Federal judge says partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional

[Kevin]

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.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by ktsnake
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.

[AGDee]

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

[Kevin]

Originally posted by AGDee

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

[BirthaBlue4]

Originally posted by AGDee

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

Dee

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

[Kevin]

[ASUADPi]

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.

[AGDee]

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

[BirthaBlue4]

Originally posted by ASUADPi
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.

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.

[ASUADPi]

Originally posted by BirthaBlue4
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.

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.

[valkyrie]

Originally posted by ASUADPi
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.

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?

[ASUADPi]

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"

[Munchkin03]

"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.

[cash78mere]

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.

[valkyrie]

Originally posted by ASUADPi
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"

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