Viti

It is major. The cervix is closed for a reason. Also, if he had an instrument inside her (which he had to have for her to have a perforations) you can't just leave things half done, again chance of infection.

Where from the actual court papers does it say she had only been dilated when she asked them to stop? I don't read it that way at all.

Hazel-rah

Especially during pregnancy. It's kinda what holds the kid in, you know? I have a friend who's had three miscarriages because her cervix "wouldn't stay closed."

That abortion procedure was well underway by that point.

AlphaandOmega

16. When the abortionist had barely started, Jane Roe, II felt extreme, excessive pain in her abdomen unlike any pain she had ever felt before. When Jane Roe, II told the abortionist's helpers about the pain in her stomach, defendants' staff looked at one another with horrified looks on their faces, saying nothing.

17. Immediately Jane Roe, II knew that the abortion was going terribly wrong. "Mom", " Mom", she started calling in a loud desperate voice. She then demanded that an ambulance be called to take her to the emergency room at the local hospital.

They had just started. In the articles above it mentions they had only dialated her cervix.

Viti

The articles are from biased sources, and "barely started" is not a medical term.

Until we know the exact facts of the case, we can only go by this woman and her attorney's vague and hysterical language.

reprise

Plese bear in mind that this is a "he said, she said" situation. What both parties have alleged in their briefs, has - for the most part - yet to be determined as fact.

While I know that the hyperbolic and emotional language used in the plaintiffs brief is very disturbing, it actually isn't relative to whether the FACE legislation 1) applies to this particular case and 2) has been violated in this particular case.

As I said, I spent several hours reading the briefs on this case last night and there's a hell of a lot of hyperbole in the plaintiff's brief but it seems to be extremely short on verifiable fact.

As you know, I am passionately pro-choice. Now to me, pro-choice means supporting a woman's right not to have an abortion just as much as it means supporting her right to terminate a pregnancy. I do believe that women need to be protected from being bullied into abortions by parents or partners, and I believe that there needs to be legislation which protects the right of women to say "no" after they've signed consent forms and paid for the procedure (both of which might well have taken place in front of the bullying party). Further, I believe that when a woman invokes this right to say no to a procedure into which she has been coerced, there should be some clearly defined protocol which is put in place to protect the woman from any negative consequence which arise from her exercising that right (she sure as shit shouldn't be made to leave the clinic with the person who is bullying her). Now whether the FACE legislation should be extended to codify this right or whether there should be separate legislation which addresses the issue is a matter for debate. I am not generally in favour of modifying specific purpose legislation such as the FACE legislation on a "salami" basis (ie, one slice at a time), so I would probably favour separate legislation.

Having said of that, there comes a point in any medical procedure where the surgeon is "committed" - where simply up and leaving the operating room is not a safe option. At the very least, the surgeon needs to stabilise the patient's condition so that they are at no further risk - even if the procedure itself is ceased. Until the facts of this case are determined, we will not know how much stabilising was necessary in this particular case, but one thing I find curious absent from the plaintiff's brief in this particular case are medical reports from the ambulance service and the emergency room.

Revelation_Man

Wow, I'm impressed by all the people with such medical knowledge.

It seems to me that the woman went in, on doctors orders, (probably several recommended it, you don't make a decision like this lightly). And then during the procedure, or at the start, she has second thoughts. I can see that. Happens all the time. Women come in, a little nervous, but ready to get it over with. After a few minutes into it they suddenly panic and want to leave. I don't treat women who's health or the child's won't be negatively affected by the birth, so the women I have in my care are putting lives at risk, like this one. So if when they do try to back out of it at the last minute, first I try to calm them, and if they won't listen to reason, and get violent (I've been clawed, stabbed, several times), I will restrain them. Not just for mine and my staff's safety, but for their's.

This lawyer may be very competant, but he's arguing an imcompetant case.

Then again, we don't have the same privacy restraints you do.

0

I'm not exactly sympathetic to this case. For one, she went in to have an abortion in the first place. It was her choice to have the procedure done. You cannot just wait until there is an instrument inside of you and decide that you want out. If she wanted to back out, she should have done that before the medical procedure began.
Also, I'm not a doctor, but I know enough to understand that once a cervix is dialated, this starts contractions of the uterus, both in the opening of the cervix and once it is fully open. Dialation is the signal of the start of labor. you can't just walk out of a clinic with a dialated cervix. The chances of infection are high, but so are the chances of miscarriage if the dialation jumpstarts of the rest of the labor. Having her walk out at that point would have insured that both her and the child would have been in drastic danger.
I have two close friends that have had abortions. They told me that they had a period right before the procedure began where both doctor and nurse asked if they really wanted to procede, in which they stated yes.
All I'm saying is that there aren't enough facts here to say that the doctor was wrong. We don't know what happened. perhaps she didn't stay still and he ended up botching the procedure because of her movements. Perhaps she had to be restrained. perhaps the doctor went a head and killed the fetus to collect his fee.
All of these situations are speculation and i can't honestly say that I can tell which side is telling the truth in this situation.
Tangie