So do you want to discuss it or do you want to stand on a soapbox?

Now that you mention Christian faith, I have to ask where Christians get the idea that God would be anti-abortion. In fact, the Bible doesn't address the morality of abortion at all, and the only verse I know of, in my research, that addresses the death of a fetus/unborn child, is Exodus 21:22-23:

So, it appears that God (given that the Bible is the word of God) doesn't consider the fetus/unborn child to be worth as much as a post-birth human's life. He says that if the fetus/unborn child dies, that's "no mischief." and there are only minor punitive damages as deemed necessary by judges and the husband. Yet, if the woman is seriously harmed, that is what is considered evil. So, if even God doesn't think an unborn child's malicious death is worth more than a slap on the wrist, payment of a fine, or 20 lashes (etc), why do Christians now believe it is his will that they be treated exactly as post-birth humans? I don't question the tradition, just how it originated in the first place. it doesn't appear to come from the Bible/God Himself.

Why does anybody think it's the government's position to decide what medical procedures can be done and which ones can't? Isn't that a decision that's better left to, I don't know, medical professionals?

I mean, it's easy enough to just not have an abortion if you think it's wrong. If you're a man, this will never be an issue for you since you could never be pregnant. Why worry about it?

If we got rid of the government and all those nice laws and regulations, think about how many lawyers would be out of work.

-Rudey

Because some men actually care what happens to the children they helped to create. Just because they basically have no rights prior to birth does not mean that they shouldn't have those rights or that they don't have the right to care.

Isn't that different from caring about the "children" that they've had nothing to do with producing? It's one thing to care about whether your potential child is aborted, but another thing entirely to want to force your ideals onto people you've never met.

Is it different? Yes. Is it still an issue a man can be concerned about because it may or may not affect him one day? Yes. Can a man find it morally offensive that it's okay to kill a child that is viable outside the womb? Yes. You don't have to be personally affected by a situation to care about it or have an opinion on it and you can't really tell someone else what they can or cannot have an opinion on.

And what about the father who wants to keep the baby and if the mother won't take it, then he takes it?

Actually you should also tell the lesbian (godfrey) who is a proven liar with bad grammar that she should stop posting because women don't make other women pregnat. At least men take part in the process of the creation of children.

-Rudey

Rudey
U crack me up!

Not so, once again. I went with a friend once to get her EC at our undergrad's health center, and it was $72, and it required a pregnancy test.

That same friend later went on to get pregnant in an abusive situation. She also had existing health problems that would have made pregnancy harrowing, but perhaps not life threatening. Luckily, she had the foresight to go to the doctor early. Not all pregnancies are happy events. Sometimes things happen late into the pregnancy--such as the diagnosis of certain conditions--that change a once joyous event into a nightmare. All I'm asking is that there is a clause in any law banning late-term abortions that allows the procedure to protect the life and future fertility of the mother.

That is not the case at all schools. At Vanderbilt, for example, you see the dr. for 5 minutes, no exam, no pregnancy test and you pay $10.

ETA:
University of Virginia charges $15. Depending on your history, they may or may not do an examination.

University of South Carolina does not routinely test for pregnancy or perform examinations.

University of Wisconsin - Madison has a number you can call and not even see a doctor to get the prescription

University of Michigan requires a visit with a nurse and you pay $13.60 for the pills.

My only point is this - Many people say that emergency contraception is so difficult to get and that's not the case everywhere. It doesn't have to get to the point that someone would need a late-term abortion.

Well, maybe Vanderbilt cares less about the woman's health and more about protecting the reputation of their little Vandy flowers. I know several of the other schools in Wisconsin do give it out, as opposed to the two I've attended, but they all require a doctor's exam and are substantially more expensive.

I didn't say it was the case at all schools, did I now? I was just pointing out that EC isn't always as easy to get in some places as you seem to believe. My undergrad was pretty liberal, and even then it wasn't the easiest to get. If someone wanted it, they could get it, but it wasn't a wham-bam-thank you 'maam do you want that $10 charged to Daddy's account deal.

Just so you know.

Charged to Daddy's account? What's that supposed to mean? Gotta love stereotypes.

I said it wasn't like that at all schools because you said "that's not so" when I said there were other ways to get it. I wanted to make the point that it varies from school to school and throughout various organizations. It sounded to me in your post as if you said the experience your friend had was standard across the board.

Or maybe they want to make the process less intimidating. "Little Vandy flowers?" :rolleyes:

Val, you're oversimplifying the pro-life argument. To them, it's not simply a "medical procedure". It's killing a defenseless human being.

While I personally don't completely agree with that position, I don't agree with yours either. Men are allowed to believe in principles that effect people besides themselves. The pro-choice movement does have some strong, intelligent arguments -- why not use them?

How did this thread get to be about vanderbilt emergency contraceptions?

DZHBrown assumed every school had access like hers. Some schools (Vanderbilt) it's easy to get, some schools (Marquette) it's impossible to get, some schools it's middle of the road (Brown).

This is such an extremely sensative topic...but getting back to the point of partial birth abortions and not emergency contraceptive.

I myself am pro-choice. I don't think anyone has a right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. With that said, I know myself I could never personally have an abortion but if some other woman wants to that is her right.

If I remember correctly (and those out there feel free to correct me if I am wrong, which I might be) but isn't partial-birth similiar to late term abortion? If so, I don't agree with late term abortions unless the mothers life is at risk. My feeling is that if you can't figure out that you are pregnant after 12 weeks than you are shit out of luck. Unfortunately, I live in a state where abortion is a contraversy because of so few providers and because stat's have shown women using abortion as a means of birth control. I don't agree with that.

My feeling is abortions should be not permitted once the fetus is viable (which means it can survive outside the womb, without the help of machines) it's called wait until the baby is born and give it up for adoption.

It seems from what I've read so far, we all have very mixed opinions on abortion.

I just want to remind everyone that this is a sensative topic, that we are all adults and we can discuss this rationally.

As I always say "agree with me, disagree with me, but please respect my opinion"

I understand what you're saying and you're right, but I can't say I really understand the belief behind it (plus it just bothers me when men are pro-life because they can't really understand the feeling of "Oh shit what if I'm pregnant" and unless you can understand that, I have a hard time taking your opinion on the issue seriously, from a personal perspective).

I look at it like this -- I am a strict vegetarian and I find it morally wrong to eat meat -- really morally wrong. I'd love to live in a world where nobody killed animals for food. However, I realize that not everybody agrees with me and I can respect the fact that others eat meat -- even though to me, it's killing an innocent, defenseless creature. When it comes down to it, it is not my place to determine what other people do -- and believe me, there are many, many things that I don't agree with that other people do.

To me, the biggest problem with the pro-life argument, from a personal (not legal -- I don't want to get all lawyery right now because I'm drinking a beer) is that to deny a woman an abortion is to FORCE her to carry something inside her body that she does not want there, and to force her to deal with all the crap that goes with pregnancy. I find that unacceptable. It sounds crass but I'll say it anyway -- imagine if you had a tapeworm and it was making you feel sick but someone told you that you had to keep it there for nine months. I don't believe that an "unborn child's" "rights" should ever outweigh those of a woman, period.

Thanks for that :D

I was mostly just asking the question to remind people what the thread was abotu;)

Forgive me if quoting only a small part of what you said seems to misrepresent you. However, you summed up your argument very well with that statement -- and to a point, I agree with you.

This bill was to outlaw a procedure that (thank you sugar&spice) occurs in about 1% of cases. Partial birth abortions become the procedure of choice at about 17 weeks. Medical science now allows us to have babies actually survive after birth from the 21st week on.

As far as what should be legal, and when a person should be considered a person, I've stated before that I believe it should be at the point where the baby would be viable outside the womb. At that point, the life is not so much joined with the mother's. The two can be separated at any point. If a mother wants to deliver the premature baby and then give it up to adoption, an actual delivery is basically the same procedure without the killing part.

I agree that the "Oh shit I'm pregnant" women should have the choice available to them. But with freedom, there should be responsibility. If you want an abortion, get it done. However, I just don't see the justice in destroying a life for the sake of convenience.

Of all the reading I've done on the subject, I couldn't fine even one instance where someone said a partial birth abortion was medically necessary to save a life. If it was, I'd have no problem with it. However, since it's almost the exact same procedure as a delivery, I really don't see how that argument would hold any water at all.

Well stated! (mainly because I agree with every word):D

This is the last thing I'll say on this since it did get off topic, but I never made that assumption, so don't put the words in my mouth. I was attempting to show that it's NOT extremely difficult to access ECP across the board. I edited my post to reflect that because all that was being said about ECP was that is was so hard to get, it was too expensive, etc. etc. I never made any assumption, as you just did.

Godfrey, I appreciate your interest and tactfully asked and researched question about why Christians (in General) feel that abortion is wrong. I also see your point of view and how you interpreted those verses, I however, disagree and interpret those verses differently. I interpret those verses as, If a man ACCIDENTALLY causes harm to an unborn child, then his punishment should not be as severe. It goes on to say that if the woman is further hurt, or if it is maliciously hurt, that the punshment should be greater, as in that of killing a live human (eye for eye stuff). Go on and read that whole chapter, especially Exodus 21:18-26 to get the full context. The King James version is good, and so is the New American Standard Bible, which says:
Exodus
21:22
"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges {decide.}
21:23
"But if there is injury, then you shall appoint {as a penalty} life for life,"

This furthers the cause of Pro-Life, because it says basically, that if 2 men are fighting with each other, and a woman "gets caught in the crossfire" and her unborn child is killed as a result, then the offender's punishment should not be as great as if he had intentionally killed the child and harmed the woman.

I will post some more on this subject in a later thread.

More on Christians and Abortion
 

I further believe that the very nature of God and knowing Him can lead Christians to believe that God is pro-life. His Loving Nature and love for Children is a good example.

One verse that supports a pro-life stance is Gen 1:27-28 (New American Standard)

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Christians believe that we are made in the image of God, and that's one reason killing is so wrong. Most Christians believe that life begins with conception.

God wants us to be fruitful and multiply: abortion is not fruitful or multiplying. More "be fruitful and multiply verses" can be found in:
(New American Standard):
Genesis 8:17, 9:1, 9:7, 17:20, 28:3, 35:11, Lev 26:9, Jer 23:3, and Ezek 36:11

Another verse supporting Pro-Life views is the verse I quoted in my original post on this subject. In these verses, God is telling the prophet Jeremiah that before he was even conceived, God had a plan for his life. Most Christians, myself included, believe that God has a plan and vision for our life even before we are conceived, like He had for Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 (KJV) says "Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations'."

There are many more verses in the Bible that support the Pro-Life stance. One example is how many women in the Bible see bearing children as a gift and blessing from God. Take Sarah (wife of Abraham-- see the book of Genesis), and Elisabeth (Mother of John the Baptist, Cousin to the Virgin Mary) who were both barren for many years and then blessed with children. Both women were extremely greatful for their children, and knew that God was truely blessing them when he allowed them to conceive.

And perhaps the most famous Mother of all, Mary the Mother of God, also saw her pregnancy as a gift from God.
Luke 1:42 says "...Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."

Pike, there are many Christians (such as myself) that consider the Bible an excellent guide book for life. However, like any guide book, what has the final say is not something that a man wrote down 2000 years ago. It's my own moral compass (which has served me very well throughout my life).

Because of our alleged freedom of and from religion, I'm uncomfortable with the government legislating based solely on Biblical passages. That really makes us no better as a free society than some of those that we're trying to set free from religious tyrants in the middle east.

I received a letter from my Republican state rep yesterday that detailed what he had done this year in the house. His letter lead with the fact that he voted in favor of the "Defense of Marriage Act". That's nice... my state is 47th in teacher pay, (mostly due to the fact that we have over 600 school districts complete with superintendants and staff) is running a budget entirely based on passing bonds, has one of the most expensive worker's comp systems in the country, a confiscatory tax plan, and is obsessed with giving out freebies to the buddies of powerful politicians. Yeah, but they passed the freaking defense of marriage act which will probably be turned over by the Supreme Court (or just worked around by people going out of state) in no time at all. And he opposes a lotter! INDIAN TRIBES ALREADY OPERATE LOTTERIES IN THIS STATE! Bravo!

In my opinion, this grandstanding of politicians for the religious right -- passing meaningless legislation is doing serious damage to this country an our politicians credibility, with me and with much of the American public.

ETA: Sorry for the hijack, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

ktsnake, I agree with everything you just said, and I think it's relative. The Bible contradicts itself in several places, come on! I think the Bible is an important part of a religious upbringing if you are Christian, but it's not the way and the truth and only that. Maybe that's the difference between being Catholic and Fundamentalist.

Although one doctor said that partial birth abortions are never a medical necessity, numerous doctors argue that. Here are some links:

http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/hydrceph.html

http://www.acog.org/from_home/public...nr02-13-02.cfm


They discuss things like:

Severely hydrocephalus babies that will rupture a woman's uterus if delivered vaginally and who have no chance of survival outside the womb. They talk about the size of the head of these babies being bigger than an adults' head the draining of the fluid in the head to collapse the skull is necessary to avoid rupturing the woman and risking her own life.

The alternate to this is doing a C-section and letting the baby die naturally after birth.

They do say that a c-section is an alternate to this procedure in most medical necessity cases, but what if a woman has a condition that makes giving her anasthesia a high risk to her survival?

I also believe you have to eliminate all religious arguments from an argument related to law. We have freedom of religion and that means that someone else's religious beliefs can't be forced on you.

There is a ton of debate about when life starts. I for one, do not believe it starts at conception, because those few cells that exist at that point aren't really anything. I have my own thoughts about when life does begin but I'm not going to impose those on others. They have to decide that for themselves, since not even the scientists agree.

Giving a vaginal birth to a 6 inch fetus is way different than labor to a full size baby, as far as difficulty, strain on your body. Go through a 34 hour labor with a normal sized baby before you say that it's no different doing it at 22 weeks than at 40 weeks.

I know two females who had this procedure. One was a diabetic with high blood pressure (before the pregnancy) who developed a severe heart condition while pregnant and it was determined that going through a normal birth or a c-section would kill her. She was devastated that she had to end that pregnancy, but it was better than being dead. Because of her medical instability, she is unable to adopt, work, or do much housework. She's 30 and she and her husband are devastated that she will never have a family. She was married and very much wanted to have a baby. In fact, they had gone through fertility treatments to get pregnant in the first place. She was under very close doctor supervision the whole pregnancy. She is not even strong enough to survive the heart surgery that she now needs. They hope her heart condition will get somewhat better on it's own now so that they can do the heart surgery she will still need.

The second was a 14 year old girl I met while she was a patient of mine in an adolescent psych unit. She got pregnant while at a party that her mother had forbid her from going to. She went anyway and was gang raped. Since she didn't want to tell her mother she went to that party, she hid her pregnancy (and rape) from everybody until about 23 weeks, when she started to show. She then attempted suicide with pills and when she was unsuccessful, she was admitted to our unit. The doctors deemed, after numerous ultrasounds, that her uterus was not yet developed enough to withstand a pregnancy and they performed an abortion. They hoped she would continue to develop normally and would be able to have kids someday, when she planned to. She was a bright, sweet girl who was given a second chance after making one poor decision. (She didn't even drink at this party, for those who will question it).

It's so easy to judge others until you've been in a difficult situation.

Dee

I'll concede the point on the medical necessity part -- especially when there is a zero chance of survival outside the womb.

If this is the case, then I'm in favor of what the court in San Fran did. If this is done out of medical necessity, then I'm all for it.

Your last example though, is one where the baby could have been delivered by c-section or (potentially) naturally. I think the death in that situation of a 23-week old child was unnecessary as it would have potentially been viable outside the womb.

As always, there will be some exceptions to the rule. Perhaps some allowance should be made for medical necessity (but with VERY strict rules, again, I'd be satisfied with nothing less than violations of these rules counting as murder in the first degree).

***

As for GP, yeah, they taught me in Catholic schools that our church was based on tradition going back to the time of Christ AND the Bible. Don't want to get into a religious debate with protestants though. That's just the way the Catholic church is. And we're bigger, so :p

Again, I don't think ANYONE would argue with someone who had to have the procedure because of serious health problems or rape.

The issue comes from all the other cases, the people that have sex, end up pregnant and don't want to take responsibility for their actions. The basic purpose of sex is to procreate, so you can't be mad if you have sex and that happens. That's why there are contraceptives (well that and all the diseases of course). I just think that if you make your bed, you need to lie in it. Someone who is raped or whose health fails didn't make that bed, so they don't HAVE to lie in it. Everyone else does.

Getting back to the original topic of the partial-birth procedure, I think an issue that can come from this is whether or not but delivering MOST of the baby, is it at that point a baby, or is it still a fetus? I mean, she's laying there with 3/4 of a baby sticking outof her and then they do the do. If a woman was giving birth for real, and they head was stuck and when they got it out, the baby was no longer alive, the baby is considered a baby and it "died". So isn't doing this procedure considered "killing", if the baby came out most of the way through labor

Some pictures
 

http://www.lancasterlife.com/images/lilpba1.gif

http://www.lancasterlife.com/images/lilpba2.gif

http://www.lancasterlife.com/images/lilpba3.gif

http://www.lancasterlife.com/images/lilpba4.gif

http://www.lancasterlife.com/images/lilpba5.gif

Maybe it's just me but I don't find the pictures appropriate. To me it seems like by putting the pictures on your post you are trying to force people to believe what you believe, that abortion is morally wrong.

One of the great things about this country is that we have these unfound freedoms. One them of them is to think what we want to think without others imposing their beliefs onto the group.

By you putting those pictures up offends me. It offends not because of abortion, I get that abortion is killing a fetus. No what offends me is that I feel that you are trying to impose your beliefs on to everyone else. And that is just not cool.

Although some are saying that there is no argument for if a woman's life is in danger, this law did not make allowances for this possibility.

As for the second scenario I posed, I probably wasn't clear that they thought that if they did a c-section, they didn't think this girl's uterus would ever develop properly. This was also in 1989, when babies weren't surviving at 23 weeks. I did an internship in a NICU in 1987 and was told then that survival wasn't possible until 28 weeks or so. Medical technology has advanced a lot since then.

The hydrocephaly website I posted above says that they only take out the fluid, not the brain, if that makes a difference to anybody.

This is some information from a website that details fetal development. This section is the 23 week description.

If your baby were to be born now, she would still have a good chance of survival (about 85 percent) with the right care. Advances in science and technology now mean that a 24-week-old baby can grow outside the womb if necessary, although about 50 percent of children in this situation will have some severe and permanent damage.

Dee

Those pictures just depict the procedure, its science. He's not trying to push his view, he's trying to push the facts. That is what the procedue does. For the sake of intelligent conversation, I think that its necessary to see what we're talking about, for those that didn't exactly know.:rolleyes:

Yes, but it was my opinion that by posting the pictures he was trying to push his thoughts on everyone else. And it's your opinion that he did it to "educate" people. That's your opinion and I respect that. But that means you "rolling your eyes at me" is rude because your not respecting my opinion.

I don't agree -- I'm against a ban on the procedure and the pictures don't bother me at all. That's what happens -- why be afraid to see a picture of it?

BirthaBlue, I'm not sure where you come from, but the purpose of sex for many people is not to procreate -- it's for pleasure.

Pike1483, thanks for explaining your Christian perspective -- it's interesting, but can you explain why your Christian views should be the basis for laws that affect me, a non-Christian? I think that religious views and politics should be two separate things -- I'm sure you disagree with that, but doesn't it seem unfair to sort of impose religion on someone who doesn't believe it by using it to make laws?

I'm just curious, I stated "maybe it's just me" okay so why am I being "attacked" because I found the pictures offensive because MY OPINION was that they weren't posted to "educate" people on abortion.

This is an extremely sensative topic and it's not cool attacking people because they think differently, or feel differently. We are all our own individual people with our own individual opinions and that was my opinion.

All throughout this thread I have read people attacking other GC members because their opinions are different. It's just not cool. It's not cool when people "roll their eyes at you" or attitude is like "duh you should have known this"

"Coreen Costello, a full-time mother of two, testified to Congress: "When I was seven months pregnant I was having premature contractions. . . . During an ultrasound, the physician became very silent. . . . My husband reassured me that we could deal with whatever was wrong. We had talked about raising a child with disabilities. We were willing to take whatever God gave us. . . . My doctor . . . informed me that they did not expect our baby to live. She was unable to absorb any amniotic fluid and it was puddling into my uterus. . . . This poor precious child had a lethal [neuromuscular disease] and had been unable to move for almost two months. The movements I had been feeling . . . had been nothing more than bubbles and fluid." For Coreen and her husband, who were both pro-life, terminating the pregnancy was not an option. "I wanted her to come on God's time. I did not want to interfere." Later doctors discovered that the baby's body was stuck in a transverse position, wedged against her cervix. "Due to swelling, her head was already larger than that of a full-term baby. Natural birth or induced labor were not possible. I considered a caesarean section, but experts at Cedars-Sinai Hospital were adamant that the risks to my health . . . were too great. . . . The doctors all agreed that our only option was the intact D&E procedure. [Afterward] my husband and I held her tight and sobbed. . . We memorized every inch of her tiny body. . . She wasn't missing part of her brain. There was no hole from scissors. There was a needle hole covered with a regular band-aid on the back of her head. She looked peaceful. . . . I had one of the safest, gentlest, and most compassionate ways of ending a pregnancy that had no hope." Coreen became pregnant again, and recently gave birth to a healthy son."

Also, in "Abortion, Law, and Health," an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine (I'd assume they were pretty balanced, without some major bias one way or the other), NOTHING is mentioned of the word "scissors," and the description is more similar to that of Mrs. Costello's than of the diagram posted above. One of the reasons that this procedure is preferred by doctors is that it leaves the baby in a better condition than in other procedures, allowing for an examination of the body afterwards. Also, it leaves the remains in a better condition for funeral and burial.

If someone can give me concrete evidence from an established, reputable medical journal, that women are having this procedure out of convenience, I would be more than happy to see this. Until then, however, I believe that these procedures are a last resort, and they are used for crisis pregnancies in which the life and future fertility of the mother are in danger.

I would have no problem with the diagram if it truly portrayed what happened. I volunteer at clinics, and I'm used to seeing the pictures of aborted fetuses that anti-choicers hurl at the women going into the clinics.

ktsnake-

where did you find those pictures from? the fact that it says "jams" leads me to believe that it is not from a medical website, but rather from a pro-life website. please clarify.

I'm not sure if this is directed at me, but I'm not attacking you.