The Virginia Senate and House of Delegates have both passed a law requiring women to undergo ultrasounds before getting an abortion. Such procedures are unnecessary, critics argue, because they (1) serve no medical purpose; and (2) people getting an abortion already know what they're doing. This criticism prompted someone–a professor of economics according to Wikipedia–to tweet the following:
I suppose the thought go something like this. People who favor regulation must always favor regulation under any circumstances. If they don't, their beliefs are inconsistent.
But that's really a load of puerile garbage not worthy even of drunken refutation.
via Balloon Juice via Atrios.
UPDATE.
Here is CNN's Dana Loesch on consent:
LOESCH: That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth. […] There were individuals saying, “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What? Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.
Comment unnecessary.
Oh, he is on the Economics faculty at George Mason — on better authority than WIkipedia. In fact, it was just a couple of days ago that I was starting through a recent edition of Science (3 Feb) and had an odd experience. There was a book review of Strings Attached, a book about incentives and their flaws. It quickly turned out to be argumentative and breezy in tone in a way you don't usually get in that mag, more like a blog entry (sorry) in a mediocre blog (that's ok, then) than a review in a journal.
Who wrote this, anyway? I ask. Look at the credit and see a name that maybe is vaguely familiar; look at the footnote and see "Department of Economics, George Mason University", an affiliation that explains a lot. And then I realize where I've seen the name, in Brad DeLong's blog, where he's a favorite source for bad economics.
Tyler Cowen, right. So he truly is an economist, because Science is careful with attributions.
And his stuff, even when he's trying to write seriously and not just tweeting snarkily, can be a bit embarrassing.
Loesch appears unaware of the maxim, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool…."
Cowen is generally not thought to be a fool, so he appears to have more to lose by Loesch by demonstrating sloppy thinking. Perhaps he should interview Dr. Keith Ablow on the subject – think how many blog posts that might generate.