Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 06-12-2003, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by VTboy
Again do research on it. Thousands of so called unhealthy mothers only have mental problems. If she is to insane to have the child why cant they just give it up for adoption. You also give 0 none that say most are done when the mother and child is not healthy. Again I dont consider mental health a real health problem.

I did the research, and it didn't support what you said. I found no record of a woman in the third trimester who got an abortion solely because she claimed a mental illness - which is not to say that there are none, but I didn't find any and you haven't provided any examples. Most of the examples of third trimester abortions involved serious abnormalities in the fetus, so that it would not have lived, or threats to the life or health of the mother from non-psychological sources.

Now it's your turn to do some research.

Jewel · 06-12-2003, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by VTboy
Again do research on it. Thousands of so called unhealthy mothers only have mental problems. If she is to insane to have the child why cant they just give it up for adoption. You also give 0 none that say most are done when the mother and child is not healthy.

Have you even bothered to read the links that people posted in the last abortion thread in CSS&SA that you attempted to derail? It certainly does not sound as though you have or you would not be making accusations that pro-choice people have not done their research. Brighid, Scigirl & Toto all posted links for you. I urge you to read through the material carefully.

If you are going to continue to make these off base assertions -- back them up. No one is going to take you seriously if all you do is repeat the twisted lies of the Religious Reich.

Quote:

Originally posted by VTboy
Again I dont consider mental health a real health problem.

That's just naive.

VTboy · 06-12-2003, 03:48 PM

Jewel here is SOME FACTS that you site dont give.

http://www.kdhe.state.ks.us/hci/99itop1.pdf

Look all 182 Partial Birth was done for Mental Reasons. Again I dont consider mental health a good enough reason. This is only for Kansas and States like New Jersey have many times more. FACT the majority of Partial Birth Abortions are done for mental reasons.

It is too easy for people to pretend to have mental problems. Any one fake them.

VTboy · 06-12-2003, 03:53 PM

This site also has good FACTS.

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/KeyfactsJune02.html

The Physicians� Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT) -- a group of over 600 physician-specialists (mostly in obstetrics, perinatology, and related disciplines) -- has spoken out to dispute claims that some women need partial-birth abortions to avoid serious physical injury. PHACT said: �We, and many other doctors across the United States, regularly treat women whose unborn children suffer these and other serious conditions. Never is the partial-birth procedure medically indicated. Rather, such infants are regularly and safely delivered live, vaginally, with no threat to the mother's health or fertility.� In September, 1996, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and other PHACT members said that �partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a mother's health or her future fertility. On the contrary, this procedure can pose a significant threat to both.�

Jewel · 06-12-2003, 04:04 PM

The NRLC site was discussed in the last thread. I am very aware of it. I am also very aware that their information is misleading.

As far as the other link you posted, they do not list the specific conditions of the patients. It is a general questionaire and there are quite a few disorders that could be characterized as mental. It is not as easy as you think to fake a mental disorder. Ah, but it does not matter since you do not consider mental problems to be real issues. I suppose Andrea Yates was perfectly sane, too.

VTboy · 06-12-2003, 04:40 PM

Jewel if it is mental her life is not in danger. Sure she probably not fit to raise the child but what is wrong with adoption. The information you give is misleading. Claiming health reasons, but the main health reason isn't a real one. It is only your opinion that Mental health justifies abortion.

Toto · 06-12-2003, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by VTboy
Jewel here is SOME FACTS that you site dont give.

http://www.kdhe.state.ks.us/hci/99itop1.pdf

Look all 182 Partial Birth was done for Mental Reasons. Again I dont consider mental health a good enough reason. This is only for Kansas and States like New Jersey have many times more. FACT the majority of Partial Birth Abortions are done for mental reasons.

It is too easy for people to pretend to have mental problems. Any one fake them.

This shows:

574 abortions performed after 22 weeks gestation, most on out of state women (I infer that Kansas has a regional center that does this rare procedure.) 182 of these were "partial birth abortions."

In 272 cases, the fetus was not viable. In the other cases, the abortion was done to "prevent substantial and irreversable impairment of a major bodily function."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, "The mental health exception is also critical because it has been the aegis under which most abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormality have been justified." So these abortions do not involve a healthy fetus at all.

Here is some real testimony:

http://lrfps.com/message2.html

Quote:

But it was only after interviewing women who've had late-term procedures, doctors who've performed them, an array of legal and medical experts, and all the available data, that I became certain of what the truth about late-term abortion really is. It's this: the campaign against partial-birth abortion is a callous hoax--a slander on the women who've undergone them, and a cynical effort to attack all abortion rights by vilifying those who support them. And it demonstrates something we can never forget--that we, not they, occupy the moral high ground.

That's not what most people believe. They believe that post-viability abortions are common, and that they are performed on the healthy fetuses of healthy mothers, often moments from birth, by heartless doctors sanctioned by a pro-choice movement so inhumane that even the most distasteful kind of butchery does not offend them.

If that were true, that's what I'd have written. But it's not.

Here's the truth as I found it and as all of you know it all too well. Late-term abortions proceed from the cruelest fetal anomalies--such as the absence of a brain or other essential organs--or, rarer yet, when pregnancy prevents the emergency treatment of the mother for mortal risks from cancer, diabetes, heart disease and the like. They're performed only by a handful of brave and principled doctors. And they are exceedingly rare--roughly one of fifteen hundred abortions performed every year occur after twenty-four weeks.

As part of my research I interviewed several women who had such abortions, one a pro-life Catholic. Their situations involved deeply wanted children, in pregnancies gone hideously wrong. These fetal anomalies presented various threats to maternal life or health: at a minimum, that the fetus would die inside the mother, impairing her clotting mechanism--which, in the worst case, could have led to an emergency hysterectomy. By the time we spoke, this tragedy was several years in the past. But none could talk of it without deep emotion, often to the point of speechlessness or tears.

Yet the pro-life movement implies that these women--and those like them--have chosen virtual infanticide for no better reason than their personal convenience. They've invented the term "partial-birth" abortion-a term nowhere known to medicine--to summon horrific images and obscure the medical facts. They fudge whether "partial-birth" means all post-viability abortion, or a specific procedure most often used in legally-protected pre-viability abortions--but only in one in 3,200 cases. And they've drafted a host of state laws--so far struck down by the Supreme Court--which define "partial-birth" so vaguely that they threatened to criminalize abortion for all.

hezekiah jones · 06-12-2003, 05:03 PM

Interesting, and pretty much what I had expected. These exceedingly rare procedures are in fact the most humane abortions of all.

Now if only the religious fanatics would quit their disgraceful lying, the debate could proceed on a more informed footing.

Toto · 06-12-2003, 05:08 PM

More on medical reasons from religioustolerance.org - D & X / Partial Birth Abortion PROCEDURES: :

Quote:

A midwifery web site quotes Dr. William F. Harrison, a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2 He wrote that "approximately 1 in 2000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus while in the womb." About 5000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus each year in the U.S. This is not usually discovered until late in the second trimester. Some cases are not severe. After birth, shunts can be installed to relieve the excess fluid on the newborn's brain. A pre-natal method of removing the excess fluid is being experimentally evaluated. However, some cases are much more serious. "It is not unusual for the fetal head to be as large as 50 centimeters (nearly 20 inches) in diameter and may contain...close to two gallons of cerebrospinal fluid." In comparison, the average adult skull is about 7 to 8 inches in diameter. A fetus with severe hydrocephalus is alive, but as a newborn cannot live for long; it cannot achieve consciousness. The physician may elect to perform a D&X by draining off the fluid from the brain area, collapsing the fetal skull and withdrawing the dead fetus. Or, he might elect to perform a type of caesarian section. The former kills a fetus before birth; the latter allows the newborn to die after birth, on its own. A caesarian section is a major operation. It does expose the woman to a greatly increased chance of infection. It "poses its own dangers to a woman and any future pregnancies." [2] Allowing a woman to continue in labor with a severely hydrocephalic fetus is not an option; attempted birth would kill her.

. . .

A committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) thoroughly studied D&X procedures in 1996. They reported: "A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure...would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman." They also determined that "an intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this decision." Their statement was approved by the ACOG executive board on 1997-JAN-12. Unfortunately, the ACOG web site does not contain a copy of this statement that is accessible to the public.

. . .

Senator Rick Santorum, one of the leaders in the Senate of a D&X ban, said that the procedure is a gruesome form of infanticide. [The term infanticide refers to the killing of a newborn infant; it is not applicable to an unborn fetus during a D&X procedure.] Senator Santorum also said that it is a lie to argue that a D&X is sometimes required to protect a woman from a serious health risk. But if he truly believed that statement, then he would not have objected to President Clinton's request that an exemption be added to the bill in cases of serious health risks to the woman. After all, if there was no risk of a devastating health problem, then the exemption would never be exercised, and there would be no harm in including it in the bill.

hezekiah jones · 06-12-2003, 05:19 PM

Jeez, that hydrocephalus stuff is heartbreaking isn't it. My cousin's wife was pregnant under those circumstances. It was brutal, for the entire family. And she is a devout "pro-life" Catholic as well. But it's different when it hits home, let me tell you.

Seems to me these conservatives are exploiting these things for political gain. I find that absolutely repulsive. I wish more people would think about what unprincipled whores people like Rick Santorum really are. Actually I shouldn't say that I guess, because it's kind of disrespectful to whores.

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06-12-2003, 03:48 PM	#13
VTboy Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fairfield, Ca Posts: 177	Jewel here is SOME FACTS that you site dont give. http://www.kdhe.state.ks.us/hci/99itop1.pdf Look all 182 Partial Birth was done for Mental Reasons. Again I dont consider mental health a good enough reason. This is only for Kansas and States like New Jersey have many times more. FACT the majority of Partial Birth Abortions are done for mental reasons. It is too easy for people to pretend to have mental problems. Any one fake them.

06-12-2003, 03:53 PM	#14
VTboy Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fairfield, Ca Posts: 177	This site also has good FACTS. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/KeyfactsJune02.html The Physicians� Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT) -- a group of over 600 physician-specialists (mostly in obstetrics, perinatology, and related disciplines) -- has spoken out to dispute claims that some women need partial-birth abortions to avoid serious physical injury. PHACT said: �We, and many other doctors across the United States, regularly treat women whose unborn children suffer these and other serious conditions. Never is the partial-birth procedure medically indicated. Rather, such infants are regularly and safely delivered live, vaginally, with no threat to the mother's health or fertility.� In September, 1996, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and other PHACT members said that �partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a mother's health or her future fertility. On the contrary, this procedure can pose a significant threat to both.�

06-12-2003, 04:04 PM	#15
Jewel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 1,112	The NRLC site was discussed in the last thread. I am very aware of it. I am also very aware that their information is misleading. As far as the other link you posted, they do not list the specific conditions of the patients. It is a general questionaire and there are quite a few disorders that could be characterized as mental. It is not as easy as you think to fake a mental disorder. Ah, but it does not matter since you do not consider mental problems to be real issues. I suppose Andrea Yates was perfectly sane, too.

06-12-2003, 04:40 PM	#16
VTboy Regular Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Fairfield, Ca Posts: 177	Jewel if it is mental her life is not in danger. Sure she probably not fit to raise the child but what is wrong with adoption. The information you give is misleading. Claiming health reasons, but the main health reason isn't a real one. It is only your opinion that Mental health justifies abortion.

06-12-2003, 05:03 PM	#18
hezekiah jones Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: WI Posts: 4,357	Interesting, and pretty much what I had expected. These exceedingly rare procedures are in fact the most humane abortions of all. Now if only the religious fanatics would quit their disgraceful lying, the debate could proceed on a more informed footing.

06-12-2003, 05:19 PM	#20
hezekiah jones Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: WI Posts: 4,357	Jeez, that hydrocephalus stuff is heartbreaking isn't it. My cousin's wife was pregnant under those circumstances. It was brutal, for the entire family. And she is a devout "pro-life" Catholic as well. But it's different when it hits home, let me tell you. Seems to me these conservatives are exploiting these things for political gain. I find that absolutely repulsive. I wish more people would think about what unprincipled whores people like Rick Santorum really are. Actually I shouldn't say that I guess, because it's kind of disrespectful to whores.

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