Weigh In: Senate Passes Ban on Late Term Abortion

[MereMere21]

Naturally delivering a full term fetus - one that is at least 37 weeks, is alot more involved than a late term abortion. I'm not an expert on abortions, nor do I really want to be, but it was my understanding from school that late term abortions really weren't done after 25 weeks......? I don't have statistics to back that up, just from what I recollect from my Mother and Baby clinicals and such.

Instances where the health of the mother would come into play:

- tumor that would burst with increased pressure from the growing fetus, that wasn't discovered until the 5th month ultrasound

- uterine rupture due to thinned lining/wall etc...

- blood disorders that would cause a large amount of blood loss in a normal delivery and would be fatal if a c-section had to be done. (usually in these cases, the disorder is known about and doctors advise them not to get pregnant in the first place)

- heart condition that would cause a cardiac arrest if the mother was in prolonged labor.

- Pregnancy Induced Hypertension



Every pregnancy, woman, and fetus is different. Its impossible to make a blanket law covering all women and their babies past a certain gestation. Yes this procedure is barbaric, but once again, when did the baby become more important than the mother?

Just look at this personally - if your wife, sister, or mother was to have a life threatening condition discovered in her 2nd trimester of pregnancy, and the ONLY way to save her life was with a late term abortion - what would you do? Sorry dear, you got pregnant, so you have to die?

The only thing this law is going to do is pave the way for underground abortion clinics

[AGDee]

Originally posted by ktsnake
Health of the mother? How is that? They actually must birth the baby (all but the head), then insert a needle into the skull to suck out the brains.

At this point, the child is birthed. If you actually go through with this birthing process, I see no possible way that this could be to protect the health of the mother. Please enlighten me.

I'm not completely anti-abortion. However, this method is something that is disgusting and in many ways wrong. At 25 weeks, a fetus can actually be viable to survive outside the womb with current medical technology.

Imagine a scenario where a "health of the mother" clause was inserted. Do you think that even 10% of the cases, no, even 1% of the cases would actually be done to avoid post-birth complications?

Nope -- because as I said, the whole birthing process happens anyway in this procedure so that's a pretty moot argument.

Here are some conditions that can cause serious illness or possibly death of the mother (and likely the fetus too) which are not related to "giving birth" but are related to "remaining pregnant"

http://www.emedicine.com/aaem/topic363.htm
thyroid
hypertension
placenta or uterine tears
diabetes
uncontrollable epilepsy
previously undiagnosed heart problems

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Cloud9
Are you a doctor? Please tell me where your research for this conclusion comes from, besides pro-life propoganda.

Are you? Can you prove otherwise? I don't see you offering any evidence to the contrary.

While the following link may be to "pro-life propaganda" it does cite some reliable sources (such as the federal government). This debunks many of the pro-late-term abortion arguments.

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/NRL..._June_1995.pdf

[Cloud9]

I don't need to, because the people above me have already posted a great deal of info. Maybe you should check it out.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Cloud9
I don't need to, because the people above me have already posted a great deal of info. Maybe you should check it out.

So did I, see above. You do the same

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by Munchkin03
Supposedly, this "dilation and extraction" method is the best one for preserving the mother's future fertility, as it doesn't involve salination or cutting of the uterus. Also, it is one of the only late-term abortions that keeps the fetus's body intact--allowing the family to have a burial or memorial service, as well as allowing the body to be used for medical research. I think the procedure is pretty terrible, but I think it has to remain legal for the health of the mother as well as cases where fatal genetic illnesses are detected late in pregnancy.

Let's get real--random women at 25 weeks aren't getting this 'cause they decided they didn't want a baby anymore.

Actually, according to the CDC's website (which is neither pro-life or pro choice, it just reports the information) says:

~Almost half of the women having abortions beyond 15 weeks of gestation say they were delayed because of problems in affording, finding or getting to abortion services. (28)

~Teens are more likely than older women to delay having an abortion until after 15 weeks of pregnancy, when medical risks associated with abortion increase significantly. (29)

I included the bullet point about teens because that makes sense to me. I can imagine that a teen would be TERRIFIED to tell their parent(s) that their pregnant. This would probably contribute to them waiting longer and longer into their pregnancy before saying or doing something (whether deciding to keep the abay or to abort).

Sadly, I find that these statistics reflect other problems within our society as well. (Access to good healthcare, pre-maritial sex, birth contol, etc.)


The CDC really has some good unbiased information.