It seems the article I read was about Dr. Warren Hern, and I think it was the Esquire article - at the time the article claimed it to be the last place where you could get a late term abortion in the US.
Oh, we didn’t need this guy for good doctors to be targeted. The Esquire article about Dr. Hern that Zsofia mentions talks about the ongoing threats on his life. When I worked there, back in the late 80s, the clinic already had replaced all windows with four layers of bullet-proof class, and there was an “airlock” system in place to allow patients into the clinic. Everyone had to show ID, and no one was allowed in without an appointment. My understanding is that they’ve stepped up security massively since then.
We got death threats regularly, practically every day. Bomb threats once a week or so required that we evacuate the clinic (including any women in recovery) and wait for the bomb squad to give the all clear.
So, while this guy is definitely scum, doctors were already being targeted pretty heavily without him.
I wonder what a person who exhibited great zeal for the cause of Zero Population Growth would say about this guy.
There should not be any special outrage reserved for this “doctor”. He is no more culpable than any other abortionist out there.
Ass.
I’m as ambiguous about infanticide and abortion as anyone you can find but to say that there’s no difference between actively killing already born babies, versus terminating a developing embryo, or killing a late-term fetus that poses a health risk to the mother, is ridiculous.
In honor of the stupidity of this post, I am donating a sum to Planned Parenthood. So, Beniamino, you just funded an abortion.
Actually, he funded two. Well done, sir!
Three! Congratulations.
First of all, I don’t think there’s anybody that would mandate carrying a baby to term if doing so would kill the mother.
Having said that, what’s the difference between killing a child through partial-birth abortion at 25 weeks versus killing a child at 24 weeks? Nothing “magical” happens once the baby moves through the cervix. What about 23 weeks? 22 weeks? There is no bright line. The child is no less “alive” from one moment to the next. An 8-week old fetus has sensory nerves, a thalamus, and motor nerves. A fetus, at the very latest, feels pain early in the second trimester. Giannakoulopoulos X, Sepulveda W, Kourris P, Glover V, and Fisk NM. 1994. Fetal plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin response to intrauterine needling. Lancet 344:77-81.
I think perhaps some of the uncharitable responses following my earlier post may be misdirected pangs of conscience on the part of the posters.
It’s difficult to think about the horror of killing defenseless children, whether it be at 40 weeks or 4. So, some of us just… don’t.
How is giving money to a charity uncharitable?
Unless we ascribe a spiritual value to the DNA recombination itself, there has to be a line (albeit not a bright one) somewhere between conception and birth, when a fetus is “enough” to qualify for a given standard of humanity. (You mentioned the standard of “feels pain,” which is at least admissible, though those who adhere to it here may not like all the implications. There was a medieval standard of “quickening,” somewhere between 15 and 20 weeks, which actually has some merit relative to brain development, IMO.) That said, the interests of such a human-in-utero can still be legitimately weighed against the interests of the pregnant woman. Until the true bright line of birth. Once the baby is out, the baby’s most fundamental interests cannot conflict with the woman’s.
This Gosnell killed babies who were across that bright line. You may hold that (some, varying according to the non-bright post-conception standard) abortionists are also murderers. But this guy was no abortionist. Just a murderer.
It’s more difficult to reason with someone who sees a bundle of cells that are about 12% of the way from a zygote to a person, and calls it a “defenseless child”.
And why wouldn’t we? That life begins at conception is the only “line” there is.
Certainly. We can weigh the death of the baby against the death of the mother. And sometimes the baby has to die to save the life of the mother. And we can also weigh the death of the baby against the inconvenience of the mother. And I think the scale speaks for itself in such a case.
I just read today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the Pennsylvania regulatory agencies had wilfully ignored decades of complaints about this abortionist’s “practice”, and that the “annual” inspections hadn’t taken place since 1993. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11021/1119605-454.stmNot only that, but that Pennsylvania abortionists as a whole seem to get a “free pass” on mandatory inspections, and regulatory agencies regularly “look the other way” regarding even the most egregious violations. The representative of the Pa. Dept. of Health gave the old “mistakes were made” response. This sickens me, but no more than having to pass Planned Parenthood on the bus every morning and knowing what goes on there every day.
Perhaps the only consolation of having a new Republican Governor for the next 8 years is that this will most assuredly change.
Oh, you mean pap smears, and gynecological exams for women to check for things like cervical cancer, and free or reduced-cost birth control for both men and women? Affordable reproductive medical care?
Yea, I can see how that’s sickening.
If we outlaw abortion at conception we may as well outlaw any violence against any sort of animal. Outlaw meat totally. Animals are much more intelligent and sentient by any measure you can choose than a newly-formed mass of cells.
I assume you are a vegetarian?
Yeah, like that AIDS test I got for my (male) friend there that cost 20 bucks instead of 80. I can see how that would turn your stomach.
Methinks you are making an ever-so-slight leap in logic there.
Beniamino is the one who said, yes, he would “ascribe a spiritual value to the DNA recombination itself,” which I had offered as a deliberately absurdist example.
DNA recombination is indeed amazing, and worth your study and reflection.
But if every new iteration of DNA in a microscopic clump of cells is sacred and inviolable, then a mandate for vegetarianism is only the beginning. You’re going to have to get by without eating many plants, too.
Beniamino conception is the bright line in your opinion.
It isn’t a fact.
And,* in my opinion* conception is a damn stupid bright line.
Conception precedes pregnancy by several days in most cases, and much longer in cases of frozen embryos.
Not all conceptions result in pregnancy- there is a rather high percentage of natural wastage.
Unique human beings are sometimes created several days after conception. They are known as identical twins.
Pin pointing conception is impossible in the vast majority of cases- every sexually active woman in possession of an ovary and a uterus could potentially have an ovum and sperm meeting up inside her at any time. How could you tell?
And those are just some of the more glaringly obvious reasons why your opinion is asinine.