Questions

Not a day goes by without questions. Needing to be answered. Needing to be asked. New questions branching off old questions once answered. Curious minds? No; minds needing answers to unknown topics that relate to current issues. Issues that are not fully understood, but then, do we truly ever understand anything fully?

My SCORE clients often ask for directions. Where do I go from here? How do I do this? Tackling fundraising is huge; how do I even start?

And so, I share my Zoom screen and go to Google.com. I ask a question, maybe even stutter over it and improve the wording. I hit search and see the results unfold. The client and I scroll down the answers, note the first several are usually there because they are paid ads, but then still scan their contents; they may be the right contact after all!

The process is the thing. Clients participating in this firsthand experience get the hang of it right away. They begin identifying their own search words, phrases, keywords. I suggest they track their questions and which ones were the most fruitful. That way they won’t go over the same material again and again.

Anyway, Google comes to the rescue yet again, the world of information at your fingertips.

This works for most anything. Abortions? How many were performed in the US in 2020 or 2021, whichever year data is collected and known? The answer is 625,000 abortions in 2021, that is reported procedures. There may very well have been more but not reported. Follow up questions produced these data points:

·         1.3 million abortions occurred in 2001

·         862,320 abortions reported in 2017

·         625,000 reported in 2021

The trendline is obvious. Other facts were learned, including 70,500 medical abortions were performed in 2001 while the number soared to 339,640 in 2017. Such cases involved severe birth defects noted from improved testing methods. Dangers to the mothers' lives were noted.

I am not a doctor so don’t understand the reasons for medical abortions but realize that many must be performed to preserve the mother’s life and eliminate a horribly deformed fetus from living an impossible life.

OK, lessons learned. Abortion is declining rapidly. Choice is to deliver healthy babies full term. Abortion as birth control not as likely as it once was. Still, choice is the baseline of these statistics. Women do not decide to end an abortion lightly. It is a difficult decision at its best.

See? Questions. Sometimes you learn interesting things if you dare to ask the question. Forming the search poser is the first step. Refine it. Seek answers. Better understand your reasons for learning the answers. No right or wrong here; just research to find facts that matter.

June 2, 2022

 

 

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