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
Hybrid Mode
