>I'm all for more information on who's getting
third-trimester
>abortions and why, but you lose me when you start
talking about
>how a proper defense of "womanhood" is rightly a
defense of
>the baby in the womb.
While I certainly understand Marta's concerns I just can't understand some of the comments made on this thread....
Firstly, here are some numbers from the CDC:
"The CDC reports that about 16,450 procedures, or roughly 1% of all abortions, in 1992 were performed after 20 weeks of gestation (the middle of the second trimester). AGI, using unpublished data from the federal National Center for Health Statistics, estimates that two-thirds of these abortions were performed at 21-22 weeks. After 26 wee ks, when fetal viability is most likely, the number of abortions is estimated at 320; given the uncertainty of the data, however, the number could be as high as 600" (or .036% of all late term abortions; there are approx 1.5 million abortions performed each year)
Now, as for why women obtain these abortions so late in their pregnancy:
The following are from "Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries" Akinrinola Bankole, Susheela Singh and Taylor Haas _International Family Planning Perspectives_, 1998, 24(3):117-127 & 152.
US N=1900
13% of second AND third trimester late term abortions are, generally, life threatening and debilitating birth defects.
7% are for maternal health reasons.
Not all of these involve D&X, the procedure Max described, though rather unfairly as I'll show below. There are other options, btw.
The rest of these abortions are for other reasons: can't afford, don't want any more children, want to postpone childbearing, can't handle the responsibility, too young, parents don't want, partners don't want, etc. But, again, remember that we're talking both second AND third trimester.
Has anyone considered the fact that it isn't exactly fun for a woman to have a late term abortion. It takes two days because they must dialate a woman's cervix 4-8 cm. with metal bars and spreaders.
Also, because their bodies don't go through the typical hormal changes that precede actual child birth, women also experience a great deal of pain afterward, this in addition to their emotional pain.
When those who criticize (even by implication) these women for having abortions for ostensibly frivilous reasons manage to dialate one of your orafices that wide with metal bars and spreaders, *then* let's speculate about the frivolity of these decisions.
But, I'm hoping that the 'fitting into their prom dress' remark was a joke.
This attitude makes a mockery of the lives of the women who've had to go through this procedure and who've had to agonize over that decision.
Also, most of the anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these very painful (physicallly and emotionally) procedures are done when the child has no brain, has severe organ malfunctions, is incapable of absorbing amniotic fluid, and the like.
It seems rather dismissive to suggest that a woman goes through such a terrible heartwrenching procedure because she can't fit into her prom dress or because she's ashamed of a child with a cleft foot or even Downes' Syndrome.
This kind of discussion, implying that women are callous and cruel creatures more concerned with their 'lifestyle' and 'image, ' is just disgusting. I don't doubt that, on occassion, these things happen. However, to observe such instances and then jump to the conclusion that we're on the slippery slope to some sort of Nazi hell in which we are slaughtering babies, the infirm, elderly, and disabled is really troubling. It will take much more that laws supporting abotion on demand to reach such a state in U.S. society.
Furthermore, those women who have second trimester D&X's are very often women who didn't know they were pregnant (yes this is quite possible), misjudged how far along they were, were too poor too afford medical care to know how far along, couldn't scrape up the money, couldn't figure out how to travel many miles to get to a clinic, were too young and too scared to figure out what to do in general.
So, it seems to me that one of the ways to eliminate the MAJORITY of late term abortions is to make certain that abortions are affordable, accessible, and acceptable much, much earlier. (In fact, most abortion clinics won't take women who are less than 10 weeks pregnant anyway, because the procedure is more painful and is more likely to result in failure)
Why don't we put our energies into lobbying for RU48, (which a Hungarian company I believe just refused to produce for U.S use). How about wider access to the morning after pill, and extending health care and education, especially poor women. It costs about $400-$500 to have an abortion, btw.
Why we might even support alternative medicinal approaches to abortions, herbs and massage, where women who choose an abortion are given a supportive environment, helped through the moral angony, and allowed to mourn their decision and the child if they choose. This is, of course, preferable, to being placed on some abortion conveyer belt where an abortion doc takes two hours out of his (generally) day of playing golf in order to make a load of cash in a market that is extraordinarily non-competitve. Cause, hey, do you think these women are going to shop around first? Compare treatment plans? Search out the clinic where they'll recieve the most dignified treatment possible?
And, btw, most clinics make women sign some sort of release stating that any emotional stress that occurs afterward is *her* problem. Even if their difficulty might actually be the result of mistreatment during the procedure. So, tough luck if the doc forgets to anaesthetize her adequately because he's hurrying his way through the assembly of women's bodies, scraping and sucking. So, tough luck if she feels that she's been medically mistreated, cause, hey, do you think she's going to make a fuss?
Yes, abortion sucks as it is typically performed by our very warped medical establishment.
As for the morality of an abortion. Well, I'm of the mind that abortions should be allowed for ANY reason whatsoever. Is it killing the potential life of an unborn child. Yes. Nonetheless, I think that legislating this issue is simply wrongheaded. This is a way to take away our freedom, hard won through political struggle, to make ethically responsible decisions. The assumption that most people undertake this procedure for frivilous reasons, whether a typical abortion (90% prior to twelve weeks) or a late term third trimester abortion, is really quite insulting. It harkens back to the days in US history when women weren't allowed custody of their children because they were considered morally inferior to men and thus incapable of make morally responsible decisions for them.
I hold this position despite the fact that my own 20 year old single mother very nearly aborted me 35 years ago and who had to hide her pregnancy from everyone for nearly nine months while she worked three jobs so she'd have enough money to care for me.