In years past, when pro-life advocates were opposed to having an abortion center in their town, they normally looked to protests, legislation or zoning board requirements to help them place restrictions on abortion centers or make it difficult for them to do business. Now they’re trying a more direct tactic — buying them.
Abortion business have been purchased in states such as Kansas, Florida, Tennessee and Nebraska.
In one of the first cases the Pro-Life Majority Coalition of Chattanooga outbid a Tennessee abortion business for the right to own a local facility that had long been the sole place in town where abortions were done.
The buying of the building forced the abortion center to close and the site now houses the National Memorial for the Unborn, a memorial for all of the babies who died at the abortion center over the years.
Meetsy has it correctly. It is just none of my business what a woman does with her uterus.
Birth Control as the answer? True, it is important, but remember, birth control is not 100% effective with the exception of sterilization. Then, how can you force a woman to take a medication when she has committed no crime.
…why should women be given the right to kill another human being? dont the baies have body rights too? …
Sorry to say this women its your fault you got pregnant not the baby. Its jsut sensible i dont know why my fellow liberals cant see it
Comment by JohnnyM — 7/19/2006 @ 11:00 am
When the fetus can survive upon its own without support from the mother then yes, the fetus is now a baby. Until then it is a fetus, not a baby, not a person, not a child, and not a citizen. A fetus has extremely limited rights and they will never out weigh the mother’s. When the baby is capable of surviving then it would be a birth, not an abortion.
I’m a liberal and I don’t see it. You missed the second part of the equation. The male !!! A woman can not spontaneously conceive. She needs to be impregnated with sperm. Usually, that means a male partner. So you not only want to control a woman’s body, but also blame her entirely for becoming pregnant. What a dork statement.
You’re looking for the pretext to perform a post-birth abortion on Karl Rove, aren’t you?
Hhmmm, I think you’re onto a great new idea there Frank. Love it.
Boys, lets run down some of the reality of abortions:, the vast majority, of abortions have always been and ARE before the 8 week date, in fact, most clinics won’t even consider abortion after 6 weeks (or, 6 weeks past the first day of the last menstral period…meaning the little zygote is all of 4 weeks old!! At MOST.) …when it’s still a little pea sized thing. If the procedure is done manually…it’s with a canula (think cocktail thin drinking straw) and suction. It takes about a minute, and the bloody gook (a majority of it is menstral lining, you can’t tell the pea from the pod) all looks like what you’d see on a sanitary napkin. It’s certainly not the arms and legs that the bull**it anti-abortionists show you!!!!. Though, more commonly, now, there are drugs that cause the uterus to spontaneously abort, just as many, many MANY embryos are ejected. (Yep, a late, but extra heavy period can actually be a failed pregnancy. Pretty darn common.) It doesn’t appear any different than an exceptionally heavy period, with some cramping. (But many women say it’s not worse than the monthly cramping they experience, anyway.)
Please, get your medical facts straight, everyone!!!
Now…second trimester births are done in a hospital room, with injected saline, and often involve great amounts of blood loss by the mother (when done in a motel room, it’s when the woman can bled to death..like in the “good ol’days” with coat hangers and bottles of shaken up sodas). Saline, and often other drugs cause the fetus to die. Then it’s inducing a delivery, which is often longer than a “normal” termination, or miscarriage. Women who find out they are carrying a child with congential deformities often opt for this, at this stage, instead of going through the terrible grief of going to full term. Instances include….children born without heads, or missing large portions of their brains, children with spines on the exterior of the body, children with inherited disorders that doom them to a short, painful life. Few women have ever opted for a second trimester abortion without some real reason. It’s uncomfortable, risky, and emotionally very traumatic.
Third trimester abortions have never been common, or legal. It’s usually only when the baby is terribly deformed — and the woman lacked medical care up to that point. Or, something happened, and/or there would be great risk to the mother. Cases such as this involve a mother or baby baby who has massive untreatible tumors that are growing so fast that it could actually endanger the woman’s, or, more commonly, to deliver a baby that had died in the womb. A vaginal birth may improve the chances of that mother concieving again. The trauma of waiting until birth happened “naturally” is often unthinkable…mentally, and health wise. Unborn dead babies decay.
There are so many reasons that we need to not judge, not legislate, and allow women choices here. Consider that an unwed, single mother is, in the majority of cases, doomed to a life of poverty…..
A young unwed mother, facing a life of poverty is often an immature, mother. Let’s face it, getting pregnant is the easy part. If a woman is unable to take control of their fertility may not adult enough to raise the child. I don’t think we need more meth babies, more abused children, or more unwanted ones. Motherhood is too complicated to force on anyone because of some arbitrary beliefs by a bunch of uppity, middle class, out-of-touch white boys. Oh sure the THEORY is good…I like babies, too. But, I don’t think any baby deserves to be born to misery.
…consider that upwards of 50,000 babies end up severely disabled every year because of “shaken baby syndrome”. Many will never recover. Most are blind, many die, all are damaged forever. It takes as little as 5 seconds for the damage to occur. Every year over a thousand children die from neglect and malnutrition, most under the age of 2. And, the trend is on an upswing, huh, go figure, so is single mom poverty, and the pressure by anti-abortionists to “have the child”.
::: In 1976, an estimated 669,000 children were reported to child protective services. In 1987, that number had increased to 2,178,000 children reported; in 1996, that number had grown to 3,000,000.
The number of children reported in 1996 represents a 348% increase in the last two decades. Child abuse is a symptom that parents are having difficulty coping with their situation.:::
source:http://www.ctparentsplus.org/documents/answerstoquestions.asp
Abortion isn’t the only answer, but it’s one. A woman should have the ability to decide if she is ready for motherhood…not have it forced on her. Boys, stay out of this, unless you want to support single, unwed mothers…. check out the statistics on unwed mothers:
http://www.oycf.org/perspectives/12_063001/American_poverty_reform.htm
Women, like men should have the final say over their own bodies. I am strongly in favour of a womans right to choose.
Life begins at conception, and ideally no one has the right to end a life period. So, I’m against abortion. This makes me very confused, as you could imagine.
I have come down on the side of no legal abortions except in the case of rape, incest or actual danger to the physical well being of the mother, and these MUST be done during the first trimester.
I have a great deal of respect for the Catholic Church on abortion. No abortion, period, no death penalty, period. They have come down unequivically on the side of life. I have no respect for their position on birth control. There must be real birth control offered and it must be used by men and women or we will never see an end to abortion. This needs to be accompinied by sex education. Honest and real sex education and not in high school, it’s to late by then, probably in the 7th or 8th grade, and it must be mandatory, even for home schooled and religious schools.
Thats my opinion.
#12…Dylan….there isn’t a country in the world that has a clean enough record in it’s history to be able to throw stones at our house. So please, no distractions from the peanut gallery.
#19 Doug…..partial birth abortion is when the doctor takes forceps and pulls the baby down the birth canal until it’s HEAD is out of the mother, then the doctor uses a scalpel to sever the spinal cord at the base of the babies skull to kill it. The body is left inside the mother, during this procedure so it can be termed an abortion and not murder. Some really good lawyer must have thought this one up. From all the articles from both sides of this issue I can’t find anyone who can give an actual REAL reason for this procedure to be performed, other than to kill an unwanted child legally. But, this won’t be legal long, the SCOTUS will be looking at a partial birth case in the fall, with the new court make up it will be outlawed this time. O’Conner was the swing vote on this last time and she is gone.
#30….Henriiiiik……the number of abortions performed in this country as nothing more than a form of birth control, IS one the horrible things wrong with this world.
#32….Mr. Fusion…..using viability as a scale is going to cut the time allowed for abortions down to a few weeks the way medical science is going. The viability is already down to a solid 13 weeks. #23, Craig is right, it already looks like a person at 7 ot 8 weeks, if they keep going they will be keeping them alive at 10 weeks in a few years.
I read about this tactic of buying the clinics out. I thought it was that they were actually buying the business itself and then closing it. If all they are doing is buying the buildings and making the clinics move, that shouldn’t be a reason for the clinic owners to close up.
#35 Joshua re how partial birth abortions are performed. Google “partial birth abortions procedure” to see illustrations showing the head of the baby is left inside while the body is outside. The brains are essentially scrambled to “kill” it. Not pretty, but everybody should understand this “procedure”. I also happen to work with women who have had abortions and none of them are proud of them and all of them have continued to suffer emotionally. Is abortion the unforgiveable sin? No, but neither should people think it is like removing a hang nail.
#34…Well stated. There is so much misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding the abortion debate out there. Ultrasounds of advanced pregancies and misused phrases like “partial birth abortion” (which is a political, not medical, phrase) have been used to paint a misleading picture of how abortions are usually performed.
The fact is that the vast majority of abortions are performed very, very early in the pregnancy OR involve horrible birth defects and other problems that threaten both mother and child. And abortions always involve emtional scars for the women involved. No one chooses to have an abortion casually.
The BS and misinformation being spread about this trivialize the important questions involved and make informed decisions difficult to form.
#12…Dylan….there isn’t a country in the world that has a clean enough record in it’s history to be able to throw stones at our house. So please, no distractions from the peanut gallery.
That is the weakest argument imaginable. A typical Karl Rove comeback. Seriously, if that is your metric for someone to criticize, then it would be a very quiet planet indeed. A country’s history has nothing to do with the uptight mentality permeating American life. Let’s just say, America still hasn’t seen the error of its ways.
#32….Mr. Fusion…..using viability as a scale is going to cut the time allowed for abortions down to a few weeks the way medical science is going. The viability is already down to a solid 13 weeks.
… if they keep going they will be keeping them alive at 10 weeks in a few years.
joshua, you are showing your knowledge of biology. A fetus younger then 28 weeks has little chance of survival. At 25 weeks, there is virtually none. The lungs are the last organ to form in a fetus. When a baby is born pre-mature, it will be the baby’s ability to breath on their own that will determine if they live. All the medical advances in the world can’t replace the function of the lungs in a 20 ounce, premature baby. Usually, when kept alive, a preemy will have health problems later in life. I don’t know where you get 13 weeks from, but it won’t be a reputable medical source. Although if that is the case, then the mother could always give birth and allow the “Right to Interfere” crowd to nurse the baby to term and care for him the rest of his life.
#23, Craig is right, it already looks like a person at 7 ot 8 weeks, …
So can a sketch on a piece of paper or a computer generated “dancing baby”. That does not mean that the fetus is viable. In case you didn’t know, most simian fetuses will resemble a child until they are at least half term.
NOTE: So far, no one has brought up the 9th month abortion. I do believe it appeared in the the last two or three topics covering abortion. It is impossible medically to abort a baby at this point.
What about people who do not believe in the Bible? Do they not have equal protection under the law as citizens of this country? This is NOT a christian nation
(see: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html )
Article 11 states:”As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
This treaty was enacted in 1797 and was applauded by the fifth congress of the United States.
We may live in a nation of so called christians, but this is not a christian nation. Freedom of religion should include freedom FROM religion.
This conversation will be over at the cage match forums, where we can continue this debate.
So what’s to stop abortion advocates from buying their own clinics?
First, JohnnyM, look…I really doubt that most abused children really are thankful they are alive. Some of these children have horrid lives and massive injuries and torment before they are even a year old. They carry lifelong scars, and it disrupts the ability to trust so deeply, they often end up dying young and tragically. (Look up Reactive Attachment Disorder.) I really suggest doing a google search in google news on “infant” and “baby” and “child abuse” and “child neglect” and find out how many articles a day are all about how some father smashed his child against the wall, how some mother smothered her child, about some 6 month old infant found with multiple broken bones, about a dead abandoned baby, a malnurished one…like the one some months ago that weighed 7lbs at 12 months because Mama couldn’t be bothered to feed the kid regularly. Too much trouble, she never wanted it, anyway.
I don’t think you are understanding the NUMBERS of children waiting for adoption..check out http://www.adoptuskids.org/servlet/page?_pageid=186&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30
and look at the “special needs” kids looking for homes. This isn’t all the kids available, just the ones who want to get out of the foster system, and/or the ones that someone bothered to list in a photolisting. Babies, now they’re a hot commodity, adoption agencies can get up to 45k for one of those (which seems a lot like trading in souls to me), but the older than babies..languish, the other-than-white babies don’t fetch the higest “price”. Educate yourself, JohnnyM.
My goodness! I think that biology isn’t being taught in the schools. Doug/Joshua — the term “partial birth abortion” is made up by a pasty middle-aged white political dude who has about a much medical knowledge as…well, aparently YOU guys. The medical procedure that seems to be the one cited must be “DCX”. It’s always only been done for some really heart wrenching situations. Things like babies with such massive birth defects that it’s kinder for all to opt for such a late termination. No one would idly just say “oh I don’t want to be pregnant” at that point in the pregnancy. You just do not understand. The procedure isn’t to ‘scramble the brains”…in many, many of those cases the babies have incomplete heads, faces, or have heads 300% larger than they should be. We’re talking severe neural tube defects. The babies have no hope of surviving and the mom’s just want to get this nightmare over with. PLEASE…no one is as cold blooded as you portray them. You should learn that nothing is as black/white as you would like it to be. These are sad, sad situations. Not all babies are the picture of health bouncing little bundles of joy. Some have such massive errors they are little more than parasitic growths contained in the mother. These aren’t rare defects.
Read: http://www.folicacidnow.net/birthDefects.html
Or what about parents who find out that their child has Tay Sachs or one of the other ntsad disorders? Do you even KNOW about this stuff? What about babies who develop without lungs or other vital organs? The defects do not affect the mother, not physically, but should they have to carry a doomed baby to term? Would you want to look at your belly every morning and night and know that the fetus growing within has no chance for life, at all, under any circumstances? That is the hell you put a woman in by banning all abortions, except for a very limited scope “endangering a life of the mother”.
Unless you walk in their shoes, do not jump to conclusions or purchase the whole squirming rotting can of hype and outright lies being pushed at you, and by you. Please, you have a computer…do your own research..
Your circular reasoning makes no sense. You say it’s impossible because at that point it would be a birth. An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, resulting in the death of a fetus(or embryo). How is a 9th month abortion impossible?
Your circular reasoning makes no sense. You say it’s impossible because at that point it would be a birth. An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, resulting in the death of a fetus(or embryo). How is a 9th month abortion impossible?
Comment by AB CD — 7/20/2006 @ 4:00 pm
#42, Dr. AB CD,
Perhaps you could reference your source. I would be very interested in how a near term fetus is aborted. It is my understanding that it is physically impossible, but I know you will show us the truth.
I just went off the Webster’s definition. Going off my memory of your previous posts, you described an abortion, then said that’s not an abortion, it’s a birth.
How ironic that the religious right perpetuate the numbers/problems of slum living children by restricting access to “controls” like contraception, morning after pills and clinics for their parents. As soon as you’re born, you are no longer as important as the “unborn”. You see how they didn’t use the money to open a foster home for children in those buildings they bought but instead turned them into useless memorials.
You have to wonder when this insane “bleeding heart” stance would theoretically ever end. Would the next birth still be a priority if every single foot of the earth was already occupied by another person? How about when every one of those people are already holding a baby above their heads? When does the belief in an old human written book take backstage to the facts of reality?
I have to apologise……I am not sure where I got my info on Partial Birth Abortions, but I had it wrong. It is removal of the baby, except the head, the doctor inserts an insturment into the base of the skull and then places a suction device into the head and removes the brain, allowing the fetal head to collapse and then the abortion can be completed. This is only performed in the late second trimester or third trimester. Apparently it’s rare, maybe 2500 to 5000 cases a year. Supposedly for hydrocephalus mostly, but sometimes if the fetus is dead.
Here is a good link
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pba1.htm
#38…Mr. Fusion…..it’s not a weak argument. Unlike you, I get tired of hearing what a terrible place the U.S. is, and that we are somehow responsable for all the evils in the world. Thats bullsh*t.
If you want to rag on me, then you better damn well be holier than thou, about whatever it is your ragging about.
There are no perfect countries, in fact there are no almost perfect countries.
There wouldn’t be silence if people have something to offer along with the critisism, like suggestions of how we can all do better. To just constantly critize just to hear yourself speak isn’t helpful or appriciated.
So you support the rest of the world when they say that about us?
So abortion is needed to keep the population down? Maybe you wnat to start with those colored races?
AB CD
OK, do you have a link or any evidence where a woman would abort in her ninth month? C’mon, how many have happened. I’ll tell you, NONE. Simply because it is physically impossible to abort at that late a stage.
The only late term abortions (after the beginning of the seventh month) would only be done to save the life of the mother in an emergency situation. By the start of the eight month the fetus is too large to pass through the birth canal without inducing the mother or a cesarean section. That is called a birth, not an abortion. This is totally different from a D & E done at 12 weeks or less.
By the start of the eight month, the fetus is viable and by the start of the ninth month is only considered slightly pre-mature. The Supreme Court does allow states to regulate late term abortion and most have done so. But you won’t be finding any “9th month abortions” except from the “Right to Life” propagandists. Nor would you find any physicians who would perform one.
Comment by Mr. H. Fusion — 7/11/2006 @ 7:47 pm
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=6101#comments
Now compare that with what I wrote earlier in this topic. No circular reasoning.
BTW, a vague mention of Webster’s is not a reference or link.
quote: “So abortion is needed to keep the population down? Maybe you wnat to start with those colored races?”
Usual attempt to throw in an emotional argument with a logical one to help support a weak or lacking point. BTW, this [population control] applies to all races but especially to the countries that are expanding beyond their land’s ability to support them in a comfortable and not suffering manner.
Abortion is needed for a multitude of reasons and the majority come from a lack of contraceptive supplies to prevent the unwanted pregnancy due in large part to religious extremist views on it’s prohibition.
BTW, you can try and separate humans from nature’s realities in your mind but this willing ignorance only serves to cause more suffering. A famined country with 10mil people would be a functioning country with 2million. The fact that the population got out of hand with nature’s ability to support it shows that we aren’t any more evolved than basic animals which are forced to accept the idea that the surplus die. Supposedly, we have brains that should allow us to plan away such needless suffering but the primordial need to leave these responsibilities to a “Father” means nothing is done about it as the preferred irresponsible solution.
If your fishing for my personal opinion, I feel that family planning and offspring limits should be required for all women [since they are the basic production line]. The size of this world has limits and each additional person has an impact on the existing people. It’s like sharing a pizza with 10 people or a 100. In the first case, no one goes hungry and in the second case…everyone does. Maybe you prefer war as the method for reducing “excessive” numbers cause that is exactly how the religious right will have their Armageddon when energy and thus food supplies are reduced to a trickle. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for them and all that is required is time.