Mothering Forum banner

"Partial Birth Abortion" Ban

17K views 174 replies 44 participants last post by  Greaseball 
#1 ·
#129 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by Greaseball
It's true, she probably feels it's the best thing, but she may have been misinformed. Just like women who have a c/s "for the sake of the baby" because they think they can't give birth to a 9-lb baby. They are misinformed. For each reason given for PBA, there are ways around it that save the mother's life and have a chance at saving the baby too.
Well from the information that I have gathered, most of the women that have partil birth abortions performed are women that want the pegnancy to end with a baby in their arms. If I were a woman and wanted a child and my OB told me my child was dead inside me, I think I would seek a seond, maybe even a third opinion about the pregnancy before I went ahead with a partial birth abortion.

I am willing to bet that there are some women that are misinformed as to the likelihood of their baby beig able to be born and live in certain circumstances as well.

Quote:
Originally posted by joesmom

but, it is late, & i must & get to bed. i am babysitting my two nephews tomorrow so my mom & sister can decorate for my other sister's fetus shower. & i will need to be VERY well rested, i can tell you that!
I am part Lakota and have family on Pine ridge and it is considered very rude and disrespectful to give a pregnant woman a gift for a child while she is pregnant. Maybe that is why "fetus" showers are given to women at such a late point in the pregnancy. Although anything can happen, the liklihood of anything going wrong is greatly diminished after a certain point.

Quote:
Originally posted by barbera

I beg to differ. I think it is very much about money. Abortions are done quickly and the doctors spend no time with the patient outside of performing the abortion. He con go in and do a dozen or more and then off to his regular OB/GYN or other pratice.

With the amount of abortions that are performed in this country each day, don't tell me they are doing it all out of the compassion in their hearts. Somebody is making a lot of money.
With the insurance that an OB now has to carry being as expensive as it is and the fact that the need forthe abortions is as great as it is, do you blame an OB for making a "few" extra dollars providing a needed service? Here where I live in OhiO, the women's clinic charges for an abortion on a sliding fee scale because the majority of women that have abortions are POOR and cannot afford the cost of having one performed to begin with. I'd say they are not really making much money at all. I have a friend that volunteers there and they are the "oly" place around to get one done and they only do them in the mornings 2 days a week and each is an average of one and a half hours. That isn't very many. Mostend up costing the woman less than $100 because of the fact they are POOR.

MNS
 
#130 ·
Well, I've managed to make it to the end of this discussion. It took me a long time, with numerous breaks because I just couldn't take it all in one dose.

I believe in pro-choice: It is your choice to have sex. Should those moments of pleasure result in a pregnancy, you have lost your choice and are now responsible for the innocent life that you carry within your blessed womb. Choosing to abort a child at any stage is choosing to commit murder (IMO). So to answer the original question of whether or not PBA should be considered illegal, yes--I firmly believe it should be illegal for all of the reasons that I have read up to my post: c-section the woman at the latest possible time (preferably when she goes into labor) and allow the dead or dying child (because no matter what problems it may have genetically or physically, it is still a child) to pass away wrapped in his/her loving parents' embrace; place the "viable" CHILD up for adoption and screen prospective parents beforehand--from what I understand, babies have a much greater chance at being adopted; and we can all do our part to provide mental and physical support for scared women who believe that their only option is murdering the precious life within them in order to continue living their life to some degree of normalicy.

Children are no longer looked upon as gifts; instead, they are now considered a luxury item ("I'll use it in my spare time" like a car). Look around at the world and tell me that this is not so. How many children do you see in a daycare from the time it opens to the time it closes, just because the parents do not want to take the child home earlier? How many children are abused, molested and neglected? For every story you hear on the news at night about a child who has died from a beating or has been sexually molested by his mother's boyfriend--how many more children is this happening to that we don't hear about?

People no longer want to take the time to raise their child. Sure, we talk about breastfeeding advocacy, about not injecting our children with vaccines with who-knows-what side effects, about gentle discipline and co-sleeping. But how many people actually do this--look around your town and ask yourself that question. Instead, society values STUFF--the cars, the television sets, the game consoles and plastic toys. We're closer to the friends on the television shows than we our to our next door neighbor.

Children take time. They take energy. They steal us from our sleep and demand our constant attention. But they also smile at us to let us know of their love, they turn to us for solice from a nightmare, and my daughter now pats my cheek as I breastfeed her. Every child is a one-time priceless gift. When you're given a priceless gift from a true friend, do you destroy it with an "I can't cope with the responsibility of taking care of this" or are you thankful that your friend trusted you with such a possession?
 
#131 ·
Needless to say that I could not read this whole thread - but being very pro-choice I am thoroughly disgusted with the PBA ban. We have a family member who went through it - not because the fetus was a "luxury item" but because the fetus was suffering such deformaties it probably would not have lived anyway, it was a huge emotional/financial drain on the couple plus they had two other children to take care of.

This is not a walk in procedure. This is a rarely performed procedure that usually occurs when the fetus or the woman is at risk. It is stupid to make anything more out of it.

Quote:
most of the women that have partial birth abortions performed are women that want the pegnancy to end with a baby in their arms.
This is correct.

This is a nation being hijacked by our own religious fundamentalists - our own Taliban.
 
#132 ·
"Knocked up college students wanting a way out don't have late term abortions. It's very hard to get one."

i stopped reading the thread at this post just to make a point-
how many of you know someone who has had a partialbirth abortion?
i know a girl who was 16 ,got pregnant, and waited and waited and waited...and ended up having an abortion at 6 months. i am not sure, but i believe at that point it is usually a partial birth abortion?
anyway- no matter what this situation sickens me because at that stage that baby is almost viable, why couldnt she have given birth and given the baby to someone who would love it???
now i am pro-choice, but also extreamly pro-child. abortions for birth control reasons are wrong IMHO, but i would never vote to make abortions illegal because sometimes it is nessasary.
i think it is a matter of opinion not for the courts to decide, its for each woman to deal with on her own, because it is her who is effected most.
that being said i still think its wrong, and BTW i am not christian.
 
#133 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by momto l&a
How many babies have survived late term abortions? Anybody know?
I found a site that has a few stories from those who have survived. http://www.gravityteen.com/pregnancy/kickin.cfm
Read the stories of those who survived, heart breaking and to me most amazing that a human could could survive anything like an abortion.
That is a "nice" sensationalistic type story you linked to. It doen not give any details as to why the woman in question was having an abortion in the first place. Sounds to me like she was having a "late" abortion for birth control purposes to me.

Being sure to put the doctor's name in that article is also kinda weird. Do the people that run that site want some pro-life freak blowing up his office or shooting at him?

Just because there are those that abuse the procedure does not mean that it should be banned for all.

There was also no abortion performed on the child. The only thing I can see the "seaweed like" substance would have done is softened the cervix or possibly allowed dialation to begin. The child died, not because of the abortion, but because it could not survive out of the womb at that early stage of development. It wasn't a "survivor".

Why did she want an abortion done in the first palce?

MNS
 
#135 ·
I haven't been around these parts for months and months, but I happened to stop by and see this thread! I've read the whole thing, and here is my .02...

Take a look at this site: http://www.house.gov/judiciary/216.htm It is the testimony before the House of Representatives of Coreen Costello, a Christian, Republican, Pro-life woman who has had a late term abortion. Powerful, moving testimony.

Quote:
My doctor arrived at two in the morning. He held my hand, and informed me that they did not expect our baby to live. She was unable to absorb the amniotic fluid and it was puddling into my uterus. This poor precious child had a lethal neurological disorder and had been unable to move for almost two months. The movements I had been feeling over the last few months had been nothing more than bubbles and fluid. Her chest cavity was unable to rise and fall to stretch her lungs to prepare them for air. It was as if she had no lungs at all. Her vital organs were atrophying. Our darling little girl was going to die.

Quote:
We asked if there was any way that Katherine could be born alive. He looked carefully at the ultrasound, measured her head and explained sadly how large it was, and said that there was no way it could fit through my cervix without draining some of the fluid. He also explained that due to the difficulty of the position she was in, they would have to go inside my womb and for that, I would be put under heavy anesthesia. With her heartbeat as irregular and slow as it was already, he did not think she would survive the anesthesia.

Quote:
This was the safest way for me to deliver. This left open the possibility of more children. It greatly lowered the health risk to me. Most important, it offered a peaceful, painless passing for Katherine Grace.
Please read the entire page, there is a lot more there that anyone who thinks this procedure is never necessary or is always horribly cruel should read. Another page with stories from women who have had late term abortions: http://www.korrnet.org/choicetn/late.term.html There is a story here of a fetus without brain tissue (whose diabetic mother would have difficulty healing from a C-section), a fetus without a stomach... Sad, tragic stories that represent the reality of late term abortion.

These are not viable babies. All this talk about babies who would live if only allowed a c-sec delivery is so much sensationalism. These are babies who will die, some of whom are not truly alive in utero. And c-section will not save these babies, it will provide greater risk to the mother.

I'm not going to claim that late term abortion never happens without clear medical cause, but I believe it is rare. Many states already have laws restricting it. You could probably find a pro-life site that claims the opposite. Guess what? That means that the truth is somewhere in the middle. And for me that just doesn't justify taking the choice away from women like those mentioned.
 
#136 ·
To me, the issue is black and white.
If the mother is going to die, and/or if the baby is severely deformed and will not live, anyway, it is a personal decision that the gov't has no place in.
If the woman is having a PBA simply because she does not want a baby, she needs a mental hospital that can take care of her and give the baby up for adoption after it is born.
There is no difference, in that case, between giving birth to a baby and then killing it or a PBA "medical procedure".
It seems pretty logical to me.
 
#137 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by liz-hippymom
"Knocked up college students wanting a way out don't have late term abortions. It's very hard to get one."

i stopped reading the thread at this post just to make a point-
how many of you know someone who has had a partialbirth abortion?
i know a girl who was 16 ,got pregnant, and waited and waited and waited...and ended up having an abortion at 6 months. i am not sure, but i believe at that point it is usually a partial birth abortion?
That's incorrect. It's not 'usually' a PBA at that point. There are a few different options at that point. PBA is a very, very specific TYPE of late-term abortion, used in very specific circumstances.

I believe people are confusing late-term (anything after 16 weeks) abortions with the D&X procedure. There are several kinds of late-term abortion, D&X is one of them. It is not the only one.

As I said in my post, I was pressured to get ready for selective reduction from 16 weeks on. From support groups, I know quite a few people who have had late-term abortions, but only one who had the D&X and that was because she found out her baby had no brain tissue and a HUGE head. That procedure allowed her to hold her baby boy in her arms, instead of never seeing him (in pieces). The nurses were able to put a cap on him (they do that frequently with babies with incomplete skulls, even when their head is not swollen, so that the parents are not shocked by the appearance).

How many times have you been put in the position to consider a late term abortion? How many people do YOU know that have had them, and specifically the D&X?

If it's none, then I suggest you not dismiss my experience and other's pain just because they're inconvenient to your opinion on this matter.
 
#139 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by Potty Diva
Using emotionally charged words doesn't change the scientific fact that embryos are NOT children.
i think embryos are children.. right from conception, everything was there that made my child who she is... every hair on her head, every laugh, every milky smile... it was all there. so what if she couldn't breathe on her own.. she was still herself.. just smaller.
 
#140 ·
kitty-
let me just say "EASY KILLA!" back off...sheesh
i wasnt incorrect because i ASKED if it was a PB abortion or not. it wasnt presented as a fact.

"How many times have you been put in the position to consider a late term abortion? How many people do YOU know that have had them, and specifically the D&X?"

ummm well i havent - BUT if i had i wouldnt chose it-,
and i dont know anyone who has had one unless the girl did have one and she might well have, i dont know...i didnt ask "how many people know someone who has had one" to make you get all

i was seriously ASKING not giving a condisending question which is what you are giving back...
there is no reason for you to flame me...go back and read my post again - im not saying ithe bill SHOULD be passed at all. so take a chill pill.
 
#141 ·
Quote:
whose diabetic mother would have difficulty healing from a C-section
Lots of mothers have difficulty healing. Major surgery is not supposed to be easy. I'd still choose it if there were any chance at all the baby would live. Lots of diabetics do not have difficulty with childbirth.

If the baby is already dead, it's not really an abortion, is it? If it would live for only a few seconds after birth, I'd grab those few seconds and make the most of them.
 
#142 ·
Liz, you stated that you believed that at 6 months it *would* be a PBA. That's an incorrect assumption.

You asked for people who'd experienced one, or people who knew someone who'd had one. I'm the latter.

My question wasn't meant to be condescending, but it was meant to be sharp. Were you asking the same question condescendingly? Or were you not looking for a response? Now I'm confused.
 
#143 ·
Quote:
Major surgery is not supposed to be easy. I'd still choose it if there were any chance at all the baby would live.
As would most of the parents confronted with this choice. BUT, when your child is missing a brain, there is NO possibility they will live. The mother should not have to go through a "regular" abortion (and have her much longer for child torn limb from limb) or risk death and the inability to have *future* children for an unviable life esp if she does not want to.

Once again, I have to restate: this ban does NOTHING to outlaw late term abortions, it just makes people faced with this delima have *less* choice in an already horrible situation.
 
#144 ·
Quote:
Once again, I have to restate: this ban does NOTHING to outlaw late term abortions,
Maybe not, but it does stop this painful and inhumane way of delivering a baby.

Doesn't anyone care that these babies are being tortured during thier birth, when they could be more gently born and allowed to die with dignity after their birth? Doesn't anyone care that they feel pain? Don't you think the parents have a right to know that this method of birthing thier child will be very painful to their child?

I'm finding the indifference to the pain these children are put through, to be very disturbing. Especially among mothers who normally are so caring and gentle in thier treatment of birth and babies.
:
 
#145 ·
Quote:
Maybe not, but it does stop this painful and inhumane way of delivering a baby.
I think what a lot of people are missing is that the choices that many of the women are looking at are not:

1) PBA
2) Delivery of child

but

1) PBA
2) Traditional abortion

In what way is a traditional abortion so much *better* that women should be allowed to have them, but not a PBA. In addition, you need a brain to feel pain, correct? So, either way, for many of these children it is a painless proceedure, unfortunately so.
 
#146 ·
Quote:
Don't you think the parents have a right to know that this method of birthing thier child will be very painful to their child?
I have never advocated parental ignorance.

Once again, though, what makes anyone think that it is *more* painful for the child to undergo a PBA than a traditional abortion?
 
#147 ·
a traditional abortion can not be done after about 18 weeks because the skull is formed. Either the skull has to be crushed and sucked out, or the child has to be born. I'm saying that killing the child as it is being born, is not the best way to birth these babies regaurdless of weather they are viable or not. If the skull is big enough to be partial born so that the fluid can be drained, then why can't the child be born and allowed to die with dignity? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think there are other options, this is just the one of choice because it produces a dead baby and no one has to deal with an imperfect baby that just might live.

As I said before, I know a family who had doctors tell them that their unborn son had no brain and should be aborted, he was born early by cesarian section and is now 2 years old! He isn't "perfect" but he certianly does feel pain and joy and is living a full life.

I also know a family with a similar story and their little girl is just over a year. She is slow, but making progress, and bringing joy to her family.

I'm not sure that a child with an incomplete brain does not feel pain. If there are nerve endings then the ability to feel pain is very possible. In the case of my friend's chidren, the doctors were wrong about how much brain was there, and had the parents listened to the doctors, those babies would have felt pain as they were killed during birth!
 
#148 ·
Thanks Tigerchild and 3boys4us! This thread was getting so judgemental and OT I was going nuts! Thanks for bringing in your experiences to give the parents better representation than that of murderers! It seems that people just don't want to see the parents as people.

Did anyone go to the link about parents who had to make this heartbreaking choice? A hearbreaking choice is the site. I could not believe it(well maybe) when I read the disclaimer about how they recieve negative emails directed at these parents! The site reminds them that these people have already had to make this choice, and that condesending emails would only add pain. Sometimes the length people go to is very scary!
 
#150 ·
If you give the govt. the right to tell you that you can't (have an abortion), you are also giving them the right to tell you when you must, especially if the govt. has a "financial stake" in caring for the baby, whether due to medical disability or poverty. It hasn't happened yet, but it could easily turn into that as people who are tired of "paying for the poverty of others" start deciding fertility issues. It's a slippery slope.
 
#151 ·
Delilah - IMO when you give the govt. the right to make decisions for you and yours, you give away rights - period.

What worries me is the sanctamonious, condescending, tone that many of the posters take in regards to abortion - if you don't like D&X then don't have one - it is a choice that hopefully two persons will make together without the interference of others. It is someone else's decision - not yours.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top