Posted on 06/06/2004 1:37:29 PM PDT by rface
[ snip ]
=> Newsday: "Doctors call it intact dilation and extraction but abortion foes refer to it as `partial-birth abortion.' "
=> National Public Radio: "Partial-birth abortion is a term used by opponents for what doctors call intact dilation and extraction."
=> Washington Post: "The ban on the procedure that critics call `partial-birth abortion' was already on hold temporarily as three courts heard legal challenges to it."
=> NBC: A federal judge declared the so-called `partial-birth abortion' act unconstitutional on Tuesday.
=> San Francisco Chronicle: "The ruling deals with what opponents call `partial-birth abortion.' "
Why the circumlocutions? In journalism, short and clear is better than long and wordy; reporters generally don't have the space or time to reach for periphrastic phrasings when something more direct is available. Yet when it comes to partial-birth abortion, many of them suddenly feel compelled to distance themselves from a familiar and straightforward term. Why?
The answer most journalists would give, I imagine, is that they are just being accurate. "Partial-birth abortion" isn't a proper medical term, they would argue -- the phrase was originally coined by prolife activists and it's appropriate to point out the political baggage it comes with.
Which is fair enough -- but only if the same standard applies across the board. "Choice" and "the right to choose," the most common euphemisms for abortion, aren't medical terms either. They come straight out of the abortion rights lexicon, which adopted them for their favorable connotation. But when was the last time a news report mentioned, say, a candidate's stand "on what abortion activists call `choice' but doctors refer to as suction curretage or dilation and evacuation"?
[ very big snip ]
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
If Scott Peterson can be tried for the murder of an unborn child, then partial-birth abortion is murder.
Furthermore, Partial Birth Abortion does not even stand up to the Roe v. Wade standard, which set the limit during the first trimester.
If this keeps up, how much further can it go? Why not six, ten months, or years, post-partum?
bump
If the Pro-Life Movement wants to completely wipe out this form of murder, we should start calling it what it is.
D & E
Late abortion usually involves a D & E (dilation and evacuation) procedure, similar to a D & C. In a very late stage, where abortion is a medical emergency, another procedure, called amnioinduction, or labor induction, is involved, where a woman would birth the fetus after it was injected with a solution that killed it. It is this procedure that particularly fuels the pro-life movement, but it is performed very rarely and not in usual circumstances.
The D & E procedure can be performed at any point in the second trimester and is almost identical to the first-trimester procedure, with just a few variations. First, because you’ll be further along in your pregnancy, you’ll need to have your cervix dilated several hours prior to the procedure. This means that after your preoperative assessment, screening or exam, and counseling session are complete, you’ll have a seaweed root (called laminaria) inserted into your cervical opening twenty-four hours before the procedure. Laminaria is used as a natural dilator of the cervix, thought to cause less irritation because it’s organic. After the tube is inserted, you’ll be sent home, where you’ll experience cramping. You’ll report back to the hospital the next day for the procedure. You’ll have a fresh dilator (plastic tube or laminaria) inserted into your cervical opening, and the doctor will administer a local anesthetic. You’ll have the contents of the uterus suctioned out with the vacuum pump described earlier. Forceps may also be used to help retrieve larger pieces of fetal tissue. You will feel cramping as the uterus contracts. Then a standard D & C is done. The risks and complications experienced after the procedure are virtually identical to those of the first-trimester procedure, and the cramping and bleeding following the procedure are also similar. This entire procedure takes about twenty minutes. (Some sources estimate as little as ten minutes and as long as forty-five minutes.)
Most hemorrhaging after a D & E is caused by retained placental tissue in the uterus. Treatment for complications at this stage is exactly the same as that for first-trimester complications.
If you’ve had a second D & C to control bleeding caused by retained tissue or to extract blood from the uterus, you might start to notice abnormal bleeding a few weeks later. If this happens, you may need to be put on a progesterone supplement to induce a “withdrawal” bleeding and have your lining shed again. This should take care of the problem. You’ll also need to follow the same aftercare guidelines discussed earlier.
If the pregnancy is quite advanced, another procedure, known as intact dilation and extraction (intact D & E), involves dilating the cervix even more and pulling out the fetus feet first (a breech extraction). Here, the fetal skull is collapsed (cephalocentesis) to allow it to pass through the cervix. It is almost impossible, however, to find a doctor who knows how to do this; but there are a handful who specialize in late abortion and have perfected this technique so that it is safe.
Labor induction is an alternative, inferior procedure for late abortion that mirrors labor and delivery. In this case, after the fetus is injected with an agent that kills it, you are given a drug that induces contractions and labor, and you birth the dead fetus. This is the scenario that anyone wants to avoid and is the reason why early prenatal testing is available, as well as safer, medical abortion. But sometimes an illness (e.g., cancer) isn’t discovered until the later stages of pregnancy, thereby warranting this procedure. Women who have been molested and conceal pregnancies out of shame may also seek out later abortions.
Wow, Jeff Jacoby pegged this one beautifully...
I'm sure this is to simple, but if it is not alive why do you have to get rid of it? If it is alive, then you have to kill it to get rid of it!
BUMP
Labor induction is an alternative, inferior procedure for late abortion that mirrors labor and delivery. In this case, after the fetus little child is injected with an agent that kills it, you are given a drug that induces contractions and labor, and you birth the dead fetus little child.
If we could only persuade the deceptive medical community to write their definitions and descriptions (supposedly meant to simplify things for the layperson) using common words! Try reading the description of D&E with 'little child' substituted in the place of the purposely obfuscating word 'fetus'. Disgusting isn't it! That's why I call abortionists, 'serial killers', and their clinics, 'abortuaries'. Abortionists are protected serial killers for hire. And to purposely kill an alive unborn little child who has reach the age where he or she could live outside the womb is ... MURDER INC. ... and the Democrat Party is proud to defend that murder for hire because it gets them votes!
"there are a handful who specialize in late abortion and have perfected this technique so that it is safe."
I'm glad to hear that. I always thought it killed the baby.
I would like to know what is the percentage of total abortions that are performed to actually "save the life " of the mother? And I mean actually to "save the life" of the mother.
I think that the comment by norwaypinesavage was with sarcasm...I'm sure that no one on this thread is "glad" about the murders.
This was one of the points that the Justice department tried to convince the Court about: it was the duty of the ones who brought the suit to overturn the Ban to *prove* their case (that the procedure is needed to save lives and health).
In the case of the California judges, and I believe the rest, the plaintiffs were not required to turn over any records to prove their case. We do not know whether the procedure is needed. We only know that the doctors who use the procedure say that it is needed and that other doctors and the rest of the Nation, including our rightful law makers, do not have any standing in the eyes of the court, since the California court at least has ruled that only the doctors who use the procedure can be experts.
I missed the 'sarcasm' tag.
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