Evening everyone!

re: #1 spirochete

Evening everyone!

I agree with this post.

Family planning advice.

The article I read about Tiller's funeral said he was in the Navy, not the Army. Does anyone know which article is right?

He was in the Navy. Dr. Chavkin may have meant "army" generically, as in "military."

Sometimes best intentions do the most damage. But he seems to have been drawn to it through experience, and I`m sure he weighed the righteousness of his chosen path many times. Damn his killer and those who support him though. You are much worse.

He said, "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives."

Really.

George told me that in several instances, people who had been picketing his clinic later entered as patients - seeking abortions for themselves or their daughters, sisters, wives. The women obtained their abortions, then returned to the picket line.

No surprise there.

George Tiller was a human, and did not deserve to be murdered.
This article shows some of his humanity.

Were all abortions illegal when his father practiced?
Even to save the life of the mother?

"All of this was a staggering surprise to George. When his psychic dust settled, abortion had become legal. He resolved to care for the patients who turned to him for help, just as his father had. And as he did, George learned firsthand of the urgency and complexity of his patients' predicaments, which fueled his determination to keep going. He said, "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival.'''

There are several people my age and...say up to 10 years older, from my hometown that are adaptees who came from Vietnam (60s) and Korea (70s). And later Phillipines. This is what couples had to do to adapt. They couldn't find unwanted children in America. Too bad George or George's dad didn't try this option for those mothers who came to "get rid of it" (the term used at the time).

When the doctor in town retired, he talked about the hundreds of babies he delivered. Too bad George didn't have that kind of pride.

Now, someone here will slam me, but I would rather have had some of Georges patients end up providing a classmate for me when I was in elementry school, they throw her into his dumpster.

Charles, Thank you for posting this.

re: #5 Charles

He was in the Navy. Dr. Chavkin may have meant "army" generically, as in "military."

OK, thanks. As an aside, Tiller's Navy service was the major reason Tiller's funeral featured an escort of Patriot Guard bikers. The Guardsmen were making sure (as they always do), that no veteran's funeral is dishonored by the disruptions of Fred Phelp's family of nutjobs, and that all service veterans receive their just honors.

Interesting story - the abortionist as a human being.
In the end, Tiller was a good man who was killed by a crazed zealot for providing a necessary medical service to his patients in a legal and conscientious manner.

Excellent post Charles!

Anyone else read the comments at the end of the original article?
Ewwwwwww. I forgot my hazmat suit!

George learned firsthand of the urgency and complexity of his patients' predicaments, which fueled his determination to keep going. He said, "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival."

Pretty dramatic and a tad hyperbolic. A man on a mission for sure.

And the victim of a particularly vicious bastard who disagreed. Stupid. What a world.

Dr Tiller was a man who provided a legal service and was gunned down in cold blood because someone else didn't like what he did or the fact that it was legal. That doesn't make him a saint or a demon.

There is no easy answer here.

re: #10 IslandLibertarian

Were all aborti
ons illegal when his father practiced?
Even to save the life of the mother?

Yes! There was a time when women couldn't even learn about their reproductive capabilities in a scientific way because it was considered pornography.

In fact it wasn't until 1965 that a women was guaranteed the right to use contraceptives --and it took a Supreme Court Case to do so.

I would argue that until that point, a women's body belonged to her husband and to the State.

re: #11 Dave the.....

I truly do try to respect sincere opinions and beliefs that differ from mine, but I just can't wrap my mind around the ideological mindset that could come up with that response to this post.

Excellent Towercam Sunset. The San Gabriel Mountains of California.

Worth a look.

Good Night All.

re: #16 Floral Giraffe

Anyone else read the comments at the end of the original article?
Ewwwwwww. I forgot my hazmat suit!

I thought about pushing the "report abusive posts" button but thought better of it. People need to see this craziness for what it is.

re: #19 Shiplord Kirel

There is no easy answer here.

No, there isn't. The worst part of the problem is the fanatics who insist that their way is followed exactly, the abortion issue will be solved. And when Tiller defied the pro-life group of fanatics, one them murdered him.

re: #22 Ojoe

Excellent Towercam Sunset. The San Gabriel Mountains of California.

Worth a look.

Good Night All.

Ojoe ... IMO ... the best one you have posted ... beautiful ...

Yes, he was murdered by a right wing nutjob, but I think it's a mistake to make him into a hero.

Did he offer alternatives to the women who come in, or was it just a quick job? Witchita has a fairly large (and often troubled) African-American population. Was he representative of national statistics where African-Americans have a much higher abortion rate?

re: #20 ggt

Yes! There was a time when women couldn't even learn about their reproductive capabilities in a scientific way because it was considered pornography.

In fact it wasn't until 1965 that a women was guaranteed the right to use contraceptives --and it took a Supreme Court Case to do so.

I would argue that until that point, a women's body belonged to her husband and to the State.

I disagree on the Griswold case. That case got the whole "penumbra" ball rolling. The Supreme Court should not have intervened. Instead the law should be left to the state legislature.

Lynn B, do you personally know any one who is trying to adapt? Or recently went through the process?

re: #11 Dave the.....

"All of this was a staggering surprise to George. When his psychic dust settled, abortion had become legal. He resolved to care for the patients who turned to him for help, just as his father had. And as he did, George learned firsthand of the urgency and complexity of his patients' predicaments, which fueled his determination to keep going. He said, "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival.'''

There are several people my age and...say up to 10 years older, from my hometown that are adaptees who came from Vietnam (60s) and Korea (70s). And later Phillipines. This is what couples had to do to adapt. They couldn't find unwanted children in America. Too bad George or George's dad didn't try this option for those mothers who came to "get rid of it" (the term used at the time).

The majority of Dr. Tiller's practice for the past couple of decades has been late term abortions for women whose lives of physical health were threatened by their pregnancies, or whose fetuses were either already dead or so horribly deformed that they would not long surivive childbirth. The option of adoption was not a viable one for such women.

When the doctor in town retired, he talked about the hundreds of babies he delivered. Too bad George didn't have that kind of pride.

Dr. Tiller DID feel a quiet pride, I'm sure, and a quite justifiable one, in saving the lives and physdical health of many women, and preventing others from having to experience the excruciating anguish of giving birth to a dead fetus, or to a horribly deformed one destined to die hours or days after childbirth.

Now, someone here will slam me, but I would rather have had some of Georges patients end up providing a classmate for me when I was in elementry school, they throw her into his dumpster.

Would you have preferred that he turn away desperate women who would then resort to back alley butchers or self-abortion with punches in the stomach, poison concoctions, or self-abortion with coathangers or knitting needles, flooding ERs and morgues with septic or bled out women, as used to happen befor Roe vs. Wade? Women like this?

[Link: www.exit.com...]

Not me.

Lynn B, if you had a child on the way and didn't want it, I know people who will pay you large somes of cash to carry the baby through the full 9 months, then ether will adapt her, or find someone who will.

From comments at the link:

That scumbag murdered, for money, thousands of babies, and should be buried in a dumpster, as were his victims.

If Tiller had provided his services free of charge, I don't think it would have been noted in his favor by people who share this view.

re: #26 Dave the.....

Yes, he was murdered by a right wing nutjob, but I think it's a mistake to make him into a hero.

Who, here, is proclaiming him a hero?

re: #20 ggt
In fact it wasn't until 1965 that a women was guaranteed the right to use contraceptives --and it took a Supreme Court Case to do so.

The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy".

It appears this was not the "law of the land", but a State law.

Now my question "was it legal to perform an abortion to save a mothers life?"

I need to leave this thread.

Have a great evening all!

In the comments you see someone trying to whitewash Operation Rescue, we've seen Randall Terry's vid. You also see people still trying to propagate the bogus 60000 number. Lieing for Jesus again.

I'd prefer to hear more about the life of the soldier that was killed last week. This whitewashing of his career is nauseating.

On adoption:
There are plenty of children in America right now who are awaiting adoption. They may not be infants, or completely healthy, or exactly a color match. Anyone willing to work with any of these issues will find no obstacles to adopting.

jaunte, correct. One of my friends is a foster parent. It's not quite like the movies. Many come from very abusive homes. Some from no homes.

re: #18 Wendya

Dr Tiller was a man who provided a legal service and was gunned down in cold blood because someone else didn't like what he did or the fact that it was legal. That doesn't make him a saint or a demon.

I'm quite certain he was considered to be a saint by the women whose lives or physical health he saved, and by the women whom he spared the excruciating agony of giving birth to a dead fetus, or one so catastrophically deformed that it could not long survive, at great and ultimately fatal risk to his own life, when they could find no one else who dared to help them. He was most certainly martyred by a fanatical antiabortion terrorist for providing them that necessary help, after persevering despite a clinic firebombing and a previous assassination attempt that left him critically injured.

Tiller's murder was an outrage and is justly condemned, his murderer's arrest is a fine thing and he should face the full weight of the law. His murderer should not be considered heroic in any way. The fact that he happened to be on the right side of the abortion issue is irrelevant, his crime was horrible and he deserves everything that comes to him.

John Brown's rebellion was an outrage, the murders he committed both in Kansas and Virginia were justly condemned. His capture in Virginia was a fine thing. The full weight of the law that he faced and was punished by was justice. It is a disgrace that he is considered heroic in any way. The fact that he was on the right side of the slavery issue is irrelevant, his crimes were horrible and he deserved everything that came to him.

The bravery and empathy of Tiller are irrelevant to the morality of his actions. There were a lot of confederate soldiers with those same qualities, General Robert E. Lee for example. That didn't change the fact that their cause was unjust. On the other hand General Benjamin Butler was an unscrupulous corrupt pol who was just as unscrupulous as a general. That didn't make his cause any less just and right.

Nor does Dr. Tiller's treatment and murder change those facts. For example the mistreatment of Jefferson Davis was unjustly treated after his capture, so much so that many of his former foes objected. It didn't make his cause just nor did it mean that those who objected to one act of injustice supported Davis' unjust cause.

The defense of Tiller in the aforementioned article is simply a defense of abortion on sentimental grounds. Dr. Tiller's murder and his background prove neither the rightness or the wrongness of abortion.

You are quite correct to point out the unchristian and uncharitable behavior of some on the right concerning this murder. It deserves your scorn and I share that scorn, but as for me I will no more reject the morality of opposing abortion than the outrages at Abu ghraib would cause me to reject the rightness of the war in Iraq.

re: #40 pingemi

Hope you're wearing asbestos underwear...

re: #40 pingemi

You are quite correct to point out the unchristian and uncharitable behavior of some on the right concerning this murder. It deserves your scorn and I share that scorn, but as for me I will no more reject the morality of opposing abortion than the outrages at Abu ghraib would cause me to reject the rightness of the war in Iraq.

Oppose it all you want - just keep your mitts off doctors and their patients, it's not your right to interfere.

re: #30 Dave the.....

/Could you at least learn how to spell 'adopt', or is it too hard for you to adapt to?

re: #25 JacksonTn

'Tis the Creator reflected there, no doubt at all.

And Al Capone was good to his mother.

re: #40 pingemi

Tiller's murder was an outrage and is justly condemned, his murderer's arrest is a fine thing and he should face the full weight of the law. His murderer should not be considered heroic in any way. The fact that he happened to be on the right side of the abortion issue is irrelevant, his crime was horrible and he deserves everything that comes to him.

John Brown's rebellion was an outrage, the murders he committed both in Kansas and Virginia were justly condemned. His capture in Virginia was a fine thing. The full weight of the law that he faced and was punished by was justice. It is a disgrace that he is considered heroic in any way. The fact that he was on the right side of the slavery issue is irrelevant, his crimes were horrible and he deserved everything that came to him.

The bravery and empathy of Tiller are irrelevant to the morality of his actions. There were a lot of confederate soldiers with those same qualities, General Robert E. Lee for example. That didn't change the fact that their cause was unjust. On the other hand General Benjamin Butler was an unscrupulous corrupt pol who was just as unscrupulous as a general. That didn't make his cause any less just and right.

Nor does Dr. Tiller's treatment and murder change those facts. For example the mistreatment of Jefferson Davis was unjustly treated after his capture, so much so that many of his former foes objected. It didn't make his cause just nor did it mean that those who objected to one act of injustice supported Davis' unjust cause.

The defense of Tiller in the aforementioned article is simply a defense of abortion on sentimental grounds. Dr. Tiller's murder and his background prove neither the rightness or the wrongness of abortion.

You are quite correct to point out the unchristian and uncharitable behavior of some on the right concerning this murder. It deserves your scorn and I share that scorn, but as for me I will no more reject the morality of opposing abortion than the outrages at Abu ghraib would cause me to reject the rightness of the war in Iraq.

I find your comparison of abortion to slavery to be quite offensive. It is to equate women seeking abortions with antebellum slave owners. Instead, it is you who would, if you possessed the power, warp women's wombs into enslaving shackles. And I sincerely hope that you do not ever try to compare black people to fetuses to their faces.

I wrote a poem on this comparison; it makes a different point than you do:

The Fundamentals

"Abortion is murder!", the witch-burners bray
As they kneel on their hard wooden floors to pray
That all the damned heathens will see the light
And be saved from Hell's bondage by bonfire bright
And Cain's crosses glowing in southern night.

Our mothers and sisters and daughters and wives
Are reduced to receptacles, their whole lives
Possessed by one purpose: to nurture cells
More worthy of life, for they might be male
Like Jesus - thus wombs are warped into jails.

Poor Eve is the pattern primordial, damned
By gender, as race consigned sons of Ham
To servitude, their God-burned cross their coal
Complexions, and if one should flee their fold
Love says, "Scourge the body to save the soul."

If knowledge of ethics is primal sin
Then 'teaching all nations' commits again
That error, but teach they must, for their bane
Is difference; they're driven to all souls train
For Heaven, where all seraphs sing the same.

re: #40 pingemi

Tiller's murder was an outrage and is justly condemned, his murderer's arrest is a fine thing and he should face the full weight of the law. His murderer should not be considered heroic in any way. The fact that he happened to be on the right side of the abortion issue is irrelevant, his crime was horrible and he deserves everything that comes to him.

I think your post is a pro-life litmus test.

If someone honestly, deeply believes in the pro-life cause - that it is morally equivalent to the abolition of slavery - I don't think they could come up with a post better than this one.

Updinged.

I was kinda hoping for an open registration window......

And here is another poem of mine, that highlights what frequently happens when what was formerly an abstractly religious or political stance suddenly becomes quite concrete and personal:

Pastoral Counseling

Her weeping is a tiny, tinny sound
Crawling from the fallen receiver.
Precautions have failed us. We have
A Situation to address. She
Came to me for consolation
A troubled teen unable to
Handle her desires: nor I mine.
Her flesh was firm and ripe
And mine weak.
I have betrayed faith, flock, family
And the trust they and this girlchild
Placed in me. Unable to
Bear this revelation spreading further
I choose my sole recourse, to betray anew
And to embrace iniquity and
Lie with abomination.

I lift the receiver and speak to her
In practiced tones, both balming and commanding.
Go to the clinic, I tell her; I'll pay for it.
And shiver as ghost nails
Rake my back like a lover's clutches:
A dead hare crossing the grave of my convictions.

Pro life means paying attention to the living people here.
[Link: www.adoptuskids.org...]

NY Nana, I'm a very poor speller. I'm a victim.

The best the radical anti-abortion mob can do is accuse Tiller and others of doing this for money. That was true of unlicensed back-alley abortionists in the bad old days, but Tiller could easily have built up a heck of practice in dermatology. In that case, he would now be safely retired in Cancun or somewhere, and he would have known that. Impugning his motives simply makes the opposition look that much crazier and more dishonest.

re: #42 Spare O'Lake

And it is criminal to expect a 14-year old girl who was raped, etc., to carry a fetus until it is born.

May Dr. Tiller rest in peace. I will bet that he performed a late term abortion on women who, for medical reasons, needed it. I feel terrible for any girl or woman who will have to carry to term when there is a medical problem that might harm the mother.

In Judaism, the fetus is not a human being until it has been delivered and drawn breath.

The life of the mother comes first, in any case.

re: #26 Dave the.....

Yes, he was murdered by a right wing nutjob, but I think it's a mistake to make him into a hero.

Did he offer alternatives to the women who come in, or was it just a quick job? Witchita has a fairly large (and often troubled) African-American population. Was he representative of national statistics where African-Americans have a much higher abortion rate?

Dave, what on earth does a woman's race have to do with the fact that she received an abortion?

re: #49 Salamantis

BTW: Something like this happened when I was a clinic escort at a local abortion clinic. A Southern Baptist minister who regularly bussed members of his congregation to the clinic to protest brought his own underaged daughter to the clinic for an abortion after she had consensual unprotected sex with and became pregnant by a young boy of another race.

re: #39 Salamantis

I'm quite certain he was considered to be a saint by the women whose lives or physical health he saved, and by the women whom he spared the excruciating agony of giving birth to a dead fetus, or one so catastrophically deformed that it could not long survive, at great and ultimately fatal risk to his own life, when they could find no one else who dared to help them.

Sure. But not in this case.

The article quoted doesn't give statistics. We don't know that his work was restricted to that which would save womens' lives, remove the horror of a dead fetus, or pre-empt births which had no chance outside the womb. We're not even talking about rape or incest here.

Read between the lines - 'women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives'. The article just says he made womens' choices more convenient. Excuse me while I continue not to hold a woman's convenience more important than an innocent child's life.

re: #49 Salamantis

I detect an anti-religious theme in your two poems.
Is all your work, where the subject matter is religion, so negative?

Pingemi, that is one of the more rational statements I've heard, however I do take a bit of umbrage over comparing slavery to all abortion as you are seeming to do here.

I will also point out that John Brown was a terrorist, who hacked people up with claymores being a hateful zealot. When a cause allies with evil, it discredits itself.

The just law vs. unjust law argument is where this leads to, and that leads in many unstable minds to civil war, insurrection, and the right to do unlawful things. People who further that argument are not doing the pro life cause good, as it will lead to encouraging more like Roeder and Hill, while increasing their sympathizers when they should have none.

Or, for that matter, to hold a man's convenience more important than a child's life. Abortion is a nice, safe out for cads.

re: #58 Thanos

The just law vs. unjust law argument is where this leads to, and that leads in many unstable minds to civil war, insurrection, and the right to do unlawful things. People who further that argument are not doing the pro life cause good, as it will lead to encouraging more like Roeder and Hill, while increasing their sympathizers when they should have none.

Yeah, I had to upding yours too...

I don't know that there's an easy option. The reactionary in me says that it's the law and it should just be followed. That makes me a good citizen I suppose... at least no danger to anyone.

My older brother's job, at one point, had him doing rounds in hospitals servicing operating rooms throughout California. Once, he was at a hospital in the Central Valley where he inadvertently witnessed a partial birth abortion. He didn't speak of the details, but I presume he saw the child with the skull shrunken from the extraction of the brains, lying dead on the physician's tray. What he did say is that he went out to the parking lot and cried. I've only seen my brother cry once. For him to cry meant that what he witnessed was truly awful.

I understand the point of view of the necessity of doctor / patient confidentiality, the imperative of preventing violence against those who conduct abortions, the importance of bringing his murderer before our courts, and the essentialness of the rule of law. I'd just suggest that late term abortion is more that just an intellectual exercise. For those who have experienced it, it is unmistakably the death of an innocent child, many of whom would have lead a normal life had they been desired.

So while I condemn his murder, I cannot praise Dr. Tiller for his life's work.

re: #60 Zimriel

Yeah, I had to upding yours too...

I don't know that there's an easy option. The reactionary in me says that it's the law and it should just be followed. That makes me a good citizen I suppose... at least no danger to anyone.

There really isn't. It's clear to me that some abortion must stay legal, but be discouraged. When it was fully illegal it still occurred, just like people who drank during prohibition existed, just like people who use illegal drugs exist now.

ShanghaiEd, many on the far right (pro-life) and far left (African-American activists) are troubled by the racial statistics. As a center-right winger, I have really don't have a problem with it....I prefer equal opportunity to equal outcome.

But abortion stats mirror prison stats when it comes to racial disparity.

#46 You certainly have the right to be offended if you wish but I think the comparison is apt. I maintain that how nice a person is or his motivations have no bearing on the justness of his cause.

Poems are nice but irrelevant. I'm sure there are many nice poems and hymns to the Palestinian cause, it doesn't make it just.

An awful lot of Palestinians are taught from a young age that Jews are not human. They might be nice parents and kind folks, but neither their willingness to sacrifice themselves to kill what they consider non-humans nor the worlds seeming indifference to that act makes it any less Murder.

The willingness to define the humanity and the life of an unborn child solely based on the desire of a woman to carry it to terms is astounding. It is an act of scientific denial no less than those who attack Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. If you want to make the case that this human life should be allowed to be ended based such a decision be careful; we see the consequences in China today as woman are aborted simply for being female. Once one decides anyone can make the decision to define what human life is worthy of survival based on convenience an awful genie is let out of the bottle.

In my opinion the time will come when people look back on the abortion debate much as they do slavery and be amazed that abortion was considered just.

re: #56 Zimriel

Sure. But not in this case.

The article quoted doesn't give statistics. We don't know that his work was restricted to that which would save womens' lives, remove the horror of a dead fetus, or pre-empt births which had no chance outside the womb. We're not even talking about rape or incest here.

In the last decades, his practice was primarily concerned with providing late term abortions for women who flew from all across the nation for his services after their doctors told them what their problems were, but refused to perform the procedure for fear of their lives. He was one of only as handful of doctors who would perform such a complex, time consuming, and unjustly stigmatizing service, and he performed it 332 times last year.

Read between the lines - 'women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives'. The article just says he made womens' choices more convenient. Excuse me while I continue not to hold a woman's convenience more important than an innocent child's life.

Fetuses are not children; children are born. Lacking consciousness or will, they lack the capacity to be either innocent or guilty. They' aren't even potential persons, since the word 'potential' implies the inevitability of actualization, and fully a third of pregnancies are miscarried (spontaneously aborted). When the life, safety, or future of an actually present person come into conflict with the continued existence of a possibly future person, the rights of the woman must take moral prcedence in any just and sane universe. I do not support abortions of convenience for post-viability pregnancies, and there is no indiation that Dr. Tiller performed them. They are, after all, illegal in the state of Kansas, which requires a concurring medical opinion that either the fetus is either already dead or so disastrously deformed that it could not long survive childbirth, or that the continuation of the pregnancy through childbirth severely risks either the woman's life or major permanent physical damage to her, and despite constant antiabortion-motivated investigation of Dr. Tiller's practice, he was only brought up before a court once, on misdemeanor charges that claimed that the second physician's medical opinion was not truly independent, and he was aquitted of all charges by a jury of his peers after less than an hour's deliberation.

re: #56 Zimriel

I am a retired RN, and I was one when any kind of abortion was illegal, and saw late term terminations done by OB's who did it for the right reasons: the health of the mother, or a medical complication that would be fatal for the fetus. They had valid proof of either the condition of the fetus and/or the mother...and today? It is far easier to determine that now, than it was when I was an RN in the early 1960's.

And Dr. Tiller, I will bet, also did it only when needed. He paid with his life, and his wife saw it happen, while she was singing in the Choir. I just hope that there will be other OB's who are brave and caring enough to take up where he left off.

Even women in his community in Kansas, who are anti-any form of abortion, were in tears because of a zealot killing him in Church, of all places, during a Sunday service.

So you would be happier if girls and women had to go back to the old days, and go to a filthy slum, and be aborted with a coat hanger, as long as you don't have to know about it?

Again, may Dr. Tiller rest in peace, and may his wife and kids someday be able to get the image of his murder out of their nightmares. It will not be easy.

re: #64 Pingemi

I think you are wrong, but only time will tell that tale. Your argument is the same used by most OR types btw. If you watch the "army of god" videos Charles posted last night you will hear the crazies stating the same case you are here, and fantasizing about a state seceding so that a civil war could start.

Are you for that? Do you want an abortion war?

re: #53 NY Nana

I'm sorry, but Judaism is a little more nuanced on abortion than that

From the same website:

Jewish law not only permits, but in some circumstances requires abortion. Where the mother's life is in jeopardy because of the unborn child, abortion is mandatory.

An unborn child has the status of "potential human life" until the majority of the body has emerged from the mother. Potential human life is valuable, and may not be terminated casually, but it does not have as much value as a life in existence. The Talmud makes no bones about this: it says quite bluntly that if the fetus threatens the life of the mother, you cut it up within her body and remove it limb by limb if necessary, because its life is not as valuable as hers. But once the greater part of the body has emerged, you cannot take its life to save the mother's, because you cannot choose between one human life and another.

So while abortion is permitted to save the life of the mother, it's not to be taken lightly or done for reasons beyond the life of the mother.

re: #57 IslandLibertarian

I detect an anti-religious theme in your two poems.
Is all your work, where the subject matter is religion, so negative?

Religion is indeed part of both poems, but if you read them carefully, you will find that the first is actually anti-coercion, and the second is anti-hypocrisy. From bitter personal experience as a clinic escort in a town where two abortion doctors and a fellow clinic escort were gunned down by abntiabortion zealots and clinics were firebombed nearly a dozen times, I have found both to be present in abundance in religious opposition to abortion.

This is a constitutional democracy, not a theocracy, and sectarian religious sympathies should not be made into laws here. Such laws would be neither more nor less than a donmestic version of sharia.

#64 And of course none of these facts or opinions alter the fact that Dr. Tiller was murdered and his murderer needs to be the object of scorn and celebrating the murder is an objectively evil act. It's bad form to quote ones self but something I posted on the subject a while back seems apt:

It is true that abortion is akin to murder but it is even more true that murder is akin to murder. Justifying it is no different than Groucho’s telling Mrs. Claypool that he was with another woman because she reminded him of her.

I know Charles doesn't like to fight the abortion battles here so I will let my current defenses stand as given in 64 & 40. Plus it's nearly 1 a.m. on the east coast and I've got a contractor coming in the morning so I wish you all good night. (and if you don't know the reference is from A night at the Opera )

re: #59 Zimriel

Or, for that matter, to hold a man's convenience more important than a child's life. Abortion is a nice, safe out for cads.

A boyfriend has no more right to coerce a woman into having an abortion than a complete stranger has a right to coerce her into not having one.

re: #29 Salamantis

The majority of Dr. Tiller's practice for the past couple of decades has been late term abortions for women whose lives of physical health were threatened by their pregnancies, or whose fetuses were either already dead or so horribly deformed that they would not long surivive childbirth.

Where did you get that information. I don't doubt you. The source could come in handy.

Tony.

re: #53 NY Nana

And it is criminal to expect a 14-year old girl who was raped, etc., to carry a fetus until it is born.

May Dr. Tiller rest in peace. I will bet that he performed a late term abortion on women who, for medical reasons, needed it. I feel terrible for any girl or woman who will have to carry to term when there is a medical problem that might harm the mother.

In Judaism, the fetus is not a human being until it has been delivered and drawn breath.

The life of the mother comes first, in any case.

I agree that 14-year-old rape victims (or any rape victims, for that matter) should not have to carry a baby to term. Most abortions are not performed under such circumstances, however.

I doubt all of Dr. Tiller's late-term abortions involved medical problems that required the procedure. Given the way the law is written in Kansas, a specific reason never had to be stated, either by Dr. Tiller or the doctor giving the second opinion.

After seeing my kids' (triplets) beating hearts on an ultrasound at six weeks, they were human to me from that point on, and the loss of any one of them would have destroyed me. Everyone sees things in their own way, though, I guess.

re: #62 Thanos

There really isn't. It's clear to me that some abortion must stay legal, but be discouraged. When it was fully illegal it still occurred, just like people who drank during prohibition existed, just like people who use illegal drugs exist now.

The only practical way to reduce the incidence of abortion, or alcohol use, or drug use, or other "undesirable" behaviors, is to work on reducing the demand for the product or service. We have ample evidence that attempting to control these behaviors from the supply side is fraught with failure.

So how do you reduce the demand for abortion? Well, one thing is to improve the standard of sex education, and make birth control drugs and devices easier to obtain for all who need them. Nothing wrong with promoting abstinence for those willing to abstain, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that a great many young people are unwilling to be celibate.

Another approach is to do more work to offer moral and financial support to young women who do become unintentionally pregnant. There should be programs in place that would make it relatively easy for them carry through with the pregnancy and then give up the child for adoption. If that means housing them, and paying them a stipend, then so be it.

Finally, those people opposed to abortion are simply going to have resign themselves to the fact some abortions are unavoidable necessities. The best that can be hoped for is that we are able to reduce the total number of abortions performed to something approaching that base level.

re: #61 Noah's Arrrgh

My older brother's job, at one point, had him doing rounds in hospitals servicing operating rooms throughout California. Once, he was at a hospital in the Central Valley where he inadvertently witnessed a partial birth abortion. He didn't speak of the details, but I presume he saw the child with the skull shrunken from the extraction of the brains, lying dead on the physician's tray. What he did say is that he went out to the parking lot and cried. I've only seen my brother cry once. For him to cry meant that what he witnessed was truly awful.

I understand the point of view of the necessity of doctor / patient confidentiality, the imperative of preventing violence against those who conduct abortions, the importance of bringing his murderer before our courts, and the essentialness of the rule of law. I'd just suggest that late term abortion is more that just an intellectual exercise. For those who have experienced it, it is unmistakably the death of an innocent child, many of whom would have lead a normal life had they been desired.

So while I condemn his murder, I cannot praise Dr. Tiller for his life's work.

The vast majority of women would not choose to undergo late term abortions unless the consequences of not doing so were particularly dire, nor would the vast majority of physicians perform them. I give Dr. Tiller credit for helping those women faced with such dire consequences - death, major and permanent physical injury, or carrying a monstrously deformed fetus to term, only to watch it die - to avoid them.

re: #26 Dave the.....

Witchita has a fairly large (and often troubled) African-American population. Was he representative of national statistics where African-Americans have a much higher abortion rate?

Dave doesn't seem to be answering my question, but I'm afraid I can guess why the subject of African-Americans was brought up. I've heard this way too many times..."If blacks have abortions at higher rates than whites, then don't you realize that, by supporting the right to abortion, you're condoning a genocide of the African-American population?"

I used to think there was a limit to how absurdly contorted an argument can become, by people in this mindset, but they constantly raise the ante.

Dave, if you have a different reason for bringing this up, please put my mind at ease and I'll retract the above as my theory of what you're saying.

The FBI received a letter warning of Scott Roeder's intent to kill Dr. Tiller on May 29th. Unfortunately, the tip didn't get entered into the computer until June 1st, two days later.

re: #73 coloradobuff

ITA. After seeing my daughter's heartbeat for the first time, after watching her move my stomach I knew that I had a baby. No one asked me "so how's your body?" or "how's your fetus?". It was "how's your baby?" only about 12,000 times.

re: #69 Salamantis

Agreed that theocracy has no place on earth.
Personal experience is a valid muse.
I got rid of the chip on my shoulder towards organized religion.
There are a lot of good people doing good things.

re: #78 arielle

Good point. Also, congratulations on your daughter, no matter how old she is now!

Time for me to get some sleeps

Out of the Blue

Past this old man's bedtime. Goodnight, all!

re: #80 coloradobuff

She's actually turn one in a week! I can't believe where the time has gone. My baby is growing up! *sniff* :) She's actually my icon.

And wow, triplets! I can't believe you find time for sleep, let alone be on the computer.

re: #64 Pingemi

#46 You certainly have the right to be offended if you wish but I think the comparison is apt. I maintain that how nice a person is or his motivations have no bearing on the justness of his cause.

But to save women's lives or their future health, or to keep them from having to give birth to a deformed and doomed fetus, IS a just cause to anyone whose morality is not dogmatically myopic.

Poems are nice but irrelevant. I'm sure there are many nice poems and hymns to the Palestinian cause, it doesn't make it just.

Which does not address in the least the points made in my poems. And those points are NOT irrelevant.

An awful lot of Palestinians are taught from a young age that Jews are not human. They might be nice parents and kind folks, but neither their willingness to sacrifice themselves to kill what they consider non-humans nor the worlds seeming indifference to that act makes it any less Murder.

Murder is the illegal killing of human persons (examples of legal killings of persons are war and self-defence). Zygotes, embryos, and pre-viability fetuses are alive, and they are human, but they cannot by any stretch of the rational imagination be considered to be persons. And even in the case of post-viability fetuses, the woman's life or health must take moral precedence. And these procedures are legal, and I anticipate that they will remain so.

The willingness to define the humanity and the life of an unborn child solely based on the desire of a woman to carry it to terms is astounding. It is an act of scientific denial no less than those who attack Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. If you want to make the case that this human life should be allowed to be ended based such a decision be careful; we see the consequences in China today as woman are aborted simply for being female. Once one decides anyone can make the decision to define what human life is worthy of survival based on convenience an awful genie is let out of the bottle.

In China, you do not have a woman's free choice; instead you have a government mandate that after one child is born, all subsequent pregnancies must be terminated. It is this totalitarian coercion that forces Chinese women who want a male child in a society that values males over females to abort a first-pregnancy female fetus in the hopes that she will subnsequently become pregnant with a male one. It is just as totalitarian to require abortions as it would be to blanket prohibit them. In our constitutional democracy, in the other hand, the woman has the free choice to either abort her pregnancy or to carry it to term.

In my opinion the time will come when people look back on the abortion debate much as they do slavery and be amazed that abortion was considered just.

In my opinion the time will come when people will look back on the abortion debate much as they will look back on opposition to gay civil unions, and much as they now look back on the defence of segregation and Jim Crow, and wonder why they ever opposed first trimester elective abortions.

I found this interesting note on the blog Rude Pundit, from a reader in Kansas who knew Roeder:

"For some few years I volunteered as an escort at Dr. Tiller’s and several other clinics. I didn’t know the good doctor well, but met with him on several occasions and was impressed with his kindness and the care he obviously felt for the women who needed his services.

"Of course I have been heartbroken by his assassination, but I’m not so full of hate towards his killer. I’ve seen too many of his kind on the lines; in fact I remember seeing him. We knew Mr. Roeder as 'Prom Queen' from the flowers he usually carried there, and the screaming fits he would throw when approached by escorts. He was one of many not-too-bright mentally ill recruited by various self-appointed fundie leaders who groomed them to scream the threats they themselves were so careful not to utter aloud.

"I’m pretty sure that he has been exploited again to shoot Dr. Tiller. I don’t know who is using him this time--when I saw him, he was in Troy Newman’s stable of nuts, but the fundie leaders are an incestuous bunch who tend to swap followers as needed.

"According to papers Roeder filed today, his possessions amount to a 16yr.-old Taurus and $10, and he only works occasionally at minimum-wage jobs. Yet he managed to finance several 400-mile round trips to Wichita from the KC area in the last month to case the church and know Dr. Tiller by sight, bought a handgun, gas and meals etc. Also, he asked--begged--for bail to be set today, despite his total lack of assets. Obviously, the poor bastard expects someone to post it, all of which leads me to believe that he is not the solitary nutcase the fundies claim he is.

"Somebody had to put him up to it, help him plan it and pay his expenses, and will now feed him to the sharks. Hopefully, and maybe with a bit of psych help, he will realize how he was used and name names."

re: #72 Fierce Guppy

Where did you get that information. I don't doubt you. The source could come in handy.

Tony.

Dr. Tiller's abortions have for many years been individually categorized as to when they happened during the pregnancy and the reasons for the procedures by the state of Kansas, as is required by Kansas state law.

re: #73 coloradobuff

I agree that 14-year-old rape victims (or any rape victims, for that matter) should not have to carry a baby to term. Most abortions are not performed under such circumstances, however.

I doubt all of Dr. Tiller's late-term abortions involved medical problems that required the procedure. Given the way the law is written in Kansas, a specific reason never had to be stated, either by Dr. Tiller or the doctor giving the second opinion.

After seeing my kids' (triplets) beating hearts on an ultrasound at six weeks, they were human to me from that point on, and the loss of any one of them would have destroyed me. Everyone sees things in their own way, though, I guess.

It depends upon what you mean by specific. The stated reasons on the State of Kansas' records for Dr. Tiller's late term abortions fall under three categories: serious risk to the woman's life, serious and permanent risk to her physical health (blindness, paralysis, brain damage, major organ failure, etc.), and fetuses so diseased, damaged or deformed that they could not long survive childbirth.

re: #68 arielle

I agree that it is not taken lightly, which is why I agree with what is written.

I am an only, and when my Mum ZT"L was pregnant with me, in 1937, she had eclampsia, and had to be delivered 3 months early, in Jan. of '38, because of it. I posted the other day re what happened; the GP who was her MD was asked by my Dad ZT"L if he, (the GP) as a Catholic, would save my Mum, if it came to it. The MD assured him that he was familiar with Judaism's stance, and he would, as leaving a father with a newborn and no wife would be so hard on my Dad...I was told about it when I was old enough to understand, and was proud of both my Dad and the MD.

I spent the first 3 months of my life in an incubator. And both my daughter and I had eclampsia in our pregnancies, but with the treatment they have, we carried almost to term.

Sadly, one of my daughters in law was pregnant with fraternal twin girls, and she also had eclampsia. Tragically one of the twins would not survive at birth, as she was missing the major coronary artery in her umbilical cord. Ironically she lived only 36 hours.

The surviving twin, who is now 9, weighed 1 lb. 8 oz....and spent months in the neo-natal unit in 2 hospitals in NYC...she has some complications from her precepitous birth, but is the Energizer Bunny on speed! ;) She read at age 3, and has had a lot of surgeries, and will require more. She shames any adult in the way she handles it, and is a joy.

BTW, none of us had seizures with the eclampsia...we were very lucky.

re: #88 NY Nana

NYNana,

I'm so sorry to hear about the twin who did not survive, but am so happy that your surviving granddaughter brings you so much joy!

re: #89 arielle

She really is amazing. She will be going to a day camp for the summer, for horseback riding lessons. She has been told about her twin, and had an horrific breakdown when we were sitting in the car, while my husband did some shopping. She blamed herself, even though the kids had seen a psychologist to learn how to tell her, as even fraternal twins know they were together in utero...I have the sonogram that was taken a few weeks before they could see that her umbilical cord was not viable....they were hugging each other.

I honestly think that if I was not an RN, I could not have comforted her calmly, while weeping in my head, and seemed to be able to explain what was wrong with her twin, and that there was not one single thing that she did to cause her twin's abnormality.

She sat in my lap in the back seat, weeping, but did calm down. On the way back here (she was staying for the weekend) I stayed in the back seat, and put her back in the car seat, and held her hand. She has never mentioned it again.

But I have a feeling that she will, with her parents.

Enjoy being a mother! Been there, done that 4 times. The 3 little grandkids are Life's revenge for what your kids have done....

re: #69 Salamantis
Sal - I mentioned this briefly on another thread and don't know it you saw it, but I want to state it again for it deserves it:
I thank you for enduring at least verbal (and I suspect phyiscal) abuse at the hands of those people while you were working as an escort for women at those abortion clinics where so-called Christians would verbally and physically abuse and attempt to deny a woman's right to an abortion.
That you so willingly put yourself between those women and those lunatics is extraordinarily commendable.
Thank you.

re: #28 Dave the.....

Lynn B, do you personally know any one who is trying to adapt? Or recently went through the process?

I have known plenty of people who have wanted to adopt, and were crushed by the process. If adoption was the answer to abortion, there wouldn't be a mryiad children in orphanages.

A personal note: when you go about looking for facts to back up your pre-made opinions, rather than find the facts first and then form the opinion, you will always fail.

Oh; as to hypocrisy:

Did I mention that one of the former leaders of the antiabortion movement in my hometown is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for sexually molesting the pregnant girls in his care at his unwed mothers' home?

This seems to be the dead thread, but is anyone comes back? Charles must be very proud of the Lizards, who handled this touchy subject so nicely, both pro and con...about 95% of the time. I didn't see any deletions, but haven't looked over the whole thread.

#92 Flavia: I wish I had about 1,000 updings to give you!

re: #93 Salamantis
Why am I not suprised at that news, Sal?

re: #91 realwest

Sal - I mentioned this briefly on another thread and don't know it you saw it, but I want to state it again for it deserves it:
I thank you for enduring at least verbal (and I suspect phyiscal) abuse at the hands of those people while you were working as an escort for women at those abortion clinics where so-called Christians would verbally and physically abuse and attempt to deny a woman's right to an abortion.
That you so willingly put yourself between those women and those lunatics is extraordinarily commendable.
Thank you.

Something within me could not bear to see those young women beaten by the protest placards of those antiabortion pickets and just stand idly by. I simply had to interpose my own body, shielding them and absorbing the blows meant for them on my own head and shoulders. My heart left me no choice.

So, how do we as a nation, as a people who bleed for every conceivable group of people that have been wronged, stop viable babies from having their skulls ripped open and their brains removed via suction?

I'm sure if fetuses could demonstrate they would be against this inhumane treatment. We can talk all we want about the law and what is legal and what is not. We can talk about rights and bigotry and the plight of the unwed and the unwanted. In the end, late term abortions are barbaric, grotesque and inhumane. I won't shed a tear for the doctor or the trigger man. My tears are reserved for the infants.

re: #96 Salamantis
I DO understand that Sal, and how you felt. I knew it when I wrote my comment.
Indeed, that you so willingly put yourself between those women and those lunatics is extraordinarily commendable.

Hey Sal,

Honestly, I'm not trying to impose my feelings on you or questions your motives. I'm just curious, would you ever absorb blows in defense of the ultimate victims in the gut wrenching issue?

And I must now go off to bed. I hope you all have a great evening/early morning and that I get the chance to see you all down the road.

Good night, all.

re: #53 NY Nana

In Judaism, the fetus is not a human being until it has been delivered and drawn breath.

And this is why abortion must be upheld as a safe, legal right: when medicine cannot make the concrete determination, it is a personal/religious decision. The anti-choicers are trying to force their religious views on everyone - and make their religion the law of the land. The Founding Fathers were so opposed to anything like this that they made religious freedom the very first Amendment to the Constitution. In America, such things cannot and must not be decided by the government.

The viability of a fetus is not a religious question.

re: #61 Noah's Arrrgh

I'd just suggest that late term abortion is more that just an intellectual exercise.

Yes - it's an absolute necessity, else no one would do it.

For those who have experienced it, it is unmistakably the death of an innocent child, many of whom would have lead a normal life had they been desired.

All the more reason not to condemn the mother who is forced to make that sort of decision.

Why anyone thinks late-term abortions are done lightly is beyond me.

re: #97 koedo

So, how do we as a nation, as a people who bleed for every conceivable group of people that have been wronged, stop viable babies from having their skulls ripped open and their brains removed via suction?

I'm sure if fetuses could demonstrate they would be against this inhumane treatment. We can talk all we want about the law and what is legal and what is not. We can talk about rights and bigotry and the plight of the unwed and the unwanted. In the end, late term abortions are barbaric, grotesque and inhumane. I won't shed a tear for the doctor or the trigger man. My tears are reserved for the infants.

Apparently you would not shed a tear for the women, either - the women suffering heart conditions or cancer or severe and permanent breathing problems due to emphysema or to those suffering from pregnancy induced diabetes, who carried viable fetuses but who would have died without the abortion. Nor would you shed a tear for the women who would have been doomed to blindness, or brain damage, or paralysis, or comprehensive renal failure condemning them to a short life filled with the necessity of undergoing regualr kidney dialysis. And I'm sure your eyes would be quite dry for the women who would have been forced to give birth to a monstrously deformed infant, only to watch it inevitably die days or hours later.

Just as dry as they apparently are for the murder of the good and decent doctor who willingly endangered his life, and ultimately lost it, in order to spare them such death, permanent severe injury, and inexpressible anguish.

re: #94 NY Nana

#92 Flavia: I wish I had about 1,000 updings to give you!

Wow, thanks. (blush!)

re: #101 Flavia

Wow! Excellent post, and I agree with every word.

Please stop making sense. You might confuse a few posters. Amazingly, not that many.

re: #99 koedo

Hey Sal,

Honestly, I'm not trying to impose my feelings on you or questions your motives. I'm just curious, would you ever absorb blows in defense of the ultimate victims in the gut wrenching issue?

I would absorb the same blows for the sake of a woman who wished to carry her pregnancy to term, so the answer is yes.

re: #102 koedo

The viability of a fetus is not a religious question.

Nor are the hazards to the mother. I am only in favor of post-viability abortion when the life of the mother is greatly endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, or when it would greatly, seriously and permanently endanger her physical health.

re: #68 arielle

I'm sorry, but Judaism is a little more nuanced on abortion than that

From the same website:

Jewish law not only permits

If the website starts this way, it is incorrect.
Judaism either prohibits or mandates abortion - period.
It is NOT nuanced, it is concrete.
Abortion is to save the live of the mother, only.

And it is because I am a Jew who holds to these principles that I refuse to hold anyone else to them: they are religious principles only, and it not my place, or anyone else, to force any religion on the general public.

people who had been picketing his clinic later entered as patients . . . then returned to the picket line.

I can personally attest to that brand of hypocrisy by some of my anti-abortion acquaintances. The law is for thee, but not for me.

re: #105 Flavia

You did it the old fashioned way...you earned it!

I have to go to sleep...can't see straight.

G'nite to all the rational Lizards, (you know who you are!) and sweet dreams!

It seems that the majority of Lizards were very rational and also understand what this thread is all about, and are not rigid, sanctimonious and self-righteous on this subject.

Try walking in the shoes of the women who have had to undergo this surgery because the fetus was not viable, etc. I cannot imagine anyone so selfish as to decide to have a late-term procedure for no good reason. Look at tot mum, in FL...she wanted to abort, but her parents talked her out of it. She then wanted to give her poor, murdered daughter to a friend to adopt..again her parents refused...and now that precious toddler is dead.

I do not know how that family can live with themselves.....

re: #107 Salamantis

I would absorb the same blows for the sake of a woman who wished to carry her pregnancy to term, so the answer is yes.

Come to think of it, I HAVE absorbed blows for that reason - many of them. Most of the woman entering the clinic where I escorted wanted to carry their pregnancies to term, and were going there for prenatal care. But the antiabortion protestors never inquired as to womens' reasons for entering the clinic - nor did I; they wanted to shut the clinic down by denying it any and all clients, so they tried to beat them all with their picket signs, endangering many wanted pregnancies in the process, and I shielded them all, without question.

re: #19 Shiplord Kirel

There is no easy answer here.

Really? I think the answers are pretty clear. Tiller didn't deserve die. Even though abortion is legal, in high demand, and barbaric, that is no justification for premeditated murder. Roeder is a maniac and deserves the worst punishment the law allows.

re: #109 Flavia

My finger hurts from dinging you up!

Please post more often. We need you!

And re Judaism? Spot-on.

G'nite, for real.

re: #113 NukeAtomrod

Really? I think the answers are pretty clear. Tiller didn't deserve die. Even though abortion is legal, in high demand, and barbaric, that is no justification for premeditated murder. Roeder is a maniac and deserves the worst punishment the law allows.

The kinds of abortions in which Dr. Tiller specialized either saved the lives of the women upon whom they were performed or preserved their physical health from permanent and devastating injury. To perform the procedure under such circumstances is the exact opposite of barbaric; it is decent, compassionate, caring and humane.

And for those who equate slavery with abortion (there are quite a few; I see this all the time) --

Slavery is an economic arrangement -- essentially artificial and false as well as unethical -- in which one party somehow owns a human, or owns his labor. Clearly, this kind of power over a human being is unnatural; it has to be enforced with chains, and it's over as soon as the contract or deed is voided.

On the other hand, like it or not and for good or for ill, god and nature have given women the power of life and death over the contents of their wombs.

re: #108 Salamantis

Nor are the hazards to the mother. I am only in favor of post-viability abortion when the life of the mother is greatly endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, or when it would greatly, seriously and permanently endanger her physical health.

I assume from you statement that you never see the possiblity that a partial birth abortion would be necessary, since with a viable fetus and the head fully delivered, what possible reason could there be to kill it outright?

Indulge me: for what sort of situation would the abortion of a viable fetus be necessary? If the fetus is viable, why not deliver it (through surgery if necessary) and try to save it?

re: #53 NY Nana

In Judaism, the fetus is not a human being until it has been delivered and drawn breath.

re: #101 Flavia

And this is why abortion must be upheld as a safe, legal right: when medicine cannot make the concrete determination, it is a personal/religious decision. The anti-choicers are trying to force their religious views on everyone - and make their religion the law of the land. The Founding Fathers were so opposed to anything like this that they made religious freedom the very first Amendment to the Constitution. In America, such things cannot and must not be decided by the government.

This is really quite amazing. We've had a large number of discussions where everyone is appalled by the anti-science stance of the Creationists and IDers-- and rightly so--, but when it comes to abortion and embryonic stem cells, I've noticed how my fellow lizards embrace the anti-science dark side.

All the scientific evidence supports life beginning at conception (or shortly thereafter). When the zygote divides the first time, all the scientific criteria for life have been met. And there is little doubt that that life is human. The pertinent question isn't "when does life begin?", it's "how important is this life in its very early stages?"

Oh... and the whole pro-choice/anti-choice dichotomy is dishonest (as is pro-life/anti-life). There's really only one choice the movement is interested in. If abortion isn't bad, then there should be no shame in defining one's self as pro-abortion.

And before anyone asks, abortion in the cases of rape/incest/likely death of mother are justified.

re: #53 NY Nana

And it is criminal to expect a 14-year old girl who was raped, etc., to carry a fetus until it is born.

May Dr. Tiller rest in peace. I will bet that he performed a late term abortion on women who, for medical reasons, needed it. I feel terrible for any girl or woman who will have to carry to term when there is a medical problem that might harm the mother.

In Judaism, the fetus is not a human being until it has been delivered and drawn breath.

The life of the mother comes first, in any case.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm139:13-16

...

re: #115 Salamantis

The kinds of abortions in which Dr. Tiller specialized either saved the lives of the women upon whom they were performed or preserved their physical health from permanent and devastating injury. To perform the procedure under such circumstances is the exact opposite of barbaric; it is decent, compassionate, caring and humane.

If the claims against his practice are true, he was using a very broad definition of "health of the mother" when he performed some of the abortions. Depression, for instance.

Also, the threat of death or permanent and devastating injury during childbirth is very minimal now that C-Sections are so commonplace.

That said, I agree that any of these that were done because the woman was actually in grave physical danger were not, in fact, barbaric.

re: #117 ckb

I assume from you statement that you never see the possiblity that a partial birth abortion would be necessary, since with a viable fetus and the head fully delivered, what possible reason could there be to kill it outright?

It is rare, but sometimes the deformity of the fetus includes an abnormally (very) large head, which will not pass through the birth canal. Such fetuses are not viable; first the body is removed through the vagina, then the head is dismembered and removed in pieces before the womb is flushed, to avoid a particularly dangerous Caesarian section.

Indulge me: for what sort of situation would the abortion of a viable fetus be necessary? If the fetus is viable, why not deliver it (through surgery if necessary) and try to save it?

Because sometimes circumstances occur where surgery could endanger the woman's life or physical health, and so could allowing the pregnancy to continue. She could have a severe heart condition; she could have severe pregnancy-induced diabetes. She could have severe emphysema or be undergoing treatment for cancer. Some of these women can endure induced labor at substantially increased personal risk, but most cannot.

I do note that these conditions, while existent, are rare. Of 1.4 million abortions last year, 90% were performed in the 1st trimester, and fewer than 1% are performed after the 20th week of pregnancy (mid 2nd trimester). Fetuses are not viable until the 22nd week of pregnancy at the earliest, since before then, the brain, lungs, heart and other organs, and circulatory system are insufficiently developed to independently operate. Only about a thousand abortions are performed yearly after the 26th week of pregnancy. There are only three doctors who specialize in performing such procedures, and in 2008 Dr. Tiller performed 323 of them. Women travelled from all over the nation to his kansas clinic for the procedure.

re: #118 NukeAtomrod

This is really quite amazing. We've had a large number of discussions where everyone is appalled by the anti-science stance of the Creationists and IDers-- and rightly so--, but when it comes to abortion and embryonic stem cells, I've noticed how my fellow lizards embrace the anti-science dark side.

All the scientific evidence supports life beginning at conception (or shortly thereafter). When the zygote divides the first time, all the scientific criteria for life have been met. And there is little doubt that that life is human. The pertinent question isn't "when does life begin?", it's "how important is this life in its very early stages?"

Yep. And that isn't a matter of the zygote or embryo being either human or alive; it's a matter of personhood. And they are most definitely not persons. I consider fetal viability to be the bright line here; it is the point at where the fetus is no longer dependent for its life upon the body of the particular woman who carries it, but can independently survive, first in a neonatal ICU, then later under the care of any knowledgeable and responsible adult.

Oh... and the whole pro-choice/anti-choice dichotomy is dishonest (as is pro-life/anti-life). There's really only one choice the movement is interested in. If abortion isn't bad, then there should be no shame in defining one's self as pro-abortion.

And before anyone asks, abortion in the cases of rape/incest/likely death of mother are justified.

It isn't pro-abortion when one supports both the woman's decision to either carry an early pregnancy to term or to abort it; it's pro-choice.

But denying her the right to make such a decision and forcing her to carry a pregnancy to term is both antiabortion and anti-choice. In China, on the other hand, women are denied the right to make such a decision and forced to terminate their pregnancies after the birth of a single child; China is thus both pro-abortion and anti-choice.

re: #119 Cygnus

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm139:13-16

We live in a constitutional democracy with both freedom of religion and church-state separation, and thus should not legally ratify the religious positions of any particular religion, denomination or sect. Of course, that's precisely what the Dominionists strive for; they bend their efforts towards replacing the US Constitution with the Bible, democracy with theocracy, and our legal system with a Christian version of Sharia law. They wish to morph this nation into a Christian Biblical Literalist fundamentalist version of Saudi Arabia or Iran.

re: #121 NukeAtomrod

If the claims against his practice are true, he was using a very broad definition of "health of the mother" when he performed some of the abortions. Depression, for instance.

Also, the threat of death or permanent and devastating injury during childbirth is very minimal now that C-Sections are so commonplace.

That said, I agree that any of these that were done because the woman was actually in grave physical danger were not, in fact, barbaric.

The antiabortion former attorney general of the state of Kansas went through Dr. Tiller's antiabortion record for years on end with the finest of fine-toothed combs, and could only find one case he thought he might be able to successfully prosecute, by claiming that the independent second medical opinion required by Kansas law was not truly independent. But Dr. Tiller was aquitted of all charges, after less than an hour's deliberations, by a jury of his peers.

Salamantis - thanks for saying all the things I would've wanted to say. (Now I can be lazy and just give you updings for all your work)

People are not all good, people are not all evil. Even the most hardened killer will show good under the right circumstances. And performing 60,000 late term abortions makes you a hardened killer in my book. I'm sure tiller loved his family, cared for his children the absolute best he could and drove steel spikes into babie's skulls before they could draw a breath and be born. People are complex and often contradictory. That is what makes us people.

And no, this doesn't excuse vigilanteism. I am sure that this person feels like he martyred himself for a greater cause or some such nonesense, but this hilights we are and must be a nation of laws and not men.

re: #127 bubbasbbq

People are not all good, people are not all evil. Even the most hardened killer will show good under the right circumstances. And performing 60,000 late term abortions makes you a hardened killer in my book. I'm sure tiller loved his family, cared for his children the absolute best he could and drove steel spikes into babie's skulls before they could draw a breath and be born. People are complex and often contradictory. That is what makes us people.

The 60,000 figure is malevolently false antiabortion propaganda. And Dr. Tiller performed 323 late term abortions last year; multiply that by the years he's been practicing and you get a figure a full order of magnitude less than that ridiculous number. But of course, that's the antiabortionists' second propaganda lie; the false claim that all of his abortions were late term.

And zygotes, embryos and fetuses are not babies; babies are BORN.

Dr. Tiller spent his entire career saving womens' lives and preserving and protecting their health, and a murderously fanatical antiabortion terrorist shot him dead in cold blood in his own church for it, with his wife present.

This whole blame-the-victim spin reminds me of that Australian imam justifying and excusing rape by claiming that women who dressed comfortably in the hot Aussie summers were uncovered meat, who deserved what they got from catting-about Muslim men unable to control their natural urges.

And no, this doesn't excuse vigilanteism. I am sure that this person feels like he martyred himself for a greater cause or some such nonesense, but this hilights we are and must be a nation of laws and not men.

That's right; and Dr.; Tiller was operating within the law, as opposed to his heinous assassin.

It's interesting to see the attempt to Canonize this guy. Nobody deserves to be murdered but neither is that murder an excuse to drive someone whose politics you like or dislike into Sainthood or into Demonization. Yes he was 'operating within the law' to be sure. A despicable law that is well hated and deservedly so. Late term abortion is an evil and a law that allows it is evil and the guy who performs those abortions is certainly not any kind of hero or saint despite his military service or any other attempt to plant a flag on this guy and make him some kind of hero, strip it all away and the later term abortionist remains.

It is one thing to (rightly) condemn the murder of this doctor. It is quite another to attempt to defend this doctor's acts. What kind of morality suggests pity for the doctor--and it was a pity that he was killed--but no concern for all the children whose lives he helped to snuff out?

The article contains this quote from the doctor: "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival." It never ceases to amaze me how human beings are capable of rationalizing any act of immorality. Some things never change.

re: #53 NY Nana

If you are going to purport to express the Torah's view on abortion, you ought to be a bit more careful. Abortion is basically forbidden under Jewish law except in very rare circumstances such as a real danger to the life of the mother.

re: #130 Hanoch

The problem with the whole issue of abortion is that it is "about" several different things. However, people usually form an opinion on the issue based upon only one aspect.

You identify the moral aspect, and that is part of it. The doctor you quoted identified the medical aspect of providing a safe procedure for women who are seeking abortion. There are also economic, political, social and legal aspects to the issue. Any rational discussion of the issue of abortion should take into account all of these aspects.

re: #123 Salamantis

And that isn't a matter of the zygote or embryo being either human or alive; it's a matter of personhood. And they are most definitely not persons.

Various courts have ruled that fetuses are not legal persons. That is the basis upon which the right to abortion rests. Up until the early part of the 20th century, adult women were not considered legal persons either. So the issue of "personhood" is not biologically factual and not final, but a legal opinion which may well change one day.

I consider fetal viability to be the bright line here; it is the point at where the fetus is no longer dependent for its life upon the body of the particular woman who carries it, but can independently survive, first in a neonatal ICU, then later under the care of any knowledgeable and responsible adult.

Medically speaking, the problem is, fetal viability is not a bright line. It is a very fuzzy band of percentages of survival. Premature babies born as early as 22 weeks can survive if provided proper medical care.

re: #132 Kenneth

I agree that all relevant issues must be considered. But at the end of that process, it boils down to a moral decision. I don't think a doctor who assists a woman with an unnecessary abortion because he is concerned she may do so anyway in an unsafe manner is engaging in a moral act.

re: #123 Salamantis

And that isn't a matter of the zygote or embryo being either human or alive; it's a matter of personhood. And they are most definitely not persons.

I consider fetal viability to be the bright line here;

And zygotes, embryos and fetuses are not babies; babies are BORN.

Just to challenge you a bit... What is it about fetal viability that imbues personhood? And what is it about birth that imbues babyhood? Does a fetus surgically removed from the womb remain a fetus, since technically "birth" did not occur.

It isn't pro-abortion when one supports both the woman's decision to either carry an early pregnancy to term or to abort it; it's pro-choice.

I suspect you are obfuscating purposely, otherwise you have a logical blind spot. The only choice the Pro-Choice movement is concerned about is abortion-- as opposed to a baseball player's choice to use steroids or a 14 year old girl's choice to post topless pictures of herself on the internet. The term "Pro-Abortion" adequately describes the position of wanting the option to terminate pregnancy, whereas the term "Pro-Choice" doesn't describe anything. (This is a pet peeve of mine.)

re: #128 Salamantis

The 60,000 figure is malevolently false antiabortion propaganda. And Dr. Tiller performed 323 late term abortions last year

Sal, I don't think that's correct.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released its preliminary report of abortion statistics for 2008 today.

The report indicates late-term abortions, done after 22 weeks into pregnancy, went up approximately 10 percet from 2007 to 2008 with an increase from 293 to 323 abortions.

Link

I understood there was at least one other facility in Kansas that was performing late term abortions but I can't find the cite right now. So he would not have been involved in all 323.

I'd also point out that a number of people on this thread are conflating late term abortion with "partial birth abortion." They aren't the same thing.

So now a guy that kills babies is a hero? WTF? Late term abortions kill a vaible baby by sticking a fucking fork into the baby's head and sucking out the brains. Its the most barbaric act mankind has ever perpetrated. If you want to celebrate a guy that practiced infantacide then you really need a reality check. Are any of you parents?
Ever been there for your child's birth or held a newborn in your hands?

This is a good column, because it points out that people who make bad choices, and do bad things, often do it for what they think were good reasons.

The evidence I have read is that Dr Tiller killed at least some healthy, viable fetuses for reasons related to the mother's desperate social and psychological states. This is an ethical mistake of the highest order. It is a tragedy. In my eyes, it is abhorrent, but it is a situation that is in part due to social negligance towards pregnant women and their babies.

Parenthetically, viability of the fetus is not a particularly bright line, ethically, because viability is a relative term: prognosis for a fetus delivered at 24 weeks gestational age is worse than one delivered at 30 weeks, and depends somewhat on maternal health, quality of antepartum maternal care, quality of peripartum and post partum care, and co-morbidities in the fetus.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. :-/

I pray for this guy's soul and I pray for his family.

re: #66 NY Nana

I remember when I was a medical student in Montreal. A staff obstetrician told me they used to have whole wards (not just one: one was too small) that were mostly occupied by young women in post "miscarriage" infection or haemorrhage. Along came abortion, and those wards became obsolete.

People who don't see this sort of thing don't really understand the social and ethical realities of having a young, desperate woman come to you begging for help. But on the flip side, in my job, I see a lot of dead babies, and there are few sights so sad and so cold.

A lot of people should shut up about this. It iosn't a simpletopic.

There was a very positive article about Dr. Tiller in my local paper, the KC Star. It was written by the same person who has been doing a hatchet job on a local preacher, so she has a point of view.

My position is that the procedure described, when utilized according to guidelines set out by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, can be a necessary medical procedure. I think it should be done in a hospital setting and not in stand alone privately owned center where the provider is compensated per procedure.

Well what a chip off the old block. A true American hero. Granite statues will be popping up all over for this beeming example of the medical profession.

/sarc

, neighborhood women approached him and asked if he would continue to secretly provide abortions, as his father had done.

ahh...so it is about convenience for the woman.

So all the crap about abortion being 'for the safety of the mother' etc etc is pretty much just lies.....as most of us (I presume) have long known anyway.

Yeah..its not a 'simple topic'... Everyone has to make some tough decisions in life. Is it that 'hard' of a decision to make to take some precautions prior to having sex? Oh yeah...sure the 'guys' should do the same, but if I was a girl who was about to have sex with a guy I know I'M the one who will have to live with the consequences of getting pregnant...so if I am going to spread my legs for a guy who doesn't care if he gets me pregnant, I had damn well make sure that I take precautions to prevent that from happening.

probably the best preventative would be NOT having sex with someone who doesn't care enough about my welfare and future to begin with.

re: #122 Salamantis

Because sometimes circumstances occur where surgery could endanger the woman's life or physical health, and so could allowing the pregnancy to continue. She could have a severe heart condition; she could have severe pregnancy-induced diabetes. She could have severe emphysema or be undergoing treatment for cancer. Some of these women can endure induced labor at substantially increased personal risk, but most cannot.

I do note that these conditions, while existent, are rare. Of 1.4 million abortions last year, 90% were performed in the 1st trimester, and fewer than 1% are performed after the 20th week of pregnancy (mid 2nd trimester). Fetuses are not viable until the 22nd week of pregnancy at the earliest, since before then, the brain, lungs, heart and other organs, and circulatory system are insufficiently developed to independently operate. Only about a thousand abortions are performed yearly after the 26th week of pregnancy. There are only three doctors who specialize in performing such procedures, and in 2008 Dr. Tiller performed 323 of them. Women travelled from all over the nation to his kansas clinic for the procedure.

All very interesting. Above in #122, you talk about "avoiding a particularly dangerous Cesarean section.". I can only go by experience, but why would this be particularly dangerous? In the one my wife and I went though, she was awake - no general anesthesia - the whole time. Can epidurals be dangerous?

How do these dangers compare to people who do not have some extenuating circumstance? Wouldn't a patient wanting to try to keep the baby be subjected to the same dangers?

In response your post quoted above, you do appear to limit the discussion to physical problems. I take it, in you opinion mental problems or "economic means" do not enter into the equation?

A last related question; since it seems so very rare and these procedures are so hard to get, the late-term abortionist must turn away quite a few patients who do not meet these medical requirements. Do we know of or have heard from any patients that had to be denied this service? Further, because of their rarity, do the procedures that are done get fully documented so they can be published and reviewed? Are the medical reasons given in the public record?

re: #143 mrclark

ahh...so it is about convenience for the woman.

So all the crap about abortion being 'for the safety of the mother' etc etc is pretty much just lies.....as most of us (I presume) have long known anyway.
.

No, this is empirically false. Anyne who works in obstetrics can tell you so.

re: #144 ckb

I have no desire to defend anyone else's ethics, but from a purely medical point of view, yes, eidural anesthesia is not without hazards in severe cardiopulmonary disease. Epidural aneasthesia interferes with lower limb vasomotor responses and can cause problems that interfere critically with blood pressure, and unlike inhalational aneasthesia, the problems are not so swiftly reversible intraoperatively. n the other hand, it must be said that high risk pregnancy can be handled by specialised centres with far less maternal morbidity than even 10 to 20 years ago.

re: #110 iLikeCandy

people who had been picketing his clinic later entered as patients . . . then returned to the picket line.

I can personally attest to that brand of hypocrisy by some of my anti-abortion acquaintances. The law is for thee, but not for me.

Major WHOA! There's gotta be a special place in hell for this kind of hypocrite. I hope they have trouble living with themselves on a daily basis.

Sal,

I feel what your saying and I you have me all wrong. I admit freely that like a lot of people I'm torn on this issue. I don't want to deny anyone anything and I have empathy for all involved. It's a horrible, horrible situation to find oneself in.

re: #147 The Drizzle

Did he murder 6,000,000 jews in cold blood? No, he performed legal medical procedures to save life and prevent suffering. Your comparison is utterly sick.

re: #150 Jimmah

I agree with you: moral equivalents are generally invidious, and some are truly wrong headed and evil. On the other hand, don't you think your description of Dr Tiller's practice falls short? If you refer to late term abortion as saving lives, it is as reasonable to refer to it as ending lives, and failure to acknowlege one, while applauding the other, leads to a distortion of the issues at hand.

It is a mistake to allow idiots and zealots to frame the questions.

re: #150 Jimmah

Did he murder 6,000,000 jews in cold blood? No, he performed legal medical procedures to save life and prevent suffering. Your comparison is utterly sick.

That comment (#147) was deleted before I could read it, but it's interesting that koedo gave both it and your calling it sick, an upding each.

re: #136 Lynn B.

I'd also point out that a number of people on this thread are conflating late term abortion with "partial birth abortion." They aren't the same thing.

It is a very common thing for the anti-abortionists to use this term, 'partial birth abortion' to make a late term abortion sound evil....the images that these 3 words conger are quite powerful in perpetrating their agenda.

re: #151 Hhar

Yes of course, but as I would always choose the life of a viable, fully developed adult over that of an unborn where the two are in conflict as is often the case in late term abortions, I would still defend my choice of phrase in the sense of 'saving the greater humanity'.

re: #152 medaura18586

That comment (#147) was deleted before I could read it, but it's interesting that koedo gave both it and your calling it sick, an upding each.

Yes that was a bit weird. I'm guessing it would probably say that's what it meant by "I'm torn on this issue".

To me this is just another "touchy feely" article about Tiller without addressing the seriousness of his practice. Some facts first as best I can glean from the news;

re: #155 Jimmah

Yes that was a bit weird. I'm guessing it would probably say that's what it meant by "I'm torn on this issue".

Torn to the point of bipolarity, schizophrenia?

re: #157 medaura18586

So meduara: Why did you down ding me? I'm not complaining; I'm interested, because you are one of the more interesting posters here.

Anti-abortion people also routinely conflate "viable" with "healthy baby." In Kansas law "viable" explicitly means "able to survive outside the womb for some undefined length of time utilizing all available means of natural and artifical life support ." It otherwise has nothing to say about the condition of said fetus. An anacephalic fetus whose heart can be kept beating for a few hours ex-utero with massive artificial life-support measures is "viable" under Kansas law. And under Kansas law "non-viable" genrally means "already dead or cannot possibly survive removal from the uterus even with massive artifical life-supprt methods."

"Partial birth abortion" is not a medical term but a propaganda term. One notes that in the several years that Kansas has required detailed reporting of PBA's, none at all have been reported. Zero.

Inconvenient fact: Banning abortion doesn't make it go away. In nations where abortion is illegal, illegal abortion is a leading cause of maternal death and permanent injury. In Brazil, for example, it's estimated that illegal abortions kill at least 25,000 women a year and permanently injure three to four times that number. In nations where abortion is legal, it barely registers in the maternal mortality/injury stats.

Another inconvenient fact: Giving birth either vaginally or by C-section is categorically more dangerous than a clinical abortion, even a late-term clinical abortion. As in full-order-of-magnitude more dangerous. And the greater the health issues facing the mother, the greater that disparity in the mortality stats.

Well, I hit the wrong key so I will continue;
1. he performed approximately 60,000 abortions
2. Some or many were late term meaning the baby could survive
3. If 60,000 is close to being correct then many (approximately 1/2) were repeats since that is the national statistic.

So, setting aside the anecdotal tales I have a hard time believing many of these abortions were "hard decisions" by the people desiring them. Furthermore, I submit Tiller would abort under any circumstances based on the number and type of abortions along with the probability of repeat customers.

There is not way he should be considered a "hero" or anything else positive in my view.

re: #112 Salamantis

Come to think of it, I HAVE absorbed blows for that reason - many of them. Most of the woman entering the clinic where I escorted wanted to carry their pregnancies to term, and were going there for prenatal care. But the antiabortion protestors never inquired as to womens' reasons for entering the clinic - nor did I; they wanted to shut the clinic down by denying it any and all clients, so they tried to beat them all with their picket signs, endangering many wanted pregnancies in the process, and I shielded them all, without question.

That's been my experience as well, in thankfully less violent situations. Any woman entering the clinic is assumed to be pregnant and planning to abort, and they scream at us all. Me, getting my pills, the young teen coming for her first gyn exam, the pregnant women coming for prenatal checkups. Women's sexual and reproductive health is seen by a lot of these folks only as a cover for abortion.

re: #118 NukeAtomrod

This is really quite amazing. We've had a large number of discussions where everyone is appalled by the anti-science stance of the Creationists and IDers-- and rightly so--, but when it comes to abortion and embryonic stem cells, I've noticed how my fellow lizards embrace the anti-science dark side.

All the scientific evidence supports life beginning at conception (or shortly thereafter). When the zygote divides the first time, all the scientific criteria for life have been met. And there is little doubt that that life is human. The pertinent question isn't "when does life begin?", it's "how important is this life in its very early stages?"

Oh... and the whole pro-choice/anti-choice dichotomy is dishonest (as is pro-life/anti-life). There's really only one choice the movement is interested in. If abortion isn't bad, then there should be no shame in defining one's self as pro-abortion.

And before anyone asks, abortion in the cases of rape/incest/likely death of mother are justified.

1. I am pro-choice. Not pro-abortion. I believe that in this I am fairly representative of most Americans.

2. Can you tell me why rape and incest justifies abortion? This is a detail I have never understood. If life begins at conception, isn't that life just as protected regardless of whether the child's father was a horrible person?

re: #159 Tully

From here:

As used in this section, "viable" means that stage of fetal development when it is the physician's judgment according to accepted obstetrical or neonatal standards of care and practice applied by physicians in the same or similar circumstances that there is a reasonable probability that the life of the child can be continued indefinitely outside the mother's womb with natural or artificial life-supportive measures.

re: #162 SanFranciscoZionist

Can you tell me why rape and incest justifies abortion? This is a detail I have never understood. If life begins at conception, isn't that life just as protected regardless of whether the child's father was a horrible person?

I think the usual justification is that pregnancy and delivery in such situations can be overwhelmingly traumatic to the mother. Rape and incest are independant, strong risk factors for suicide. Incest + pregnancy is a situation that many women feel they cannot face, and will seek abortion: legal or otherwise, in that siuation.

Incest + pregnancy is a situation that many women feel they cannot face, and will seek abortion: legal or otherwise, in that siuation.

Fixed.

And I further note the continued conflation of all abortion with late-term abortion. Fact is that most first-term (constitutionally enshrned via Roe V. Wade) abortions are for contraceptive reasons, and most late-term abortions are for health/deformed-fetus reasons. AA's love to conflate those two, as they have little chance in making any headway on the former.

re: #154 Jimmah

Yes of course, but as I would always choose the life of a viable, fully developed adult over that of an unborn where the two are in conflict as is often the case in late term abortions, I would still defend my choice of phrase in the sense of 'saving the greater humanity'.

I think my major problem here is that while late term abortions are, in general, performed because of severe fetal disaes or to save the life of the woman involved due to maternal disease, it is not at all clear to me that Dr Tillman's practice was entirely confined to those two groups. Moreover, it is not at all clear to me that I can know, or should be able to find out, whether or not that is true: confidentiality prevents public discussion of all his patient records.

I personally do not have a "dog" in this fight, but I fail to see how Dr. Tiller merits to be a "hero" in spite of the unfortunate "man made disaster shooting".
And what with all of these red ratings on this blog?

re: #158 Hhar

So meduara: Why did you down ding me? I'm not complaining; I'm interested, because you are one of the more interesting posters here.

I'm flattered.

Let me analyze your comment:

I agree with you: moral equivalents are generally invidious, and some are truly wrong headed and evil. On the other hand, don't you think your description of Dr Tiller's practice falls short? If you refer to late term abortion as saving lives, it is as reasonable to refer to it as ending lives, and failure to acknowledge one, while applauding the other, leads to a distortion of the issues at hand.

It is a mistake to allow idiots and zealots to frame the questions.

No bones to pick with your conclusion: idiots and zealots should not be framing, let alone answering, these questions but idiotic zealotry often leads those who harbor it to commit extreme acts that unavoidably, though undeservedly, end up shaping the public debate on the issues.

Yet before saying that, you condemn moral equivalences while in some sense, promoting one: "If you refer to late term abortion as saving lives, it is as reasonable to refer to it as ending lives, and failure to acknowledge one, while applauding the other, leads to a distortion of the issues at hand." Your point has more merit in a vacuum than it does in the situation at hand. Late term abortions, generally defined, do end lives; those of the aborted fetuses. But in Kansas, where Tiller engaged in his practice, the law explicitly forbids late term abortions with the exception of cases in which the mother's risk would be severely endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, and also, I believe, cases of serious birth defects.

In the latter situation, we don't have a viable healthy human life at odds with its mother's whim: The resulting child, if the pregnancy were carried to term, would hold little to no chance at living to be a healthy adult.

In the former case, one adult fully formed life is at odds with a potentially healthy unborn human life. The two are far from equivalent in the protection they deserve. The woman, if she lives, has an established life, a web of human relations, means for sustaining herself, possibly a chance to have other children in the future. She is a person. Her fetus is not. It is not conscious, it doesn't think, feel, or experience an awareness of its existence. In as far as its delivery endangers the mother's life, terminating the pregnancy -- yes, killing the fetus -- is a perfectly justifiable act of self-defense, all the much more attenuated because the destroyed fetus is not a person, who recognizes and regrets the loss of its own life.

"Conservatives" tend to be strong on gun-ownership and trigger-happiness in general, and have no qualms about killing anyone in self-defense. Why do they apply different standards when a fetus is involved, whose successful delivery would endanger the mother's life? Not implying that you are a conservative; just an observation. But do tell me, how do you feel about killing someone in self-defense?

Would you focus on the saving one's own life aspect of it, or ending the perpetrator's? Can't you see how infuriating some may find the moral equivalency?

re: #169 medaura18586

PIMF:

But in Kansas, where Tiller engaged in his practice, the law explicitly forbids late term abortions with the exception of cases in which the mother's life would be severely endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, and also, I believe, cases of serious birth defects.

re: #165 Tully

That is perfectly true, Tully. The question is always: under what conditions does any third party have an interest in protecting the life of a gestation, such that that interest overwhelms any maternal interest in ending that life. Some formulations of the question hold that the state's dual interest in the life of the mother and the life of the fetus tilts in favour of preserving the life of the mother at the expense of the fetus and that pregnancy after rape or incest are two such situations where that determination isn't difficult.

In some situations, it is not clear that the mother's life is actually in significant danger due to pregnancy, and here some people argue that abortion should not be legal.

In some situations, it is not clear that the mother's life is actually in significant danger due to pregnancy, and here some people argue that abortion should not be legal.

That would be most cases of abortion, performed for convenience, not health concerns. In most such cases, you don't have conflicting interests between a mother and a fetus, but rather an embryo. Abortions can be carried out as early as one month or so into the pregnancy, where the embryo is the size of a q-tip's tip. In those cases, I hold much more sympathy toward the mistreatment of animals, dogs, cats, zoo beasts, you name it, anything not human but remotely conscious, than the termination of that embryo. And while "some people" argue those abortions should not be legal, they don't have any sensible argument supporting their case, and the law is rightfully against them.

re: #162 SanFranciscoZionist

1. I am pro-choice. Not pro-abortion. I believe that in this I am fairly representative of most Americans.

2. Can you tell me why rape and incest justifies abortion? This is a detail I have never understood. If life begins at conception, isn't that life just as protected regardless of whether the child's father was a horrible person?

1. What choice are you for?

2. It's an attempt to strike a balance between the facts and and a reasonable amount of compassion. Both rape and incestous rape are violent acts where a man forceably deposits genetic materal in a woman. Abortion in these cases still ends the life of the developing baby, but insisting that the woman carry the baby to term (considering that she was an unwilling participant in the creation of the baby) would be unreasonably cruel. On the other hand, if she chose to carry the baby to term, she should be commended for her saintly act.

re: #169 medaura18586

* * *

In the former case, one adult fully formed life is at odds with a potentially healthy unborn human life. The two are far from equivalent in the protection they deserve. The woman, if she lives, has an established life, a web of human relations, means for sustaining herself, possibly a chance to have other children in the future. She is a person. Her fetus is not. It is not conscious, it doesn't think, feel, or experience an awareness of its existence. In as far as its delivery endangers the mother's life, terminating the pregnancy -- yes, killing the fetus -- is a perfectly justifiable act of self-defense, all the much more attenuated because the destroyed fetus is not a person, who recognizes and regrets the loss of its own life.

I think you mean well; unfortunately, you have just made an argument that it is all right to terminate a well-born child up until the time it can "think, feel or experience awareness of its existence". I know you will say that the well-born child has all these things, but my experience with this argument is that it is very hard, biologically, to make a good "bright-line" test between late-term fetus and well-born infant. The trip through the birth canal simply does not change any of the mental/awareness functions. Just doesn't happen that way - those functions are on a continuum of development.

And yes, the argument that termination ought to be available through the well-born infant's first (or even) second year has been made seriously; not often, fortunately, but people who discount biological reality play into their hands. I'm sure that is not your intent, but I do hope you find a new argument.

I think Tiller's death was murder - punishable in full as first-degree homicide. But I do not believe he was either hero or martyr. His was a human life deserving of all the protection we can, by law, give it.

re: #169 medaura18586

* * *
In as far as its delivery endangers the mother's life, terminating the pregnancy -- yes, killing the fetus -- is a perfectly justifiable act of self-defense . . .

Oops - didn't see this qualifier. It doesn't help, though.

To the extent we are really talking about a physical danger to the mother's life - OK, you can talk self-defense. But the argument today is that abortion is self-defense where the quality of the mother's mental life is the issue. Given the state of medical science today (as opposed to the "murky" pre-Roe world), there simply is no real physical danger to mothers' lives presented by the birthing process. It is a strawman you ought not to be relying on - unless, of course, you are honest enough to admit you justify homicidal self-defense upon clearing up one's (temporary?) mental discomfort.

Are you?

re: #169 medaura18586

(Snip stuff.)

I'm not trying to flatter: you've posted some interesting stuff, and over on the stalker blogs you have all the right people foaming incoherently, so I'm interested in what you think. Forward...

Yet before saying that, you condemn moral equivalences while in some sense, promoting one: "If you refer to late term abortion as saving lives, it is as reasonable to refer to it as ending lives, and failure to acknowledge one, while applauding the other, leads to a distortion of the issues at hand."

I agree that by using the phrase "as reasonable" I promoted a moral equivalence: that's a good point. On the other hand, if you removed the "as", my point would still stand.

Your point has more merit in a vacuum than it does in the situation at hand. Late term abortions, generally defined, do end lives; those of the aborted fetuses. But in Kansas, where Tiller engaged in his practice, the law explicitly forbids late term abortions with the exception of cases in which the mother's risk would be severely endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term, and also, I believe, cases of serious birth defects.

It is not clear to me that the legal standards in Kansas are not (and were not) open to collusion by MD's to subvert the intent of the standards. In other words, the law requires only two licensed physician to agree that the woman's life is in danger. I have my reasons for strongly suspecting that where public oversight of any such consultation process is weak, then that intent can be subverted. I strongly suspect that in the past Dr Tillman may have participated in such collusion: the fact that he was not prosecuted is not particularly informative to one who would consider the facts of the process dispassionately.

(snip for brevity, but if you want to I can address any points you made in what you posted)

"Conservatives" tend to be strong on gun-ownership and trigger-happiness in general, and have no qualms about killing anyone in self-defense. Why do they apply different standards when a fetus is involved, whose successful delivery would endanger the mother's life?

I dunno.

Not implying that you are a conservative; just an observation. But do tell me, how do you feel about killing someone in self-defense?

If the mother's life is in danger, you are obligated (in my view) to sacrifice the fetus. But I wouldn't describe that, for a variety of reasons, as simply a medical intervention for saving lives. I'd lay it out: you sacrifice one life to save another.

Would you focus on the saving one's own life aspect of it, or ending the perpetrator's?

Depends a bit on the situation. Were I with the person whose life is saved, I hope I'd talk of life. To myself, well, life is best, but death is awfully cold. The world is complicated.

Anyhow, thanks for the chat.

re: #174 auldtrafford

I think you mean well; unfortunately, you have just made an argument that it is all right to terminate a well-born child up until the time it can "think, feel or experience awareness of its existence". I know you will say that the well-born child has all these things, but my experience with this argument is that it is very hard, biologically, to make a good "bright-line" test between late-term fetus and well-born infant. The trip through the birth canal simply does not change any of the mental/awareness functions. Just doesn't happen that way - those functions are on a continuum of development.

And yes, the argument that termination ought to be available through the well-born infant's first (or even) second year has been made seriously; not often, fortunately, but people who discount biological reality play into their hands. I'm sure that is not your intent, but I do hope you find a new argument.

You misunderstood me. The capacity to think, feel, or experience awareness of one's own existence is acquired in incremental, continuous steps, in tandem with neural development. Consciousness is not a switch that gets suddenly turned on sometime during infancy. While an argument can be made that the one-day old infant is not conscious; heck, that a one year old infant is not conscious, a fetus inside its mother's womb, deprived both of basic neurological maturity needed to form complex perceptions and sensory input in general, is definitely not conscious, and that, in and of itself, is a strike against it.

I don't think very young infants have the mental qualities we associate with person-hood, but they do not depend on their mother physically for survival either. Their biological parents can wholly abandon them, and someone else could easily act as surrogate caregiver, without affecting the child's development. They can live independently of the mother. Their lives are no longer in competition with the lives or convenience of their mothers, so there is no justification at all for infanticide.

In fact, the opaque continuum between unconscious fetus and barely (if at all) conscious new-born, is so problematic from an ethical standpoint, that I am against late-term abortions of viable (defined as perfectly healthy) fetuses that could live outside their mothers' wombs, in all cases except for when the mother's life would be endangered by delivery, in which I see the termination of the fetus as a clear cut case of self-defense. But late-term abortions for convenience were forbidden in Kansas, so that's not the kind of service George Tiller was providing. Even if they were not forbidden, very few women (if any at all) would rationally choose to wait that long to get an abortion for birth-control purposes.

re: #172 medaura18586

re: #172 medaura18586

That would be most cases of abortion, performed for convenience, not health concerns. In most such cases, you don't have conflicting interests between a mother and a fetus, but rather an embryo. Abortions can be carried out as early as one month or so into the pregnancy, where the embryo is the size of a q-tip's tip. In those cases, I hold much more sympathy toward the mistreatment of animals, dogs, cats, zoo beasts, you name it, anything not human but remotely conscious, than the termination of that embryo. And while "some people" argue those abortions should not be legal, they don't have any sensible argument supporting their case, and the law is rightfully against them.

1. I'm aware of the numbers, and of the biology, and the medical facts.

2. The issue to me isn't sympathy: mine or anyone else's. The issue to me is how people can or should formulate and act on the inevitable conflicts of opinion on this and related issues. That's something people with wildly different opinions can actually discuss productively. The rest, I am convinced, is largely a matter of rhetoric.

re: #176 Hhar

It is not clear to me that the legal standards in Kansas are not (and were not) open to collusion by MD's to subvert the intent of the standards. In other words, the law requires only two licensed physician to agree that the woman's life is in danger.

That's just not reasonable. The law requires that the two physicians involved in the decision making process be independent of each-other, both financially and in their respective practices. That's a solid precaution for voiding any motive for "collusion." How many licensed physicians would be enough to placate your suspicions? Can you share your reasons for suspecting that where public oversight of any such consultation process is weak, then that intent can be subverted?

I strongly suspect that in the past Dr Tillman may have participated in such collusion: the fact that he was not prosecuted is not particularly informative to one who would consider the facts of the process dispassionately.

You mean Dr. Tiller? Why should your personal suspicions count for anything when he was brought to court for the same charge you mention and acquitted by a jury? He was prosecuted and acquitted.

re: #177 medaura18586

While an argument can be made that the one-day old infant is not conscious; heck, that a one year old infant is not conscious, a fetus inside its mother's womb, deprived both of basic neurological maturity needed to form complex perceptions and sensory input in general, is definitely not conscious, and that, in and of itself, is a strike against it.

Points of information:

1. I do not know of anyone who would argue that a one YEAR old child is not concious. Both of mine were arguing with me by that age. No matter how you define it, one year olds are concious.

2. I think a term infant in utero gets a fair amount of auditory, and tactile input. While I agree that at term and infants conciousness might at best be termed "fractured", they do respond differentially to things that they have heard in utero vs novel stimuli. There is a small scientific literature on the topic.

re: #175 auldtrafford

To the extent we are really talking about a physical danger to the mother's life - OK, you can talk self-defense. Given the state of medical science today (as opposed to the "murky" pre-Roe world), there simply is no real physical danger to mothers' lives presented by the birthing process. It is a strawman you ought not to be relying on -- unless, of course, you are honest enough to admit you justify homicidal self-defense upon clearing up one's (temporary?) mental discomfort.

Are you?

If you truly believe that you are deeply ignorant of basic biology and pregnancy complications -- so ignorant that you deserve no say whatsoever in this issue.

Plenty of people in this thread and other Tiller/abortion related ones, have provided a wealth of information on the dangers of pregnancy and giving birth. All that information seems to have washed right off of you.

Apparently someone found this post of mine offensive. Someone needs to grow up.

#149
Sal,

I feel what your saying and I you have me all wrong. I admit freely that like a lot of people I'm torn on this issue. I don't want to deny anyone anything and I have empathy for all involved. It's a horrible, horrible situation to find oneself in.

re: #134 Hanoch

I agree that all relevant issues must be considered. But at the end of that process, it boils down to a moral decision.

That is your opinion, and many people share it. All I am saying is some people will insist it is ultimately a political decision: the "right to choose". Others will argue women will seek abortions one way or another and doctors are bound by their oaths to provide safe procedures, rather than back-alley abortions. Lawyers argue about the fetus not being a "legal person". No wonder disagreements are so sharp, when people don't even agree on the terms of the issue.

re: #180 Hhar

Points of information:

1. I do not know of anyone who would argue that a one YEAR old child is not concious. Both of mine were arguing with me by that age. No matter how you define it, one year olds are concious.

2. I think a term infant in utero gets a fair amount of auditory, and tactile input. While I agree that at term and infants conciousness might at best be termed "fractured", they do respond differentially to things that they have heard in utero vs novel stimuli. There is a small scientific literature on the topic.

1. I wouldn't myself argue that one or two year old children are unconscious. That's what auldtrafford was arguing (#174), and I conceded that assertion for the sake of the argument. Indeed, most one-year olds have already started talking, though I still would not hold their level of consciousness on par with that of mentally mature persons.

2. The auditory and tactile input is there, but a brain apparatus for consciously analyzing it is lacking in a fetus. Yes, young infants may react differently to sounds they have been exposed to in the uterus, but that's hardly the kind of mental quality we think of when looking for what makes human life valuable. Consciousness and intelligence are the paramount qualities that make human life precious. We are hard-wired toward viewing infants affectionately. But an infant would be much less valuable if s/he were not to grow into an adult -- if it were to forever remain an infant.

Chimpanzees have the approximate IQ of 4 year humans, by the way. We treat them the way we do because they never advance past that point.

re: #179 medaura18586

That's just not reasonable. The law requires that the two physicians involved in the decision making process be independent of each-other, both financially and in their respective practices. That's a solid precaution for voiding any motive for "collusion."

If I understand it correctly:

1. This proviso was not always in place.

2. Independance is a very good idea, but it is not a safeguard. In any reasonably sized community, people with the same ideas can practice independantly of each other.

3, Independance will not void suspicion of collusion, it simply removes a primary venal incentive for collusion. Not all collusions are motivated by venal considerations, and this is one area where social ideology, not money, is important.

How many licensed physicians would be enough to placate your suspicions? Can you share your reasons for suspecting that where public oversight of any such consultation process is weak, then that intent can be subverted?

"Placate my suspicions"? I'm not exactly aroused by them, so I don't think they need placation. That aside, I'd say that the number of physicians isn't the issue: it is the type of consulatation, and the oversight of the consultation process that seems more important to what I think is the probable intent of the Kansas law.

You mean Dr. Tiller? Why should your personal suspicions count for anything when he was brought to court for the same charge you mention and acquitted by a jury? He was prosecuted and acquitted.

I work at a large hospital with a large high risk obstetrical unit, and I do a lot of fetal developmental pathology. My work focuses mostly on the central nervous system. I think many things happen in medicine where both documentation and situation create the reality that criminal conviction is difficult. The criminal legal process (in my opinion, here) is not a sufficient arbiter of empirical reality. In any event, I have some insight into how this sort of process works, and I have my suspicions. I hardly expect you (or anyone else) to accept my ideas at face value: I'm just saying that I have my opinion, and it is informed. I do not want to convince you of it.

10 IslandLibertarian 6/07/09 8:41:57 pm - Were all abortions illegal when his father practiced? Even to save the life of the mother?

The principal pre-Roe statute was based on [section] 230.3 of the Model Penal Code. An abortion could be performed at any stage of pregnancy when (1) there was "substantial risk that a continuance of the pregnancy would impair the physical or mental health of the mother," (2) there was "substantial risk ... that the child would be born with physical or mental defect," or (3) "the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest or other felonious intercourse." This statute was repealed in 1992, and would not be revived by a decision overruling Roe v. Wade. Abortions could be performed for any reason before viability. Under a separate statute, however, abortions could be performed after viability only to preserve the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.
This is based on a summary of abortion law pre-Roe.

[Link: findarticles.com...]

Abortion was not as “prohibited” in the states as you might think, pre-Roe. The effect of Roe was to make abortion available on demand. Prior to Roe, a few states allowed abortion on demand up to the time of fetal viability. New York, Washington State, and Alaska come to mind. Other states required a medical indication, and some states policed those indications more strictly than others.

Under the Roe decision, contrary to what most think, the USA has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world.
[Link: en.wikipedia.org...]
and follow the links to see what other countries allow. The UK requires a two-doctor agreement of a medical indication. In reality, of course, the docs play loose with the definition of “medical indication” but the law remains. UK pro-choice groups are fighting for “abortion on request” in their country.

Strictly speaking, if you walked into a UK surgery, said you have a perfectly normal pregnancy, you’re, say, eight weeks along, and said there’s nothing wrong with the pregnancy but you didn't want……stretch marks or something, didn’t want to wear pregnancy clothes…..there’s no medical indication. In fact, the physicians will call the stretch marks some grave threat to the mother, and they’ll get the abortion anyway. In the USA, you don’t have to have a reason before viability. Many countries have parental notification laws, spouse notification, etc.

We’d get called Taliban for doing that.

Of course, what the USA has, that other countries don’t, is more violence. But that’s true across the board.

No, Tiller didn't deserve to die, and the killer deserves the death penalty. But there’s your source for the status quo ante, and what the rest of the world does with respect to abortion.

re: #184 medaura18586

Yes, young infants may react differently to sounds they have been exposed to in the uterus, but that's hardly the kind of mental quality we think of when looking for what makes human life valuable. Consciousness and intelligence are the paramount qualities that make human life precious.

I think that without humans having conciousness and intelligence in general , we would hardly be having this discussion, but that does not suffice to tell us what qualities are necessary for any given human to be precious.

BTW: I think we treat chimpanzees relatively badly mostly because of our prejudice and their political incapacity.

re: #187 Hhar

I think that without humans having conciousness and intelligence in general , we would hardly be having this discussion, but that does not suffice to tell us what qualities are necessary for any given human to be precious.

I don't think they suffice either, but they surely are necessary since, admittedly, concepts such as what's precious and valuable, especially when applied to abstract notions like human life, are impossible to conceive of or feel strongly about in the absence of consciousness and intelligence.

BTW: I think we treat chimpanzees relatively badly mostly because of our prejudice and their political incapacity.

That's true. But if they had a better developed consciousness and intelligence they could assert political rights. So it's a chicken-vs-egg problem, to a degree.

Like it or not, a great motivation behind our extending of human rights to our fellow men can be traced back to empathy. If we cannot even abstractly identify with a party, it's unnatural for us to feel strongly over their being damaged. It's really hard to identify with a to-be-aborted embryo, because, had we ourselves been aborted that early into our lives, we wouldn't have felt a thing, and we wouldn't have minded or had an opinion one way or another. The embryo does not lament its own death. Only humans of some maturity in their conscioisness do.

Tiller came to Kansas for the funeral, discovered his father did abortions, and continue his father's work.

Michael Corleone continued his father's work as well.

I'm not impressed. I knew docs who did abortions and had women who picketed their clinics, subsequently come in for abortion. Other community doctors quietly referred patients to them, then went on to protest.

The doc threatened to "out" such people, and at least some of that hypocricy stopped.

Nevertheless, Jack Kevorkian thought he was doing the Lord's work as well. There are pill mill docs who think they are serving humanity. The states that now allow medical marijuana, there are docs who sign off the "prescriptions" or "authorizations" or "certifications" or whatever you want to call them........without ever examining or even seeing the patient. They did it over the phone. The medical board has the same problem policing these docs, as they do with some of these abortion clinics. Powerful friends.

And you'll find pill mill patients who really think they need six Oxy-Contins a day for their dandruff, and praise the doc as walking on water.

Despite the news reports of being "one out of three" clinics in the whole country, he was not one of three clinics in the USA doing late-term abortion. There are many clinics doing late-term abortions. Search yourself.

Thing is, I suspect most of the clinics take seriously the medical indications for late-term abortion. I have a strong feeling the "three" clinics mentioned will do late-term abortion on demand. Personally, I think something close to infanticide was done there. My opinion. Yes, I know they were investigated and cleared......I also know of the close relation with powerful politicans in that state. I suspect he needed those connections. If he really got international referrals, as described in other articles, I have to suspect they came from countries that take seriously the medical indication for late-term abortion, and wouldn't do them on demand, knowing that the fetus would be viable, and not wanting to participate in infanticide.

Personally, I say allow abortion on demand until somewhere in the early-mid-20's week of pregnancy, and at any time for severe fetal anomaly, rape, incest, life and health of mother. That's what most of the rest of the world does, and what would likely happen if Roe were overturned and each state had to determine it's own law once again.

And no, Tiller did not deserve to be murdered, and the shooter deserves to be executed. I feel I have to say that over and over, just because I have a problem with infanticide.

re: #51 Dave the.....

NY Nana, I'm a very poor speller. I'm a victim.

Dave, then let's not make a habit of your "victim" stance.
I'd much rather heed validated credence, in regard to the abortion experience, at the perspective of another woman's than to that of a male's.
Unless, you've experienced a third term abortion, Dave?

re: #177 medaura18586

* * *
While an argument can be made that the one-day old infant is not conscious; heck, that a one year old infant is not conscious, a fetus inside its mother's womb, deprived both of basic neurological maturity needed to form complex perceptions and sensory input in general, is definitely not conscious, and that, in and of itself, is a strike against it. . . .

[Emphasis in original.]

I think there have been many studies showing that the fetus is as conscious as the newborn. About the only provable difference is that the newborn sees - reacts to light. I also think there are studies showing the human fetus actually does respond to light as well.

I qualify these statements with "I think" because, of course, I am "deeply ignorant of basic biology and pregnancy complications -- so ignorant that [I] deserve no say whatsoever in this issue." So - I'm not saying, just thinking. But I will examine this thread more thoroughly for your promised proof of my ignorance - and look forward to being educated enough to contribute sometime later in my so short life. I think, perhaps, I have not achieved consciousness . . . ?

re: #188 medaura18586

I don't think they suffice either, but they surely are necessary since, admittedly, concepts such as what's precious and valuable, especially when applied to abstract notions like human life, are impossible to conceive of or feel strongly about in the absence of consciousness and intelligence.

I'm not so sure. I've seen people in persistant vegetative states. Their families though they were precious. hard to argue with them. People mourn anencephalics. The pont is simply that from an empirical standpoint, intelligence and conciousness are not necessary to make a person precious to another.

re: chimpanzees:

That's true. But if they had a better developed consciousness and intelligence they could assert political rights. So it's a chicken-vs-egg problem, to a degree.

I agree.

Like it or not, a great motivation behind our extending of human rights to our fellow men can be traced back to empathy. If we cannot even abstractly identify with a party, it's unnatural for us to feel strongly over their being damaged. It's really hard to identify with a to-be-aborted embryo, because, had we ourselves been aborted that early into our lives, we wouldn't have felt a thing, and we wouldn't have minded or had an opinion one way or another. The embryo does not lament its own death. Only humans of some maturity in their conscioisness do.

Oh, it isn't that hard to identify. Really.

It seems to vary with the person and situation.

re: #192 Hhar

But if the relatives of those in persistent vegetative states or anencephalics were not themselves conscious, intelligent, and thus capable of sentimental attachment, they would see no value in these people's lives. In general, value, philosophy, ethics, and individual rights, are impossible to a race of creatures devoid of consciousness and intelligence. We can't find such concerns among zombies.

People can get sentimental and attach all sorts of feelings to inanimate objects or to animals, too; that doesn't mean these objects deserve legal protection. The particularities of someone's feelings do not dictate laws; generalized categories related to humans' relations to one another, do.

If I were to empathize with a tiny embryo, I would then mourn the loss of each egg on every menstrual cycle -- it could have been fertilized, carried to term, and turned into a human being. Men would have to mourn the result of their every ejaculation... with a pain and sense of loss a billion fold more intense than that of the menstruating woman. This is just absurd. People can get sentimental over a zygote, but their mental masturbation should not dictate a legal framework limiting everyone else to.

re: #129 gadlaw

It's interesting to see the attempt to Canonize this guy. Nobody deserves to be murdered but neither is that murder an excuse to drive someone whose politics you like or dislike into Sainthood or into Demonization. Yes he was 'operating within the law' to be sure. A despicable law that is well hated and deservedly so. Late term abortion is an evil and a law that allows it is evil and the guy who performs those abortions is certainly not any kind of hero or saint despite his military service or any other attempt to plant a flag on this guy and make him some kind of hero, strip it all away and the later term abortionist remains.

This doctor died - sacrificed himself - in order that others might live and enjoy healthy life for the balance of their days.

I find it to be surpassingly strange that you would consider a doctor who gave is life to save the lives and physical health of others to be evil

Frankly, it says a whole lot more about you than it does about him - and what it says about you is far from complimentary.

re: #130 Hanoch

It is one thing to (rightly) condemn the murder of this doctor. It is quite another to attempt to defend this doctor's acts. What kind of morality suggests pity for the doctor--and it was a pity that he was killed--but no concern for all the children whose lives he helped to snuff out?

Which acts are you condemning her? The acts that saved womens' lives? The acts that preserved and protected the physical health of other women? The acts that spared still other women the inonsolable anguish of bearing a horribly deformed infant, only to have it die days or hours later?

The article contains this quote from the doctor: "The women in my father's practice for whom he did abortions educated me and taught me that abortion is about women's hopes, dreams, potential, the rest of their lives. Abortion is a matter of survival." It never ceases to amaze me how human beings are capable of rationalizing any act of immorality. Some things never change.

For many of those women, their late term abortions were about exactly, precisely that - their own survival. For many others, their late term abortions were about being able to live out their lives unmaimed by permanent severe injury. And for still others, their late term abortions wre about sparing them the excruciating pain of giving birth to a horrbbly deformed infant doomed to die a horrible death within hours or days. These incontrovertible facts remain, no matter how desperately you strive to twist them into a rationale by means of which to justify your unreasoning hatred of him.

re: #194 Salamantis

You and I have a completely different definition of the word "sacrifice".
Tiller didn't "give his life" like a soldier or a Savior. It was taken from him by a murderer just like the thousands of others murdered in this country since his.

The victims of his procedure were sacrificed.

re: #181 medaura18586

If you truly believe that [that truly physical medical dangers (as opposed to "mental well-being" dangers) are extremely rare in this 21st century] you are deeply ignorant of basic biology and pregnancy complications -- so ignorant that you deserve no say whatsoever in this issue.

Plenty of people in this thread and other Tiller/abortion related ones, have provided a wealth of information on the dangers of pregnancy and giving birth. All that information seems to have washed right off of you.

OK; have gone through the entire thread - which, admittedly, I did not do before writing #175. Took a while, and I'm sure you will be long gone, but I needed to do it anyway.

Here we go:

A couple comments talk about Tiller being struck by the perils faced by women of his father's practice. These are expressly immaterial, as they deal with the times I have expressly distinguished; i.e., pre-modern medicine.

On to specific comments that talked, in any specificity at all, about physical, medical perils to mothers:

#29: a generalized statement without support, and could be read to talk about quality of mental health.

#39: "women whose lives he saved" - again, no support; no discussion of what threat

#56: contra to your position.

#65: refers, obliquely, to the issue, but only in terms of referrals from other doctors (not the reasons therefor)

#66: talks about the era of illegal abortions (which I already distinguished) - early '60s

#75 talks about "dire consequences" but doesn't say what they are.

#84 - again talks about saving women's lives or "future health" - whatever that means; also talks about a nonexistent mandate for abortion in China. False; in fact, most abortions in China are illegal (gender-oriented are particularly illegal, and most abortions in China are with a view to producing a sole male child).

#87 talks about the reasons Tiller gave to justify late-term abortion, but gives no evidence of what they were - or whether they were legitimate. Again, the "threat to life" is usually used today as a euphemism for the mother's mental happiness.

#104 does speak to it: "Apparently you would not shed a tear for the women, either - the women suffering heart conditions or cancer or severe and permanent breathing problems due to emphysema or to those suffering from pregnancy induced diabetes, who carried viable fetuses but who would have died without the abortion."

Unfortunately, Salamantis neglected to cite any supporting medical literature for the statement. I have my doubts (ignorant as I am) that all those conditions actually threatened the mothers' lives - made motherhood an unattractive proposition surely (sufferers of cancer, emphysema and heart conditions, for instance) - but I have my doubts that carrying to term in those cases would surely, or even likely, would have been fatal. But that's just my ignorance.

#121: contra to your position.

#122 talks about dangerous C-sections. Well, they simply aren't anymore - in fact, they're done as a scheduling convenience for mothers nowadays. (#144 is contra your position on that issue, also)

#128 Salamantis shows reliance upon the argument that passage through the birth canal is somehow significant. Only from a semantic standpoint - you can use different words, perhaps, but please do not try to make a biological argument on that "distinction".

#140 talks about "when I was a medical student in Montreal" - but says nothing about the date. I doubt it was recent.

#145 is expressly contra to your position.

So, you can go ahead and call me ignorant, but you may no longer do so on account of the "wealth of information" given in this thread. Refer me to good scientific discussion and I'll read it.

Doubt I'll hear from you.

re: #133 Kenneth

Various courts have ruled that fetuses are not legal persons. That is the basis upon which the right to abortion rests. Up until the early part of the 20th century, adult women were not considered legal persons either. So the issue of "personhood" is not biologically factual and not final, but a legal opinion which may well change one day.

Only if the legal opinion is a travesty of empirical facticity, and awards personhood to an entity that is not and never has been conscious.

Medically speaking, the problem is, fetal viability is not a bright line. It is a very fuzzy band of percentages of survival. Premature babies born as early as 22 weeks can survive if provided proper medical care.

But before that 22 week point, the brain, heart, lungs, other organs, and circulatory system are insufficiently developed to permit the fetus to independently survive. The vast majority of neonatal specialists consider these difficulties to be insuperable.

re: #181 medaura18586

So, you are around - long enough to ding me down, anyway. Well - I don't have time to go through all your posts and ding you down. So, CYDD.

Have a good day.

re: #196 happycamper

You and I have a completely different definition of the word "sacrifice".
Tiller didn't "give his life" like a soldier or a Savior. It was taken from him by a murderer just like the thousands of others murdered in this country since his.

It was taken from him because he persisted in what he considered to be a righteous course - saving womens' lives and preserving their physical health. Had he deviated from that purpose, and publicly stated as much, the very people who devoutly desired his murder would have enthusiastically embraced him (see Bernard Nathanson).

Jesus' life was taken, too, because he persisted in a fatal course that he perceived as right. He could have renounced it all before Pontius Pilate and been set free.

The victims of his procedure were sacrificed.

The fetuses were indeed sacrificed so that the women that carried them might live, and live without devastating and permanent physical injury. But apparently you value fetus' lives more than you value the lives and physical health of women, and would have preferred that it be the women who were sacrificed.

re: #135 NukeAtomrod

Just to challenge you a bit... What is it about fetal viability that imbues personhood? And what is it about birth that imbues babyhood? Does a fetus surgically removed from the womb remain a fetus, since technically "birth" did not occur.

So you don't think that caesarian section qualifies as birth? The very definition of a baby is inextricably intertwined with the concept of birth, whether natural or through c-section. That's why we celebrate birthdays, whether they happened naturally or vias c-section.

Fetal viability is a bright line because before that, the fetus cannot survive independently of the woman who carries it, but after fetal viability, it can. Although persons may require SOME PEOPLES' assaistance, they can live independently of any PARTICULAR other.

I suspect you are obfuscating purposely, otherwise you have a logical blind spot. The only choice the Pro-Choice movement is concerned about is abortion-- as opposed to a baseball player's choice to use steroids or a 14 year old girl's choice to post topless pictures of herself on the internet. The term "Pro-Abortion" adequately describes the position of wanting the option to terminate pregnancy, whereas the term "Pro-Choice" doesn't describe anything. (This is a pet peeve of mine.)

You are wrong. Pro-choice is a description of someone who wishes reproductive choices to remain open for women; both the choice to terminate a pregnancy and the choice to carry it to term. The idea of that choice referring to reproduction is commonly culturally understood.

Pro-abortion describes China, where the government requires that women abort all pregnancies after the birth of one child.

Antiabortion and anti-choice both correctly describe abortion opponents, as they endeavor to remove abortion from a woman's array of choices concerning her pregnancy, which leaves her with only one option - to carry the pregnancy to term. Having only one alternative open to one is not a choice at all.

I wonder...
If Tiller is in heaven right now, do you think he would be able to look upon the many thousands of faces he's responsible for sending there? Or, do you think he would try to avoid eye contact?

re: #199 auldtrafford

So, you are around - long enough to ding me down, anyway. Well - I don't have time to go through all your posts and ding you down. So, CYDD.

Have a good day.

I have not, if you've noticed, down-dinged your every comment -- only the ones in which you sound like a spoiled child. And if you think it makes sense to give my comments a thumbs down only to match my thumbs down to yours, be my guest... engage in that game. For your formation, I don't give a damn what my aggregate thumbs up ever mount up to -- the karma, or whatever it's called.

You keep moving goal-posts, by the way:

I have my doubts (ignorant as I am) that all those conditions actually threatened the mothers' lives - made motherhood an unattractive proposition surely (sufferers of cancer, emphysema and heart conditions, for instance) - but I have my doubts that carrying to term in those cases would surely, or even likely, would have been fatal. But that's just my ignorance.

Now fatality is the cut-off? Cancers, emphysema, diabetes, renal failure, heart conditions, these are all minor issues? They endanger the mother's life, shorten it, lower its quality. Why would you care... I've read plenty of concrete information not just on this thread, but on others (click on that "abortion" tag at the bottom of the post to see more) laying out what the dangers were, and showing that a clinical abortion was orders of magnitude safer than any birth, for the mother. Your behavior is so irrational though, that I won't bother wasting my time combing these threads for the concrete info, numbers, and resources, since you're likely to sweep them under the carpet anyway.

re: #203 medaura18586

PIMF: for your information

re: #137 chukardog

So now a guy that kills babies is a hero? WTF? Late term abortions kill a vaible baby by sticking a fucking fork into the baby's head and sucking out the brains. Its the most barbaric act mankind has ever perpetrated. If you want to celebrate a guy that practiced infantacide then you really need a reality check. Are any of you parents?
Ever been there for your child's birth or held a newborn in your hands?

A guy that saves women's lives at the risk, and ultimate loss, of his own is indeed a hero - at least to thiose who have not fetishized fetuses to the degree that they value their lives over and above the lives of the women in whose bodies they reside.

You sound like precisely such a fetus fetishist.

re: #200 Salamantis

You believe every abortion Tiller performed saved the life of the mother?

re: #199 auldtrafford

I wonder...
If Tiller is in heaven right now, do you think he would be able to look upon the many thousands of faces he's responsible for sending there? Or, do you think he would try to avoid eye contact?

If this is the crap you upding, we're indeed done talking.

re: #139 Ron Bacardi

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. :-/

I pray for this guy's soul and I pray for his family.

The road to heaven is paved with praiseworthy actions.

This doctor saved many womens' lives, and preserved the physical health of many other women, at the ultimate cost of his own life. Knowing the dangers to his own personal safety, he nevertheless persisted for their sakes, and in the end, he sacrificed his own life for theirs.

re: #205 Salamantis

My wife has given birth to 2 babies. Not once during either pregnancy did she ever say "Honey, I just felt the fetus kick".

re: #204 medaura18586

PIMF: for your information

Eh?

re: #206 happycamper

You believe every abortion Tiller performed saved the life of the mother?

Dr. Tiller's abortions fall into three categories; either they saved the lives of the women concerned, or they prevented those women from suffering severe, debilitating, and permanent physical injury, or they spared them the psychologically devastating horror of giving birth to a monstrously deformed and destined-to-die-within-hours-or-days infant.

All decent and caring and laudable and praiseworthy and compassionate and humane actions, inmy opinion.

re: #209 happycamper

My wife has given birth to 2 babies. Not once during either pregnancy did she ever say "Honey, I just felt the fetus kick".

You used an anticipatorily sentimental term rather than the empirically corect one.

re: #142 oldschool

Well what a chip off the old block. A true American hero. Granite statues will be popping up all over for this beeming example of the medical profession.

/sarc

This doctor has living monuments walking around all across this nation; the women whose lives he saved, and the women who might have otherwise survived in some maimed and crippled form, but can only walk around because of the help he provided to them.

re: #211 Salamantis

If a women's life is endagered by the pregnancy, then of course the mother's life trumps that of the child's. But seperating the child from the mother does not always require a death, particularly in the third trimester. Just say'n.

re: #143 mrclark

ahh...so it is about convenience for the woman.

So all the crap about abortion being 'for the safety of the mother' etc etc is pretty much just lies.....as most of us (I presume) have long known anyway.

First term abortions are frequently done for the woman's convenience; late term abortions are almost exclusively done to preserve her life of physical health (the exceptions tend to be to spare women the psychologically scarring experience of giving birth to a catastrophically deformed fetus destined to die within hours or days).

Yeah..its not a 'simple topic'... Everyone has to make some tough decisions in life. Is it that 'hard' of a decision to make to take some precautions prior to having sex? Oh yeah...sure the 'guys' should do the same, but if I was a girl who was about to have sex with a guy I know I'M the one who will have to live with the consequences of getting pregnant...so if I am going to spread my legs for a guy who doesn't care if he gets me pregnant, I had damn well make sure that I take precautions to prevent that from happening.

Reasonable precautions fail. If a couple, whether married or not, has employed contraception and pregnancy nevertheless occurs, should they be permitted to abort a first term pregnancy? I say it's their own damn family business, and neither yours nor mine.

probably the best preventative would be NOT having sex with someone who doesn't care enough about my welfare and future to begin with.

So you would tell a married couple who cannot afford to raise another child to practice celibacy for the rest of their lives?

re: #214 happycamper

If a women's life is endagered by the pregnancy, then of course the mother's life trumps that of the child's. But seperating the child from the mother does not always require a death, particularly in the third trimester. Just say'n.

No it doesn't, but it sometimes does. There are only about a thousand third trimester abortions in the US yearly; clearly they are not being used for convenience.

re: #214 happycamper

If a women's life is endagered by the pregnancy, then of course the mother's life trumps that of the child's. But seperating the child from the mother does not always require a death, particularly in the third trimester. Just say'n.

No it doesn't always, but it sometimes, rarely, does. There are only about a thousand third trimester abortions in the US yearly; clearly they are not being used for convenience.

pimf

re: #217 Salamantis

Would you then agree that if simply removing the baby from the mother is sufficient to save her life, that to then procede in killing it would be infanticide?

re: #144 ckb

All very interesting. Above in #122, you talk about "avoiding a particularly dangerous Cesarean section.". I can only go by experience, but why would this be particularly dangerous? In the one my wife and I went though, she was awake - no general anesthesia - the whole time. Can epidurals be dangerous?

For women with the sorts of serious pre-existing conditions that compel them to seek out a late term abortion in the first place on the advice of their physician in their home state, yes.

How do these dangers compare to people who do not have some extenuating circumstance? Wouldn't a patient wanting to try to keep the baby be subjected to the same dangers?

The vast majority of these women desperately WANT to have a baby, and are devastated that medical consequences render that impossible for them if they wish to survive, or to survive without crippling and permanent physical consequences.

In response your post quoted above, you do appear to limit the discussion to physical problems. I take it, in you opinion mental problems or "economic means" do not enter into the equation?

I can't see nonphysical problems entering into it. Certainly someone who can pay what such a procedure costs could afford to raise a child; what they CANNOT afford is what its birth would do to the life or physical health of the woman carrying it. Also remember that sometimes these physical problems are with the fetus - horrific physical deformations that preclude the possibility of its survival.

A last related question; since it seems so very rare and these procedures are so hard to get, the late-term abortionist must turn away quite a few patients who do not meet these medical requirements. Do we know of or have heard from any patients that had to be denied this service? Further, because of their rarity, do the procedures that are done get fully documented so they can be published and reviewed? Are the medical reasons given in the public record?

These procedures are indeed exceedingly rare. Only about a thousand of them have to be performed each year. To date, there have been enough willing doctors to handle them all, but I dread the day when there won't be, and it will be a matter of triaging which women get to continue living and which women are condemned to die.

Let us all hope and pray that it never comes to that because of these murderous bastards.

re: #218 happycamper

Would you then agree that if simply removing the baby from the mother is sufficient to save her life, that to then procede in killing it would be infanticide?

Her physical health must be considered. Under your linguistic construction, it would be okay with you to leave her blind, or paralyzed, or brain damaged, or in a persistent coma, or suffering comprehensive renal failure requiring kidney dialysis for the balance of her truncated life.

In the very rare cases we are discussing, to attempt live delivery would be tantamount to a death sentence, or to sentence the woman to devastating and permanent physical consequences.

re: #160 RalphShort

Well, I hit the wrong key so I will continue;
1. he performed approximately 60,000 abortions
2. Some or many were late term meaning the baby could survive
3. If 60,000 is close to being correct then many (approximately 1/2) were repeats since that is the national statistic.

Many late term abortions are done because the fetus is so horrifically deformed that there is NO WAY that it could long survive. And the kind of people who are forced to resort to late term abortion after planning to have a new member of their family are not the kind of people who generally procure multiple abortions.

So, setting aside the anecdotal tales I have a hard time believing many of these abortions were "hard decisions" by the people desiring them. Furthermore, I submit Tiller would abort under any circumstances based on the number and type of abortions along with the probability of repeat customers.

That's because you are memtically filtering out all considerations that do not jive with your antiabortion predisposition.

There is not way he should be considered a "hero" or anything else positive in my view.

The women whose lives he saved or whose physical health he preserved, at the cost of his own life, would beg to differ. And I think they know a helluva lot more about it than you do.

re: #220 Salamantis

* * *

In the very rare cases we are discussing, to attempt live delivery would be tantamount to a death sentence, or to sentence the woman to devastating and permanent physical consequences.

Frankly, I would very much be interested in seeing a medical review of Tiller's files (with all identifying information redacted, of course). I think we are all flying blind with regard to just what the facts were in these cases. Neither side is going to prevail in this thread.

I hope you also support a good, solid - impartial - review of these files. This debate is filled with moralizing on both sides, and when it comes down to it, I think the big difference is on these medical facts: what is, and what is not, medically called for. Tiller seems to be the lightning rod for this debate, and as the primary practitioner in this (late-term abortion) field, his cases would be most instructive.

re: #162 SanFranciscoZionist

1. I am pro-choice. Not pro-abortion. I believe that in this I am fairly representative of most Americans.

2. Can you tell me why rape and incest justifies abortion? This is a detail I have never understood. If life begins at conception, isn't that life just as protected regardless of whether the child's father was a horrible person?

For one thing, to force a victim of rape or incest to give birth to the result of her rape or molestation would be a permanently devastating experience, akin to being violated all over again, or at least rendering such violation permanent.

For another thing, to force impregnanted rape victims to bear their rapists' spawn would enable and empower twisted stalkers to plan their rapes so that they would have the optimum chance of impregnating the targets of their obsessive fixations, knowing that if they succeeded, that they and their victims would be genetically linked forever. I can anticipate them checking curbside garbage cans for signs of menstruation so they could plot the most auspicious moment to perpetrate their violation.

re: #222 AuldTrafford

Frankly, I would very much be interested in seeing a medical review of Tiller's files (with all identifying information redacted, of course). I think we are all flying blind with regard to just what the facts were in these cases. Neither side is going to prevail in this thread.

I hope you also support a good, solid - impartial - review of these files. This debate is filled with moralizing on both sides, and when it comes down to it, I think the big difference is on these medical facts: what is, and what is not, medically called for. Tiller seems to be the lightning rod for this debate, and as the primary practitioner in this (late-term abortion) field, his cases would be most instructive.

These files have been repeatedly and obsessively reviewed and re-reviewed, for years upon years, till the cows came home and laid down and died, by a vehemently antiabortion state attorney general on a personal crusade, and he was able to bring only a single contrived case against Dr. Tiller to trial, and in that case a jury completely exonerated Dr. Tiller after less than an hour's deliberations.

re: #168 littleben

I personally do not have a "dog" in this fight, but I fail to see how Dr. Tiller merits to be a "hero" in spite of the unfortunate "man made disaster shooting".
And what with all of these red ratings on this blog?

He most certainly merits being a hero to the many women whose lives he saved and whose physical health he preserved, at the ultimate cost of his own.

And the red ratings are downdings, which in your case means that several people disapproved of the sentiments expressed in your post.

re: #220 Salamantis

Please excuse my "linguistic construction" and allow me to re-phrase:

Would you then agree that if simply removing the baby from the mother is sufficient to save her life and preserve her health, that to then proceed in killing it would be infanticide?

re: #224 Salamantis

That's not exactly the analysis I had in mind. If that (impartial medical analysis) has been done, has it been published anywhere? You see, I doubt that kind of analysis could have been made while Tiller was still in practice. And maybe not for a while yet, but perhaps sometime.

Would be nice to know the facts behind these tragic cases.

I am not asking this question to stir the pot on for/against abortion .... I am asking why the procedure is performed the way it is ... why not do a caesarean operation to remove the baby? ...

re: #228 JacksonTn

I am not asking this question to stir the pot on for/against abortion .... I am asking why the procedure is performed the way it is ... why not do a caesarean operation to remove the baby? ...

In a nutshell: it's not about saving the baby. The point is for the "tissue" to cease being.

re: #228 JacksonTn

I am not asking this question to stir the pot on for/against abortion .... I am asking why the procedure is performed the way it is ... why not do a caesarean operation to remove the baby? ...

They will tell you, of course, that the C-Section adds even more risk to the mother's well-being. You'll have a tough time arguing the point, even though C-Sections are done now as elective surgery.

re: #228 JacksonTn

You're exactly right. If the mother's life or health is preserved by removing the baby - then remove it. I just don't believe killing the baby is necessary to preserve the mother's health or life.

If the paramount reason for the procedure is to preserve the health or life of the mother, why kill it if it will survive?

re: #14 Spare O'Lake
A "necessary medical service?" Really? I strongly beg to differ.

re: #202 happycamper

I wonder...
If Tiller is in heaven right now, do you think he would be able to look upon the many thousands of faces he's responsible for sending there? Or, do you think he would try to avoid eye contact?

Fully a third of all pregnancies result in miscarriages (spontaneous abortions). That would render God far and away the planet's leading abortionist. Do you think God would have a hard time walking around heaven? Which shitload of mistakes would such a perfect God explain to all those miscarried souls? The mistakes of miscarrying the pregnancies, or the mistakes of allowing them to happen in the first place (for which miscarrying would them be Divine Rectification)?

See what happens when you pose stupid rhetorical questions? They can turn around and bite you in your contemptuous ass.

re: #226 happycamper

Please excuse my "linguistic construction" and allow me to re-phrase:

Would you then agree that if simply removing the baby from the mother is sufficient to save her life and preserve her health, that to then proceed in killing it would be infanticide?

Yep. Which is why Dr. Tiller didn't do that.

I have always maintained an opposition to post-viability abortions except in the cases where the life or the physical health of the woman was seriously and substantially endangered. Check my post record if you don't believe me.

re: #233 Salamantis

Fully a third of all pregnancies result in miscarriages (spontaneous abortions). That would render God far and away the planet's leading abortionist. Do you think God would have a hard time walking around heaven? Which shitload of mistakes would such a perfect God explain to all those miscarried souls? The mistakes of miscarrying the pregnancies, or the mistakes of allowing them to happen in the first place (for which miscarrying would them be Divine Rectification)?

See what happens when you pose stupid rhetorical questions? They can turn around and bite you in your contemptuous ass.

You missed the point of the question - but, then, you have your own point to make, so why pretend to get it?

It's really quite simple to understand. If a baby is completely delivered and a doctor intentionally kills it - it's murder (the un-lawfull taking of a life). If the baby is only partially delivered and the doctor intentionally kills it - it's not murder in some states because it was only a "partial birth". So this begs the question: How would killing the partially delivered baby contribute to the health of the mother or save her life?

re: #227 AuldTrafford

That's not exactly the analysis I had in mind. If that (impartial medical analysis) has been done, has it been published anywhere? You see, I doubt that kind of analysis could have been made while Tiller was still in practice. And maybe not for a while yet, but perhaps sometime.

Would be nice to know the facts behind these tragic cases.

If adversarial analysis of his medical records by an antiabortion official of the state (and, as attorney general, the state's lead prosecuter), no doubt assisted by state-employed medical experts, could not convict him of any violations, what exactly do you think that so-called impartial analysis could possibly uncover?

re: #234 Salamantis

Yep. Which is why Dr. Tiller didn't do that.

I have always maintained an opposition to post-viability abortions except in the cases where the life or the physical health of the woman was seriously and substantially endangered. Check my post record if you don't believe me.

[Emphasis added.]

OK - one last try: do you include the mental "well-being" of the mother in the phrase "life or physical health", or do you restrict that to biologically/medically life-threatening conditions? Or will you be evasive?

re: #235 AuldTrafford

You missed the point of the question - but, then, you have your own point to make, so why pretend to get it?

What exactly WAS the point of the question? The further demonization of a murdered man?

re: #238 AuldTrafford

[Emphasis added.]

OK - one last try: do you include the mental "well-being" of the mother in the phrase "life or physical health", or do you restrict that to biologically/medically life-threatening conditions? Or will you be evasive?

I'm not including mental problems in that definition.

Is that nonevasive enough for you?

re: #229 AuldTrafford

In a nutshell: it's not about saving the baby. The point is for the "tissue" to cease being.

No, the point is about saving the life or the health of the mother, you egregious slanderer.

re: #237 Salamantis

If adversarial analysis of his medical records by an antiabortion official of the state (and, as attorney general, the state's lead prosecuter), no doubt assisted by state-employed medical experts, could not convict him of any violations, what exactly do you think that so-called impartial analysis could possibly uncover?

Because it was a legal analysis undertaken for prosecutorial purposes. I would just like to know the medical facts of the cases. Were mothers' lives biologically threatened? If so, how? What were the medical alternatives? Anyway, I give up ... I doubt his records would reflect facts anyway. I'm sure they were carefull maintained precisely because of the legal climate you decry.

re: #230 AuldTrafford

They will tell you, of course, that the C-Section adds even more risk to the mother's well-being. You'll have a tough time arguing the point, even though C-Sections are done now as elective surgery.

They're being done as elective surgery to women who do NOT have the dire medical problems that Dr. Tiller's patients face.

re: #241 Salamantis

No, the point is about saving the life or the health of the mother, you egregious slanderer.

Actually, if you remember happycamper's question, it was specifically cast with the assumption that the fetus could be saved without endangering the mother's health. An inconvenient assumption, I can see.

re: #231 happycamper

You're exactly right. If the mother's life or health is preserved by removing the baby - then remove it. I just don't believe killing the baby is necessary to preserve the mother's health or life.

If the paramount reason for the procedure is to preserve the health or life of the mother, why kill it if it will survive?

Well, then you're just ignorant. In a small percentage of cases - about a thousand a year, out of 1.4 million abortions - it IS necessary to abort the fetus (not 'kill the baby' as you so propagandistically put it; babies are ALREADY BORN) in order to save the life or preserve the physical health of the woman.

re: #244 AuldTrafford

Actually, if you remember happycamper's question, it was specifically cast with the assumption that the fetus could be saved without endangering the mother's health. An inconvenient assumption, I can see.

And a false one.

My father is pro-abortion also - an old communist who won't admit that either. And whenever the discussion gets down to moral brass tacks, he starts calling me names. I finally learned to leave the room at that point.

That's where we're going here ("egregious slanderer" constituting name-calling in my book).

See you.

re: #233 Salamantis

I wasn't being contemptuous or even directing the question to you. I was just asking a legitimate question of those who a) believe in God; b) believe in heaven; and c) think Tiller's a saint and is in heaven.

How do you think you bit me in my contemptuous ass?
BTW: You didn't answer the question (assuming, of course, you answered yes to a,b, or c.)

re: #236 happycamper

It's really quite simple to understand. If a baby is completely delivered and a doctor intentionally kills it - it's murder (the un-lawfull taking of a life). If the baby is only partially delivered and the doctor intentionally kills it - it's not murder in some states because it was only a "partial birth". So this begs the question: How would killing the partially delivered baby contribute to the health of the mother or save her life?

Not a single partial birth abortion was performed in the state of kansas last year; Dr. Tiller did not employ that procedure. And the thread IS about Dr. Tiller, so don't pretend that you were just hypothesizing in general.

But you wouldn't know something like that, now would you? Or let your utter ignorance get in the way of a juicy slander?

re: #247 AuldTrafford

My father is pro-abortion also - an old communist who won't admit that either. And whenever the discussion gets down to moral brass tacks, he starts calling me names. I finally learned to leave the room at that point.

That's where we're going here ("egregious slanderer" constituting name-calling in my book).

See you.

Good. This conversation would be better served by the absence of someone who cannot even grok the difference between pro-abortion China and pro-choice US.

You're the one who was, by describing the entire point of late term abortions as killing the fetus rather than preserving the life or physical health of the mother, calling late-term abortionists gratuitous killers. And that is indeed an egregious slander, I simply called you on it.