http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=412172&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

Intention is not relevant. The actions are.

>>“You continue to focus on the foetus who endangers it’s mother’s life.”

Yes, because that’s what I’m talking about!!!!!

“Most abortions do _not_ carry that liability.”

Yes, I’ve said this how many times now?>>

So why do you still approach the problem as if medical abortions were predominant and therefore excuses all abortions?

>>When did we start talking about aborting viable babies? I certainly never did! I thought we were talking about abortion prior to viability.>>

So…if we could find a point at which viability could be considered to be determined (which I admit in advance is something of a problem), would you agree that prior to that point, abortion is not murder, but after that point, it is?

>>Wrong. I know some who insist that the mothership must go down, even if the baby goes down with her.>>

And there are right to choosers who would defend the right to abort while a woman is having labor pains. Can we agree that there are extremists on both sides? Would you agree that aborting a fully viable baby for reasons other than medical is murder?

>>…some abortions are, indeed, morally mandated.>>

Permissable, I agree. Mandated – never.

I think that a lot of the problem is not clearly differentiating between the moral and the legal. There are clearly some actions that may br legal, but which are immoral. Some actions may be moral, but are still illegal.

“But if the foetus is viable? what about a caesarian and take the child alive, even if it needs to be on an incubator?”

Whoah!! When did we start talking about aborting viable babies? I certainly never did! I thought we were talking about abortion prior to viability. Logically speaking, I think that it is obvious that a woman who needs an abortion for medical reasons would jump at the chance to have an early C-section in an attempt to save the baby. Where are you coming from?

As for the tower shooter, the reason I gave the second scenario is because I anticipated (rightly, as it turns out) that you would get tripped up on the “guilt/innocence” aspect, which is really not the point. Rather, the threat itself is the point, and guilt or innocence have nothing to do with the fact that a threat exists. By asserting that the shooter is not a criminal, I mean that he has no criminal intent. Like the baby, he is unaware of the threat that he poses to others.

“You continue to focus on the foetus who endangers it’s mother’s life.”

Yes, because that’s what I’m talking about!!!!!

“Most abortions do _not_ carry that liability.”

Yes, I’ve said this how many times now?

“Most right to lifers would not object to reasonable exceptions for health problems”

Wrong. I know some who insist that the mothership must go down, even if the baby goes down with her.

“most right to choose proponents want the right to abort anytime anyway, anyhow. Do you deny that?”

No, I don’t deny it, and I never did. In fact, I’ve stated multiple times that abortion on demand for non-medical reasons is morally reprehensible.

“You don’t want to call a criminal a criminal,”

See explanation above.

” and you don’t want to call killing a foetus (one which is _not_ endangering its mother) murder…why is that?”

Because I am not given to hysterical speech, for one, and two, because I am only talking about the issue of medically necessary abortions and the prolifer’s reticence to admit that some abortions are, indeed, morally mandated.

But, certainly, at the earliest stages of preganancy, when the fetus has no consciousness, no feelings, and no past, I cannot consider it human and therefore I am able to fully back the notion of “abortion on demand.” If one believes that abortion is a medical procedure rather than a murder, abortion on demand isn’t even remotely shocking.

But if the foetus is viable? what about a caesarian and take the child alive, even if it needs to be on an incubator?

>>If a man in a tower is shooting bullets on the people below, can we shoot him to kill him? Of course, because we want to prevent him from causing further death and destruction. We would rather stop him before he can hurt anybody, put him in psychological counselling,>>

Why don’t we just shoot him when counselling recognizes that he’s a danger to people? That’s the short cut you’re taking when you abort a baby that “might” endanger the mother.

>> try to appeal to whatever conscience he has, hope he will repent and turn his life around and not repeat that behavior.>>

Repenting and turning his life around is between himself and his God, but it has nothing to do with breaking the law – which is what defines a crime.

>> But sometimes, you just have to act fast and shoot the shooter, in order to save the lives below. What is the difference between the shooter and the guy down below? Aren’t they both men? Aren’t both of their lives valuable? Yes, but one is threatening the life of the other. >>

So…when do you decide that he can be shot? When he goes up to the roof top? When he picks up the gun? What if he shoots and misses? Only after he hits someone? Aborted babies don’t get the benefit of the doubt. My mother was told that to have a second child would kill her – it didn’t. Medicine is still not omniscient.

>>That is the difference. Perhaps the shooter isn’t even a criminal; perhaps he’s having a bad reaction to a new medication that is causing him to have hallucinations. He’s really innocent, a good guy, but just doesn’t know what he’s doing.>>

This is bizarre. You say he’s not a criminal…what defines a criminal in your mind? I say he _is_ a criminal. The cause of his criminality may be something beyond his control – in which case, we treat him differently than someone who seems in control of his actions – but he’s still a criminal.

>> Nonetheless, HE IS A DANGER TO OTHERS. A sweet little baby doesn’t mean to kill his mother, but he can’t help it that his existence is posing a serious threat to her life. We have to stop him in order to save her. It doesn’t mean that we think he is a guilty bad person who deserves to die!>>

You continue to focus on the foetus who endangers it’s mother’s life. Most abortions do _not_ carry that liability. Most right to lifers would not object to reasonable exceptions for health problems – most right to choose proponents want the right to abort anytime anyway, anyhow. Do you deny that?

You don’t want to call a criminal a criminal, and you don’t want to call killing a foetus (one which is _not_ endangering its mother) murder…why is that?

Also, the blogger was forced to rely on condoms because of the side effects she experienced on hormonal birth control and the impossibility of being fitted with an IUD due to the prior removal of most of her cervix. Unfortunately, condoms are not that reliable and after hers broke, she took steps to try to obtain emergency contraception which her local ERs refused to dispense to her. She was thus not able to obtain emergency contraception until the third day after the condom broke, and because of the delay, the emergency contraception didn’t take.

So being married and/or using birth control aren’t total solutions obviating the need for abortions.

Suek, the difference between a fetus and a born child is that the fetus still needs the mother in order to live, and the mother’s health and life is still potentially affected by the presence of the growing fetus. Once the baby is born, the woman is no longer pregnant, and therefore no justification for killing the baby can be based on the woman’s health. The baby also doesn’t need her either, as someone else can step in and provide for the baby’s needs.

If a man in a tower is shooting bullets on the people below, can we shoot him to kill him? Of course, because we want to prevent him from causing further death and destruction. We would rather stop him before he can hurt anybody, put him in psychological counselling, try to appeal to whatever conscience he has, hope he will repent and turn his life around and not repeat that behavior. But sometimes, you just have to act fast and shoot the shooter, in order to save the lives below. What is the difference between the shooter and the guy down below? Aren’t they both men? Aren’t both of their lives valuable? Yes, but one is threatening the life of the other. That is the difference. Perhaps the shooter isn’t even a criminal; perhaps he’s having a bad reaction to a new medication that is causing him to have hallucinations. He’s really innocent, a good guy, but just doesn’t know what he’s doing. Nonetheless, HE IS A DANGER TO OTHERS. A sweet little baby doesn’t mean to kill his mother, but he can’t help it that his existence is posing a serious threat to her life. We have to stop him in order to save her. It doesn’t mean that we think he is a guilty bad person who deserves to die!

Suek, your definition of abortion is not accurate even if we give it a lot of latitude for being a “layman’s definition.” Simply put, an abortion is the expulsion of the fetus from the womb. It can be spontaneous, as in what we commonly call a miscarriage but is in medical terms a “spontaneous abortion,” or it can be a medically induced abortion. That’s all there is to the definition. There is no other, distinct, different word for an abortion that the mother did not want but needs for medical reasons. An abortion is an abortion, period, and the definition has nothing to do with the woman’s personal feelings or motivations. Furthermore, women with medical conditions that may be exacerbated by pregnancy ARE given a choice! It is still voluntary, even for them. There is not a doctor in the land that will strap a woman to the table and perform an abortion while saying “I’m doing this to save your life.” Women still have the option to take the risk with their health and their lives and try to bring that pregnancy to term. I have also known of women who wanted to continue their pregnancy even though conception had coincided with a new diagnosis of cancer, delaying chemotherapy and radiation until after the baby was born. Sometimes they die during pregnancy, if the cancer is fast growing, or sometimes they are able to have the baby and then die, because the cancer has progressed too far by that point to respond to treatment. In some other lucky cases, both baby and mom come out just fine and everyone is really happy that she took the risk.

The medical scenarios are very complicated and individual and in many cases, there is no way that a doctor can know for sure that a woman will absolutely, positively croak if she continues that pregnancy. He can only make the best prognosis that he can given the knowledge that he has. The numbers of medically necessary abortions are small compared to the numbers of women having abortions for no other reason than that they do not want to be pregnant or have a baby; I have conceded this many times. But when you use the word “abortion” you have to use it responsibly and not assume that everyone is buying into the “layman’s” definition, because I can tell you, they aren’t!! I certainly don’t accept that definition and it is not medically accurate either.

When you go to lobby Washington, and you take a firm position that you oppose ALL abortion, no one can read your mind and know that in reality, you actually have all these “exceptions” that you would allow, too. When people who have lost babies overhear you talking with firm conviction, they also don’t know that in your heart, you understand the decision they had to make and that you bless them. I understand the appeal of taking a stand and verbalizing an intention of not allowing any exceptions, but that is not really being moral; that’s just being dangerously radical and in its own way, immoral. I always get the feeling that prolifers are terrified of openly stating that they understand that sometimes abortion is necessary, because they fear the “grey areas.” But you should NOT be afraid of this. As I keep saying, it will only strengthen your position as you try to limit or do away with abortion on demand when you present a reasonable argument.

Profligate copulation is at the heart of this problem.

Yes, sex is a very integral part of life – married life. As to sex outside of marriage, if you can’t abstain, how about using birth control methods?

My goodness, in this day and age, this shouldn’t even be a question!

The problem is that calling a voluntary “choice” abortion murder is not extreme. The problem is whether we define a foetus as a person who also has rights that should be protected by society. If the foetus is defined as a person – even if it’s determined to be a foetus past a particular point of development – then to kill it is a homocide. Whether that homocide is manslaughter or murder would be for the courts – or the law – to determine. If a foetus is not a person, what is it about birth that changes that condition? How can a viable foetus be a non-person at this instant, but a person at this other instant?

How to address this. Even the RC church does not prohibit medical treatment of a woman which results in the loss of her child. I strongly suspect that most of the pro-life people discussing this would not include cases where there is actual threat to life, although there is also a spectrum of health “threats” that people use to justify killing the unborn when they know it is legally or morally unacceptable.
As with many discussions, this ends up requiring definitions. As a nurse, you’re defining all such cases as abortions, and therefore to call them all murder offends you. I understand that…but I think you need to also understand that in layman’s terms, an abortion means a deliberate choice by a woman to rid herself of a foetus, for personal reasons which are rarely medical.
If we take out cases of “extreme pregnancy complications”, does your viewpoint change?
Just as a by the way – I consider this a moral issue. I would much prefer that the law not address it in any way, because I have the fear that what the government can make legal, the government can require. Additionally, some of the applications of law – the cases of the woman who shot her fully mature unwanted foetus vs the man found guilty of murder for shooting a woman which resulted in the death of her wanted foetus – are so illogical and absurd as to necessitate further legal debate. Surely the status of a foetus cannot be allowed to depend on the whim of its mother. Perhaps, also, some of the medical rules about allowing sterilization need to be revised for those who absolutely can’t/won’t have a baby. I also do have to ask – if this woman _knew_ she had a condition that was life threatening in the case of pregnancy, why was she having sex?

Most abortions are done for immoral reasons. It would be great if we could influence society to change so that those pregnancies would not occur in the first place, but, barring that, it would also be nice to have restrictions placed on abortion so that women AND men are forced to deal with the consequences of their promiscuity and bad moral choices. (I’m on your side, hint, hint.) But what bothers me about many of the comments here, and even the way LaShawn dealt with the issue in her entry (LaShawn, I think the world of you, so grant me the right to give a little criticism) is that there is a very condemning and assuming attitude about women in general who have abortions. Remember that people hear you when you are talking at the office or in the elevator or they may even be sitting next to you in the pew at church; people read your comments on your blogs — some of those people are going to be men and women who lost babies that they wanted to medically necessary abortions. Would you like them to hear these kinds of comments, so that they can feel condemned on top of being reminded of their grief? I am sure that most of you are kind hearted people who don’t really think of such folks as murderers, but they don’t hear your inner thoughts; they hear what you say and they read what you write. They don’t know that you are really talking about those “other people” who have no moral justification.

And my last and most important point is that when you talk in such extreme ways, that all abortion is murder, then a large segment of the population turns a deaf ear to you. THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO WIN! Allow for situations in which abortion is not only permissable but mandated by a higher moral code. Be reasonable, speak reasonably, and you will have more power ultimately in this legal battle. Because the fact is, all abortion is never going to be outlawed in this country. No one is going to buy the perverted ethic that some prolifers are selling, which is that killing an innocent woman (i.e., letting her die) in order to avoid aborting her baby is preferable to aborting the baby instead. Of course, this whole idea is so absurd because if you kill the mother, the baby goes too. Yet I have heard some prolifers declare in all seriousness that abortion should never be allowed for medical reasons because “those medical reasons are just false anyway” and “you can’t be sure that the pregnant woman will die from her medical/pregnancy complications, so she should opt to continue the pregnancy and take her chances.” Hmmm. I certainly hope that I’ve just run into a few fringers of the prolife movement, but since I don’t see this issue even alluded to, much less intelligently and compassionately discussed in these comments, I’m feeling skeptical and pessimistic. When you don’t freely (not begrudgingly, but freely) allow for abortion in certain circumstances, the prolife argument stops sounding like a rational plea to return to Gd’s laws of sexual morality and sanctity of life, and more like the ravings and rantings of lunatics.

John, I have no idea what the statistics are. I’m sure they are out there if someone really wanted to find them, because doctors do record when an abortion of a wanted pregnancy is being done for medical reasons. I worked as a gynecology nurse for two years at a major state hospital/med school/research center, and while we had the usual run-of-the-mill irresponsible and promiscuous girls using abortion as birth control, we also had a fair number of medically complicated pregnancies that ended in an unwanted and heartbreaking abortion. We saw more of them because they were referred to our medical center for its expertise, so I’m not claiming that the numbers I saw were an accurate representation of all hospitals across the board, but I have to guess that there must be thousands and thousands of medically necessary abortions each year.

One last thing, there is a complication of pregnancy called HELLP which causes liver failure. It has a high mortality rate, sadly. It strikes usually in the second trimester, sometimes later, and ending the pregnancy, by either birth or abortion, is the only cure for it. I had a patient die of this condition when I was an ICU nurse. It was horribly traumatic for me (luckily, her baby had been born the month before and was healthy). It was a turning point in my career and was the beginning of the end — long story, but I felt I just couldn’t take the emotional stress of nursing anymore and seeing this young woman die was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am sure she was given the option to abort when HELLP was diagnosed, and she continued the pregnancy. If it were me, I would have done the same thing. But is that a RATIONAL decision? Is it the morally right decision? We are dealing with infertility and I desperately want a baby so yeah, I’d risk my life to have one. That doesn’t make me more moral than the next woman; it just makes me a desperate infertile who yearns for a baby. I also don’t have small children at home who are relying on me. This woman had two small children at home PLUS the newborn she had just birthed. Three children are now motherless. Other children at home is also something that women with extreme pregnancy complications must consider when they are trying to decide whether the risk of THIS pregnancy is worth it, so please don’t ever smirk at the notion of medically necessary abortion or assume that these people are just looking for a convenient excuse to “kill their baby.”

There are statistics that support the number of abortions per year in the USA and gives the percentage in which trimester in which the abortion occurred. They do not cover the “reason” why the abortion occurred, either a medical reason or pro-choice reason.

Lastly, not to stand in the way of facts, it is reported that there were an estimated 1.7 million abortions in the USA for 2005. I have not heard of a medical epidemic that is causing 1.7 million children to be aborted.

Here is worldwide persepective of abortions for you to ponder.

54 countries allow abortion, which is about 61 percent of the world population. 97 countries, about 39 percent of the population, have abortion laws that make it illegal according to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York.

- The Alan Guttmacher Institute reports approximately 22 million legal abortions were reported in 1987.

- It is estimated that between four and nine million were not reported, totaling of 26-31 million legal abortions in 1987 alone.

- There were a total of 10-22 million “clandestine” abortions, bringing the total worldwide figure to 36 and 53 million abortions.

Some people may look at that number and say “genocide of unborn children”.

I do not apologize for the stark language, I call it as I see it. Again, let me emphasize that the only way through this is truthful information, education, and high moral values. Helping defenseless people is a righteous virtue that is not defined by race, creed, or color but by heart.

Think it as “what if I was that unborn child?”