The next time some fundie rants about "partial birth abortion"(sic)

Make the fools read this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/06/magazine/06LIVES.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1110578407-RUlP4Q6Qh9PMNcUePBLtlA

Goodbye Too Soon
By JONATHAN TROPPER

Published: March 6, 2005


What we saw on the monitor looked more like a cinematic alien than a 20-week-old fetus. Instead of arms, there were truncated flippers, and it looked like those drawings I've seen demonstrating how close man and dolphin are on the evolutionary scale. The legs were gnocchi-shaped buds that barely protruded from the pelvis. The chest cavity was deformed as well, although we wouldn't know that until later.

You've seen this before: a young couple staring in wonder at an ultrasound monitor, getting a first, magical glimpse of their unborn child. It wasn't like that for us. ''What I'm seeing is a fairly significant abnormality,'' Dr. Eddleman said, shaking his head sympathetically. Tears ran from my wife Liz's closed eyes as she wiped the blue goop off her swelled belly.

We walked on rubber legs down the hall to Dr. Eddleman's office, where he emerged from behind his veil of jargon just long enough to impart that we hadn't done anything wrong. Osteogenesis imperfecta type II was his diagnosis, a freak mutation over which we had no control. I could see in Liz's expression that it would take some time for her to believe him.

The fetus might make it to term or die in the womb. Either way, it wouldn't survive for long after birth. This disease, the doctor said, is ''fatal in infants.'' You know you've arrived in a different universe when the word ''fatal'' comes as a relief. Because until that moment, I had been trying to extrapolate what the flesh-and-blood version of this baby would look like in the maple crib we'd ordered, asking myself if we had it in us to raise such a severely compromised baby. Liz would later tell me that she was also sadly relieved. ''Fatal'' was our absolution -- we would not have to learn darker truths about ourselves.

<snip>

Anybody who has experienced this sort of thing first hand, either themselves or with a family member, knows what bullshit the crap arguments spewed by the right about "partial birth abortion" are really about.

A horrible thing to have to do.

I have a very good memory and I can remember very far back. The earliest thing I can remember (which I have made a mental task to do) is being an Infant. My memory doesn't go back further than that except for what seems to be some sort of otherworldly dream. I don't think the soul enters the body until a while after it is born and that is why I am for abortion because I don't believe anybody is truly being harmed.

who believe that the soul enters with the first breath, the way that god breathed life into Adam and Eve. They may be right.

I just know that a fully formed intellect in utero would be born insane from months of isolation and sensory deprivation.

because the real issue is when does the soul enter the fetus? That is a question that nobody can answer with certainty because nobody can demonstrate that souls even exist.

this sort of story is so very hard to read and the pain I feel for the parents is crushing. I understand the "relief" they felt with the word fatal ......it happened to me when my Mother's heart finally quit beating.... I am saddened but I understand......

I thought they used that term just to apply to late term, post 24 weeks. Which of course is illegal unless the life of the mother is at risk.

Do you they use that term for 0-24 weeks too?

excellent article!

And force couples to experience horror stories.

I've heard the term of course, but didn't know if they used it for early term or not.

Medically, there are two procedures -- D&X or D&E -- that can be done. Some women have labor induced and deliver vaginally as well. It depends on where you are in the pregnancy... what complications and/or deformities the fetus has... and other factors.

There are no "partial birth abortions" -- it some phrase the GOP made up so they could pitch their story about an 8-month-old, healthy fetus having only its head delivered before the doctor would end the fetus's life by brain trauma. One really big problem with that: a great deal of late-term abortions are due to defects (like anencephaly) in which there isn't a head/brain.

and the stupid assed reichwing OBGYN who first noticed the anencephaly never notified my sister-in-law and brother. They eventually moved and found out the problem during the third trimester.

Talk about a horror story

I lost a son in May of 1995 because of anencephaly and other neural tube defects. Your family's OBGYN should be fired -- there is no excuse for not telling a parent what is wrong with their child.

and there is absolutely no way the doctor in Reichwingnutland could have missed it in the ultrasound two weeks prior to them moving.

ago.

It was the best article on abortion I've ever read. It was clear-eyed and straight, just the facts.

The procedure at issue, one of those you name, they type used for what is called 'partial birth' abortion, is gruesome - and if I remember correctly the fetus is brought partially outside the woman - and then something is done to its head.

IMO, that procedure should only be done in the most extreme of circumstances, as it probably is, but no one really knows, as the mothers right to privacy trumps even knowing what is happening. The abortion clinic is a black box that no one can peer into.

The article noted how Clinton would have signed the PBA bill, but the pubs kept sending it to him without the health of the mother exception. With that exception he would have signed it, and the issue would have been taken off the table.

and any desciption of it would be equally "gruesome" to the lies you've been told.

Do you even know when that procedure is done? Do you have any clue why? Did you know that the depictions made by Henry Hyde on the floor of the house were outright lies? I didn't think so.

I encourage you to find that Harper's article. It's straight.

Late-term abortions/pregnancy terminations are done because of severe neural tube defects (spina bifida, anencephaly and others). A condition which often goes hand-in-hand with neural tube defects (especially with severe spina bifida) is hydrocephalus. That is when fluid builds in and around the brain, causing the head to enlarge.

Families who carry children with this challenge to term will have c-section birth so the condition isn't further aggravated. Families who elect to terminate their pregnancies typically try to deliver vaginally -- because it poses less risk to the woman than having a major surgery would.

The bottom line is that no one wishes for any of these things. I've yet to meet a woman halfway into a pregnancy who wasn't already dreaming of the much wanted child growing within her. What is missing from the discussion is that these children -- they are our loved ones.

Just as we allow families and their medical professionals to choose if and when a loved one is removed from life support, we should afford these families the same courtesy.

October 2, 2003
Howard Dean Criticizes Vote for Harmful Abortion Ban


“As a physician, I am outraged that the House of Representatives has decided it is qualified to practice medicine. There is no such thing as 'partial birth abortion' in medical literature. But there are times when a doctor is called upon to perform a late term abortion to save a woman's life or protect her from serious injury. Today the House took a step toward making it a crime for a doctor to perform such medically necessary procedures.

This bill will chill the practice of medicine and endanger the lives of countless women. Despite what politicians tell you, there is not an epidemic of third trimester abortions in this country. This kind of legislation serves the sole purpose of chipping away women's constitutionally protected reproductive rights and overturning Roe v. Wade.”



As proved by that "guy" who insisted on defying reason with us, those who feel it's necessary to put women back in their place care not a whit for the truth of the matter. Every concession we make & every bill they manage to pass, only chips away at women's fundamental human rights. What worries me is what he didn't say & that "Bill of Rights" he'd proposed...there's been a movement afoot for awhile now to establish some sort of Amendment which calls for protection of "infants" as citizens. Since the word "born" is already included in the protection clauses, such a measure could only be redundant, & much like the bill Dean blasted above, is simply another device that, once put in place, can & will be used to further slide definitions backwards.

I haven't a doubt that the ultimate goal is to eliminate all sensible family planning, not just abortion, but basic birth control methods, also...the pill, & most likely condoms & any other advantages to sexual freedoms women have fought a century for. It's simply not about babies, at all; it's the necessity to subjugate women in order for the neocon's ideals to be met.

and it would have ended the woman's ability to ever have a child, and the one inside her had no chance of surviving.

She wanted that baby, as do most women who need abortions during the last trimester.

The RW doesn't care. That's why they fought against the part about the "health of the mother" so hard. They wanted the ISSUE of abortion, not good, logical, family enhancing healthcare choices.

"partial birth abortion" is actually used. It's used to protect the health of the mother. With today's medical procedures, a "birth" of such a deformity is possible without the mother dying in most cases, but she'll never be able to bear children again in her life.

The fetus will never survive such a "birth".

instead of between televangelists and GOP politicians.

It pisses me off that the right shines a spotlight on what should be treated as a personal matter.

Sometimes, I want to be reactionary and shine the spotlight on all the women and children in this country,...bruised, battered, neglected, shunned, used, abandoned,...and shove those pictures in the faces of the anti-privacy, anti-choice wackos,...and DEMAND that they take care of those lives before they complain about a life that ONLY GOD can guarantee will come into this world.

If they can't FIX what's happening to the living, they have no freakin' business "acting on God's behalf" to protect a life that may never come to be!!!

I'd tell them to STOP "ACTING" LIKE GOD AND START BEING HUMAN,...TAKING CARE OF THE HUMANITY AT HAND!!!!

EW!!

that's the purpose. They use inflamatory rhetoric and graphics to push the wedge as deeply as possible. That's the way they win. That's the only reason they win.

to each and every one of these f**kers and ask why they don't give a shit about children their Lunatic is bombing the life out of. I was going to cover my car with pictures of the Iraqi children but my Mom begged me not to as we live in a small town and I'm already considered a dissident here. I didn't for her sake, but am so tempted.

it is a life or death situation? I do not consider PBA something to fight for the right to have. It is too awful. That is something that should quickly be brought to 0 in terms of numbers performed. At the same time you make the 'morning after' pill very available and a 'reversable' operation for teenage boys very common.

Medically there is not a procedure called partial birth abortion.
Bringing the number to 0 would mean women would die.