Doctor: Abortion is Unnecessary, There are other life-preserving options, even in life-and-health

Dakota Voice ^ | 10.16.06 | Dr. Don Oliver

[Maeve]

a bump to your post no. 7 and the Fr. Pavone quote

[unspun]

A pregnancy is a pregnancy. I am not the one who is confusing the matter with any assertion.

[unspun]

By the way, the name of the logical fallacy is the common "begging the question."

[Running On Empty]

"Abortion is a form of psychic self-destruction, and if practiced on a large scale it will have the gravest consequences for any society that condones it. Abortion is the ultimate denial of both fetus and mother. It is an act of aggression. Not to help the mother, but to advise her to abort is to push her even deeper into her loneliness and isolation, to provoke a depression which in our experience is malignant and incurable."

...The late, great Dr. Conrad Baars, psychiatrist
A quote from his book "Healing the Unaffirmed"

[Casio]

Ectopic pregnancies do not all wind up in death for the child or the mother. Many can and do survive.

This is not true! How can a fetus grow to full term in a 5-8cm long and few millimeter wide Fallopian tube without eventually rupturing it?

Gabor (who is an ob-gyn doctor for 27 years)

[Casio]

You wrote this to somebody:
You are trying to confuse the issue of abortion by including ectopic pregnancies.

You are right of course, and the problem with pro-lifers, that they ignore medical reality and that's why there are over million abortions a year. Because their arguments are wrong. The kind of statements which for example tries to include even ectopic pregnancy to the abortion dispute what gives valid ammunition to the pro-choicers.

Gabor

[jocon307]

"A pregnancy is a pregnancy."

You really are being foolish to equate an ectopic pregnancy with a normal pregnancy. Women do not have "abortions" to "choose" to end their ectopic pregnancies. This is like equating having an emergency appendectomy with some loon who wants their perfectly good limb amputated.

What would you have women with ectopic pregnanices do? Attempt to bring them to term?

[unspun]

You really are being foolish to equate an ectopic pregnancy with a normal pregnancy.

Once again, the argument is being made that, "there is no such thing as a justifyable abortion, because if it is justified, it isn't an abortion," which is a classic case of begging the question. The fact in common in either case is that there is a pregnancy, with a living human child.

The fact that one pregnancy is not normal and will lead to the death of the mother if allowed to continue is the grounds for cutting the child away, even if it is certain, that this will end his life. And that is a case where ending this doomed baby's life is necessary in order to preserve the life of the mother.

To say, "I just won't call that an abortion," in order to say, "there is no such thing as a medically required abortion" is silly sophistry.

To "abort" anything simply means to end it. Period. Being a physician doesn't give license to change the meaning of the word, to make it sound better when they end the life of a child that doesn't happen to be in the womb, proper. And the word means to interfere with a process, in order to end it. It doesn't mean "to interfere with a process unnecessarily, to end it," but just to end it. It is a morally neutral term, standing on its own.

Don't let that worry you, though. The medical profession suffers from semantic sophistry for convenience in other ways, too. For example, it is a ludicrous and hideous misnomer, to label any human being as existing in a "vegetative state." Human bodies don't slide into conditions of biologically nearing the state of vegetable matter and neither do human souls. But it does make the failure to treat a person as one must treat a person, sound better.

God bless doctors who perform only the very rare cases of necessary abortions. But they don't get to change the rules of language, by some caveat of medical terminology.

[syriacus]

Great post.

[syriacus]

This is interesting, if true.

Not quite what you all were discussing, but related a bit.

Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths After Abortions: "women undergoing induced abortion are actually more likely to die of ectopic pregnancy complications than women intending to carry to term."

[retMD]

ending an ectopic pregnancy is not considered an abortion. It should not even be part of the abortion argument. It has always been considered life-saving treatment and has never been prohibited or restricted.

Whether it's ever been restricted really doesn't have a bearing on the definition. And to muddy the waters further, the medical term for a miscarriage is "spontaneous abortion." The definition considers the process, not whether it's legal or illegal, moral or immoral, etc. From the online medical dictionary:

"The premature expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception of the embryo or of a nonviable foetus. ... The expulsion or removal of an embryo or foetus from the mother prematurely, can be done as an artificial procedure, but it often happens naturally when the mother's body expels the foetus because it has died, has genetic or developmental defects, or because of infection or illness in the mother."

[P.O.E.]

But "life of the mother" makes such a great shibboleth to raise as an obstacle to alternatives to partial-birth abortion. Much easier than having to think it through.

[edsheppa]

Does this legislation outlaw abortion for ectopic pregnancy?

[unspun]

Does this legislation outlaw abortion for ectopic pregnancy?

Be assured, there will never be legislation proposed for outlawing abortion where it is necessary to save the life of the mother.

[Casio]

This is interesting, if true. Not quite what you all were discussing, but related a bit. Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths After Abortions: "women undergoing induced abortion are actually more likely to die of ectopic pregnancy complications than women intending to carry to term."

The article you point to refer to an extremely rare situation: a twin pregnancy where one is intrauterine, the other is ectopic. The conclusion is a mistake, since the twin ectopic is equally overlooked often, in both situations (abortion or pregnancy intended to be carried to term). There could be a slim statistical difference, since after an abortion nobody is routinely checking the pelvic region with ultrasound, while in normal pregnancy, there can be a couple of ultrasounds at the stage when ectopic typically becomes dangerous. However, if the doctor finds an intrauterine pregnancy, usually not looking for "something else", unless there is a reason, like pain. But the same could apply to women having abortions too. One thing is for sure: to blame the undiagnosed twin ectopic on the abortion itself, is ridiculous.

Gabor

[syriacus]

The article you point to refer to an extremely rare situation: a twin pregnancy where one is intrauterine, the other is ectopic.

I thought it referred to instances where there was merely one preganancy --- in a tube.

[syriacus]

I thought it referred to instances where there was merely one pregnancy --- in a tube.

[syriacus]

The conclusion is a mistake, since the twin ectopic is equally overlooked often, in both situations (abortion or pregnancy intended to be carried to term).

I don't think they are referring to twin pregnancies.

[syriacus]

One thing is for sure: to blame the undiagnosed twin ectopic on the abortion itself, is ridiculous.

You seem to be the only one mentioning twins.

[syriacus]

The article you point to refer to an extremely rare situation: a twin pregnancy where one is intrauterine, the other is ectopic.

They are not merely referring to cases of twin pregnancies.

Here's an excerpt from one of the many linked articles

Proper post-abortion pathology reports would detect that no embryo was removed from the uterus, and would clue the abortionist in to the fact that the pregnancy was ectopic.

I never went to medical school, but my math is okay.

1 fetus + 0 fetus = 1 fetus (not twins)