Does Anyone Else Find Partial Birth Abortion Horrible?

[ImThatOneGuy]

I'm all for a woman's right to choose and have control over her own body. No government should dictate what she can do. However, partial birth abortion, I feel, is just horrendous. To terminate a baby's life that late into the third trimester and to do so by crushing its skull is just simply reviling. But I am torn on this issue nonetheless. If the government seeks to ban partial birth abortion, that could open the door for the radical right to move against the pro-choice movement as a whole. What can be done then?

[Catherine Vincent]

1. You're slick.

I'll grant you that.

[Gman]

4. Nice use of the

"bleeding heart liberal and proud of it."

[Junkdrawer]

24. Somewhere, a Moderator's email queue is filling up...

:evilgrin:

[UdoKier]

19. Slick or not, there is not unanimity among democrats on this issue.

Here's some ACLU info on D&X. ("Partial Birth") is a misnomer.

http://www.aclu.org/ReproductiveRights/ReproductiveRights.cfm?ID=4998&c=148

Personally I find the D&X procedure abhorrent, but I do believe there needs to be a provision for extreme circumstances like danger to the life of the mother.

I think many democrats who are inclined to support a ban on D&X might be wise to tie their support of the ban to the above-mentioned provision as well as INCREASED access to conventional early-term abortion in areas that are presently underserved.


EDIT: Link added.

[papau]

40. slick -Alternative to having a fetus w/o brain that harms mother beingborn

and can not live once born.

D&X is a valid procedure - perhaps more so than other abortions.

But I do agree with the poster that Dems - like GOPers - reject its use as anything other than a last resort - indeed it functions as a replacement action/alternative to a C-section to get a still birth - or soon to be a still birth -

[Gman]

2. You are very likely uninformed about what "partial birth abortion"

really is. The only thing I have to say to someone with only 44 posts and asking a question like this is to do some research before you come here and ask a question using that purely political term.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Do you honestly believe women wait 8 months for an elective abortion?

It's a medical procedure that is performed in fairly extreme circumstances and NEVER because someone just decided they didn't want to be pregnant.

[Donkeyboy75]

5. Just listen to Alan Keyes' speech?

Have you researched exactly what this procedure is?

[AVID]

6. Did you have that thought on the way out of F911? nt

[gulliver]

7. It is banned already.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031105-1.html

And it didn't do a thing for anti-abortion folks except remove itself as an issue.

[GregW]

8. Take two of these ...

... and call ... nah don't worry, you'll be gone by then.

[kestrel91316]

9. Re "partial birth abortion"

NEWS FLASH: There is no such thing as "partial birth abortion". There IS a procedure called intact dilation and extraction, which is used for late term abortions, like uh, when ultrasound finally shows that your fetus is something lovely like a schistosomus reflexus, or has hypoplastic left heart, or no brain. Women aren't suddenly deciding to kill perfectly healthy, wanted fetuses late in the game just to regain their girlish figures. Mind your own business and let women decide these things for themselves. Either that, or adopt every last unwanted child yourself and shut up..

[MikeG]

10. How many are there a year anyway? Five?

[AVID]

11. You're that one guy . . .

. . . I get to use ignore on.

[Bluebear]

13. "Um oh gee, why? I didn't think this struck such a nerve!"

I'm just asking honest questions! Wow!

[spotbird]

12. My opinion is that viability should be the line, unless the mother's

life is in jeopardy. But I don't think the procedure is horrible.

Our society makes decisions about the value of life all the time. Homicide is tolerated with war, the death penalty and self defense. A more benign homicide also occurs when a person who could survive and enjoy life is denied health care. No one screams in outrage when a young mother dies of cancer for want of health insurance.

There is something magical about a fetus that gets people all emotional, where life that is already here leaves them cold.

[RetroLounge]

14. Here's the last thread you started. Uh huh...Sure...

"Did Anyone Else NOT like Fahrenheit 9/11?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2173568

and now: "Does Anyone Else Find Partial Birth Abortion Horrible?"

Hmmmmmmmm. Do you have anything of actual value to add?

Here's some ideas for you next thread:

"Does anyone else think Al Gore actually Lost?"
"Does anyone else think Clinton deserved to be impeached?"
"Is anyone else sick of Kerry and his war record?"

See, it's really easy, just read the Rove Blast fax, FreepVille, or Faux News, grab a talking point, form an innocent sounding question, like you really want to discuss things, then stand back and watch.

Who else wants to play?

RL

[Liberal Veteran]

26. Me! Me! Me! I think the next thread should be...

Do you think the media really is too hard on Bush?
Does anyone else feel safer with Saddam Hussein gone?
Does anyone else think that the government should give contracts to religious charities?

[RetroLounge]

29. Oooh, I got another one...

"Does anyone else think we should name more things after Reagan?"

Who is next? Your turn...

RL

[Bluebear]

37. Me! Me!

"Does anyone think that gay 'marriage' is an accurate term? I mean, I am a liberal and believe everyone should live their life but isn't marriage the basic fiber of socirty? Not sure, just asking!"

[jmowreader]

15. No, I find women dying because of pregnancies gone wrong horrible

This is the question:

Do we:

a) Get rid of intact D&E, which is used only in cases of absolute disaster, and watch a lot of women who have children die of various pregnancy failures, leaving children without mothers because they're not allowed to have the treatment which will save them...

- or -

b) Allow the intact D&E procedure with the understanding that yes, it's horrible but the alternative is far worse?

[Caution]

16. Can Open...Worms EVERYWHERE!!!

This procedure is among the rarest performed and is only done when under very unusual and dangerous circumstances. This is quite simple an attempt to make inroads on preventing all abortions.

[customerserviceguy]

34. This is the one issue

...that makes liberals sound like the gun nuts over on the right wing who believe that anyone should be able to own any weapon, any time, any circumstances.

Every single right, even those explicitly stated in the Bill of Rights has SOME limitations. You don't have to just be yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre, you can be convicted for using "fighting words". You can't start up a church that favors marriage of adults with underage minors. You can't print libel.

Why do gun advocates on the far fringe, and abortion advocates on the far fringe think that those things are supposed to be absolute? Rarity itself is not a reason to allow something. We don't have a lot of Columbines or automatic weapons users picking people off from clock towers, but that's no reason not to do everything in our power to prevent these things from happening.

[Tansy_Gold]

17. First of all, welcome to DU, oneguy

Second of all, the government HAS ALREADY banned the vague, non-medically-defined procedure colloquially called "partial birth abortion." And it is and always has been a tactic of the anti-choice, anti-woman rightwing.

Please remember a few salient points --

There is no such medical procedure as "partial birth abortion."

Late-term convenience abortions are virtually prohibited by Roe v. Wade already.

The few (something like 1200-2000 per year) late-term abortions now performed are almost always done for reasons of fetal non-viability and/or serious threat to the mother's health.

Banning the non-medically defined "partial birth abortion" at a stage as early as the second trimester would prohibit most abortions in the case of serious birth defects that are not detectable until 16 weeks gestation, thus effectively condemning women to carry and deliver against their will.

The instances of convenience-motivated third trimester abortion are virtually nil. But if you're in favor of giving the rightwing two feet and an elbow in the anti-choice door, go right ahead. And while you're at it, why not stump for prohibiting aspirin (which can be used to overdose) and baseball bats (which can be used to murder) and pantyhose (which can be used to strangle. . . . oh, wait, pantyhose are JUST PLAIN EVIL and should be banned anyway.)

Tansy Gold, pro-woman, pro-child, pro-choice

[LTR]

18. It's a wedge issue

Banned already.

What's the point?

[buycitgo]

23. point is, trying to waste everybody's time, as in its other

thread, listed above

wake up

EC

[Bluebear]

30. Indeed. Chalabi arrest warrants always makes me think of wedge issues

[Judi Lynn]

20. Original way to bend the word "revile!" Have never seen this done.

Main Entry: re·vile
Pronunciation: ri-'vI(&)l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): re·viled; re·vil·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French reviler to despise, from re- + vil vile
transitive senses : to subject to verbal abuse : VITUPERATE
intransitive senses : to use abusive language : RAIL
synonym see SCOLD
- re·vile·ment /-'vI(&)l-m&nt/ noun
- re·vil·er noun

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=revile

On edit:

It would appear we have a scholar among us! (Maybe not)

[Nite Owl]

21. There is no such procedure.

The right wing made up the term. Lots of procedures are horrible like when a diabetic has to lose a limb because of poor or no medical insurance. Do they fret over that? How many people die because of medical procedures that they had to do without or were botched up? Do they care about that?

[NewHampshireDem]

22. What part of ...

Safe, legal, and rare don't right-wingers understand?

[RetroLounge]

25. Please do not feed the, well, you know...

RL

[Catherine Vincent]

27. No response yet, Slickster?

[SemperEadem]

28. using carpet bombs to incinerate babies of Muslim parents is horrible too

I don't see you venturing onto a freeper board making broad assertions.

You really like wearing gasoline underwear to bonfires, huh?

[kiahzero]

31. Partial Birth Abortion doesn't exist

If you're going to talk about something, use the real words for it, rather than Republican Newspeak.

[Maddy McCall]

32. If you were "all for women's right to choose" then you would agree...

that government has no place in banning any form of health care for women.

You're that one guy, alright.

[DBoon]

33. I think damaging a woman's health

for the sake of a non-viable fetus is horrible.

Pregnancies are not terminated that late unless there is some really good reason.

[LandOLincoln]

35. There is no such thing as partial birth abortion. It's a RW straw man

and I'm sorry you fell for it.

The actual procedure is called a "Dilation and Extraction" and it's a very, very rare operation. I work for Ob/Gyns and not a single one of them has ever peformed this procedure, nor do any of them know another ob/gyn who's done it.

Don't be sucked in by RW propaganda. It's a lie.

[slinkerwink]

36. partial birth abortion is performed to SAVE the woman's LIFE!

[Ladyhawk]

38. I'm against third trimester abortion.

I just can't buy into hurting a living organism that can feel pain and fear. Sorry.

At the same time, I find it hard to believe that a zygote is a living person. I'm not sure where the line is between "mass of cells" and "feeling being"...but that's the very question at the heart of the debate, isn't it?

Republicans, however, have it all wrong:

1) not wanting sex education / condoms in schools. It would be better to prevent an unwanted pregnancy than to abort a fetus, wouldn't it?

2) forcing a woman to have a baby she can't afford, then not helping her to financially raise it

Republicans only love a person until it is born. They don't really care about people. They just use this issue to divide and conquer.

[Doctor_J]

39. it's a medical procedure

which should be a decision for a woman and her doctor, not a religious fanatic like John Ashcroft. The wingers claim to be for keeping the government out of personal business, yet they want to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship and also decide who should have sex.

[IdaBriggs]

41. There is more to it than you are hearing....

People are not having this procedure for "fun" or because they didn't use birth control, anymore than heart patients decide to vacation at the hospital and have triple bypasses instead of going to Cancun for the weekend.

A good friend of mine was twenty weeks along when she was told her baby would only live approximately one hour after it was born due to serious heart deformities. Her options were a) carry the baby to term (alive while still inside of her) or b) terminate the pregnancy. Her options if she chose a) were not good -- an immediate heart transplant (extremely unlikely within that one hour window) may have helped, or they could let the child die in extreme pain, or they could keep the child alive on machines and multiple surgeries for four to five years before it died. If they opted for "carry to term" the finances due to the limitations of their medical insurance would have been beyond words devastating; as it was, their deductibles and what not while they were going through the diagnostics cost several thousand dollars (because this was going on from the end of December to January, which meant everything kicked back in at zero, and also the change to "high risk" category meant an immediate increase to a higher deductible category). And then there was the emotional devastation which nearly destroyed her, and their marriage....

Because they were at twenty weeks (and this particular condition was diagnosed with high level ultrasound imagery at the earliest stage possible), she and her doctors double and triple checked everything because they DID NOT want this to be happening. This did not make it any easier; seeing her child moving around on the ultrasounds after she knew it wasn't going to survive was killing her. Being told of the pain her child would undergo with multiple surgeries and living on machines until age four to five before dying was a nightmare beyond endurance. She actually "felt" the first movement (which she excitedly took as a good sign) right before they came back in and told her the "no hope" news -- and that she was carrying a boy. The emotional roller coaster they were on was HORRIBLE. I'm convinced she and her husband made the best decision for their family when she opted to terminate the pregnancy, because I don't think she would have been able to stay sane if the situation had dragged out for months longer; as it was, it was another week and a half from the initial diagnosis to the termination procedure because of the dangers associated with this procedure (which were MEDICALLY similar to a D&C but more emotionally charged) POLITICALLY meant there were only two hospitals in southeastern Michigan that were WILLING to perform the procedure.

I will never forget the pain she went through -- and then having a "friend" tell her she was a "murderer" for deciding to terminate the pregnancy was probably one of the last straws. Medical decisions at this level belong to the family, not ignorant idiots who make assumptions about "morals" based on advertising that is the equivalent of "buy Viagra" and "let US tell you about medicine, and not the people who actually practice it."

Regards,
Ida M. Briggs

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Anyone else find thinly veiled RW agit-prop horrible?

..just wondering.

[unfrigginreal]

43. A Sorry Statement Having Only Limited Effect

Welcome to DU. :eyes:

[Moderator]

44. Locking.....

The author is no longer with us.


DU Moderator