If the fetus is viable if removed from the mother and removing him alive does not pose a health risk greater then aborting him, why is he killed instead of allowed to live outside the mother? why not just remove him and put him up for adoption (as there is a great demand for adopted babies)?
The limitations of U.S. stats on abortions.
At the very least, in terms of “reasons” for abortions (late term or otherwise)…the AGI surverys rely, problematically, on reasons supplied by the women getting the procedures.
The reasonable reader might conclude that there are social pressures that might influence abortion recepients to offer a more “palatable” answer to that kind of question. (In a vague sense, similar to the number of people who claim that they voted in an election, compared to the number of people who actually did)
For CrazyCatLady…to get back to your PBA question: They are performed in the second and third trimesters…not just after 36 weeks.
Indeed, there has been (at least in the past), a campaign of disinformation about when and why PBAs have been performed. See this piece from the New Republic…hardly a right wing journal.
and
At this point, I think I can point out that the claim that “99%” of PBAs are performed for serious maternal health issues or serious fetal defects has been shown to be false by a wide range of sources…including independent reporters from The Nation, The Washington Post, The Record Newspaper.
Unfortunately, the Washington Post online archives do not go back to 1996…but do a search on the reporters and you’ll get the jist of their piece…
If there’s such a great demand for adopted babies, why are there kids in foster homes?
Two people had annecdotal evidence that there are women that use abortion as a method of birth control. Interesting side note, I have evidence that there are people that use guns to rob banks and/or kill people.
Because the demand is for white babies that are healthy.
—At the very least, in terms of “reasons” for abortions (late term or otherwise)…the AGI surverys rely, problematically, on reasons supplied by the women getting the procedures. —
Well, again, unless I can see the actual statistical findings, I can’t comment on the internal or external validity of their findings at all. The questions being both potentially open-ended, self-reported, and non-exclusive simply aren’t anywhere near the only potential problem. All I can say is that AGI is a pretty darn good, respected group when it comes to researching these things.
After takeing the rest of the day to think about it , I have the ultimate answer to the main question of the OP. My answer is: If you cant give birth then you have no right to tell anyone anything about abortion. If you are not a woman then your opinion about abortion is irrelevant. You cant empathize,sympathize,identify with or ever be in a position to go through with one, so stop being such bullies. It isnt your bodie, so please keep your politics and lofty morals off of it. For the women, unless you are the one carrying the foetus you dont have much of a say either. Abortion may be a horrible crime to you. Dont assume it is that way for everyone. Just like everything else, if you dont like it then dont do it. If you respect the rights of others you will have your own rights respected in return.
Does that mean men can’t be against rape either? I don’t think that analogy holds up.
(I’m pro-choice anyway, though.)
I am with cjhoworth and other on this. You can’t ban a medical procedure that is required to save a woman’s life.
In other words: by the logic that a late-term abortion is murder, if you don’t abort to save the baby, and the mother dies, then that is murder too.
His4Ever - I find your comments sensationalist and appalling. They do you no credit. I have no issue with people being allowed their own points of view.
Sorry - pressed return or something before I was ready.
To continue […their own points of view] but I find your choice of terms a worrying misrepresentation on doctors. Do you describe heart surgery as “stabbing someone in the chest”?
Also, please bear in mind that not everyone believes in your God, or any god, and even if they do they may not share the same religion/scripture/doctine as you do. “Thou shalt not kill” is not a part of everyone’s personal belief system.
I don’t think you are representing your side of the fence very well at all.
—If you are not a woman then your opinion about abortion is irrelevant.—
One might as well argue that if one is not currently a fetus, one cannot have a releveant opinion about abortion.
—“Thou shalt not kill” is not a part of everyone’s personal belief system.—
Even for those for whom it is, the real questions are “thou shalt not kill WHAT and WHY?”
Dr George Tiller, here in Wichita, Ks. is one of the few physicians in the country who perform late term abortions. He was shot 4 years ago outside his Women’s Health Care Services clinic, but he survived. He now wears a kevlar vest when he is in public.
Here is a link to the standars form patients must sign when having a preganancy terminated at WHCS. Scroll down the page and pay close attention to number 11.
http://www.drtiller.com/ic1b.html
I am fervently pro choice. It’s my body and my decision.
Jamie
Apos
I agree that women who are at a serious health risk are more likely to opt for abortion and that further this is likely to reduce the percentage of women who die related to pregnancy complications. More on this below (Opinion 2).
I also agree that this is a crude measurement. Certainly other factors are not being accounted for here.
This site has a table showing the maternal mortality rate all the way back to the year 1900. Then the rate was approximately 825 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This rate continued to drop, especially during the 50’s, presumably because of advancements in medical care. The first state legalized abortions were performed in the mid 60’s. Therefore:
Opinion 1. IMHO It is reasonable to assume that current day maternal mortality rates for women who had a late term abortion (assuming they decided to keep the baby instead) would be at least as low as the rate during 1960 (a year when legalized abortion was not an option). The maternal death rate during 1960 was approximately 20 deaths per 100,000 live births. Using this maternal death rate the number of expected dead for those 94,000 abortions would have been about 19. If we used 1900 era maternal death rates (again, prior to legalized abortion) then the approximate number of maternal deaths would have been around 776.
Opinion 2. IMHO, even though other factors are not accounted for there is no factor I can think of that can explain the number of late term abortions solely based on a “life risk” criteria.
A few questions for you then Apos.
-
Is it your opinion that most (i.e. 51% or 47,953) of the 94,027 pregnant mothers during that 6 year period chose to have an abortion because of a life threatening risk?
-
Assuming that the 94,027 late term abortions were performed because of a life threatening reason, what factor(s) (that haven’t been accounted for by anyone in this thread yet), in your opinion, could reasonably cause the maternal death rate to raise to the level wherein that number of late term abortions would be justified. In other words, what factor(s), do you think could account for a potential maternal death rate that is over 10,000 times current day levels and over 100 times 1900 levels.
Grim
The problem here is that you are assuming the maternal death rate for all live births to be the expected death rate in the case where the mother chose late term abortion, if the mother didn’t choose the abortion. But to assume that you have to know that the mothers are of no particular risk in those cases, which is the proposition that you seem to be trying to support. If the mothers are at risk in this case, then that could well explain why the number of deaths would be more than expected, because the expectation would be based on an erroneous assumption.
I therefore think that any conclusion reached from this will be circular, in that you have to assume that these women are not at risk for the figures to make your case.
silverfish
I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to convey here. I think what you’re saying is something like:
“Women who choose to have late term abortions are likely to have higher health risk rates then women who decided to give birth and that therefore they are also more likely to have a higher maternal death rate. Due to this higher probable rate it wouldn’t be accurate to apply the maternal death rate for live births to the aforementioned set of women who chose late term abortions.”
Is this the essence of what you’re saying?
If so, some thoughts and some questions for you. In 1960 there were no legalized abortions in the United States. Unless a woman had an illegal abortion (and IMHO even then it is unlikely that she would have had access to an expert medical opinion on which to assess whether the pregnancy posed a risk to her life) it seems reasonable to assume that, barring a miscarriage, the baby would have to be carried to full term and born.
-
Can a woman without professional medical training reasonably assess the risk a pregnancy poses to her life?
-
Could a woman reasonably obtain such a risk evaluation from a competent physician in 1960?
-
If expert medical assessment isn’t available (i.e. answers to questions 1 & 2 are both “No”) is it reasonable to conclude that illegal abortions performed during 1960 were prevalently for other reasons? (i.e. social, financial, emotional, etc.)
-
Unless a woman opted for an illegal abortion in 1960 is it reasonable to assume that (barring miscarriage) the baby would be born?
-
Is it reasonable to assume that some of the women in 1960 who gave birth would have opted for abortion instead had it been a legal option?
-
Is it reasonable to assume that the maternal death rate in 1960 includes those women who would have opted for abortion?
Also, I’d like you to answer the same questions I asked Apos. Here they are again:
If I’ve misinterpreted the meaning of your statement above. Please clarify what your message.
Grim
No, that is not what I am saying. I am not making any claims on what the rate of death would be for woman who choose late term abortions. However, you seem to be assuming that the women who have chosen late term abortion have the same risk of dying as for women generally who give birth, which only applies if women now don’t tend to go for late term abortion because of medical risk, which seems to be the conclusion you are drawing. If this is the case, your argument is circular.
I think it likely that women who would now have had late term abortions would probably have given birth if they lived in the 1960’s. However, if those women were at particular risk, then for obvious reasons their mortality rate would be higher than the average for all live births.
silverfish
I’ve been assuming that differences in maternal death rates would not be drastically different between the two. With you so far.
Ok, is this closer to your characterization of my stance?
“Women who have late term abortions are not at risk. Therefore, women who have late term abortions are not doing it because of a life threatening risk.”
I can see how it may sound circular. However my actual position is closer to this:
Evidence: Maternal death rates are extremely low.
Conclusion: Women have late term abortions for non life threatening reasons.
As far as I can tell I’m not using circular logic. I’m using the data regarding maternal death rates to form a conclusion regarding why a particular reason is not a probable cause. This is no different in format then a statement like:
“Marge never eats cookies. Since she buys cookies anyway it must be for a different reason then eating them.”
I can see what you’re saying here. Let’s posit a group of 100 women, 50 (Group A) who are at a high risk level due to medical reasons during a pregnancy and 50 (Group B) who are relatively risk free during their pregnancy. Further, let’s say that none of the women opt for abortion. Now let’s say that the results turn out to be 20 dead from Group A and 1 dead from Group B for a total of 21 dead due to pregnancy complications. That evaluates to an average maternal death rate of 21% for both of the groups put together, yet the maternal death rate for Group A is 40% while the maternal death rate for Group B is 2%.
However, let’s look at the data on the scale that we’ve been discussing. The table showing the maternal death rate during 1960 shows those death rates in relation to 100,000 live births. Now, let’s posit several arbitrary sets of data and see how the results come out. In all of these scenarios Group A will be the high risk group and Group B will be the low risk group. Also, the maternal death rate used will be that from 1960.
Scenario 1:
Group A: 50,000 women
Group B: 50,000 women
Deaths from:
Group A: 20
Group B: 0
Chance of dying:
Group A: .04%
Group B: 0%
Scenario 2:
Group A: 25,000 women
Group B: 75,000 women
Deaths from:
Group A: 20
Group B: 0
Chance of dying:
Group A: .08%
Group B: 0%
Scenario 3:
Group A: 5,000 women
Group B: 95,000 women
Deaths from:
Group A: 20
Group B: 0
Chance of dying:
Group A: .4%
Group B: 0%
Scenario 4:
Group A: 1,000 women
Group B: 99,000 women
Deaths from:
Group A: 20
Group B: 0
Chance of dying:
Group A: 2%
Group B: 0%
Even if the high risk group was comprised of only 1% of all pregnant women, and all of the deaths were from that group, the chances of dying are still only 2%.
Grim
But what if you carry it even further?
Scenario 5:
Group A: 20 women
Group B: 99,980 women
Deaths from:
Group A: 20
Group B: 0
Chance of dying:
Group A: 100%
Group B: 0%
Isn’t that silverfish’s point (using an admittedly extreme example)? If women in life-threatening situations are those that seek these kinds of abortions, then using the death rate of the general population would draw a wrong conclusion.
I believe you are right (Dave’s cites support this), but I’m not sure I buy your “statistical” evidence, at least in the way you’re spelled it out.
Yes, I see. I don’t think it is justified though, just via the data, as there may be differences between the cases, and we don’t know how big the differences are in this case.
[QUOTE]
Ok, is this closer to your characterization of my stance?
“Women who have late term abortions are not at risk. Therefore, women who have late term abortions are not doing it because of a life threatening risk.”
[QUOTE]
That’s what it sounded like, yes, although less transparently circular.
The problem with this is I don’t think it fits you argument. Your argument seems to be more that most women don’t eat cookies, therefore marge is a typical women, so her cookie buying must be for another reason. In that case, though we might assume that she eats them, and is therefore atypical of women, because that is what most people do with cookies. This doesn’t apply in the case of late term abortion, as there are other plausible reasons.
The problem is assuming that marge is typical. The argument might not be circular as such, but I thing you are assuming that late term women would have similar death rates to ‘normal’ women, which doesn’t seem justified to me. The reason it appear circular is that the assumption of similar death rates is one that is closely linked to the disputed claims that women who have late term abortions do so because they are not at particular risk, which isn’t far from saying that they aren’t at particular risk.
Also, with the scenarios you seem to be using 20 dead each time, without scaling for the population concerned, whereas it would be expected that a higher population would have a higher death toll, for anyone.
silverfish
In the above hypothetical scenarios it is scaled for population. The numbers I was using (100,000 total births with 20 maternal deaths) comes directly from the table I cited above. Here is the cite from the CDC again for easy reference. The 20 deaths is not an arbitrary figure I pulled from thin air, it’s the actual maternal death rate per 100,000 women in the U.S. during 1960. According to this file from the CDC the number of births in 1960 was 4,257,850. 20 maternal deaths per 100,000 births equates out to approximately 851 maternal deaths for 1960. Even if we assumed that ALL of those maternal deaths during 1960 were from the high risk group it would take an extremely skewed distribution between Group A and Group B in order for there to be a significant risk to the members of Group A. Please note that the distribution between Group A and Group B is what actually determines the risk to life that pregnancy poses to Group A (per my examples which show that the fewer women in Group A the greater the risk to that group, assuming that the majority of deaths came from that group). Yes, Group A will likely have higher death rates. However I don’t think that Group A will have drastically higher death rates. IMHO I highly doubt it’s more than a hundred times the rate of ‘normal’ women.
Just for illustration, a last example (again, this is actual real world data, only the distribution between Group A and Group B and the assumption that 100 of the deaths would be for Group A and only 1 for Group B is hypothetical):
Total group amount: 505,000 (at 20 deaths per 100,000 this will give us 101 deaths, 100 for Group A, 1 for Group B. The above hypothetical “100 times higher” death rate)
Group A: 2525 (.5% of the total)
Group B: 502475 (99.5% of the total)
Death rate for
Group A: 4%
Group B: .0002%
Actually in this case the death rate isn’t 100 times higher. The number of deaths is 100 times higher but the death rate is actually 20,000 times higher for Group A. I can’t think of any medical condition which boosts the death rate for any health problem by 20,000 times.
Bob Cos
I completely agree that the stats I’ve posted do not answer the question to the degree of accuracy that I would like. However, the distributions between Group A and Group B would have to be highly skewed in order for it to really make a difference. In your hypothetical scenario 5 Group A is only .02% of the total. What are the chances of that? I’ll state right out that I don’t know the actual distribution and that my stance is based on my opinion that it is reasonable to assume that the number of women in Group A is not so low as to present a great risk to them even if all the maternal deaths came from that group. As such I don’t claim that the case is proven. As in 100% undisputed fact.
Dave’s cites support the notion that women generally don’t have late term abortions for life threatening reasons. My statistical evidence seems to suggest that maternal deaths are unlikely, even with a highly skewed distribution, and even assuming that current day medical science generates the same death rate as 40 years ago.
Just one question for anyone who wishes to respond (silverfish, Bob Cos, Apos, whoever).
Do you support the ability for a woman to have a late term abortions for a non life threatening reason?
Yes.