South Bend Trib: Partial birth abortions are more common than reported

[Larkspur]

MICHIANA POINT OF VIEW (a local person's op ed)
http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/thisday/opinion.20050503-sbt-MICH-B5-Partial_birth_aborti.sto

Comments by Karla Bronicki (Voice, March 18) indicate she feels the public has been misled with regard to the frequency of partial birth abortion and is disheartened at how readily many people are willing to believe it is happening.

In the United States, there are two reporting agencies which track abortions, neither of which is part of any pro-life organization and therefore should be acceptable sources for even those who support abortion. The United States Center for Disease Control is a passive recipient of reports on abortions voluntarily sent to it by the states. The CDC does a meticulous job of breaking down the categories (e.g., age of fetus when aborted, race of women undergoing an abortion, etc.), and so these are the percentages everyone uses. The second agency, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a branch of Planned Parenthood, aggressively contacts hospitals and known abortionists, and the result is a more accurate and larger figure. The Guttmacher figures are generally used by pro-life groups when stating the number of abortions performed annually in the United States.

During the 1980s and 1990s, total abortions were reported by Guttmacher at about 1.55 million annually. The total reported slowly decreased in the 1990s and today the reported figure is about 1.3 million.

Based on statistics provided by Guttmacher, there is more than ample reason for the general public to accept that abortion does happen in more than a million cases annually.

Since the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973, there have been more than 46 million abortions!

When the bill to ban the partial-birth abortion procedure was first introduced in June 1995, the leaders of the National Abortion Rights Action League, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Abortion Federation insisted that the procedure was performed only about 500 times a year and only in extreme medical circumstances. However, in a Feb. 26, 1997, New York Times article, Ron Fitzsimmons, then executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, an association of more than 200 abortion providers, recalled that in November 1995 when he appeared on ABC's "Nightline," he "lied through my teeth'' when he said the procedure was used rarely and only on women whose lives were in danger or whose fetuses were damaged. In reality he estimated that up to 5,000 partial-birth abortions are performed annually, and that "they're primarily done on healthy women and healthy fetuses.'' He further indicated he knew pro-life organizations were accurate when they said the procedure was common and in the vast majority of cases the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along.
<SNIP>

I'm not familiar with the reports this writer cites. Anyone comment on this op ed?

[KingOfLostSouls]

1. "Partial Birth Abortion" Isn't real terminology

the usage of it clearly represents a republikkkan slant in the article

my comment? until democrats stop letting the GOP define the laws of "partial birth abortions" "death taxes" "homocide bombers" and "clear skies" they'll never get anywhere.

language is the first battleground


otherwise, its still no ones damn business, unless the GOP fundies start lining up liek soviets at bread lines to adopt these kids, they need to shut the fuck up and go back to their caves.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Djinn]

5. if it's not born it's NOT infanticide

just like I can't be charged for infanticide if I drink copiously throughout a pregnancy and miscarry.

Not born yet = fetus who can not be granted legal personhood without infringing on the rights of the pregnant woman

Born = infant

Don't suppose you'll be around for long enough to learn the distinction though.

[w13rd0]

6. Barbaric procedure...

...you really want to get into a debate about barbarism? So if we find some soothing way to do it, like leathal injection, does that make it ok? Or how about if we say we're at war. It's a War against Overpopulation, or Terrorism, or Unemployed Brown People, or whatever the hell they'll call it this week. I don't "support and defend a true atrocity". I support the right of a woman to make her own medical decisions. And furthermore, as someone who can never, and will never, deal with BEING pregnant, I know that it is COMPLETELY out of bounds for me to try and have my government legislate my opinion on the matter.

And "we progressives" are being "marginalized"? Oh yeah, I forgot, by that damned liberal media. Right, and that's why. Uh huh...

[Erika]

7. The only partial birth abortion I know of is when the Dr.

said the baby was deformed and would not surive the birthing process.

[w13rd0]

3. Center for Disease Control...

...you can find easily enough.

http://www.agi-usa.org/ is the other one mentioned.

In regards to their terminology, and the conclusions they draw. And with the literary <sic> use of exclamation marks, I would think they would be as upset about the HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of babies and children that die worldwide due to inadequate medical care.

Hell, in THIS COUNTRY ALONE, 40 million children LIVING TODAY, RIGHT NOW, are without the most basic of health care.

When they demonstrate that they give a sh*t about the welfare of the children alive and in need RIGHT NOW, the FORTY MILLION CHILDREN LIVING TODAY, then MAYBE they can start whining about their figure of 40 million they want to resurrect or pull from test tubes and force into women or whatever the hell it is they think they'd be doing right now with EIGHTY MILLION children living today without healthcare.

Is this the kind of math that makes them think borrow and spend is sound fiscal policy?

[Djinn]

4. Does it matter how many are performed?

You either support the right to abort or you don't.

[Erika]

8. The Right Wing Fanatics wish this to be an issue

They like those poor babies born to serve corporate globalists. They have no problem. Abortion hurts their profit margin.

[ibid]

9. can anyone name even one "partial Birh" abortion on a fetus that could

have survived the next year?

Can anyone name even one "partial birth" abortion that did not give the mother a better chance at good health than trying for going to term via a vagina birth or having a C-section?

As defined by law, partial birth abortions are not limited to 3rd trimester - so how many second tri-mester viable fetuses could have been alive a year after birth except for the partial birth abortion?

[Bridget Burke]

10. Interesting fact about Irene DeVliegher (author of linked column)

She's listed as Assistant at Mary Reilly Hunt & Associates. Who is Mary Reilly Hunt?

a development consulting organization; clients include National Right to Life Committee, NRL Political Action Committee, and the NRL Educational Trust Fund, also Birthright, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (Great Britain), and the Right to Life of Queensland (Australia); partner, Charles S. Carriker Associates; vice president/development, National Right to Life Committee; member, National Association of Female Executives; listed in Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who of the World, and Who's Who of Women Executives; active in the Republican Party at the local, state, and national levels; delegate to state and national Republican conventions. South Bend, Indiana.

www.buildingequality.us/ifas/cnp/bios/hunma.html

Or maybe there's another Irene DeVliegher in South Bend?

[CTyankee]

11. I used to work for Planned Parenthood

here in Connecticut. The Alan Guttmacher Institute was a valuable resource when I needed accurate stats on reproductive health issues. It is the "gold standard" for such information and is used by health departments all over this country. I never saw a stat that bears out what this writer has said.

So, she lied. What else is new with the antichoice crowd?

[Demeter]

12. So What?

Health care by the numbers? Only so many of anything in a year, or per capita?

Grow up and face reality. Pregnancy happens, sometimes it's good, sometimes it isn't, sometimes it goes right, sometimes it goes wrong, but it's the woman's life so BUTT OUT!

[applegrove]

13. I think they should only be used if the life of the mother is the issue.

I'm sorry. But they are just horrendous. I though laws were passed to limit them.

[CTyankee]

15. Yes, but that law is under a constitutional challenge

because it didn't allow an exception for the health of the woman, in defiance of Roe v. Wade which is still the law of the land. There must be an allowance for the health of the woman.

Later term abortions are horrendous, you are right. But families that have to go through that agony generally come out of it pro-choice, even if they were not before the experience. These are families who wanted their babies and were faced with a devastating situation. Several women who had undergone such situations spoke at a press conference held when President Clinton vetoed the first PBA bill that passed Congress. These women were from different religious backgrounds and they told their stories. Maybe someone on DU knows a link to those stories?

[daydreamer]

14. What an idiot

would want to have a late-term abortion for non-medical reasons? If you wait until 7th month of pregnancy to have an abortion, you are an idiot and mentally unfit to reproduce.