How about the freaks that decide they should have the right to an abortion 6 months into it? Let me guess, they have the right to partial birth abortions too.

-Rudey

Nowhere has anyone stated that legal abortions are 100% safe.

I agree that appeals to emotion do not amount to effective arguments and that abortions aren't always "safe" or without risk.

The issue of safety is not why abortion should be legal.

While I will agree that what I said had emotional impact. It did come directly from fact. When Pro-Lifers ride around town with a 5 ft tall fetus on a truck that's literally a big distortion. In my experience the pictures are almost exclusively of extremely late term fetuses that don't in any way reflect common first trimester abortions which most women have. My story was, I believe, a pretty typical story from the time period.
Furthermore, I am familiar with the article you cited. That article refers to four women who died from a very rare infection. The article didn't suggest abortion was unsafe and in fact says that the health department is looking into the cause, so that it can be stopped. Infection is a pretty common problem with surgery and procedures of all kinds. It is being addressed the right way by health care professionals. Even with the risks of abortion, which are low, abortion is still safer than childbirth. This is a statement quoted directly from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: "Abortion is a low-risk procedure. An early abortion has less risk than a later one. Both are lower risk than carrying a pregnancy to term."

I have no reason to doubt that the anecdote you shared is true, but I see no fundamental difference between the giant picture of a late-term aborted fetus and stories of back alley abortions. The truth is that I would find a 5 ft tall 10 week-old fetus in the back of a truck equally as disturbing. The fact that the late-term fetus just so happens to look more human makes no difference to me.

So you read the paragraph that says "These cases demonstrate that serious infection can occur after medically induced abortion, much as it can after childbirth, spontanous abortion [miscarriage], and surgical abortion." The article also says that there are no available incidence data for pregnancy-related C. sordellii infections, even though the overall infections rates are. The authors point out that C. sordelli causing fulminant shock syndromes occurs primarily with gynecologic infections and neonatal omphalitis. The authors go on to say that "the risk of matenal death after surgical abortion increases with gestational age, and there are no published estimates for the rate of maternal death after surgical abortion performed in the first trimester.

As you pointed out, infection can occur after anyprocedure. It was not my intention to imply that these 4 infections were common but rather to remind everyone that the safety of an abortion is not guaranteed by the legality of it. The difference between an abortion and an elective surgery, for example, is that the surgery is treating a disease process, whereas an abortion is not (in my opinion). That is what makes any maternal death related to abortion so tragic in my view.

Re: PC
 

This is where a pro-life person would vehemently disagree. Pro-lifers believe that having an abortion is exactly forcing your view onto another person - the unborn child you are carrying.

Re: Re: PC
 

HAH! Well said. I dunno what your beliefs are, irishpipes, but a very true statement indeed.

Re: Re: PC
 

Okay, but prohibiting a woman who wants an abortion from having one is forcing someone else's view (abortion is wrong) on her. She then is being forced, as the result of that view, to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want.

Why should the fetus be entitled to greater protections than the woman carrying it?

You can also die of TSS by using tampons. It's in the warning labels. They're still legal.

I would interpret your example as giving the fetus the same protection, not greater or lesser, than the woman.

Re: Re: PC
 

The difference is that some of us don't believe that the initial stages of fetal development represent an actual person whose wishes and feelings should be considered.

Re: Re: Re: PC
 

Exactly. It is why the abortion debate cannot be debated.

Of course. This is precisely why I said that the safety of abortion (or in your example, tampons) is not guaranteed by being legal.

Re: Re: Re: Re: PC
 

I actually edited my post b/c I don't agree that being pro-life is imposing your views on anyone else. The fetus isn't yet a "someone else" to me.

Anything can be debated. It NEEDS to be debated so that old men in dark suits won't pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

It's much more guaranteed than it being illegal. Government regulations ensure a decrease of black markets. That applies to abortions, gun control, prescription drugs, illicit drugs, etc.