door opens on dissing roe v wade

Soz - The link I gave on the previous page lists numbers that are from 3 different sources. At least one of those sources is from a leading abortion rights defender and all 3 come in pretty close to each other.

LW - So by discarding the numbers as irrelevant you can ignore that the procedure DOES happen and maintain your position? Yes, I'm sure the anti-abortion groups do use it to advance their goals. That doens't mean that it doesn't happen though. Refusing to recognize that it does occur just ends up providing those anti-abortion groups with more ammo for their cause.

fishin', yes, thanks for that link. Lots of good info. But there's still this:



And that is what I want to know. An internal memo "uncovered" by pro-life groups, an estimate in 1997, anamalous New Jersey -- not much to go on.

To be more precise -- I don't care much about numbers if they are closely correlated to the incidence of hydrocephalus, for example. What I am most interested in is whether it's actually MISUSED as often as implied, or if it is just one of those sad but necessary medical procedures. And also specifics like how many are performed to extract already-dead fetuses, rather than killing fetuses as a result of the procedure.

Who says I don't believe it happens? I don't believe it happens with the frequency they are trying to imply. I don't believe that there aren't ligitimate reasons why there is no other alternative. I do believe that Clinton had something in front of him in the way of statistics that caused him to veto the bill. I think the jury is still out until someone comes up with some convincing evidence that this is as serious a problem as the picture painted by the anti-abortionists. If they aren't lying, why aren't they quoting the statistics on their websites? Answer: they're dishonest.

Just when you thought the abortion debate was beginning to settle down, here comes The New York Times with an interview to shake things up again. I am referring to the interview done by the Times with abortion-provider representative Ron Fitzsimmons, who was quoted as saying he "lied through his teeth" in regards to an interview he did with ABC's "Nightline" last year on the issue of the partial-birth abortion.

Fitzsimmons was referring to his interview with Nightline in which he said that there were only about 450 partial-birth abortions done in the Untied States in a single year. Even though this portion of the interview was never aired, Fitzsimmons, who is apparently an honest individual having a case of guilty emotions, decided to retract and revise his statements to set the record straight.

In his revision, Fitzsimmons stated that the actual number of partial-birth abortions done in the U.S. each year was much higher.

Why might this be important?

Among many reasons, the first is that President Clinton supposedly based his veto of the ban on this procedure on the data and statistics that were originally circulated. The president justified his veto to some extent on the basis that this was a procedure that was done very rarely each year in the U.S. to those women who were in the last days of their pregnancy. However, this new information indicates that these abortions are being performed in the second trimester as well and that some of them are being done for reasons other than the health of the mother or fetus.

What do you say to this, LW? Do you think the pro-abortion side may not be the perfectly honest people you seem to say they are? Can it really be as one-sided as your posts indicate?

I think there are some privacy issues involved. What might be called a legitimate abortion done at a late date using this method, even if it were for the life of the mother, would still not be something most women, most people, would want bandied about.

In 1997, the Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, Ron Fitzsimmons, admitted that he had misled the public and confirmed that partial birth abortions

are performed more than 5,000 times a year, mostly during the second trimester of pregnancy, on healthy mothers and healthy babies. Prior to this admission, Fitzsimmons stated that partial-birth abortions were rare and performed to save the lives of women bearing malformed babies.

By Fitzsimmons's own account, he was "lying through his teeth" in 1997, when he simply "spouted the party line." The fact is that partial-birth abortion is a widespread, elective procedure used in the fifth and sixth month of gestation, usually on healthy babies and on healthy mothers.

When this legislation was last considered, the American Medical Association (AMA), former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and hundreds of other obstetricians-gynecologists stated that the partial-birth abortion procedure is never medically necessary. In fact, this procedure can actually threaten a mother's health and her ability to carry future children to term.

Got this from an article covering Santorum's speech to the Senate, thanking them for supporting the ban on PBA.

Where's a link. I've been going through the Internet and find no cooberating statistics.

The first excerpt was from an article you dismissed due to when it was written, and by an author you 'weren't familiar with'. It is on page two of this thread.




The second one can be found HERE.

That was eight years ago! I would appreciate it if someone would come up with some current information, not all this stale news. I would like to know how many PBA's and for what reason they were performed happened in 1999 and 2001. It does no good to dredge up old records from eight years ago to suppor something we are discussing today. What Koop says may are may not be true -- that's one man's opinion. Apparantly there are a preponderance of doctors who don't agree and it could also be true that that has dwindled in the past three years.

Eight years ago, a pro-abortionist admitted to lying exhorbitantly to distort the truth about PBAs. Abortion is big business. Those doctors who jam knives into the brains of those babies are lining their pockets with blood money, and you want to dicker over dates.

Of course, that is your perogative. But, you seem to be taking great pains to look the other way.

Why don't you look at the facts presented? Do you absolve the representative of the pro-abortionists in his lies?

The second one is an unidentified source. The first one, my comments stand. It's quite possible that they will come up with a bill and will ban partial birth abortions if the practice is being abused. I don't really have a "position" on this because of lack of information and I'm reluctant to accept expert opinions on one side without seeing expert opinions on the the other side. There seems to be very little available -- I certainly wouldn't want to make that decision without more facts. Yes, I would rather see women make a decision at the stage where the abortion can annul the pregnancy without what is a for everyone an emotional repugnancy. It seems like this has been a battle of one side clouding the issue and then the other side throwing up an opposing smoke screen. Sounds like politics as usual.

BTW, 5,000 PBA's a year is a curiously arbitrary figure -- sound like something pulled out of a crocked hat.

(And, no I don't support anyone who misleads the public -- although it's being done on a daily basis. That was one person -- you mean to tell me he was the only authority who had any influence on this subject? Sounds rather more like God.)

I have been lurking around in abortion info links, and I have discovered that even the CDC says they cannot provide accurate data because of faulty reporting.

Seems only a few states have gone to court to make it a law to have abortions reported.

They say Planned Parenthood deflates the numbers to fool the public, (proven by inconsistencies with PP's reports to the CDC and far different reports to their abortion research group (Gutterman?) They suspect religious groups accept inflated numbers.

You are right about politics as usual.

I'm thankful for this thread because I never would have seen the reason for pursuing a state law where the numbers should be accurately reported. Illinois has such a law and reported 43,000 abortions in the first 9 1/2 months of last year. No mention of how many PBAs.

Can you imagine the mathematical prospect if you use Illinois' demographics and try to 'figure' the national number?

Someone should be counting. We should at least know.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute is the definitive body for issues--education, public policy, and research-- regarding women's reproductive rights.

Their home page is here:

The Alan Guttmacher Institute

I suppose some of you will say they have an agenda, but as far as statistics go, if you can't find it there, it probably doesn't exist.

From that site PDiddie: "In the controversy concerning so-called partial-birth abortions, the factual question given most attention is the number of such abortions performed. It is impossible to give a definitive answer to this question because of the vagueness of the term, which has no medically accepted definition. However, intact D&X, as defined by ACOG, is rarely performed, accounting for only about 0.03-0.05% of all abortions in 1996. The large majority of D&X abortions were performed at 20-24 weeks of gestation."

That number seems to match up with the other sites that used a estimate of .04%. These numbers are, again, in the 1996/1997 timeframe and based on a representative survey.

Thanks, PDiddie. It is good to have all that information in one place. As to agendas... I think everyone's got that.

I was looking at my state's rules on abortion. They've determined viability doesn't begin until the 25th week, at which time an abortion becomes a felony except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Ours is also one of the states to provides funds so that the indigent can obtain an abortion. More than half of the counties in our state (69%) do not have any abortion service providers.

abortion
I've read through this thread quickly and ended up with the clear view that what is at stake is personal values. All the facts mustered on each side have been selected and interpreted with slants reflecting each pariticpant's values. This is, of course, unavoidable. But let's face it, the issue is values, not some overwhelming God-given reality to which we must, if we are sane, all assent. It is MY value bias that women have a right to the use of their own bodies. They are the only ones who should have any say in the matter, and one woman has no right to dictate whether or not another woman's body should be used as a vessel for the creation of another human being. I DO see some hypocrisy in the "pro-life" position that maintains the absolute sacredness of an unborn child but makes very little if any effort to promote the survival of BORN children throughout the world, not to mention the frequent acquiesence regarding the slalughter of our young adults in controversial wars and the uncertainty of the guilt of victims of capital punishment (and I'm not against all wars or all executions--I simply feel that they are at best necessary evils, great evils, which we must deal with very carefully).

I agree with you JLNobody.

J.L. Nobody- Well said!