Discussion for article #225516
A close relative of mine had a late-term abortion. The fetus had a spinal chord and brain that was severely misformed and could not survive outside the womb, and it was caught very late. There is a significant risk to the woman when taking any pregnancy to term, and it was much safer and healthier for her to end the pregnancy rather than have what amounted to a still birth.
Six months later the idiots in Congress made such a procedure illegal.
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Third trimester doesn’t begin until week 28. The only procedures resembling abortion as late as week 28 or later have to do with fetal death, and really can’t be called abortion, even though dilation and extraction are required. So I object to the use of “late-term abortion” since even the most extremely late procedures take place in the 2nd trimester. There’s really only one reason women avail themselves of procedures by week 20. It happened to my wife and I. Amniocentesis is conducted around week 16. It takes two weeks to run the genetic screening tests. If there’s a discovery of a fatal genetic anomaly, you don’t get the news until week 18. At that point, because roughly 90% of couples and women in this situation elect to terminate, a second round of tests are conducted to guarantee there hasn’t been a mix-up. By the end of that time you are looking at week 20 procedure at the earliest, probably later if you live in a rural area where it’s harder to get a provider.
CVS testing is done between week 8 and 10. Bad results would be discovered around the time where the chance of natural miscarriage is coming to a close. If CVS testing, instead of amnio, were made available to every women in the nation, we would effectively eradicate the demand for late abortions. Good luck getting pro-lifers to hop on board that bandwagon.
So , at exactly 1 second into the 3rd trimester the foetus feels pain ?
Wow. I was among those who didn’t like the pregnancy plot on “The Fosters” (which jumped the shark some in my view after the first ten episodes) but would never seriously think they would go this route. Horrible for the characters, obviously – Lena got pregnant because she was told she was running out of time given health issues. But, that is what true late term abortions generally are – horrible cases where the woman and/or couple is crushed the health reasons (including something being wrong with the fetus) leads to a determined need for an abortion.
It depends on how you count. If you use the trimester approach, “late term,” would be after 24weeks or thereabouts. Also, “abortion” to me seems appropriate. You are “aborting” the fetus out for whatever reason. Don’t know too why it isn’t “fetal death” beforehand. In various cases, there might be some percentage of risk to the woman’s health or life (let’s say 40%) and the abortion is not mandatory. So, you are choosing to abort there.
This is mostly details though. If someone has an abortion after twenty weeks, which is basically the common usage here, it is for some tragic reason that even most strongly against abortion will recognize as at least tolerable to their morals. The only tricky case there are for certain types of birth defects, but emotional as the case might be there to not abort, the general public isn’t going to shun the woman in that case either.
In Dr. Tiller’s practice, the fetus was administered a drug to gently “put it to sleep” a day before the procedure. There was no pain involved, which I’m sure is a disappointment to the anti-choice crowd.
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I had CVS about 13 years ago, and the sole reason was to receive my genetic test results earlier than amnio. At that time, the trade-off was not diagnosing neural tube defects, but I understand that AFP has been greatly enhanced since then. I’m with you on maternal death being a higher risk for women than even a late-term abortion. I’m sorry for your family member’s pregnancy loss. Women (along with their partners if they choose) should always remain in charge of their medical care.