Baby survived abortion!

[leogaela]

link

IMHO only a case against late abortions not against all abortions.

horrible story. It does not say why the abortion was so late though. And also does not say if the same technique (with saline) would be used now).

I thought late abortions now had to be certified by two doctors and only for extremely pressing medical reasons.

I guess that at the time it was still legal in the US to have late abortions for any reason.
Sad that so late in a pregnancy the mother wasn't persuaded to have the child at full term and then adopoted anyway as late abortion must be very traumatic. This has made me wonder how common it really was for late aborted babies to be born alive and destroyed after birth.

I was reading in the paper the other day that something like 50 abortions in the UK a year go wrong (those between 22 and 24 weeks), and the baby is born alive.

What got to me though was, that these babies must then recieve medical help, whereas (round here at least if not countrywide) if you were to go into labour naturally at 22 weeks, your child would not recieve help.

I am pro-choice for early abortion but that saline solution method has horrified me.
Burns the baby alive while it gulps it. Its awful.
I'm sure no one takes the decision to have a abortion, early or late, lightly.
Its just very sad.

sai - dont forget the woman is a big anti-abortionist (not surprisingly) and that late abortions now only happen in exceptional circumstances.

Flamerobin - that's quite shocking!

"Sad that so late in a pregnancy the mother wasn't persuaded to have the child at full term and then adopoted anyway as late abortion must be very traumatic."

Whilst I kind of understand your sentiment, leogaela, I don't particularly agree with it. The woman shouldn't have been 'persuaded' over whether or not to go through with the pregnancy. It is her body, her baby and her choice. She should have been given as much information as possible regarding all of her options and counselled during the decision making process, she shoulkd not have been coerced (sp) into making a decision which she felt was wrong for her. How you can say that going through labour and having the child adopted out is less traumatic than a late abortion, I'll never know.

NoDeP - I see your point, either way it would be very traumatic. I am definitely not anti-abortion and agree it must be the mothers choice, but first there is a very good reason that late abortions are no longer allowed and my comment (was a bit careless, i am at work and only half concentrating) was prompted by my feeling that she probably wasn't given complete information to make a proper decision.

I guess that's probably the case.

'Persuaded' was the wrong word and I think that with late abortions labour is induced and the dead baby is delivered as with a natural live full term birhth

all abortions, early or late have to be certified by two doctors, and they still have to know all reasoning behind the decision.
I think personally that the time limit for abortions should be made shorter, and i dont honestly think that many women could be persuaded to make a decision that is not wholly theirs. having an abortion or having a baby adopted are both life changing decisions. always you have the question, have i done the right thing? for the rest of your life.

Has anyone read Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's 1990 essay 'Is It Possible To Be Pro-Life and Pro-Choice?'

It's in their book 'Billions and Billions'. It's very good.