abortions born alive

Amity · #1 09-29-2008, 10:41 AM

I couldn't make a title that didn't sound horribly morbid. Apologies.

Anyway, I followed a link in Thumperlyn's sig, and, taking the political agenda out of the equation for the moment, the video it showed me made me think: if you had an abortion and the foetus was still alive when they yanked it out, would you not be mightily pissed off? If anything, that video made me think they should really be using more drugs/monitoring the foetus to make sure it's fucking dead first? For one, it would save a WHOLE lot of ethical debate.

kesh · #2 09-29-2008, 10:48 AM

might make the ethical debate more problematic, as you'd actually be willfully "killing" the foetus, rather than having it "die" as a side effect of the procedure. which i think is how they view things now, the ideas of abortion being all about viability.

i use quotes, not as any statement about the status of the foetus, but just to point out these are contentious definitions

Wildwoman · #3 09-29-2008, 10:56 AM

I’m not checking that link at work, but is it about late-term abortions? Because those are very rare, and 99.99% of the time they are done because the fetus has medical conditions that can’t be detected earlier, but would have caused them to basically die at birth or shortly afterward. The anti-abortion people like to make it sound like these are done all the time just for kicks.

ETA: But since you were looking for non-political discussion, it’s my understanding that this is the only way late-term abortions can be done.

Amity · #4 09-29-2008, 11:06 AM

The video, which is about 80% text/non-graphic images, mentions abortions at 32 weeks. So yes, late-term.

Wildwoman · #5 09-29-2008, 12:04 PM

So then it's not a mistake, it's the only way it can be done.