Nor is it any official characterization of the Religious Right. David is once again substituting his desires for facts (just as is true for law). He wants this (or better yet, something worse) to be found and of course that then describes everyone in the Religious Right more accurately than anything else (found so far to date)…

Something worse will be found and take its place eventually. David hasn’t yet found anything on child as well as wife-beating or incest or too-close sexual games among clan-cult family arrangements somewhere in the Bible Belt (they are there, but hardly characteristic of the Bible Belt as a whole).

Yes, late term abortions are relatively small and only one procedure was outlawed. That one procedure was the safest procedure for the parties concerned. The only two that I’m aware of that are still legal are 1: the use of forceps to dismember the fetus (and the risk of a perforated uterus, risk of infection from not all of the fetus being removed, etc) and 2: C-Section (the risks are death, infection from the incisions, adverse reaction to anthesia (sp??), scare tissue preventing a successful future pregnancy, 6 (or more) weeks recovery time from major surgery).

The D&X procedure was the safest way to terminate a pregnancy after the 4/5th month.

“However, I’m hard pressed to think of a good justification for waiting until very late in your term to decide to abort.”

The vast majority of late term abortions are primarily due to a fatal flaw in the development of the fetus that cannot be detected until ‘late term’. Cases could be where the intestines are developing outside the body, where the head is enlarged due to too much fluid leaving the fetus severely mentally deficient. There are a host of other conditions that the family would decide to terminate the pregnancy when they find out that the fetus is fatally flawed than carry to term knowing that the fetus won’t be able to survive. I don’t think I would be able to carry for another 3-4 months knowing that the fetus I carried would only die upon delivery, if it made it that far.

The other major reason for late term abortions is eclampseia, or pre-eclampseia, which is where the blood pressure of the woman gets extremely high extremely quickly (like 250/125) and this is a result of toxicity of the pregnancy (I think). So, in order to save the life of the woman, the fetus is sacrificed. Sometimes it happens late enough in the pregnancy that they can deliver early and have NICU on hand if there are issues with the birth. This procedure was also used to help women who have miscarried late in their pregnancies.

a) You need to raise money, because you’re poor, abortions are expensive, and medicaid doesn’t cover

b) (variation) you need to find time to get off work, find someone to cover the kids, all without anybody knowing why (because your boss probably would think you’re a baby-killer) –possibly twice, if a state has a mandatory waiting period or consultation

c) A health problem that cropped up late in the game.

The FotF guy thinks that the risk of a perforated uterus is good, because it will reduce the number of abortions. Of course, the abortions that still occur will be less safe, and some women will be maimed. And in case of option “c”, if the abortion doesn’t occur we’re still placing the woman at substantial health risk. None of this seems to elicit even concern from this guy.

I’ve never been in that situation so I really can’t be sure of what goes on in the mind of a pregnant woman. However, I’m hard pressed to think of a good justification for waiting until very late in your term to decide to abort. I don’t believe that a glob of cells is a baby, but the limit gets fuzzier and fuzzier as time goes by. I think it’s irresponsible to not make the decision before you’re in such moral muddy waters. Again, I suppose there might be extraordinary circumstances I’m not aware of, but I can’t help but think that if I were in the seventh month and decided I didn’t want the baby, I’d just wait two more and give it to one of the gazillion couples that desperately DO want a child.