Judge Rules Against Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion

I prefer to go with the exquisite and well reasoned language of Roe v Wade Scoates.

In a nutshell it says:

In the first trimester, when the baby is not yet formed and is in no way viable, the state has no interest in the fetus.

In the second trimester, when the baby is mostly formed and is becoming viable, the state has increased interest.

In the third trimester when the baby is fully formed and is likely to be viable, the state has a good deal of interest.

I can completely understand the tragedy of a pregnancy caused by incest or rape and I would leave it to the woman's conscience whether to carry that baby to term.

I can completely understand the belief of those who believe that life begins at conception and to kill an unborn child for reasons of convenience or because the mother doesn't want it is tantamount to murder.

My personal preference is that each community be allowed to decide the issue based on their own convictions and the government stay out of it other than to allow no group to coerce another.

Re: Judge Rules Against Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion


Having read in great detail, the medical description of "partial birth abortion", the only thing I can say, is that the Judge is wrong in her analysis. This form of abortion should be banned.

Here is a partial birth abortion. It is not a regular abortion.

This is a nurse's testimony before a Congressional committee.
-------------------
I was present for three of these partial-birth procedures. It is the first one that I will describe to you in detail.

The mother was six months pregnant (261/2weeks). A doctor told her that the baby had Down Syndrome and she decided to have an abortion. She came in the first two days to have the laminaria inserted and changed, and she cried the whole time. On the third day she came in to receive the partial-birth procedure.

Dr. Haskell brought the ultrasound in and hooked it up so that he could see the baby. On the ultrasound screen, I could see the heart beating. As Dr. Haskell watched the baby on the ultrasound screen, the baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen.

Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms-- everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus.

The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall.

The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp.

I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched the doctor do these things.

Mr. Chairman, I read in the paper that President Clinton says that he is going to veto this bill. If President Clinton had been standing where I was standing at that moment, he would not veto this bill.

Dr. Haskell delivered the baby's head. He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw that baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he'd used. I saw the baby move in the pan. I asked another nurse and she said it was just "reflexes."

I have been a nurse for a long time and I have seen a lot of death-- people maimed in auto accidents, gunshot wounds, you name it. I have seen surgical procedures of every sort. But in all my professional years, I had never witnessed anything like this.

The woman wanted to see her baby, so they cleaned up the baby and put it in a blanket and handed the baby to her. She cried the whole time, and she kept saying, "I'm so sorry, please forgive me!" I was crying too. I couldn't take it. That baby boy had the most perfect angelic face I have ever seen.

I was present in the room during two more such procedures that day, but I was really in shock. I tried to pretend that I was somewhere else, to not think about what was happening. I just couldn't wait to get out of there. After I left that day, I never went back. These last two procedures, by the way, involved healthy mothers with healthy babies.

I was very much affected by what I had seen. For a long time, sometimes still, I had nightmares about what I saw in that clinic that day.

Also, in Dr. Haskell's 1992 paper describing the partial-birth procedure, "Dilation and Extraction for Late Second Trimester Abortion," which you have all seen, he wrote, "This author routinely performs this procedure on all patients 20 through 24 weeks LMP [i.e., from last menstrual period] with certain exceptions. The author performs the procedure on selected patients 25 through 26 weeks LMP." Keep in mind that this 26 1/2 week little boy had Down syndrome, so this was a "selected patients" ease.
(...)

Mr. Chairman, these people who say I didn't see what I saw-- I wish they were right. I wish I hadn't seen it. But I did see it, and I will never be able to forget it. That baby boy was only inches, seconds away from being entirely born, when he was killed. What I saw done to that little boy, and to those other babies, should not be allowed in this country.
-------
How can anyone support this?
I would beat the hell out of someone doing this to a puppy.

If partial birth abortion were the norm, instead of an act to save the mother's life, it would be easy to be against it. But, as Phoenix said in her original post, it is nobody's business but the woman's and the doctor's.

The nurse I cited in the testimony above, assisted with three PBAs.

All healthy mothers, all healthy fetuses...until they were killed.

This was one day. Statistically, this would translate to these procedures being very commonplace.

2/10ths of one percent of all abortions.

2/10ths of one percent - and still nobody else's business.

I don't believe that statistic. I've read too many reports of it.

PlannedParenthood can't even get statistics of regular abortions. I scoured the net for them. Checked by state...nationally... Can you link your source?

And, it is my business. Motherhood doesn't imply sainthood. If a mother slaps her child down in the department store, it's my business. I would hope all decent people consider things like this their concern.

I linked to it in my first post on this thread -- wikipedia.

Does that mean we should kill all children that have birth defects? After all there is a large portion of babies that are born with them. Where is the limit of such things. There are different levels of defects. My child is deaf so should he have been aborted so that he didn't suffer a life that wasn't normal?

Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers testified in government hearings that only about 450 D&Xs were performed annually in the United States. Later, on ABC's Nightline program, he admitted that he had lied about this figure in order to match the the lies and rhetoric by the other side in the debate. He now estimates that 3 to 4 thousand is a more accurate value.

No way I believe Planned Parenthood's statistics.
They are a political organization, that gets it's payroll from abortions.

And, call it D and X, or whatever ... the procedure is the same. Partial birth abortion describes it. Some medical personnel will describe an abortion as 'removing tissue'. They don't say it is a formed baby and has a heartbeat.

looks like it'a going to be an interesting topic at the convention (along with gay rights)

This seems to me to be a compelling argument, and wonder how those who believe abortion is none of anybody's business, other than mother and doctor, address it.

I suppose if you believe that a fetus (irrespective of development stage) is nothing more than a lump of tissue, you can fairly easily draw a distinction, but I don't mean to presume your argument(s).

Is it the father's business?

After reading the testimony Sofia posted, I wonder what alternative third-trimester abortion procedures Republicans have considered, and why they prefer them to this procedure. If the problem is that all third trimester abortions are unacceptable to them, why not pass a law against third trimester abortions in general instead of singling out this procedure? If the problem is with this specific procedure, why trust Congress's judgment over the doctors' when it comes to questions of medical therapy? There's something here that I'm not getting.

I am just going to state what I think and live with the impression it makes. (feel the need to say for some odd reason)

I can't even agree that partial birth abortion should be legal in the case of a medical emergency because you literally have to kill the baby once it is born and that is murder any way you slice it. I think the constitution should be ammended to make that clear.

But then that gets me in trouble with my stand on believing that abortions should only be legal if a medical emergency arises. So, I guess I revise that belief and say try to save both.

I do believe in inducing labor if a medical emergency comes up. I just think that a person has to hope and pray (If they believe) for the best in those circumstances.

I also strongly believe in birth control pills or other birth control methods, but not the morning after pill.

As an alternative to abortion I believe the state has to be responsible for helping the parent(s) by providing assistance in the case if the parent(s) decide not put the baby up for adoption.

I think that's the core of the matter. I'm sure Sofia agrees that it's nobody else's business whether a woman has a tumor removed or not. I'm sure ehBeth agrees that it is other people's business whether or not a woman commits infanticide. The problem is that there's a broad grey area between the status of a tumor and the status of a newborn baby, and that we have no cookie-cutter method for deciding where in that grey area the status of an embryo is. And that's why this question is so awfully controversial.

If we did agree on what embryos are and on what this means in terms of the rights they may have, the question what is whose business would simply evaporate.

Nice summary, Thomas.

Revel, again, for what it's worth, in this (yes totally horrible to contemplate) procedure, the [what?] is not killed after [it's] been born, but before.

Why not the morning after pill? Jane Brody just had a great article on how it is confused with abortion, while it's something quite different:



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/health/24brod.html

sozobe--

I can't understand why you continue to say that a PBA isn't killing a baby after it's born.

Seems like slick verbiage, consciously ducking the truth-- the live baby's body is born--the head is stopped before bringing it out of it's mother, and it is killed by jamming a sharp object in it's brain and removing brain matter.

If the doctor would just tug, a live baby would be completely born.

Agreeing with this procedure is certainly within your rights--but trying to use words to cloud the actual truth, to me, is worse than agreeing with it. People should make informed opinions about this--not be fooled into thinking it's not what it is.

I wonder how many people who are fully for PBA would still be for it if they themselves had this procedure, and after the Dr. completed the procedure, he handed the "lump of dead tissue" to the mother for disposal?