"Partial Birth" Abortion

This is another non-issue that's been blown way out of proportion by the GOP, the Biblethumpers and the general nitwits out there. This procedure is performed about 1,500 times a year throughout this country, which means it's an option taken by only one out of nearly 37,000 women of childbearing age, or about .00027 percent. Partial birth procedures make up roughly 1% of all abortions in the U.S.  It is not a birth control-related measure, but instead is only performed when the pregnancy is no longer viable or the health of the woman is at risk. Either: (1) the fetus is dead; (2) the fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would place the woman's life in severe danger; (3) the fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would grievously damage the woman's health and/or disable her; and (4) the fetus is so malformed that it can never gain consciousness and will die shortly after birth. Many fetuses that fall into the final category have developed a very severe form of hydrocephalus. So, thi... Read more

We butcher, dismember, stab to death and discard an innocent, defenseless, perfectly viable human beings, while we give all the human rights, medical care, food and comfort to serial criminals and murderers in prison cells. Even the death row criminals, when facing death, are given careful consideration that they should die without pain, discomfort or suffering. There is something intrinsically wrong and wicked here.

Abortion should not be top of the agenda, but the aberration of partial-birth abortions should be. It doesn't matter where you stand - this is tantamount to killing a baby.

OVERTURN ROE VS. WADE STAND UP FOR LIFE!

This is between a woman, her partner, her God and her doctor. "Partial birth" is a term engineered to drum up emotion in people who do not understand the issue. Yes, it is gruesome and vile but also rare and (in a majority of cases) medically indicated. Anyone with a healthy child considering late term abortion would have to be insane or insanely cruel in my mind. It is hard to fathom but reasons for late term abortion exist--particularly the suffering of the child and/or survival of the mother. Even so, this is a very personal choice that should not be decided by the public at large but instead by the individuals experiencing it. Please take a moment to visit these links and contemplate the depth of the issue at hand: http://www.aheartbreakingchoice.com/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=R etrieve&db;=PubMed&list;_uids=12528161&dopt;=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=R etrieve&db;=PubMed&list;_uids=11814500&dopt;=Abstract... Read more

While I am not one of these extreme right to lifers like,say,the obnoxious Randall Terry,I find this procedure to be grotesque and disgusting.OUTLAW IT NOW!!!!!!!!

Not important. But truly abhorrent! Thank God it happens so rarely.

Revolts those who are obsessed with the decisions of others that are best left private. . .'less gov't' eh?

You have to consider this important because it essentially is legalized murder. The dirty little secret to partial birth abortion is that the majority of the time it is done because the child has downs syndrome and the parents don't want to deal with that. Whenever you start referring to partial birth abortion for what it is, killing retarded babies, you can see the ethical issues at stake here.

Maybe if it happened more often it'd be an important issue. You're more likely to be murdered by your mother years after your birth than during partial birth

Mango, I will tell you what goes into partial-birth abortion. This is an account I read from a former assistant nurse at a clinic. In the third trimester (6-9 months), when a baby is already completely viable (meaning that if it were born right then it would survive 95% of the time), the abortion doctor cannot simply vacuum out the fetus in pieces as is usually done because it is too large. Thus, the mother must be induced into labor and the baby partially born in order to perform the procedure. The doctor bursts the placenta or breaks the woman's water so that she begins to have contractions which push the baby about halfway out of her body head first. At this point the baby is opening and closing his fists and attempting to empty his lungs from fluid so that he can begin to breath air. Keep in mind that the baby's nervous system is already fully developed, and that the following procedure is just as painful for him as it would be for you or me. The doctor then inserts a sharp... Read more

Murder! Plain and Simple. An abortion should only be preformed well before birth and only for the reasons I stated on this weblist under Abortion.

Can someone please tell me what the hell this is? I don't know but it sounds disturbing.

I was going to make an actual post here, but it seems clear that most of these posters don't really know what a partial-birth abortion means. At the point of PB abortion takes place, birth is only a change in location not in state of being.

All of those spoiled, self-righteous, whining feminists marching on Washington, demanding our body, our rights...women's rights...civil rights, a litany of rights---except that of the developing infant's, of course. Here's a corny solution: make it statutory for birth registrars to require that a name and record be assigned to the foetus--at a certain stage of its development--upon the diagnosis of said pregnancy, rather than after birth. That might allay the whim to just abort, abort, abort among women who don't intrinsically identify life as say a biologist might, but rather if it has an identity or not. Peace out, dawg!

I definetely agree with LadyShark here. Some people are quick to say abortion is wrong, abortion is murder like pre-programmed robots. One needs to think what would happen to this baby if it were born. Partial birth abortion prevents a life of suffering for a severly deformed child. This child would not have the opportunity to live a healthy life. Instead, it would spend every single day as a vegetable in a hospital. This creates a nightmare for the parents, and it uses our tax dollars that could instead be spent on helping unfortunate children who are sick or poor and have a chance to be productive citizens with some government research and funding.

Disgusting practice but in the scheme of things we have bigger fish to fry.

Choose life.

The issue of partial birth abortion has largely been overblown, as it is a very rare procedure. As a matter of a fact, it's almost a non-existant procedure. Most states already have laws specifically banning the procedure. In my own personal opinion, this procedure should only be considered when the mother's life is at risk. Thus, whether to perform the procedure would be left to the discretion of the doctor. However, it is clear that Partial Birth abortion is no longer a matter of choice--- it is essentially taking the life of a partially developed human being. I'm sure as time goes on, science will provide us with new information (i.e. SCIENTIFICALLY, when does a fetus become a rapidly growing baby) that will allow us to find more common ground on this issue. However, I stand by my position that this procedure is quite terrible for both the mother and the child, and it is certainly a good thing for society as a whole that it has been banned, although I still believe it should be cons... Read more

Well.......I finally did see a partial birth abortion.....It wasn't pretty. It was done to spare the baby misery considering it was going to die at birth from Anencephaly as well as rasopharyngeal teratoma. Pretty sad anyways, but none the less, if you have ever seen a baby with the two disorders mentioned above, You know they don't live long and they die because of the gruesome deformities. Have you ever seen a baby with acardius? As one person said to me, Healthy, viable fetuses that don't put their mother's life and health at risk aren't being killed for frivolous political or financial reasons, and women aren't subjecting themselves to this relatively expensive and physically difficult procedure because they were too lazy to get an abortion earlier in their pregnancy! Partial birth abortions are only done if the baby is already semi-dead (born with just a brain stem) and mother's lives are at stake. Also, I remember seeing an anencephaic baby. He was born without half his scalp and... Read more

i am against it, but on the long list of national issues, this one isn't even a blip on the radar.

Partial birth abortion is simply murder and anyone who practices it or condones it is a murderer..if a woman wants to abort a fetus it needs to be done early, not after the fetus is developed and mostly functional. Sometimes i have to wonder if someone who can condone partial birth abortion really knows what it is. Abortion in the early stages of the pregnancy is one thing,I believe that should be a womans choice,but after she is far enough along that they actually have to collapse the babys skull and take it out of her body thats too much.The only time this should even come into consideration is when the baby has already died in the womb or the child or mother will die if the pregnancy proceeds otherwise it is totally and completely wrong.

Only a truly sick or disturbed individual would choose to participate in something like this. How primal and uncivilized can people in a modern society behave? Personally I think abortion is murder, partial birth or not. But something of such an extreme caliber as this takes a much more sadistic mentality to perform or choose to have performed. I honestly don't know how anyone associated with this practice can sleep at night. When I hear the awful stories of women who have had these suffering from deep depression, having nightmares for years after the procedure, etc., I am not surprised by these results. I am surprised however at the others who know women like this but choose to go through with a similar procedure as well rather than taking responsibity for their actions. As for the argument that abortions are needed in the case of incest and/or rape, just how often exactly do situations like this arise? And two wrongs don't make a right anyway if you ask me. And in the event t... Read more

What woman has the right to play god its murder I am sick and tired of reading this narrowminded nonsense. Do you honestly think that all the women who have had abortions were thinking that this was the easy way out?? Do you think that they are all sluts and should have not have had sex in the first place? There are many various different reasons as to why a woman chooses abortion (sometimes they don't even get to choose, it gets forced on them) rape, danger to her life, accident with the condoms etc and didn't realise.... its not a black and white subject, so stop treating it like one. You talk to a woman who has been through one and not because she was using it as contraception and see what she says. It isn't an easy option.

I have listened to both sides of the argument and it really comes down to whether or not a person believes that a fetus is a living being; a human that can be murdered. I have a hard time understanding why any person would be in favor of such a sick practice. No matter what the inconvenience or problems or horror the pregnancy will cost a woman, there is no excuse for killing a baby. In choosing to have sex, a woman takes on all responsibility, well-knowing the risks that exist. It is completely throwing the idea of responsibility out the window by choosing murder as your escape. Yes, I know there are certain circumstances such as rape and those are horrible instances not to be taken lightly. But two wrongs do not make a right. I don't know if the US will ever ban abortion in any form but I think its extremely important that we do.

Abortion (I believe should be banned)is completely immoral and unjust. If you don't want the kid use protection or be abstenant. In rape cases it should be the child bearers call most people would kill the innocent kid. I myself would go with adoption.

This issue is highly important.....partial birth abortion is just another word for murder, no matter how you sugar coat it !

We all have the right to choose between right and wrong. We do that on a daily basis. However, we shouldn't make it legal to do what's wrong. Abortion clearly shows how selfish and un-natural a person can be, it shows that we want to play, but we don't want to pay. If you are a mother to be debating on whether or not to have an abortion please consider that a life is more valuable than a career. Even in the animal kingdom we see that an animal will sacrifice her life for her offspring, not the other way around.

Abortion is infanticide; partial birth abortion is genecide. Partial birth is akin to what the Romanians practiced during their disgusting and immoral communist days.

The question is still being raised when a human life actually begins, or is it right to take away potential life. The potentiality in this situation is very high. It's high risk operation for the mother to be and the fetus. Also, why wait so late in the process to have an abortion.

When to determine when a fetus becomes human is as arbitrary as determining when a child becomes an adult. But here are some facts from webmd.com.The fetus'brain, nervous system, and heart begin to form at 4weeks and are fully formed and functional at 5weeks. So by the end of the 5th week the fetus can and will feel the pain of being aborted. Also since you won't know your pregnant until you miss your period your baby will probably be at this stage by the time you find out your pregnant let alone when you deciede that it's to inconvienant to have right now so you'll abort it. Abortion should only be allowed to save the mothers life. I would not allow it for rape only because you could take a morning after pill and prevent conception from happening. For the My-Body-My-Choice people, your body made the choice to have sex your body should deal with the consequences.

Horible, horrible thing! We were babies at one time, REMEMBER!!! Way to go George W. Bush!!!!!

we are american's. freedom of speech is the american dream, if you want to be with the same sex, opposite sex than that is you decision and it should not be any court,gov,presidents decision because, once again we are americans.. live your life, be happy, those whom judge will be judged.

This is an important issue because of its obvious effect on women voters. However, there is absolutely no way that it should be supported by anyone. Talk about playing God. Nobody gave women the right to murder children. Where is it written that abortion is a woman's right other than in a foolish amendment to the Constitution? The idea that outlawing the inhuman practice of abortion would be taking away someone's rights is ludicrous (and what about the baby's rights? just because a fetus can't talk doesn't mean that it wants to die for its mothers convenience). Here's a hint: IF YOU DON'T WANT A BABY, DON'T HAVE SEX. Don't toy with life for the pleasure of sex. The percentage of abortions due to rape is so low as to be laughable. You can't defend infanticide with that argument. If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, she should be able to get an abortion if she can prove with police records that she was actually raped. Otherwise, this barbaric procedure should be wholly condemned by ... Read more

As a woman, I cannot fathom how anyone can feel that it shouldn't be my choice to have an abortion. Though I know there is life growing within, if a baby were born in the first trimester, it most definitely would not survive. This is the only time in which I support abortion. Just the thought that my rights, as a woman, could be taken from me ties me in knots. For many years, women had no power over anything, even their own bodies, and this feels to me like a throw back to that time. We're in the 21st century now guys, catch up! On another note, for people like THE WAFFLER who want to get rid of the procedure all together, have you put any thought into pregnancies as the result of rape? You honestly feel that a woman will go through the pain and hardships of a rape and then have to have her rapists baby? Maybe you should put a little more thought into your opinion. I have not had an abortion, nor do I ever plan to have one. If I were to unexpectedly become pregnant, without being rap... Read more

I find it ironic that the so-called compassionate party (the Democratic Party) supports this barbaric act, which is undeniably infanticide (even the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a liberal, pro-abortion rights New York Democrat said so). That's funny! I thought that the Democrats were all for defending the most vulnerable and defenseless elements of society. No one is more vulnerable and defenseless than an unborn child! I guess Democrats are only compassionate when the parties that they are trying to protect can vote! And they also oppose school vouchers, so apparently they are against poor children being given the same choice in education that rich children have. Democrats, the party of the little guy? NOT! WHAT HYPOCRITES!

This is very important! There is no need for this diabolical procedure. Get rid of it!

I personally believe the abortion is the taking of a life, which I am against. I understand the pro choice perspective, but I have a hard time understanding how anybody can defend a procedure such as this in which the child in the womb is developed enough to survive on its own, yet it is still aborted. At this point in our country, it might be implausible for Roe vs. Wade to be overturned, but there does need to be some guidelines that protect the unborn child at a certain point. A child in the womb develops the ability to feel pain between 8-10 weeks. At this point, is it still humane to go through with an abortion?