I expect you are right. I guess what the courts will decide is whether that tiny minority should be denied a procedure that might otherwise lessen the risk to the woman.
Since it is a procedure that is done in the 3rd trimester, the baby is viable, though it may have to spend some time in an incubator. In the event that a woman could carry a baby 7 months but not 9, it would be possible to deliver early and incubate the child. I think it can't be denied that the ban is an ideological first step. I don't see how it is any more barbaric than dismembering a baby in the womb and pulling him out piecemeal -- which is the alternative. If this ban sticks, I'm certain all (or nearly all) 3rd trimester abortions would be the next target. I'm still not decided if that's a problem for me. I feel like opposition to this particular ban though is a case of the ends justifying the means -- they'll tolerate a particular evil for the perceived greater good.
i agree with you entirely. however, that's from the perception of someone who thinks this is a living human being far earlier than many. what this discussion subtracts is the whole, "this baby isn't viable" side of the argument. this is the 3rd trimester...and while the baby is being born. who cares if the baby can't live on its own...that's conjecture...because in 5 seconds, we're going to find out if it can. it will be attempting to take its first breath in literally a matter of seconds when this procedure hits its climax. that's what i think is ultimately more barbaric to us....we've seen childbirth...we've seen that moment of first breath...and we know what a newborn looks like...and the thought of this is truly ghastly. others in the second trimester can say, "look..that thing isn't human...it's not really a person...blah, blah blah." and i can disagree with that until i turn blue in the face...but that argument just doesn't work in this discussion.
No one seems willing to debate this. I wish someone would, because I'm inclined to believe you. It seems not unlike the gun control debate ... to use newly created, politically loaded terms to get public support and incrementally inch legal precedent.
have you read my posts above?? here's the last sentence of one of them: You can call it dilation and extraction...you can call it partial birth abortion...you can call it a lollipop. It doesn't change the nature of what's being done. The baby is partially born....and then destroyed. That's it. ____________________________________ semantics are unnecessary...just describe the procedure itself to people...that carries far more weight than any title i could give it.
There are more than six billion people in the world, so there are more than six billion opinions on abortion. Here's my opinion: If the fetus can live on its own outside a woman's body, then it's too late for an abortion. If the baby cannot realistically live (and later thrive) outside a woman's body, then it's entirely the woman's choice. That is my opinion. It's also my understanding that women cannot abort fetuses in the third trimester. Am I wrong on that?
because the baby is partially born...literally, it's head is outside of the woman's body entirely when the procedure is done.
wrong. that happens in partial birth abortion nearly 100% of the time. Specifically, Roe v. Wade said a woman's health had to be at issue in order for a woman to have an abortion outside of the first trimester. But later courts have expanded that to mean even mental health. And this ends up being the "health issue" involved in the VAST majority of abortions performed after the first trimester. Keep in mind...this doesn't mean the lady is losing it...this can be as simple as saying, "i don't think i'm gonna be able to support this child and it has me really stressing out." These are the majority of the "health issues" that we're aborting babies because of past the first trimester for according to abortion doctors on the record in Congressional testimony and according to the reports sent in by abortion doctors to the state reporting agencies.
And that by itself allows the right to take a life that is just inches away from being born? Look, I'm not an anti-choice close minded conservative. I believe that a women should have a right to choose. I think that abortions within the first trimester is a good idea. I think that the morning after pill should've been legal in the states 20 years ago. But if a women is able to make a decision about having an abortion 6 months into it, she shouldn't have one.
From what I heard (could be right wing propaganda) a knife/scissors in the back of spinal cord for instant death.
In September, 1993, Brenda Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse with thirteen years or experience, was assigned by her nursing agency to an abortion clinic. Since Nurse Shafer considered herself "very pro-choice," she didn’t think this assignment would be a problem. She was wrong. This is what Nurse Shafer saw: " I stood at the doctor’s side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby’s heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby’s body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby’s body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby’s head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I never went back to the clinic. But I am still haunted by the face of that little boy. It was the most perfect, angelic face I have ever seen."
not propaganda. but incomplete as well...don't forget the vacuum to suck the brain out. the scissors are simply inserted in to create the opening foe vacuum tube. this is the exact procedure the legislature sought to ban.
MM, I agree with much of what you have to say in this thread but I feel a need to correct you on this point. If a baby's head is outside of the woman's body and the baby is alive, the procedure is considered murder. For that reason, the baby is delivered feet first so that the head remains in the uterus. Then forceps are inserted into the back of the babys head and used to cut the baby's brain up until it stops moving. At that point the baby's head is crushed so that it can be removed, generally, the woman doesn't have to push. In answer to why this procedure is done if it is so dangerous, often the problem arises when the woman thought she wanted to keep the baby. It isn't until later in the pregnancy that some types of birth defects can be detected (ie. blindness or deafness). At that point, if the couple doesn't want to raise a child handicapped in that way, it is too late to have any other form of abortion. The baby is just far too large. On a side note, I find it interesting that we (as a society) have left the issue of whether someone is a human or not up to the mother. I am currently at 10 weeks and like most expecting parents I don't await some magical moment after which I will suddenly be a mother of a baby. Already I've seen the baby several times through ultrasound and got to see him or her moving arms and legs and watch the heart beating. When you want the baby, it seems to be a baby from the beginning, albeit with some growth and development ahead. If you don't want a baby you might be thinking of it as a mass of tissue well after it's gone off to college...
you're exactly right. the "diagrams" i've seen of the procedure always show the baby coming out feet first. so if the "top half" of the body comes out first, it's murder....but if the "bottom half" comes out first, it's all good. brilliant legal distinction. the world needs more lawyers to help sort out these ethical traps for us.
That distinction is really stupid, because believe me, I've been around lots of babies, and the bottom half is very alive. Hoo boy, I tell you what. Mrs. Valdez, congrats on your pregnancy, and all best wishes to you and yours.
