2582 characters demonstrating precisely why Twitter is not my preferred medium

I've been moonlighting as a pro-choice tweeting crusader for a while now, and it's immensely gratifying to see our dinky litle abortion fund becoming a target for people who find the existence of uterine occupancy options infuriating.

You get the amusingly direct:

@AbortionSupport @keairaroland abortion is murder

(Well, that's me converted!)

You get the "funny" ones:

@AbortionSupport Yur... I just be havin me 6th abortion and me cannot afford to travel back to Errland, who gun pay me. #LostIrishBlackGirl



You get the actually, though unintentionally, funny:

@AbortionSupport Jesus loves you! Jesus Saves. Trust Jesus!

and the just plain weird:

@AbortionSupport Planned Parenthood will kill 500 women today!

WITH THEIR ROLLING DEATH MACHINE OF AIDS TESTS AND PAP SMEARS!

But, as ever, the flat-out obvious offensive stuff never really wounds or annoys. It's the sneaky ones. The ones that don't call you a murderer, exactly, but don't you think the idea that abortion ends a life is a valid argument? It's not that we think you're lying, it's just that 5,000 women a year coming over from Ireland for abortions... that seems an awful lot. I'm not saying abortion's bad, but wouldn't adoption be better?

And now: it's not that we think abortion makes you mad, bad and sad, but posting a link to [yet another] study which has [once again] failed to find any link between abortion and mental illness - well, that's

@AbortionSupport, a rather sweeping generalisation on such a multi-factorial issue.

Now, I can't help but feel that the above chap is rather missing the point of scientific research: when one is looking for a statistically significant relationship between two phenomena, surely the very essence of what you're doing is making a generalisation? An analysis of the studies discovered no causal relationship between abortion and mental health problems - not this girl, in particular, found her experience of abortion traumatic, and her sense of guilt, combined with the pressures of secrecy and the financial stress involved, triggered her long-term propensity towards depression.

In short, generalisation! Not case study. The whole point of which is to look for the relationship (or lack of relationship) between two factors! So criticising the researchers' approach for not being "multi-factorial" enough is really quite silly! Furthermore, "factorial"? Really?

So it was with some relief that I greeted the next mention. At least it gave me a giggle.

@AbortionSupport PLANNED PARENTHOOD IS PATRONIZED BY MURDERERS!!!!



Hello, we're murderers. Twix a sexual health check-up, please.