partial birth abortions

[BigJim]

why exactly are partial birth abortions considered worse than normal abortions?

A "normal abortion" is carried out between conception and I think, 11 weeks, before the embryo has graduated to the foetus stage and devloped it's various systems. Beyond this point it can feel emotions like fear and excitemtn, and physical sensations like pain.

A PBA (to use one of the terms by which it is known) is done at a much later stage when the foetus is developed and rapidly becomming a baby. Steve mentioned one instance of when a woman did a few weeks short of her due date to spite her husband. The difference between murder and legal abortion was about 20 days. Sickens me to be quite honest.
Instead of being done by scraping said ball of unformed cells off the side of the uterus, it's done by virtually decapitating the child. From what I've learned of in this thread it's gory, horrible and traumatic to all involved. I would say that any use of it for anything except dire medical needs of the mother, are immoral. I'm open to any other scenarios that people can put forward as to why it could be done other than medical, but I can't think of any at present.

 

[sushi854]

you people are still at it?!?!?

ok, I'm as bad as the rest of you, because I find myself back here again as well. Seeing as how the thread grew by about 40 posts overnight, I guess there's not much to add. Jim, the thing that troubles me about the whole partial birth ban is the fact that "dire medical need" could be seen subjectively by medical professionals and activist legal authorities as well. Again, no one can say that this procedure is common. A few isolated incidents have beer reported, and while they may seem shocking, there is nothing to indicate that this happens all the time. Again I ask, what is the issue here? If it is simply aportion I think everyone has made their points and no one is going to change their mind. Besides, this thread is getting too long to read🙂

By the way Jim, the only comment in here directed to you personally is the sentence that begins with your name.

 

[venray]

Sushi..you are right that we may not change our minds, but hashing out the issues just might make it easier for us to learn to listen and at least respect one another's views without personal attacks.

Everyone who has posted has offered opinions that contain value. (though we may have done so in a heated way)

I for one see a lot of value in this thread which is one of the reasons that I have not edited or moderated it since offering my initial opinion on the issue.

As for the length I try not to re-read the whole thing each time....😀

Ray

 

[sushi854]

I can respect that. As long as the thread remains valuable, I agree people should continue posting. I have been repeating myself, but just because I really don't have anything new to add doesn't mean that nobody else does. Who knows, maybe someone will add a new dynamic to this whole debate.

 

[BigJim]

Venray my friend, lend me your shell-like...

Bet you'd never have thought that I would call you the voice of reason, mate, but you have summed it all up admirably...

Though we may disagree on when a baby is a baby or whether or not potential humanity is reason enough to give it a chance, we DO agree that responsibility is key. Responsibility does not fall on the woman's shoulders alone...it falls on both people choosing to have sexual relations and it also falls on us as a society to provide care and homes for those who choose not to have the child for whatever reason.

Medical care, child care, or homes for these unwanted children should be provided by us with all the tax dollars we choose to spend on death machines and the taking of human life across the planet. Many of us would gladly volunteer to help in any way posssible.

Ray

Disagreement ain't a prelude to talking and never was. I positively love being disagreed with because I find intelligent discourse a wonderful thing. I do have a question for you though man...

I actually believe that life starts sooner than you do. For me a sperm is a living thing, as is an ovum. Following your thinking, do you believe that contraception is immoral because it denies the ovum and at least one of the sperm the chance to grow into a baby?
Ya see, my main marker all along hasn't been life, but sentience.(Otherwise we'd all be feeling guilty about walking on the grass in case we crushed a few errant plant cells.) What are your views on that?

Another thing I'd like to mention to you, is the right of man to make decisions about life. I agree you maybe 75% of the way on that. From what I gather from your posts (and please feel free to correct me if I'm painting ya wrong) you'd believe a PBA to be morally wrong even if the mother was in medical danger, because it's not our right to choose who lives and who dies. I have to say that I'm not certain about that. If I was a woman who was say, 7 or 8 months gone (and I completely appreciate that I'm viewing this subjectively, without the emotional constraints that would undoubtedly be weighing on the lady's shoulders) and the choice was between possible life for the child/certain death for me and certain death for the child (a PBA) and certain life for me, I'd go for the latter. Maybe I'd feel completely different if I was physically in the situation myself, who knows? I'd like to think that I would put the certainty of my life and the possibility of mothering more children in the future against it.

It's impossible to say of course and I'd like to make it clear to anyone who's suffered similar personally that I'm not taking your circumstances lightly. No offence intended.

 

[BigJim]

Dammit Ray...

I will add my opinion on this issue, which is something that I normally would not, but I have become rather outspoken as of late.

I know your posting creed has changed somewhat since you were Modded my friend, but I'd hate to think that anything you had to say on a sensitive subject was left unsaid because of your status.
You've got a mind, you use it and you're a pleasure to debate with. I think I speak for many ordinary members of the TMF when I say that I'd rather you threw in any thoughts you had, no matter what the subject. Just being a Mod shouldn't prevent that. After all, if you were unreasonable in a debate and fractious when posting, you wouldn't have been Modded in the first place. 🙂

 

[venray]

My thoughts....

I make no moral judgement at all. I personally think that choosing the life of the mother over that of the baby is as wrong as having a gun pointed in the direction of my wife and child and having to choose which one dies and which one lives.

Again this is a personal view and I do not condemn a woman who is placed in a position to have to make that choice. If I were that woman and had to make the choice, I personally would choose to die
and give my child a chance for life. If I made any other decision than that I would cease to be who I am.

I am not against the right to choose. I am against the fact that our society has placed us in a position where these choices need to be made at an increasingly alarming rate.

Ovums and sperm may be considered life, but I am of the belief that they must come together to produce human life, and that is when I believe the individual begins.

Again these are personal views and I condemn no one for haveing views which differ. I myself could not live with myself if I made a decision to abort an embryo, fetus, or whatever you wish to classify a baby as after the egg and sperm have united.

I myself are the key words here. I do not participate in "pro-life" or
anti abortion demonstrations nor do I hang out around clinics handing out propaganda to scare young women into keeping their babies.

I abhor those that bomb clinics and kill doctors in the name of protecting the innocent. Killing a human being is what I am against.
Whether it be by war, murder, terrorism, or "legal" methods such as abortion and carrying out the death penalty.

It is just my opinion. I do not force it upon others, I merely express it. It is a code by which I must live my own life by and a personal decision made in order to justify my own existance.I personally would choose to save another life rather than my own.

That's just me. I do not condemn those who choose differently, I merely disagree with them.


Ray

 

[BigJim]

Socrates couldn't have put it more reasonably mate. (Any chance of a screeenshot?😀)


I hope you realise I wasn't accusing you of making moral judgements or coercing people against their wishes mate. You made it clear that you weren't doing the former in a previous post on this thread and I'd never believe you capable of doing the latter. 🙂

Society is desperately short of people who can't distinguish between personal code and screaming dogma. I wish there were more people like you around.

 

[venray]

Socrates couldn't have put it more reasonably mate. (Any chance of a screeenshot?😀)

He is rolling in his grave right now....😀


I hope you realise I wasn't accusing you of making moral judgements or coercing people against their wishes mate. You made it clear that you weren't doing the former in a previous post on this thread and I'd never believe you capable of doing the latter. 🙂


I know that,mate, I was posting for the benefit of those who may have thought otherwise....and to clarify my opinions on this most serious topic....


Society is desperately short of people who can't distinguish between personal code and screaming dogma.

Couldnt agree with you more....

I wish there were more people like you around.

Thanks my friend. That means a lot to me. I have been lucky to have interacted these past few years here with many who I can call friends. Those that I have met personally and many that I have not yet.


As to my posting creed as you put it (lol) I have not really changed it much since becoming a mod though sometimes I tread a little more lightly. I never really got too involved in threads such as this before, but I felt it necessary to express my views in this one.

Thanks again for the kind words, mate...Glad that someone understands me a little.


Ray

 

[sincerity]

Again this is a personal view and I do not condemn a woman who is placed in a position to have to make that choice.

Is that why you call teenaged girls who you believe have had abortions; guilt ridden over the fact that they've made a terrible descion to murder??

 

[venray]

No where did I say teenaged girls are guilt ridden. What I said is that YOU take my posts personally and appear to be guilt ridden. that is not my fault as I have repeatedly told you so. I suggest you keep the personal vendetta off forum and actually address the topic at hand for a change.

Ray

 

[Deleted member 2452]

the need for a p.b.a.?

ok, this has been in the back of my mind, and irritating me no end.
i've seen it posted here about the need of a pba, for the health of the mother. and most here thinks that's ok, right? if the mother is in physical distress, then it's ok to kill the un-born baby to save the mother, right?

how many here have seen a birth? or had a baby? if that isn't one of the most physically demanding, and distressing tasks, then nothing is!

and now, you want to take this sick, possibly injured woman, and make her go through the whole birth process? just to kil the baby 2 seconds before it is tottaly out?!?! how is this saving the mother, hmm??? she's just gone through hell! so just how is that medically needed?!?! come on all you experts tell me.

ok i'll tell you. it not, and never is needed, that's why! if the mother was in so bad a shape that the pregnancy needed to be terminated, that late in the game, a cecarian would be proformed ,and the baby removed through the abdomin. bing bang, over in 10 minutes, not hours of labor. geez people think, ok?

steve
p.s. ven i said the seig heil thing, cause to me, there are only two groups that espouced killing ones political opponents, the nazi's, and stalinist russia. and ice said to kill all the conservative politicians. seems like the shoe fit to me. if you want to delete my posts along with jez', ok, i can't stop you, but i never told anyone to fuck off, and she did.

 

[venray]

True Steve, but she did it with such a nice smile.....lol

I am just saying that the Nazi thing has gone on far enough on this forum and I am tired of seeing it bandied about. It's not just you.
It is unecessary.....




Ray

 

[BigJim]

Re: the need for a p.b.a.?

ok i'll tell you. it not, and never is needed, that's why! if the mother was in so bad a shape that the pregnancy needed to be terminated, that late in the game, a cecarian would be proformed ,and the baby removed through the abdomin. bing bang, over in 10 minutes, not hours of labor. geez people think, ok?

*thinks*

*thinks some more*

*gets headache*

Okay Steve, this is my take on it.

Until yesterday I had never heard the term "partial birth abortion". As I now understand it, it's a pro-life/media term that refers to a specific method of terminating a late-stage foetus. Namely, twisting it's head of it's body and scooping the contents out.

When I expressed my views on the medical care of the mother, I was thinking of any procedure that was started with the full knowledge that it would cause the death of the foetus. Perhaps even with the object of killing it. This could have easilly included removing it through the abdomen wall in a caesarian-section operation. That is what I meant anyway. I apologise if my lack of medical knowledge gave me to state my opinion incorrectly.

For clarification, my belief is that it is immoral in the extreme to purposely end the life of a child (for by that stage, it truly is a child, developed and sentient and a person) at that stage of gestation; UNLESS it is to save the life of the mother. Leaving the situation to "the will of God" is not something I'd advocate purely because if it's His will, it's going to happen anyway. Such abdication of responsibility could easily result in the death of both mother and child.


Steve I know you've worked in a maternity unit, so I'd like to ask a question. An aunt of mine reached around 8 months and went for a scan. during this it was revealed that the foetus had no brainwaves, no heartbeat... nothing. For no apparent reason, it had just died in the womb. The solution applied by the doctors? They artificially induced labour in her and made her go through 13 hours of emotional and physical agony, to be left with just a corpse at the end. If the situation is like you say it is, why did they not apply the method you said they should have? This isn't something that's just occured to me; I've wondered it for several years. It seemed a lot more humane to me, to have anaethetised her, removed and cleaned the dead baby and then bring her round; as opposed to making her give birth for nothing. Has that happened in your experience?

 

[Knox The Hatter]

"I realize that quoting Ralph Nader won't win me any favor on this forum, but he did make a good point when asked about his position on abortion during the 2000 presidential campaign, "I don't think we should make it illegal, we should make it unnecessary."



You could quote Ralph Nader until you turn into a Philadelphia Roll, my friend, Mr. Sushi. Sure beats subliminable messages from the IRA.

No, Steve, I don't hate you! 😀 No, there are times when I sit here and read your posts and hear the late Carroll O'Connor in his Archie Bunker voice declaiming them, and I scoff at what I perceive to be the usual annoying, right wing pablum, but no, I don't hate you. I really don't hate anyone here. The handful of individuals I've had terrible arguments with, I feel sorry for more than anything else. We never argued, Steve, we both find it more fun to snipe at each other.
All Americans ever talk about is proscribing the activities that offend them, and then perform those very same activities behind closed doors. Is it very hard to imagine a highly opinionated fortyish woman of means, who's a big shot in her church, raising money for the Reverand D. James Kennedy and his Coral Reefer Ministries, in the fight against Abortion and other social maladies...a woman who, one night, finds her fifteen year old daughter knocked up by some granite brain on the High School football team, and then decides that, in order to keep her standing in the community, and her family safe from embarrassment, she has to drive three hundred miles to a clinic in an adjoining state, hoping that NO ONE sees her, especially the sickies and psychos demonstrating in front?
You don't think this scenario has merit? Think again. After all, America this is.

 

[Mimi]

I am not going to begin to state or even understand the reasons why Doctors feel the way they do about the birthing process, but I DO know that in all cases, Doctors PREFER the woman deliver a baby (whether alive and healthy, or still-born) naturally, via a vaginal birth. They ONLY fall back on surgical removal (c-section) if a vaginal birth proves impossible.

I honestly have no idea why they push this issue so much. Due to complications leading up to my delivery, and difficulties during my labor, the Doctors had to resort to a c-section to deliver my daughter. I had no problems with it at all, and recovered splendidly with no adverse effects at all. My only complaint is that they made me go through 17 hours of labor, 7 of which were HEAVY labor (when contractions are at their strongest), before deciding to take this route. The labor I endured was FAR more painful, stressfull, and straining than any aspect of the surgery or recovery from surgery.

Also, nearly every single one of my friends and close aged relatives have delivered at least one of their children via c-section, and again, not one of them suffered any ill-effects from the procedure.

So as I said, I can not begin to understand why they shy away from c-sections so much. If I had it to do all over again, I would happily go through the surgery once more as the preferred option to deliver my child.

As for PBA's, I feel that IF it is medically necessary, and the womans health is at risk if she carries it to term, then they should NOT put her through the risk and strain of delivery, only to kill the child. That's insane. They SHOULD deliver the child through caesarian, and give it a chance to survive with medical assistance outside of the womb. That saves the mother from the strain, and possible heartache (if she did not opt for the PBA), and it gives the little life a chance to live.

My own personal opinions. No attacks, please.

Mimi

 

[sushi854]

Good example, Knox. The problem, as i see it, is the fact that the same people that would look be shocked and look down upon the good churchgoing woman and her pregnant daughter are the same ones screaming about the evils of abortion. Again, I'm not generalizing, but this is once instance where abortion doesn't have to happen. Instead of the woman's social status being threatened, why can't people just accept the fact that accidents happen, especially when they consider the alternative to be so incredibly evil? (unless of course they find themselves in the same situation) Of course, hardship cases do exist, although this certainloy does not have to be one. I know from personal experience that abortion is traumatic for all involved (not THAT personal of experience, obviously 😀) A female friend of mine had an abortion right out of high school, and would have given anything to have the support of her family, as her and her boyfriend were in no position to care for a child on their own. In society as it is today, I really don't see any practical way to limit abortion rights without creating major hardships for women. I still feel that society does not treat all fairly, and realize that there's not a damn thing we can do about it except deal with it.

Regarding the whole "partial birth" thing, my medical knowledge is limited, say a pregnant woman had just been in a serious accident and had lost an enormous amount of blood. Chances are the baby would not survive at all and she likely would not survive a c-section or the labor and delivery of an intact baby due to her already massive injuries. Is such a scenario possible, even if the odds are 10000000000000 to 1? If so, what other options are available?

 

[Deleted member 2452]

sushi, you don't understand

a p.b.a. is a complete vaginal delivery. so if the woman can't take labor due to a car accident, then doing the pba will kil the mother!

this is what i'm trying to explain to you all. if the mothers health is in so much doubt, then the very last thing she needs is to go through labor, and delivery! the reason it's done in this method ,is because the mother is in fine health, and the baby is going to be killed! for true medical emergencies, it would be done ceasarian.

knox, in your scenarior, i would respect the woman, and her slut of a daughter more if they'd keep the baby! i'd say, "wow, good people, they kept the baby. now go castrate the father!"

jim, i've heard of the same thing being done here. why is beyond me. i think it's cruel, and unusual punishment.

steve

 

[BigJim]

Re: sushi, you don't understand

jim, i've heard of the same thing being done here. why is beyond me. i think it's cruel, and unusual punishment.

steve

I heard that!


Meemster, I gotta agree with you toally too! It sounds like the worst kind of logic to me. But then when did we ever get logic from the medical profession?

 

[Knox The Hatter]

That's my point, Steve, it's the hypocrisy.

And, uh...three cheers for my friend Mimi. Aside from being a terrific human being she has faced up to some very tough aspects of her life with a wonderful attitude. I couldn't have done it as well as she did.

 

[Mimi]

Aww, thanks knoxxie. Trust me, though, I have my down times when I feel quite helpless and overwhelmed. Now would be one of those times I really wish I could fully live up to your kind comments.

Mimi

 

[BigJim]

HIP HIP......


*waits expectantly*

 

[TickledToDeath]

A break in the thread. sort of... .

Let's take this to another dimension for a moment.

Say, it was possible to literally see into the lifetime of someone just prior to birth. It is seen that this, yet to be born, person to be, will be of no use to the human race. A rude, crude, abusive, nasty worthless piece of pond scum that will grow to be a "terrorist" who will murder thousands(maybe someone in YOUR family or life in general)? By "aborting" the birth of this, 'thing" you will save all those lives and anyone/anything related to them.

Forgoe logic here.....give your mind some room to roam.

What would you do?


TTD

 

[sincerity]

well it's the woman's choice.

if it was my baby, i'd kill it outside the womb. 🙂

on the other hand, behaviors can change, maybe i'd just send him to baby bootcamp

 

[BigJim]

Re: A break in the thread. sort of... .

Conversely Ed, someone who has little or no merit of their own can be very useful to the human race of what happens when you give in to hate and anger. The essence of karma I suppose.

Let's take this to another dimension for a moment.

Say, it was possible to literally see into the lifetime of someone just prior to birth. It is seen that this, yet to be born, person to be, will be of no use to the human race. A rude, crude, abusive, nasty worthless piece of pond scum that will grow to be a "terrorist" who will murder thousands(maybe someone in YOUR family or life in general)? By "aborting" the birth of this, 'thing" you will save all those lives and anyone/anything related to them.

Forgoe logic here.....give your mind some room to roam.

What would you do?


TTD