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kittinSol -> RE: Louisiana bans partial birth abortion (7/16/2007 8:33:24 AM)
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Each to their own. I shall simply remind those that argue against abortion that nobody ever forces them to have one performed on to themselves.
That's the 'I respect your opinion' line out of the way. Now, for the facts.
'Partial birth abortion' is a political term that was meted out by the Republican party when it decided to use a particular abortion technique as a means to unite all on the anti-choice front. This technique was devised in the early nineties and is actually called intact dilation and evacuation. It is sometimes used as an alternative to plain D&X (in under 1% of cases). The method allows for a pregnancy to be terminated without such a high risk of uterine perforation as a normal D&X procedure. It is a medical decision made by doctors in late pregnancy. Its aim is not cruelty or muder but the safety of the patient and her general welfare.
Here is what I think the debate is truly about: people with an anti-choice agenda have decided to focus on the intact D&E procedure because it has such a potential for mobilising opinion - not a difficult thing to do with such a delicate, potentially painful subject matter. To defend the ban on the procedure requires telling judges that pulling a fetus out in dismendered pieces is legal and safe, and medically sound, but that taking a intact fetus out so that there is less risk of perforating the womb, and so that the woman may grieve over the body, is a criminal offence.
I attach a couple of very informative articles. The first is a testimony made by a young woman whose twin pregnancy wasn't viable - this was discovered during her six months scan: http://www.barryyeoman.com/articles/gina.html . The second link is a very good witness account - and very non-emotional: http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2002/07/24/late_ter .
There is a terrible picture of Baby Bush and his cronies gleefully signing the 'partial birth ban': it's terrible because it shows a dozen men in suits smiling on as they attempt to take away medical progress from their women peers. I think it's disgusting: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/images/20031105-1_p35410-21-515h.html
I had a 'medical abortion' last year, whereby I took prostaglandins to provoque the contractions: there was no surgical intervention, and I was lucky, as it was early in the pregnancy. Yet, when the RU486 was brought out in France in the early eighties, the entire anti-choice lobby was up in arms. Now, they're up in arms because of a surgical procedure.
If you don't want it, don't do it, but don't attempt to take our rights away from us. Because these rights were hard-fought for, and no woman goes for a termination of a pregnancy singing and dancing. It is, alas, a necessary thing. And if it is illegal, she will do it anyway.
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