for having facts wrong also.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Still 40% is a high abortion rate.
Not entirely dumpster material, just a D (for Deb) minus in maths situation.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:16 am
If we can all get past the remedial maths, how about pondering what appears to be an awfully high rate? Let’s remember that we discussing human beings.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:36 am
The Cardinal has a point.
Considering that no one needs to get pregnant if they don’t want to (or at least the risks are minimal) then what the hell is going on?
Rearranging the deck chairs isn’t going to keep the ship afloat.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Murray, there is no chance of you getting pregnant true.
However consider the case of a young immigrant woman far away from home, who has perhaps grown up in a culture with a lack of openess about sex and contraception and is outside the normal means of family support.
Rather a different case.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I think it reflects that abortion is more socially acceptable in parts of Asia (esp China) than NZ, so this is reflected in the Asian rate in NZ.
But there is a world of difference between 37% and 82% as an abortion rate.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Some maths I do understand – Deborah Coddington’s credibility is 0%.
Reflects on the quality of HoS though, doesn’t it?
November 20th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
How do these rates compare with other ethnic groups in NZ?
November 20th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
DC is one of the strongest arguments not to pay for premium content. If I wanted opinionated twaddle there’s thousands of blog sites I could choose from for free.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Who issued the fatwa on Coddington?
“I’ll get you…and your little dog too”
Good playing to your audience I must admit.
Well done that man.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
So, if nearly 40% of Asian women have abortions then it’s likely that there won’t be a growing indigenous Asian population, and that this slice of the population can only be sustained and grown by immigration. That’s an unhealthy state of affairs where integration into the community is unlikely and the source of future friction.
And what is the response of the abortion authorities? Presumably the Asians are claiming abortions on the grounds of mental damage to the mother if the pregnancy is not terminated, which may be true, but is surely an unacceptable cultural practice to most NZers.
Or do Asian women go to the backdoor quacks?
Whatever.. the practice is unacceptable and should be stopped along with Asian immigration. The greatest benefits that immigrants bring are their children and the likelihood of integration.
JC
November 20th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
What do you expect the Chinese Govt uses abortion as a means of the one child family.
It would be normal to use abortion as a means of birth control, it has been a chinese means of Contraception for a generation every young Chinese adult would be aware of that. Talking of 80% it’s only a pity 4 out of 5 creditors didn’t get their money off Coddingtons former Partner Alister Taylor, but I doubt Coddington would want to dig up that can of worms.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Coddington can’t seem to figure which anti-Asian campaign she wants to join. First she lies and tries to scare everyone that Asians are terrible criminals. I would assume that means the fewer Asians the better (if her lie were true). Then after telling us how they are awful criminals she tells us they have a high abortion rate, in fact at 80% as she claimed they would have few children at all.
But shouldn’t she be applauding that? If they are having fewer children and they are so prone to be criminals doesn’t that high allegedly high abortion rate mean that the number of allegedly criminally prone Asians would be lower as a result? If they are such criminals instead of bitching about the 80% who she claims abort she should be complaining about the 20% who don’t!
November 20th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Apropos of the abortion stats: IF the young student demographic is a high proportion of the fertile Asian population as a whole, then they’ll totally skew the overall stats. In other words, even that 40% figure may not be representative of people who actually settle here.
But I’ll tell you why Codswallopington brings this up. It’s because she knows that we think badly of abortion and is reaching for smears to bolster her initial conclusion. This is why it doesn’t matter whether this is correct, or consistent with any of her other statements. It’s also why it’s prejudice, pure and simple. Conclusion first, evidence second if you can be bothered at all.
November 20th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
As the Cardinal says, we are talking about human beings. Even if it’s true that we are talking about a
“young immigrant woman far away from home, who has perhaps grown up in a culture with a lack of openess about sex and contraception and is outside the normal means of family support”
then surely they should have the ability to withstand short term relationships that then result in the death of another human being? I’ve noticed that despite all the open talk about sex and sexuality in our western society we haven’t managed to decrease sexual activity. So talking about it doesn’t help, it’s personal responsibility that helps.
These girl’s real problem is coming from conservative socities to a rampant West where anything goes: it’s Us in the West that are the problem. When are we going to clean our act up, or stop “Rearranging the deck chairs [to try] to keep the ship afloat” as Murray says?
November 20th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Matthew, the problem may be lack of relevent information about contraception…
November 20th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
If we had contraception more readily available for those who don’t know about it, then all that is happening is the person thinks they are protected from any physical consequences of their actions. Unoftunately there are emotional consequences when you engage in sex with a person with whom there is no guarantee of long term commitment (i.e. marriage).
This approach of thinking short term sexual relationships are the answer to your problems only produces more grief. Ask any women whose been dumped by a man after a relationship breaks up.
November 28th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Heard of the Marquee incident where a couple were treated rudely. It does not end there.
My colleague and I went to pick up my dry cleaning from REGAL DRYCLEANERS in Newmarket which was “recommended by NZ’s leading fashion designers” and they were apparently voted “Best drycleaners in Auckland 2002” by Style and Metro Magazines.
Not only was my dress not dry cleaned, the cost was much more than what they had initially said it would be, I was asked to pay for a hemming that they promised would be free. They changed the cost 3 times and were still not satisfied.
At least the first two staff members I had to deal with were polite. Then came the third one who was “the supervisor”. She was rude and racist.
She said that her colleagues had misinformed me, there was nothing she could do about it, I should pay what she asked me to so I can have my dress back.
She pulled the dress away from where my colleague and I were and asked “go away, come back another time and speak to the manager,” and “I am not interested in speaking with you.” She walked away.
My colleague and I had waited over forty minutes for them to decide how much they would charge me. I was fed up, paid $55.20 cents to a man who had the look that he was forced to talk to us, and they sent us away with NO APOLOGIES for what she said was a mistake on the part of her staff.
Regal Drycleaners in Newmarket’s motto is “Delivering our promise” If their promise is mistreating and degrading customers, then yes they do that very well.
Well I am sorry if I had earlier recommended Regal Drycleaners to anyone. My colleague and I were treated poorly there.
Just thought you all should know. Please do forward this to all your networks. Might pay to send this to Style and Metro magazines, and the radio station too.