There are two parts in here -

On the general topic of third trimester abortion you will not find me sitting on the fence. Third trimester abortion - for any reason - is nothing less than the murder of a viable child given the normal probabilities of deformity and genetic mutation.

This is very clear in my mind because even in NZ with its "third world" health system premature babes are brought to full recovery from 23 weeks gestation. There is a study being undertaken at present on the survival rates and subsequent health problems of those born 23 to 25 weeks gestation. After 25 weeks the survivability is better than 95% and reaches "normal" at 27 weeks.

The second part is the threat of eugenics. I use our next door neighbours as an example here. Their third son was born with major deformities and disabilities and was only just out of "vegetative state" on standard measures. The doctors suggested to the family that the best and most humane solution was to not feed him but to let nature take its course. The family refused and Brian survived until just before his sixteenth birthday. During that time he underwent at least nine major operations to relieve or partially correct some of his life-threatening problems including three for installation and renewal of brain fluid spinal column shunts, and two to correct bowel deformities. Brian never showed any hint of consciousness other than the ability to react to light and warmth. I can only say that I am so glad I did not have to make the decisions that family had to face.

But what about you? Those who decry the "palliative care only" for disabled babies(and no one knows what level of disability is being considered) might like to answer how they would react to having a child with Brian's disabilities. And those who believe in "keep him alive at all costs" might like to add their thoughts on the quality of life he experienced.

I'm sure you agree (well, I'm betting that you will agree) that whether the murdered baby would have been a Mozart or an Einstein is not what makes the murder so heinous.

I attended a conference on autism a decade or so ago. A physician spoke of how they would soon be able to determine whether a fetus was likely to become a child with autism. The parents could then abort it.

A young man in the audience asked, "Are you saying it would have been better if I had been aborted?"

What goes on that the physician's comments do NOT instantly provoke in him the moral idiocy that the man with autisim immediately gets?

I must admit I'm puzzled that you are drinking the koolaid on this one, Gerard.

I work with a lot of early stage growth companies. Most of them will fail, frankly, but some will exceed all expectations. All of them are based on great ideas.

Some of them are concerned about disclosing their "secret sauce"; the competitive advatage that underlies their market potential. I advise them thus: "Ideas are shit; execution is everything."

If we have learned anything in the last few decades (and that's still up for grabs) it is that even those with genetic and environmental advantages may return but niggardly yields on those investments.

The sad truth is that those aborted foeti, notwithstanding the speculative promise of their DNA, are never more than protoplasm, and their demise, if it can be called such, is never other than what they would encounter if permitted to live for three score and ten.

To suppose otherwise would require the querent to believe in the notion of the soul; that which cannot be proven. In short, someone suffering from a disorder.

Alan Chamberlain writes...

"The sad truth is that those aborted foeti, notwithstanding the speculative promise of their DNA, are never more than protoplasm, and their demise, if it can be called such, is never other than what they would encounter if permitted to live for three score and ten.

"To suppose otherwise would require the querent to believe in the notion of the soul; that which cannot be proven. In short, someone suffering from a disorder."

It seems to me, Mr. Chamberlain, that there is no logical reason why your argument applies only to foeti. If it is no great loss to abort a fetus merely because its value lies in the future, then there is no reason why YOU should not be aborted as well. The only value YOU can have can only be in the future.

In addition, belief in the existence of a soul could just as easily justify abortion, since the soul goes on without the aborted body. Therefore, persons who believe that there is no soul ought logically to give more value to what does exist--namely, the living body.

Finally, when you write, "those aborted foeti, notwithstanding the speculative promise of their DNA, are never more than protoplasm...," I wonder how exactly you know that. Isn't our inability to know whether there is more than merely protoplasm the main reason that we can take opposite sides on abortion? You do not really HAVE an argument; you merely have a side.

It's not clear but I believe that Mrs Furedi says that the policy is to kill the babies by stopping their heart in the womb before inducing an abortion
so I don't think there are all that many live abortions of normal babies

What of the report itself? News stories, after all, do tend to leave out pesky things such as details.

How many of them had no brain? Or a badly functioning one? How many had organs on the outside? How many were missing organs? How many were aborted because the mother decided it simply not the time to have a child? How many were aborted because the father decided it was not time to have a child?

There are always questions surrounding any decision. And there are always those who will not be satisfied to the answer to any one question.

That aside, there is one question one should consider where abortion is concerned; does it harm society? Does it really? Theft, homicide, driving drunk, they all impact society. Abortion? Protest all you want, but the death of a fetus impacts few. In the case of some people it affects no one.

That's the thing we forget about our laws; our rules and moral codes. Morality is for the benefit of the society, not for the benefit of the individual living therein. In so far as a stable society benefits the individual, then morality is to the individual's benefit, but only at a remove.

More thinking and composing to do here. I'll report back on the results.

Geez. What a way to start the day with a very heavy dose of reality. I guess there's nothing more I need to add, but thank you?

I used to be a fence sitter on this issue, but age brings wisdom. I believe the Bible is an owners/operators manual for this life. What Jesus says about those who hurt children gets my full attention.

A couple of thoughts.

First, with respect to a Mozart or Einstein being destroyed in the ovens, I say it was equally tragic were it a baker, or candlestick maker.

In the extreme feminist outrage over the ban on PBA being upheld, I am struck by how a group of women who purport to be adult,like children, demand there be no limits on any aspect of their sexuality and reproductive lives. Why not?

I have to admit in my liberal days I was pro-abortion and chanted endlessly about a woman's right to choose. Then decades later, I began to come to my senses. I realized that there are limits in every other aspect of my life---money, eating, drinking, sleep, physical abilities and relationships-- so then, why shouldn't there be limits on how long I have to do away with a fetus developing inside me?

Extreme feminists want no limits, by God, on any aspect of this.

And speaking of choosing, I also came to the realization that 99.99% of the time, a woman does have the right to choose--always on the front end. That seldom she doesn't and waits to choose on the back end after she's pregnant--which is really to re-choose---goes in one ear and out the other. For this she then whines that she got her right to endlessly choose snatched away from her by a big, bad group of men who are dolts and dummies. Boo hoo!

Abortion in all stages has become an acceptable means of birth control for the lazy who just can't be bothered on the front end. Choosing should never get in the way of a woman's reproductive recreation, mind you.

And so, thankfully, some limits have been set, and the queen of feminism, Hillary Clinton, is outraged, as she seeks to continue enabling her feminst flock to spiral deeper into immature and victim thinking. Never does it enter these women's minds that if they are victims, it's of their own design.

Thank God, some small degree of sanity has set and held a modicum of limitation, but only at an extreme point, on this slippery slope we're on.

Mr. Chamberlain - you actually do not see the difference between the value of a human life and the value of a business? I do hope you are not a parent; what would you say to a child who yields a "niggardly result" on your "investment?" Or would you just perform a very late-term abortion and start over? It's going to die at some point anyway, right?
For that matter, what do you do when you yourself fall short of your expectations, as any human must sometimes? Reduce yourself to you component protoplasm?

It seems that most abortions performed these days are nothing more than convenient birth control. Alot of selfish people are grown up enough and mature enough to have a good time, and of course...lots of sex... but they don't want to be inconvenienced with the result of said sex.

............Children...............

Just imagine how many Mozarts and Einsteins have been lost due to people not wanting to be inconvenienced. Think of how much creativity will never be realized. The people who support abortion haven't figured out they are supporting the death of future tax payers.

Maybe Mr. Chamnerlain could propose trading fetus and/or abortion futures on the stock market. According to his view of things it IS just money and future possible (though unrealized) value after all...isn't it?

"how many were Einsteins, how many were Mozarts?"

Statistically, about as many as there were Hitlers, Dahmers, and Chos.

There are persuasive arguments against abortion. I don't find this to be one of them.

We'll leave Hitler out of the equation just this once Harvey.

I'll see your Dahlmer and Cho and raise you Einstein and Mozart.

I'm pretty sure which is the winning hand.

G-d gives life and only G-d, or man in the extremes of war or to directly and with no alternatives save the life of an innocent, may take life. To cheat the "defective" of their chance to live, or to provide convenience or a better funded lifestyle for a woman, at the cost of an innocent life, is not a choice men may make without mortal and moral peril.

The choice not to become a parent is one that should properly be made before sex, not at some days, weeks or months afterwards. The cautious way, the way that respects life, is better for all concerned. If you and the person you are considering sex with do not wish to become parents together and spend the next 20 years cooperating for the good of your potential offspring, then get sterilized or don't have sex.

It's not easy, but it is simple; and it lets G-d work in you as he intends.

Askmom,

If things worked perfectly, then you would have a point. But things don't work perfectly. Even the most effective contraceptive fails on occasion. Even if contraceptives were 100% effective, circumstances can change things. For often sex is a spontaneous thing not under the participant's control. That is, not everybody thinks about what they're doing.

That aside, there are times when the choice comes down to losing the child, or losing mother and child. And there's not a thing you can do about it. When you have a situation where the pregnant woman is bound and determined to end the pregnancy, and is willing to risk her life to do so, for all that she's in no real danger she might as well be.

I agree, it's not a rational decision. But not everything we do is done for rational reasons. Better the woman survive, and possibly have a child later, than she die and any future contributions by her be lost.

As with all our actions ultimately it is a matter between the actor and God. It becomes our concern when it threatens the stability of society as we know it. Murder and tax evasion threaten that stability. To be blunt, abortion does not. If 99% of all viable pregnancies ended in abortion, that would be one thing. But since that's nowhere near the case, our society remains viable.

About the only thing I can think of that might end elective abortions would be education. Informing our girls about how pregnancies occur, what happens during pregnancy and why they happen, and how to monitor their health and that of the child's during the pregnancy. And by making effective contraception available to anyone regardless of age. (Yes, it would mean 13 year old boys making toys out of rubbers, but 13 year old boys will listen to a smack upside the head and the admonition to, "Cut it out!"

The sad fact is, so long as we remain as we are now, the situation is not going to change. We're primates, and damn clever primates at that. We inherited certain behaviors from our distant ancestors, and it'll be our distant descendents who'll gain new behaviors better suited to our new circumstances. But don't assume those new behaviors will necessarily be what you think they should be.

In 1977 Gianna Jessen survived an abortion performed on her 17 year old mother. She survived eighteen hours in the womb in a saline solution that burned her inside and out, deprived her of oxygen and left her with cerebral palsy. Luckily for her the abortionist was not yet on duty when she was born and an attending nurse called an ambulance and rushed her to a hospital. Today Gianna, against all odds, walks, runs in marathons and sings professionally. Please read her testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution: http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/jessen.php

alan kellogg:

Yes, it's *because* things don't work perfectly 100% of the time that those engaging in "reproductive recreation" should THINK before they act...or pay the price. My daughters were told the facts of life and the consequences of sex in this manner: "If you are ready to be a parent, you're ready for sex. Otherwise, you'd better be very careful, or realize that no matter *what* you do, there's always the possibility you'll get pregnant." They've been pretty smart about the men they choose since. Abortion is no excuse for carelessness, and it's certainly a poor form of birth control.

By an amazing coincidence, I too entitled a post "Born Alive But Not For Long" on my old site 3 years ago (now offline). So I searched for it in my archives, and found that it applies here too, this is the beginning:

Testimony of Jill L. Stanek, RN to U. S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee, regarding "Born Alive Infants Protection Act of 2001":

One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down's syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end he was so quiet that I couldn't tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.

If that passage doesn't just make you want to cry, you are tougher than I am.

"Live Birth Abortion" is the practice of introducing medication that causes the cervix to open prematurely, and leads to the premature birth of a baby before it can sustain itself. Then the baby is left to die by itself on a cold table in an unattended room. Sometimes they are accidentally tossed in the garbage, though when one leaves premature babies just laying about, until they die, they are already garbage at that point, are they not?

>those engaging in "reproductive recreation" should THINK before they act...or pay the price.

So, in the end, it's all about retribution, isn't it?

A life is made of what is achieved, not what is expected.

Greatness is that which we have in wonder found lies between the "promise of his greener days and these he masters now".

Lets just look at birth control and abortions effects on society, shall we?

With the advent of birth control we were taught that fertility was a disease to be treated. Sex must be allowed and women have a right to choose just when they want to have children irregardless of when they want to have sex.

Abortion then taught us as a society that sex was more valuable and necessary than life and that children were disposable.

Child abuse has risen and is continuing to rise:

Date Total Number
1973 167,000
1979 711,142
1993 1,057,255
1996 1,220,000

U.S. Dept. H.H.S., Nat. Center of Child Abuse,Child Maltreatment 259

Also, another ironic twist, studies are coming out linking birth control for women to non-reversible hormone problems that cause sexual problems. Because birth control pills are so commonly used, it is really hard to know for sure what all of the long lasting effects are.

So, since children are our future and we are killing that at an incredible rate, I would say it is an issue that affects all members and matters in society.