Doctors Testify in Three Abortion Trials

Associated Press | 3-30-04 | LARRY NEUMEISTER

[Pharmboy]

NEW YORK - At closely watched abortion trials across the country Tuesday, one doctor said he will risk breaking a new law banning some abortions and another said he fears he will be prosecuted for doing a form of abortion "I consider safer."

At trials in New York, San Francisco and Lincoln, Neb., lawyers for abortion rights advocates are putting doctors on the witness stand to support their claim that the law, signed by President Bush in November, is unconstitutional.

The doctors dispute many of the conclusions Congress reported reaching during eight years of research about a form of abortion that is carried out just as a live fetus is brought partially out of a woman's body.

Government lawyers say the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act prohibits an "inhumane and gruesome procedure" that causes pain to the fetus and is never necessary to protect the health of a woman because there are proven and safe alternatives.

The government maintains that the ban would affect as few as several thousand abortions annually, while lawyers for plaintiffs say 130,000 of the 1.3 million abortions performed annually in the United States may be affected.

The law is the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision. The cases appear likely to reach the high court.

In Lincoln, Neb., Dr. William Fitzhugh, of Richmond, Va., testified Tuesday that he would "probably continue" performing abortions even if the law is upheld.

"I'd have to take my chances," he testified.

In New York, Dr. Amos Grunebaum said he had "fears of being prosecuted and having to face imprisonment" for a law so poorly written that even some miscarriages might violate it.

Grunebaum, a specialist in maternal fetal medicine at New York Hospital, said he fears that after 30 years of practicing medicine and after performing 1,000 abortions, "I would go to prison for doing a procedure I consider safer."

He said the law was so vague that it could outlaw virtually any type of abortion performed during the second trimester because the fetus is sometimes still alive as it is brought outside the body.

He said the process of pulling the fetus partially out of the woman's body and then puncturing the skull to collapse the soft tissue and squeeze the head out is often the safest method available.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue, Neb., enters the federal
building in Lincoln, Neb., Monday, March 29, 2004, where
the last of three trials challenging a federal ban
on so-called partial birth abortions is being heard.
The Lincoln trial is the result of a lawsuit filed by the
Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of abortion provider
Carhart and three other doctors.
(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

Besides, he said, many women request that the fetus be preserved as intact as possible for a proper burial or so full testing can be done to learn why the pregnancy failed.

Grunebaum said more than 95 percent of the women he has treated who must give up their pregnancies in the second trimester "really, really, really wanted to have a baby."

He said doctors used to hide the fetus from women after an abortion before studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s showed that women grieved less after a failed pregnancy if they get to see the fetus.

"It is the same as any baby dying. People want to hold the fetus," he said, adding that he goes so far as to put a cap on the head of the fetus just as he would a newborn.

[Pharmboy]

These guys are sick. I am ashamed they are docs (I am one too).

[AppyPappy]

Jiminy, what a mess. Women want to hold the baby they just had killed.

[madprof98]

Gives them "closure."

[MHGinTN]

"Grunebaum, a specialist in maternal fetal medicine at New York Hospital, said he fears that after 30 years of practicing medicine and after performing 1,000 abortions ..." He's a serial killer, not a physician, though he's a highly educated serial killer.

[muawiyah]

These people really are into it for just the killing aren't they?

Watch out for that Carhart creep though. He carries a pistol all the time looking for a full grown adult to murder. Wonder if they took it away from at the federal courthouse.

[Pharmboy]

And rationalization plays a HUGE part in his "practice" and his life.

Serial killer is right.

[MHGinTN]

bttt ... pinging a list, in case their interested in keeping up to date on this issue

[MHGinTN]

bttt ... pinging a list, in case they're interested in keeping up to date on this issue

[WOSG]

Proof that he is lying: Grunebaum, a specialist in maternal fetal medicine at New York Hospital, said he fears that after 30 years of practicing medicine and after performing 1,000 abortions, "I would go to prison for doing a procedure I consider safer." He said the law was so vague that it could outlaw virtually any type of abortion performed during the second trimester because the fetus is sometimes still alive as it is brought outside the body. ...

He said the process of pulling the fetus partially out of the woman's body and then puncturing the skull to collapse the soft tissue and squeeze the head out is often the safest method available. ....Grunebaum said more than 95 percent of the women he has treated who must give up their pregnancies in the second trimester "really, really, really wanted to have a baby."

If they wanted to have the baby WHY WOULD IT STILL BE ALIVE and require an abortion?

[Doctor Phil]

MURDERERS!!! Doctors take what is called the "Hippocratic Oath". Thus, how can these murderers claim to be doctors?
Check out www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34911. You may find this to be of great interest.

[185JHP]

One of the nastiest "secrets" of the killers - it's a "thrill killing." All the sick, evil pleasure of killing - plus they get paid for it.

[exDemMom]

Besides, he said, many women request that the fetus be preserved as intact as possible for a proper burial or so full testing can be done to learn why the pregnancy failed.

One guess as to why these pregnancies fail: the babies are MURDERED!

I wonder if that sick creep who mentioned that the babies are often still alive when he pulls them out bothers to inform the mothers of that fact... or does he tell them it's a bloodclot or something?

[Indie]

In New York, Dr. Amos Grunebaum said he had "fears of being prosecuted and having to face imprisonment" for a law so poorly written that even some miscarriages might violate it.

Ahh, so the reason you are against this ban is due to your altruistic preference for perfectly written legislation. If it's not well-written, you will disobey it. Yeah right.
Or, perhaps 'doctor Greenbaum' it's because you are a liberal Jew that hates Jewishness so badly, that you have tripped yourself running away from anything resembling morality, which of course includes the Torah or the Bible. Hitler's leftist fascism [the Holocaust] was an elementary school prank compared to your leftist fascism 'doctor grunebaum.' When they come for you good 'doctor,' we won't be there to hear your screams, because we will have been picked up for having guns, long before they went after you for having "priveledge and money" that those outside of the new socialist government do not deserve. And your Jewishness I'm sure will earn you a slower penalty than they gave to us.

In short, some people never learn from history.

[cpforlife.org]

Doctors Testify in Three Partial Birth Abortion-MURDER Trials

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[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[Pharmboy]

This guy has the nerve to talk about "imperfections" in a law, while his whole life philosophy and behavior is defined by murder and evil. He should at least have the decency and shame to STFU (but we know he does not possess those characteristics).

[LadyDoc]

What they are not saying in this article is why this procedure is dangerous to mom...

The baby's head is punctured thru the neck... the neck of the baby is in the mom's uterine cervix (like the lips of a bottle). The cervix is very very soft and easily torn. So the scissors can more easily go thru the soft cervix than thru the baby's bony neck and skull.

A torn cervix can lead to hemorrhage and if sewn up and fixed properly, mom will miscarry every pregnancy she later tries to have. This is called "incompetent cervix".

And, of course, if the scissors don't slip sideways but accidentally slip parallel to the baby's head, you will end up with perforating the peritoneal cavity, causing hemorrhage, and death.

This procedure dates back to days when women with rickets would die in childbirth, so they would do this to save her life, since the kids' head would not fit thru her bony pelvis, (the hole in her pelvis would be deformed and small from ricketts)...but it became obsolete by the time that anesthesia and asepsis made Caesarian sections safer, about the turn of the century.

If you remember the movie "the Cardinal", they were given the choice between the mom and the baby. If a woman had been in prolonged labor, there was danger of infection and death of the mother from infection/dehydration in a Caesarian section, so they still did this to "save the mother"...and of course, Catholic doctors were not allowed into many OB/Gyn training programs because they would refuse to do it.

But even this reason became obsolete after WWI, when IV fluids became recognized and "extra peritoneal caesarian section" technique was devised. And once Penicillin was available, it became unknown to do such a dangerous procedure.

BTW: When we worked in Africa, where a lady might be divorced if she had a caesarian section, we didn't do this procedure, we did a symphysiotomy to open the pelvic bones for delivery.

[Pharmboy]

Thank you for your most excellent and informed reply (I am a pediatrician who changed his viewpoint on abortion in the seventies when called to the OB-suite on several occasions to attend to an aborted fetus that lived. I was 2 for 2).

[Mr. Silverback]

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