Debate: Partial Birth Abortion...

[Pyg Me]

Originally posted by caitycaity
when was the last time a fetus was on death row or a dog fetus was euthanized?

"Fetus" is a term used to absolve responsibility, humanity, and guilt. It is a baby. A baby is a human. A human is a life.

 

[snoopy]

MHopkins, LOL!

 

[Pyg Me]

Originally posted by TinkBoo&ElliesMum
How does someone you don't know having an abortion affect your life??

You honestly can't know who has had an abortion and who hasn't, and with your views I'm sure if you knew someone who had they sure wouldn't tell you about it.

Thanks for the personal attack, but I digress.

(Just for the record, when I was younger, I was Pro-Choice. I got older and was Pro shut up and ming your own business. In my 30's a 14 year old niece had an abortion. A year later she had a daughter. When I held my great neice in my arms 30 minutes after she was born, I realized the evilness involved in abortions.)


Yes, the way a culture values or doesnt value human life has an affect on you.

It is not so far fetched to assume that this country will be having the same debates about US as parents and grandparents in the next generation or two.

 

[mep319]

Originally posted by iloveblonds2000
Don't get mad because there are people here with morals and you obviously have none!!! Any one with a little common sense knows that abortion is wrong but clearly you have none of that either. I am very open minded to things that don't involve jamming a freaking device in a baby's head and sucking the brains out of it!!

YOU want to punture your own skull go right ahead but don't try and convince other people that it is ok to make that choice for the child. He/She did not ask to be a product of your torrid sex life, you made it deal with it or take another position rather than on your back!

I am not trying to convince others that is okay to do anything they are not comfortable doing...unlike you. I do not impose my beliefs on others... they are theirs to make....just like my decisions should be left up to me. My morality is between me and my god (or goddess depending on my mood). And you assume too much, I only wish I had a torrid sex life. But again if I was one to make accusations based on a post...I would think it sounds like you need some.

 

[m&m's mom]

In July 1996 I was pregnant w/ a MUCH wanted child. I unexpectantly went into preterm labor. I was hospitalized and one of the first thing the Dr. said to me "We can send you home and let nature take its course or we see what we can do" It was my choice to say "I will do anything to save this baby" I stayed in the hospital upside down for 3 weeks until we reached viability at 24 weeks. They finally let my DD be born as they thought I was getting sick. They said they would much have a well 24 weeker than a sick 26 weeker.
So at 24 weeks and sometimes earlier the fetus is viable.
I have a great 7 YO DD w/ no lingering problems. You would never know she was even a preemie, more less a micro preemie.
I also met a lady through a support group that had a cesarian (sp?) w/ NO ANESTHETIA!! Her heart was failing and they in a matter of minutes of getting to the hospital had her sliced open and had the twins out immediately. I do not buy the "health of baby and mother" issue. They can get a baby out faster than a person can deliver and then do PBA on.
I am so emphatically convinced that if a person does not want to bear a child they should not be forced to do so regardless of the situation. I CHOSE to do whatever was necessary to save my child but everyone before viability should have the choice as well.

 

[ripleysmom]

I can't seem to find any information about this but maybe Galahd can answer it.

Are anesthetics given before the procedure? If that is the case then the person receiving a D&X is most probably knocked out. Wouldn't that also mean that the fetus is also anesthetized?

 

[Galahad]

Wouldn't that also mean that the fetus is also anesthetized?

Depends on the anesthetic. Some would and some would not. I'll also ask that question (man, I usually only get three a night....I'm using up my whole quota....)

 

[Fizban257]

Morality and religion aside, the legal ramifications of allowing PBA are down-right frightening to me. A child at 24 weeks is viable outside of the womb and any child who makes it outside of the womb alive at this stage is protected by the laws of our nation. The only difference then between a premie at 24 weeks, and a 24 week child destroyed through PBA is the physical location of it's head. In fact, any type of abortion after viability has been reached is only "justifyable" because of the child's location in utero. Allowing the destruction of a child at a developmental stage in which it could survive outside the womb, can only be based on location as the controling legal factor. This means that a legal precendent is set by which any normally protected human life may be subject to the loss of legal protection (civil rights) merely by accident of location. If the Supreme Court lets stand laws legalizing abortion after 24 weeks, then any bill legalizing the murder of any human based on that persons location would be defensible as constitutional.

 

[Teejay32]

"Location" meaning fully dependent upon, and housed within, another person's body. I don't see anything to be nervous about.

 

[poohandwendy]

Ok, FB, you and I are on the same side of this debate....BUT, I can't think of any scenario for that to happen? Enlighten me....

 

[DopeyRN]

I am not going to read any of the other posts...what I say might be a repeat. I have been an OB/GYN nurse since 1980. There is NO indication for partial birth abortion...babies are viable in the last 3 months. There is NO maternal condition that needs the baby murdered instead of delivered.

The thing I have always found interesting...Lacie Peterson's son Colin was "murdered" and the father is on trial for murder. So the only conclusion I can come to is if you WANT the baby it is a baby, and if you DON'T want the baby it is a specimen. Makes me want to vomit.

 

[Fizban257]

Originally posted by Teejay32
"Location" meaning fully dependent upon, and housed within, another person's body. I don't see anything to be nervous about.

Not exactly. In this debate we are exclusively discussing PBA. In this instance the child has reached viability, and could be deliviered to survive fullly independent of the mother.

I don't want to hi-jack the thread into a full-on abortion debate, so I'll not digress concerning the child's sphere of rights and the mother's sphere of rights intersecting thorughout the pregnancy. IMO, whether earlier abortion should be legal depends solely on the determination of when human life begins. Once the question is answered scientifically, the debate disappears--all human life is protected by law. When the child has reached 24 weeks and can survive outside the womb, I think the science already speaks for itself: human life.

 

[princesstommi]

Originally posted by goofy4tink
I don't believe in PBA when the baby is perfectly healthy.

I don't either. The thing is, I don't think anyone does. I can't imagine any doctor (who has to answer to higher authorities, ethics boards or whatever) saying "okay, let's do a late term abortion on a healthy viable fetus!" It just doesn't happen. If it does, I would like to see concrete proof. If a fetus is viable, a doctor would be bound to do everything he could to not only save the life of the mother, but the life of the baby. A non-viable fetus is not a *baby* in my mind.

As far as d&x abortions, NOMB. I can see the different reasons for a late-term abortion (none of them actually being *oh, I just don't want this baby), and I don't think that politics should come into play. I could totally be wrong, since I don't go looking up procedures, but I have heard the alternative to a d&x (d&e maybe?) is even *less humane*. But like I said, I don't have proof of that.

JMHO, YMMV.

 

[Fizban257]

Originally posted by poohandwendy
Ok, FB, you and I are on the same side of this debate....BUT, I can't think of any scenario for that to happen? Enlighten me....

Currently you must legally post no trespassing signs on your property. If a person violates this, and you shoot them for being on your property, even though they were clearly warned by your signs, you can still be prosecuted. It is simply not justifiable to kill a person simply for being on your property (caught burgling your home in the middle of the night is another story). Under the PBA precendent, a law allowing you to kill them even if no signs were posted, would be constitutional. It is you private property, which they have violated, a violation you chose to punish with death. Their location on your property put them under your control, which you chose to exercise, in your best judgement, for the termination of their existence.

 

[minniepumpernickel]

Originally posted by Pyg Me
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in shock that in a civilized world, somone would say this.

First of all the world is all not as civilized as the USA is. Do you consider it more humane to have tons of starving, unwanted babies out there in the world? It's easy to act all moral and outraged, and to slap a scarlet letter on any woman's chest who is pro-choice, isn't it?

What solutions do you have for women's issues in third world countries, not just our own?

One reason why I rarely participate in this type of debate, is because we usually end up with a bunch of men who are giving us holier than thou rhetoric, but refuse to offer any sensible solutions to the problems on a larger scale.

 

[poohandwendy]

The thing is, I don't think anyone does. I can't imagine any doctor (who has to answer to higher authorities, ethics boards or whatever) saying "okay, let's do a late term abortion on a healthy viable fetus!" It just doesn't happen. If it does, I would like to see concrete proof.

Yes, it does. I will find a link...

Ok, I found one...I will look for more..
Just a part of the article (New York Times):
"WASHINGTON -- A prominent member of the abortion rights movement said Tuesday that he lied in earlier statements when he said a controversial form of late-term abortion is rare and performed primarily to save the lives or fertility of women bearing severely malformed babies.

He now says the procedure is performed far more often than his colleagues have acknowledged, and on healthy women bearing healthy fetuses.

Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said he intentionally misled in previous remarks about the procedure, called intact dilation and evacuation by those who believe it should remain legal and "partial-birth abortion" by those who believe it should be outlawed, because he feared that the truth would damage the cause of abortion rights"

....snip...


"In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along, Fitzsimmons said. "The abortion-rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else," he said in the article in the Medical News, an American Medical Association publication. "

 

[Fizban257]

Originally posted by minniepumpernickel
One reason why I rarely participate in this type of debate, is because we usually end up with a bunch of men who are giving us holier than thou rhetoric, but refuse to offer any sensible solutions to the problems on a larger scale.

Sensible solution: massive pogrom of forced sterilization. No one dies, no more booming population growth, and massive depopulization of poor and depressed countries in one generation's time.

Never mind that it is a massive violation of civil rights, and a horible crime against humanity. But the numbers of children destroyed each year by abortion are mind-boggling. More abortions per year in America than dead U.S. soldiers during all ten years of Vietnam.

 

[katerkat]

Originally posted by poohandwendy
But I still cannot find a decent reason when the baby is healthy.

This is my problem with it. I'm still anti-abortion for earlier on, as well, but I can't understand why someone would have this procedure so late. I just don't understand the WHY of it.

 

[snoopy]

Originally posted by minniepumpernickel
First of all the world is all not as civilized as the USA is. Do you consider it more humane to have tons of starving, unwanted babies out there in the world? It's easy to act all moral and outraged, and to slap a scarlet letter on any woman's chest who is pro-choice, isn't it?

What solutions do you have for women's issues in third world countries, not just our own?

One reason why I rarely participate in this type of debate, is because we usually end up with a bunch of men who are giving us holier than thou rhetoric, but refuse to offer any sensible solutions to the problems on a larger scale.

I feel the same way as you do, Minnie.

If the primary concern is the welfare of children I can think of many ways the lives of children we already have could be improved.

In a perfect world, people wouldn't behave irresponsibly, men wouldn't abandon their pregnant partners, poverty, rape and incest would not exist, and birth control would be 100% effective.

Why don't we work on those issues before we worry about other people's wombs? Why is it that those who are so opposed to abortion are rarely interested in the child once its been born? I've asked that 3 times on this thread, and all I hear is its all the mother's fault for spreading her legs to begin with.

 

[snoopy]

I gave an example of a late term abortion earlier on this thread -- a woman that I knew was diagnosed with cancer at 20 weeks. Had she continued her pregnancy and waited to receive treatment, the liklihood was very great she would die. Instead, she chose to abort the baby at 23 weeks, and gave herself a chance to live. The doctors who performed this abortion made a moral choice to put the well being of the mother before the unborn child.