Regarding my Master’s thesis, it studies polarization in North American’s abortion attitudes. I was able to locate a very nice lacuna in the literature, and built upon existing literature to solve this lacuna. But, without further ado, I will let the preface speak for itself:

Attitudes on the permissibility of induced abortion vary widely in the United States of America. How people think about abortion has often been the topic of scholarly studies, which highlighted aspects ranging from the level of the streets with protests either ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’, to the level of legislation and Supreme Court rulings, to the public opinion on abortion. The question whether public opinion on abortion has become more polarized received substantial attention of social scientists, as well. This study adds to this body of literature on polarization in the North Americans’ public opinion on induced abortion. It contributes a new explanatory framework on polarization of public opinion which allows much of the existing literature to be brought together, a suggestion for a statistical approach for analyzing hypotheses derived from this model, and new hypotheses derived from this model.

Chapter 1 describes a background on the abortion issue in the United States, and three generations in the development of research on abortion attitudes are identified. To contribute to the third generation, three research questions are formulated that share the goal of developing and testing an explanatory model for attitude polarization. In chapter 2, it is explored how a theory of polarization should be formulated. A theoretical framework for such explanations is developed, based on the identification of three mechanisms constituting polarization. In chapter 3, the theoretical model is substantiated with theories on attitudes on abortion, and hypotheses on the polarization of North Americans’ attitudes towards abortion are derived. Chapter 4 contains a detailed description of the data that are used to test these hypotheses. Also, a procedure is suggested to analyze polarization. This procedure is used throughout chapter 5, in which the hypotheses formulated in the third chapter are tested. The concluding chapter 6 then relates the outcomes of these analyses back to the three research questions from the first chapter. Also, limitations of the used approach, directions for future research, and the implications of the findings for the used theories are discussed.

Several people and organizations have contributed to this project, with financial or other means. The National Opinion Research Center (NORC), the organization responsible for collecting the data of the General Social Survey used in this study, made sensitive data available for use in this study. This made it possible to take into account the state in which people live. The funds required for obtaining these additional data were made available by Ariana Need, and are part of her NWO VIDI subsidy.1 Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute sent a very detailed, historic overview on state-level legislation on abortion in the United States.

I conclude this preface by expressing my sincere and kind gratitude towards my supervisors Ariana Need and Manfred te Grotenhuis. They contributed profoundly to this project by providing ideas, advice, and methodological guidance. To me, however, of much greater importance was how they have helped me to strike a fair balance between ambition and personal life events.

What struck me in the interview, is the enormous amount of difficulties Rebecca Gomperts and Women on Waves have been confronted with. Whereas she had high hopes, ten years ago, for a whole fleet of ‘women on waves’ providing information and aid to women who required it, she recently has had to cancel some of their activities. This is the direct result of changes in Dutch abortion policy.

Partly, she is confronted with unjust allegations. For instance, she discusses the common misrepresentation of Women on Waves, especially reagrding what happens on their boat. The only types of abortion (if it can even be called that way) that are carried out there, are performed using abortion pills, and only in the first 16 days after a woman was expected to start menstruating. Moreover, their emphasis seems to be on providing information, rather than the actual abortion practice.

According to Gompert, the Dutch climate towards induced abortion is changing. Besides recent changes in the Dutch abortion policy, she also discusses how organisations against abortion receive more government funding than organisations in favour of the possibility for abortion. She concludes with being concerned that this financial inequality between organisations may topple public opinion against women’s opportunity to choose.

The first is a slight change in policy regarding the use of the ‘abortion pill’ in very early pregnancies (before 16 days after a women was expected to start menstruating). The government decided that regulation regarding this procedure now is part of the abortion legislation (which is wasn’t). Although the government states that this does not change much for abortion practice, opponents argue that this results in a more restrictive abortion legislation.

Secondly, health inspection ordered the prosecution of Women on Waves, a Dutch organisation that uses boats to provide abortions and information to women in countries where abortion is prohibited. By sailing to international waters, their actions are regulated by Dutch legislation, providing a legal basis. Apparently, they violated the law by using the wrong type of boat.

Interestingly, a major Dutch newspaper featured an interview with Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Waves, just this weekend. I’ve already rounded up some thoughts on this interview with the founder of Women on Waves, Rebecca Gomperts, which I will publish tomorrow. So, if you’re interested in this subject, do come back then!

New technology has that unique property of creating fascinating moral debates, which is especially so when it relates to new technology regarding life, death, or in this case: fertility. For a few years, technology has been available for the cryo-preservation of oocytes or ovarian tissue, which is used to help save the fertility of women who run the risk of losing it, for instance due to chemotherapy. Now, the question is raised whether such techniques should be made available to healthy women as well.

The main reason for allowing healthy women to have access to such (medical) procedures, is that an increasing number of women are confronted with the biological (/natural?) limits to their fertility associated with their increasing age, but did not yet find the partner to have children with. If such women preserve oocytes, these can be stored till the data she finds a partner, with which she can decide to have children, possibly with the aid of (already commonly used) IVF techniques. The most important reason to provide such techniques to women, I believe, is that the quality of the oocytes in a woman’s ovarians often deteriorates years before her physical ability to bear children.

The Amsterdam Academic Medical Centre recently issues a statement stating that soon they will indeed start offering these techniques to women in their thirties, who strongly want to have children, but did not yet find the partner to have children with. Of course, this raised a debate, which seems to be discussed from three perspectives: the medical perspective (technique is not yet sufficiently tested), the religious view (do not tamper with nature), and what could be referred to as an emancipatory view, arguing that it should be the women who decide.

All very interesting, but I found the discussion to be a bit shallow: know ones’ background, and their position (in favor, or against) is immediately clear. For those interested in a more thorough discussion of the ethical aspects, I point out that a very interesting article by Dondorp and De Wert was published in ‘Human Reproduction’ (2009). In contrast with the limited discussion in the popular media (often with said binary opinions), they are able to evaluate the issue on a multitude of aspects, including (but not limited to):

• Gender-equality in reproduction
• Biological boundaries and the limits of medicine
• The value of a child of one’s own
• Risk for mother and child of a late pregnancy
• The spectre of medicalization
• The principle of ‘primum non nocere’

Alse, these authors evaluate the alternative of proactive IVF, and contemplate on the ‘conditions for offering cryopreservation of ovarian tissue or oocytes’ to healthy women. A few of the interesting statements I found in the article include that men already can cryopreserve their sperm for years, the fact that it already is accepted for many reasons to have medical procedures carried out other than to save a person’s health, arguing the predominance of the actual situation in which women find themselves over the fear for medicalization, and considering the conditions for using these new techniques.

All in all, the authors come to a balanced conclusion:

We argue that there are no convincing a priori moral reasons why cryopreservation of ovarian tissue or oocytes should not also be available for healthy women. However, this is on the assumption of established techniques, also in terms of the efficient and safe use of any frozen reserve.”

On a final note: I’m very interested in this debate, and relating issues. I expect to be writing a lot more about these issues in the not-so-distant future. I would very much welcome some input from my readers. So, what do you think about issues regarding technology, morality, and fertility?

Dondorp, W., & De Wert, G. (2009). Fertility preservation for healthy women: ethical aspects Human Reproduction, 24 (8), 1779-1785 DOI: 10.1093/humrep/dep102

With women giving birth at increasingly higher ages, an increased number of women (and often their partners) are confronted with reproductive challenges. Of course, this can be related to women increasingly choosing to postpone childbirth in order to be able to invest in their careers. Perfectly legitimate (again: of course) and a good development in many respects, but an unintended consequence of these career developments, is the increased demand for assisted reproduction.

Dolle Mina Baas in eigen buik

Wybo Dondorp and Guide de Wert argue for a (partial) solution to this problem: allow women to salvage ova at early age, and freeze these for use later in the life-course. This will not solve all problems, but it would at least increase these women’s opportunities to have a ‘genetically own’ child.

But of course, it did not start with women starting to have careers, it started with women wanting to have careers. In the Netherlands, we had a group called ‘Dolle Minas’, who sought after the right for women to have more control over their fertility. Using the statement ‘Baas in Eigen Buik’ (Boss over my Belly, see photo), they argued for the availability of and right for the use of contraceptives, condoms, and abortion.

The Dolle Minas by and large succeeded in reaching their goals: society opened up for women, and more control over women’s fertility was obtained. I wonder, though, if current developments regarding the increased demand for assisted reproduction were foreseen by then.

From the project proposal (which I co-authored):

Technological development and legislation during the last century in European countries and the United States have allowed women to gain increased control over their fertility, which coincided with the rise of the relative socio-economic position of women in this same period.

[…]

The Ph-D project consists of a retrospective, comparative empirical study encompassing European countries and the United States. The relationship between fertility decisions and the educational and occupational life-courses of women is central to this study, but the main focus is on how this relation is affected by governance and technological advance.

I almost cannot wait to start working on it, but will have to (also: Must. Graduate. Soon!). But expect me not to be able to refrain myself from starting to read a little (more) on the subject. So, if the writing on my blog will shift towards a specific direction, you’ll know why this is!

John Dennehy discusses the first classic of this issue, and interestingly his discussion relates to what we’re all doing here: blogging. Or rather, finding a way to bring science to a larger audience. In “This Week’s Citation Classic: What Is Life?”, posted at The Evilutionary Biologist, Schrödingers book on mind and matter ‘What Is Life’ is discussed. “Indeed biologists at the time attacked it on account of its naivete and extreme reductionism. The book’s overriding contention was that all of biology could be reduced into chemical and physical laws, a statement that most biologist today will agree with” Despite its focus on the layperson, it had many scientist to cross the disciplinary boundaries.

It’s always fascinating to try out how old our current knowledge actually is, which is exactly what gg did regarding the structure of the nuclear atom. He traced it back to (at least) 1844 in his post Mr. Faraday goes wild ? with atomic speculation! (1844) posted at Skulls in the Stars. “A speculation touching electric conduction and the nature of matter.  Faraday, already a distinguished and even famous scientist, shared some thoughts about the nature of atomic structure, based on the paucity of knowledge that was available at the time.  His observations, though still off the mark according to current understanding, were remarkably forward thinking.” gg evaluates the suggestions made by Faraday, and his conclusion also relates to the value of our beloved Giant’s Shoulders: “In short, hypothesis and speculation are natural parts of the scientific process, and even necessary ones.  An idea which gets people to think about a physical problem in a new and different way can be a stepping stone to a new discovery, even if the idea turns out in the end to be inaccurate”

But it was not only Faraday ‘going wild’, it was gg as well, for he send in another blog article: Who first suggested the nuclear atom?, again posted at Skulls in the Stars. The question here actually is that of on whose shoulders tend to stand: the theorist, or the one who provided the empirical test: “Perrin first proposed the nucleo-planetary model, but never pursued the idea beyond some basic speculations.  Rutherford is rightly given most of the credit for the development of the model, as he supervised the experiments which led to its verification and worked out the rigorous theory behind it”

M P Gururajan presents an article on surface tension, in which he also traces the development of a specific model, the Potts model, for modeling surface tensions: Classics in Materials Science: Potts model and its relevance to simulation of microstructures posted at Materialia Indica. “Like soap bubble solution is is easy to use and provides fundamental insights into surface tension phenomena; but also like soap bubble solution, it can lead to a sticky mess.”

On the importance of the (political) context in which science is ‘made’ Eric Michael Johnson argues “It took the threat of nuclear annihilation between the two greatest powers of the 20th century to solve one of the most profound scientific controversies of the 1800s” He presents an article on “the hypothesis of coral reef formation first proposed by Charles Darwin in 1837″:
Rivalry Among The Reefs found at The Primate Diaries. He concludes: “Ironic though it may be, it took a bitter rivalry between nations to find a solution to the rivalry between scientists from centuries past”.

Finally, do we use all that knowledge brought to us by these Giant’s of science in daily life? The most recent classic is discussed by Dave Munger, who present an article on how people decide: “Many studies have addressed how people make important decisions like which college to attend, but one of the classics was conducted way back in the 1980s, by a team led by Richard Nisbett”. His post Do we reason with statistics? If so, when, and why? is to be found at Cognitive Daily. He concludes: “Overall, the researchers found that a predisposition to look at data statistically (either because of hint given by the experimenters, the nature of the data, or the nature of the individual’s experience) led to more statistical reasoning.” and adds a nice political twist to it at the very end.

Ok, that’s it for this edition. Next one will be up on June 16th, at the appropriately titled The Secret of Newton”.

The organizing committee of the useR! 2009 conference just informed me, that my submission for presenting my extension package influence.ME, has been accepted! Influence.ME is a new R package that I’m currently developing, with the indispensable help of Ben Pelzer and Manfred te Grotenhuis. Although I did not yet introduce influence.ME on this blog, rest assured that I will do so within just a few weeks. Now is time for celebration!

Influence.ME is an R package that provides a collection of tools for detecting influential data in mixed effects models. Testing for influence with mixed effects models is especially important in Social Science applications, for two reasons. First, models in the Social Sciences are frequently based on large numbers of individuals while the number of higher level units is often relatively small. Secondly, often the higher level units are remarkably similar, for instance in the case of neighboring countries.

useR! is a yearly user conference on exciting applications in R. The useR! 2009 edition will be held in Rennes, France. A great variety of packages, applications, and other developments relating to R will be discussed. I’ve visited the useR! 2008 conference last year (in Dortmund, Germany), and found it a highly stimulating environment for those interested in exciting, practical applications in statistics using R.

Influence.ME is a project I’ve been working on for the last months, together with Ben Pelzer and Manfred te Grotenhuis. I’m still working – quite hard!- to iron out the last quirks, and we have tons of ideas for extending its functionality. I’m very happy to be able to present the result of this work to an R-minded audience this summer.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to have found many readers kept returning to my blog, even without me adding new content. This highly motivates me to continue writing, which I will get back to from this week on.

So, I’m looking forward to start sharing my thoughts about research again, and to have some nice discussions about it.

The world choose not to know about what happened in Darfur. Busy fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, not willing to jeopardize relationships with the Chinese, and lack of knowledge amongst the general public. It all allowed the Europeans and Americans to do nothing to save the lives of 450.000 people, and to help the millions of ‘internally displaced people’ living in camps.

Yesterday, I went to see the documentary ‘Sand and Sorrow‘, about the genocide that took place in Darfur. It was organized by several Radboud University-organizations, amongst which the Nijmegen part of STAND, a student awareness movement which originated in the United States. The footage, music, images, and voice-over by George Clooney all cumulated to a single message: it is happening right now, and humanity did what is always done: virtually nothing.