'Partial-Birth' Abortions: Could So Many Doctors Be That Evil?

Great Debates
21

No, the point is that those who are pro-choice (or pro-abortion, if you prefer) don’t think that there is “another” whom is being refused life. Rather, a fetus is a collection of tissues that has not yet attained “person-hood”.

There are two kinds of anti-choice folks, I’ve found. Those who sincerely don’t know the horror of having their very life put in jeopardy because of a fetus, and those who don’t care.

See how easy it is to show your opponent in a negative light? I bet that a lot of people whom you consider “pro-abortion” would be some of the first to decry third-trimester, non-emergency abortions as being immoral (or, at the very least, not a Good Thing).

My own stance on the issue is that, before brain activity is expressed, the fetus is not a person, and therefore has no right to life (no more than an individual sperm or egg has a right to life). After the brain activity begins, I consider the fetus to be a pseudo-person; It’s life should not be arbitrarily ended, but if the fetus is putting the life of the mother in danger, the life of the mother takes precedence.

22

Well then, I guess that goes along nicely with the very considerate types of anti-abortion people who stand outside of doctors’ offices calling everyone who enters a ‘baby killer’ and a ‘murderer’.

Perhaps some of didn’t know that rape victims are often entering those doctors’ offices for emergency treatment directly after an attack, and perhaps others just don’t care. Perhaps some of them don’t know that there are women walking through those doors who are grieving that a desperately wanted fetus doesn’t have a brain and will never survive to take a breath, and then again, maybe they do know and they just don’t care.

23

And then, perhaps, maybe there are those who took a loved one to an abortion clinic knowing exactly what she was going through and how incredibly difficult this was for her, while not exactly being thrilled about the prospect themselves. Perhaps they stood outside the clinic for eight hours, periodically being allowed in to check up on the patient by a nurse. Perhaps they had to endure twenty people calling them baby killers from ten feet away. Perhaps those same pro-lifers pulled out foam models of a fetus at various stages of development, and offered ridiculous and garish speculation as to exactly what would happen to the soul of the fetus as it was removed.

Perhaps you’re just wrong.

24

Not quite. There are a good number of pro-choicers who believe as you say. However, as evidenced by numerous SDMB threads, there are also a good number of pro-choicers who believe that abortion is indeed murder, but that it should be allowed anyway. It’s a horrible point of view, but a common one.

25

No, but there are that many evil politicians.

A little while back Salon had an article on women who’d had late term abortions. It was deeply tragic. They ranged over a variety of weird medical traumas. Anencephaly was one, the baby (much wanted) had literally NO brain. Another had a baby that was actually dead. What would such a mother have to do now to remove her baby’s corpse before it begins rotting inside her? So-called right to lifers disgust me, when they twist this kind of unbearable tragedy for their political ends.

26

There was a time when society deemed slavery to be morally acceptable and economically necessary. Saying that “soceity currently disagrees” proves nothing.

27

And there was a time when church leaders deemed slavery to morally acceptable-society deemed otherwise.

28

My wife is pregnant. She is 19 weeks along right now. Our first ultrasound since 12 weeks (for the anatomy and sexing) will be done at 21 weeks. This ultrasound is usually done between 19 and 22 weeks. After this, we will know within reasonable doubt if there are gross malformations of the fetus. We may need amniocentesis (which takes at least another week) to know for sure if there are ambiguities. You bet if there are gross malformations, we will abort. There is no reason to carry an anencephalic or an aneuploid fetus to term, IMO, and medicine has given us a safe alternative.

At 22 weeks, the preferred procedure for abortion is some kind of D&X. Intact D&X, from what I have read, has the fewest complications and is the easiest to perform. So we will probably go with intact D&X, or some variation of intact D&X that remains “legal.” In this situation the mother’s life is not in jeopardy but labelling it “elective” trivializes the decision. This is not an uncommon scenario, and I would imagine that the “monster doctors” who perform these procedures in the late second and third trimesters mostly deal with these kind of situations.

At 23 weeks, there is over a 90% mortality for premature delivery, with that remaining 10% taking tens of thousands of dollars to treat, months and months in the hospital, and profound developmental disorders resulting. By 26 weeks, we are talking 80% survival with far less. But at 22 weeks, there is little medical argument to be made that what we are dealing with is a “person.” If you factor in profound abnormalities, these numbers drop off significantly. For instance, IIRC, over 90% of Turner Syndrome (XO) conceptuses are spontaneously aborted (miscarried), even though XO is a mild adult phenotype and quite compatible with life. Spontaneous abortion in the third trimester can be life-threatening and IMO would be far more physically and emotionally traumatic than a safe “elective” abortion at 22 weeks.

The real problem here for the pro-lifers is that the law, as passed, is so vague that it won’t do anything to restrict abortions in the second and third trimesters. As phrased, as I interpret it, it limits a very specific protocol for intact D&X. Other minor variations, for instance stopping the fetus’s heart before extraction, seem to be still legal.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2090215/
http://slate.msn.com/id/2090201/

Abortion is an ugly, horrific procedure. It should be avoided where possible. Abortion is a very poor form of birth control. But the extenuating circumstances are too numerous to forbid it outright. This is not a decision of morality: our legal and moral system has never equated the rights of a pre-25 week fetus with an adult, and it will be a sad and confusing day if this ever comes to pass.

29

as opposed to abstinence before marriage?

am i the only one who finds the term “pro-life” to be terribly offensive?

the idea that this is evil comes from someone believing that this fetus is the same thing as his brother, sister, mother, or co-worker, that it has the same feelings, thoughts, fears, regrets, and the multitude of other things that make us human. you might as well stop eating, because if you’re willing to take that step, vegitarianism isn’t even an option. resemblances aside, a fetus at 21 weeks is less a human than the cow who became the steak you had for dinner. i am personally offended that someone should think that something such as that should be considered socially equivalent to me.

30

do you intentionally imply that a fully grown african-american person has the mental capacity of a fetus? that a fetus ought to have the same rights?

31

There are two kinds of pro-abortion folks, I’ve found. Those who sincerely don’t know the horror that is abortion, and those who don’t care.

Damn straight. The ones who just don’t care, IMHO, simply have no conscience. That’s gotta be the only explanation.

32

An eight year old child doesn’t have the mental capacity of any adult, but you can’t go around killing them.

The divide here is clear- those who believe a fetus is not yet a person, like me, and those who believe a fetus is a person.

Personally, I don’t understand why anyone would draw a line separating an unfertilized egg (or a sperm) and a fetus rather than a fetus and a viable infant, but there you go.

Sorry about my earlier post… I was REALLY ticked off about the post I was responding to. It was a bit flamy though.

33

Just curious, SnoopyFan. The ones who don’t care, do they have no conscience at all, or just concerning this issue ? And couldn’t they have a conscience, just one that differs markedly from yours ?

34

You know, I could make a similar remark about anti-abortion folks, about how there are three kinds: Those who sincerely don’t know the horror that is facing an unwanted pregnancy, and those who don’t care about the lives of women. Christian, how could you be so callous?

I believe abortion is always morally wrong; at the same time, I believe there are times when it is the least bad choice, and I will fight to keep it legal. As has been noted, abortion is less dangerous than childbirth and there are genuinely times when the life of the mother is in danger. Those who would make it illegal for a woman to have an abortion in those circumstances are, in effect, saying that when the choice is between the life of a fetus/child/the term you choose to use and a woman, the government must mandate that the woman will die. Awful choice, isn’t it?

I do care about the life that is to be and the life that is. I have never been pregnant, and, since I have no desire to have children and I’m old enough that it would be risky to do so, I take steps to try to make sure I never will be. This winter, when I was laid-off, single, and suicidal at intervals, if I had found myself pregnant, I would have had an abortion because I was not capable of sustaining myself in such a way that my body could produce a healthy child. The combination of little or no income once unemployment ran out, poor eating habits at best, worsened by depression, and lack of health insurance, thus inability to afford healthcare, would do enough damage to a child before he or she was born. What would you say to ENugent’s mother or dropzone’s sister in law? Do they not know or care about the horror that is abortion?

I am politically pro-choice, yes, even in favor of keeping partial birth abortion legal or, as one of my side’s slogans put it, “Keep abortion safe, legal, and rare” (emphasis mine). Yes, people will abuse the privilege, just as people abuse the privileges of marriage and divorce, just as people oppose the privilege of driving. Should those activities also be illegal?

Respectfully,
CJ
Pro the awful choice

35

I have another SIL (I have a lot of them) who that happened to. Her doctor induced labor so she got all of the “pleasures” of knowingly giving birth to a corpse. She, too, still mourns for that baby.

36

CERTAIN church leaders deemed it acceptable. This was by no means representative of the church in general. Even then, I have yet to see any evidence that this was a prevalent attitude among church leaders at a time when society in general opposed slavery.

Besides, the point is whether we should be looking to society as the basis for one’s morality. We shouldn’t. I’m sure that many SDMBers who support homosexual marriage here would also rail against the society’s opinion that matrimony should be between a man and a woman.

37

So you claim that someone walked right into a clinic, in her third tri, plopped down a check and was done with it? Could you please clarify the non-medical reason?

For you see, I find myself doubting your claim, since every state has some form of restrictions on late term abortions (And West Virginia, not always known as a bastion of liberalism, most certainly had something on the books by the nineties).
The money argument has been done to death on these boards, but suffice it to say, the providers could have sought easier ways to make a much more lucrative living, but chose not to. It’s not about money.

38

I find myself agreeing with Joe Random on the difference of opinion issue. It’s the basic reason that the two sides don’t see eye to eye.

ENugent and Dropzone both pass the test. I think that in any situation which places the life of the mother in peril or in which the child will not be born alive or in any kind of state resembling a human life (lacking a brain) it is a justifiable and necessary procedure.

I do not think that it should be allowed to become an elective procedure. One should not be able to use it to get rid of an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy that lacks any kind of medical danger to the mother or child.

If there is the potential to safely have a healthy child in the normal use of the word, then abortion should just not be allowed. Abortion should not be a convenient method of disposing of an unwanted pregnancy. If you are willing to terminate the pregnancy, then you should have tailored your actions such that you would not have a child. I know that some will disagree with me, but that is the nature of expressing an opinion.

39

A question for you, Snake Legs. If it’s acceptable for a woman to abort a child without a functioning brain, why would it be wrong to abort an early-term fetus before its brain has developed to any kind of functional state?

Is it really just the “potential to have a healthy child”? If so, you’re getting awfully close to the every-sperm-is-sacred school of reproductive philosphy.

40

I don’t think so.

A sperm by itself is nothing. There are lots of conditions that must be met for any particular sperm to become a functioning human being. There must be an egg present in the right stage of maturation, the uterus must be just so, the mother’s body must provide the right sorts of nutrients, etc, etc.

A healthy fetus is an organism that has so far met all of the right conditions to become a fully functioning human person. All that is lacking is time and continued development.

I see this as a big difference.