it should be D&C Dilation and curtilage.

I also know there is a relatively new "medical abortion" as opposed to surgical abortion. You insert a pill vaginally on the first day at the clinic and then 24 hours laster insert four more I think and that starts heaving bleeding and you pass blood in the privacy of your own home. Sounds a bit more civilized that surgery but I guess there are pros and cons of both.

Dilation and extraction. It's the medical name for "partial-birth abortion."

ilovemyglo is taking about dilation and curettage (D&C), which is one of the more common first trimester types of abortion. Dilation and evacuation (D&E) is common during the second trimester, along with a couple other types. D&X abortions, or what are commonly known as partial birth abortions, generally take place during late second trimester or into the third trimester.

yes I agree that all types of abortions are barbaric

thank you for clearing up the different types of abortions though sugar and spice. I'll be honest, I tried not to pay attention to that part of my mother and baby education in Nursing school.


The difference between late term and partial birth abortions are like Sarah said. I posted about this topic because I thought the senate had passed a bill to ban late term abortions done after the 5 month. Then I read it was any abortion after 3 months of pregnancy. Maybe the media are reporting it using both terms?

I am 100% pro-choice. However, I don't agree with late-term abortion unless there are extreme cases (the mother's health deteriorates or the fetus is found to have defects). Although I may not agree with late-term abortions unless there are some good reasons behind it, that doesn't mean there should be a law preventing it. Women will have abortions no matter what. I fear that this will start the whole back-alley abortions again.
I really hope that the Supreme Court does not vote in favor of this bill.

Delt Alum ,

If you put your seat up on chairs at movie theatres, and some one else sits down in that chair, and you still don't move your feet, then you shouldn't be allowed to have kids. Rude people suck.

Well, OK. I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Seems to me that rudeness is a learned trait, not something you have from birth.

Dumb kids can come from brilliant parents and brilliant kids from dumb parents.

And many "gifted" kids have huge problems.

I still don't know how you would decide who should or shouldn't be parents.

I know about that gifted thing :(

upon further reflection....
some sort of licence to procreate.
use testing to see who would be abusive, etc., but this is getting off topic.

Well, the process is already somewhat in play for adoption. There is an extreme screening process for whether parents are emotionally/financially/sometimes even morally able to care for a child. For some reason, we don't have that screening process for people who just want to have kids and randomly get pregnant.

Not that I'm for it, but I'm just playing devil's advocate. ;)

I think we tried sterilization here around the turn of the century (ideas and thinking precusor to the Genome project if I'm not mistaken). Then Hitler took the same premise for his superior race idea. We sterilized mainly handicapped and mentally ill people though - a few thousand I think.

We also did much sterilization of non-whites in the 1950s-1970s, including massive sterilization in Puerto Rico during that time period.

we did? I don't think I knew that.....

This is currently happening in China (esp Tibet). Of course the never "mean" to sterilize women... but a lot of the things the Chinese government is doing to 'enforce' their one-child rule is effectively sterlizing women against their will. :(

I was going to go into detail, but I won't. Do a websearch if you're interested.

I know they have been sterilizing women in China for decades to help curb their population issue. I wonder why human rights activists haven't been more prevelent there? or maybe they are and the news here is too enfatuated with Kobi Bryant to cover it.


This is kind of another issue but the China thing reminded me - In India, they are having a real problem of female fetuses being aborted because they are girls (expense because of dowry etc...) Experts predict that boys will out number the girls 50 to 1 in 10 years.

The same issue is now becoming prevalent in China as well, since people want their 'only' child to be a boy, of course.