door opens on dissing roe v wade

I agree that the horrifying aspects of a partial birth abortion boggles the mind. The saline injection is no better. Imagine (if you can) a slug being salted. The early D & C, being more like the body's own sloughing, is more reasonable to me.

Abortion is an awful recourse. If I were Queen of the World, I would never allow an abortion-on-demand past the end of the third month, unless there was an express life or death need for the health of the mother, and possibly rape. Under those circumstances whatever surgical means necessary ought to be used. The inability to find evidence one way or another for the Partial Birth Procedure and its statistical frequency makes an amazing side-bar to the argument. I don't believe there should be any restrictions of time or place or cost. Women in third world countries, those we help through other medical and financial assistance programs, should have the equal opportunity -- though I would hesitate to change local law.

That is basically my stand on abortion. Also that it should be a woman's decision, not a man's. I hate it when men begin to argue about it.

I hear ya, Piffka -- when men can become pregnant, they would have a perspective of this issue they now don't realize. However, this is the same with all criticism -- seldom are critics talented in the endeavor they choose to criticize! Because they aren't, they should perform a more extensive study of what they are criticizing. We're probably not seeing much of that here and it's one reason why I'm very interested in the statistics of partial birth abortion. I'm asking as a man and a humanist, is this procedure being used helter skelter or is it really extremely isolated? Have the doctors who performed it left with no other option and was it a decision of his colleagues as well? I also believe that the tactic of using it to bring about negative response towards any kind of abortion is disingenuous foul play.

I must admit that carrying of a child inside my body does give me, I think, a unique perspective. It is easy to explain but hard for someone who hasn't felt a separate life inside to understand that a relationship develops between the mother and the fetus. It develops early on, which is why I question even the need for a second or third trimester abortion in the case of rape. I think there can be an ultimate forgiveness to the fetus, even if the "Father" was a bastard.

The rapes of the Bosnian women -- those I'd agree to. The rape of a woman who was held prisoner or kidnapped beyond the time... OK. But then, it gets iffy.

Piffka

Blinding blue-flash epiphanies have been far too rare since I toned down the psychedelics, but I had one the morning I witnessed the birth of my daughter. I understood that, right at that very same moment, all around the globe, men were getting medals stuck to their puffed out chests for killing folks and women were getting NOTHING for this incredible committment of pain and endurance in the production of something so affirmative. I loved your gender before, now I'm in awe.

Ahh, Blatham, how sweet of you to say!

Very!

I wouldn't say we get nothing, though -- the sozlet is about as wonderful a prize as one could ask for.

soz

Yeah...ain't it so.

Hi Sozobe!

It's your other mom, remember me? My deaf daughter just had her second daughter and my second granddaughter. As a nurse the one place I never worked was Obstetrics...oh, how I wish I had now. What a miracle to be there! I would have loved it after witnessing the births of both my grandchildren.

I am pro-choice, but am very selective about it as you are. Poor women are the ones who suffer if Roe v. Wade is rescinded in the courts. I am thinking of all the children who are not wanted and are abused...many of which I have seen during my nursing career. I am incensed by the right wing fundamentalists view of not allowing various forms of birth control to be taught and information about such, removed from government online sites. Something is very wrong here.

Partial birth abortions should be extremely rare, and should be carefully watched. When would they be necessary except in the life of a mother? In a hospital where I worked in an ICU, the mother was in the 8th month of her pregnancy and having a massive liver bleed....they did a C-Section and the baby died. I would like to know the numbers of these other procedures of using means to crush the skull and WHY. Methinks they are VERY uncommon...

I did a quick serach and came with with one site that appears to have a "clinical" review of Partial Birth numbers:

"The exact number of D&Xs performed is impossible to estimate with accuracy. Many states do not have strict reporting regulations.

- One often quoted figure was that over 1000 D&Xs had been performed annually in New Jersey. From this number, many inflated national totals were estimated. But the New Jersey figure appears to be an anomaly. A single physician in a single NJ hospital had been ignoring the regulations of the state medical association and performing D&Xs in cases not involving the potential death or serious disability of the woman.
- Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, estimated (Nightline program, 1997-FEB-26) a total of 3,000 to 4,000 annually in the US -- about ten a day.
- Pro-life groups uncovered an internal memo by Planned Parenthood which estimated that up to 60 (0.24%) of the more than 25,000 abortions performed annually in Virginia were D&Xs. 1 If this figure is accurate nationally, then there would be up to 2,880 D&X procedures per year in the U.S."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pba1.htm

Thanks Fishin'

I need more time to read this, but my first glance is...."This is horrible!" I have to feed the multitudes here at my casa right now, so will read more later. It does look like something that needs long exploration. Egads! "Do no harm" is the motto of physicians and nurses...

cut & pasted from Fishin's link:
(from Dr. William F. Harrison, a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology)

He wrote that "approximately 1 in 2000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus while in the womb." About 5000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus each year. This is not usually discovered until late in the second trimester. Some cases are not severe. A pre-natal method of removing the excess fluid on the fetal brain is being experimentally evaluated. However, some cases are much more serious. "It is not unusual for the fetal head to be as large as 50 centimeters (nearly 20 inches) in diameter and may contain...close to two gallons of cerebrospinal fluid." In comparison, the average adult skull is about 7 to 8 inches in diameter. A fetus with severe hydrocephalus is alive, but as a newborn cannot live for long; it cannot achieve consciousness.

from C.D.C. stats last available year (1997) total abortions performed past 20 wks term is 1.3% of all abortions

The statistics are all from the early 90's - surely there is some up-to-date data on partial birth abortions. I've tried to find it but haven't been successful (spent about fifteen minutes). I think the 1% - 1-1/2% is likely still accurate and I can't imagine there not being some pretty heavy scrutiny of the proceedure. How the diagnosis was arrived at, what collegues the doctor performing the operation consulted with, what the immediately relations agreed to -- I doubt that there aren't pretty strigent criteria in each and every hospital. If the hospital and doctors are lax in their diagnosis and action, that could be true of any proceedure, not just PBA's. If there were outlawed, it may take a few years to determine if as many of more lives of the mothers aren't lost. Somehow, the pro-lifers come off as having little concern for the life of the mother.

It also seems to me that the possibility of letting the mother die and then losing the infant anyway is a consideration. More and more, this looks like some vendetta against doctors.

LW the AMA has specific protocals regarding abortion but i also believe individual hospitals/clinics also have their own protocals which makes specific statistics very difficult to interpret. as an example some hosptials regard an attempted but unsuccessful c-section as an abortion.

Until someone comes up with statistics on the proceedure (with specifics as to how the abortion is performed), I'm discounting it as irrelevant.

For a description of the procedure you can look here: http://hss.fullerton.edu/womens/news/abortion.htm

To simply disregard the issue as "irrelevant" because stastics aren't readily available that satisfy your requirements is bit like putting one's head in the sand IMO. The issue doesn't go away...

Oh, hi Vietnamnurse! Great to see you.

Fishin', what I would love to see is some kind of impeccably credentialed outline of frequency, reasons, etc. Medline or something. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, or an organization with an axe to grind (in favor of either side...)

I know what the proceedure is and seen the photographs -- I'm of the opinion that this is being used as a blatant ruse to appeal to emotions and that the anti-abortionsists are basically lying. It's no wonder they don't want anyone to know what the true statistics are.

Oh, I've no doubt that the procedure is horrible, but there are a lot of horrible-but-occasionally-necessary procedures. And there are horrible-and-unnecessary-and-therefore-should-be-outlawed procedures. My distaste for starting down a very slippery slope aside, I don't feel like I have enough objective info to decide which of the above hyphenates this is. My impression thus far is that it is occasionally necessary, and perhaps (that's the biggest gap) sometimes used when another path would be more beneficial. The hydrocephalus example seems a clear instance of "occasionally necessary."