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Partial-Birth Abortion: Sounds “worse than it is”?

August 8, 2009 by Standing on Truth  
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The other day I was at a library book sale. . .my heaven on earth.  I was browsing in the Politics section for that perfect find–a new release hardcover from one of my favorite authors or commentators and all for the bargain price of $2 (never found one, by the way).  A woman and her friend were across the row of books from me and I overheard the following statement:

“Partial-birth abortion is just a made up term in order to sound worse than it really is.”

I’m not kidding.

And I wanted so desperately to ask her, “Just what part of the partial-birth procedure is not EXACTLY as the name (aka “made up term”) implies?”  But I didn’t.  And now I’m blogging about it (venting about it) here.

I understand that not everyone accepts the name of this procedure–the AMA, for example, or Planned Parenthood (big surprise), which calls it an IDX, Intact Dilation and Extraction.

But what I take issue with is the complete spin that pro-choice proponents, activists, politicians and abortion providers perform here.  If you are upset that pro-lifers are calling it partial-birth abortion (upset that we are calling apples apples instead of papayas), then tell me exactly and specifically where a partial-birth abortion is NOT a partial-birth abortion.

Here is a description of the partial-birth abortion procedure, as appears of the National Right to Life website: 

“This procedure is used to abort women who are 20 to 32 weeks pregnant — or even later into pregnancy.* Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist reaches into the uterus, grabs the unborn baby’s leg with forceps, and pulls the baby into the birth canal, except for the head, which is deliberately kept just inside the womb. (At this point in a partial-birth abortion, the baby is alive.) Then the abortionist jams scissors into the back of the baby’s skull and spreads the tips of the scissors apart to enlarge the wound. After removing the scissors, a suction catheter is inserted into the skull and the baby’s brains are sucked out. The collapsed head is then removed from the uterus.”

If you would like a definition from a neutral group, rather than pro-life advocates, here is the definition put out by the Congress in the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act:

“The Congress finds and declares the following:  (1) A moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion–an abortion in which a physician deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living, unborn child’s body until either the entire baby’s head is outside the body of the mother, or any part of the baby’s trunk  past the navel is outside the body of the mother and only the head remains inside the womb, for the purpose of performing an overt act (usually the puncturing of the back of the child’s skull and removing the baby’s brains) that the person knows will kill the partially delivered infant, performs this act, and then  completes delivery of the dead infant–is a gruesome and inhumane procedure that is never medically necessary and should be prohibited.”

Wikipedia says, “The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the terms ‘partial-birth abortion’ and ‘intact dilation and extraction’ are basically synonymous” (see original source here).

Do I need to go on?  Would I have had to show this woman pictures and diagrams of partial-birth abortions to prove to her that babies really are partially born before they are brutally aborted? 

I get frustrated when people would rather believe political spin than use their God-given intellect to acknowledge the facts.  I get frustrated when I see on people’s Facebook page the day after Dr. Tiller, the late-term abortionist, was murdered, “flags at half staff in honor of a hero.”  I get frustrated when people would rather hold on to things they incorrectly think are their “rights” rather than acknowledge that these innocent babies are born in God’s image and it’s their right to be protected.  But I have to remember that God calls me to love, even those people that frustrate me.  And I know that as much as he hates abortion, and as much as I believe he wants us to stand for truth, defend life and get actively involved to varying degrees, I also know that he also (not instead, though) wants us to love.

So I press on to love, even though I’m frustrated.

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    • tyler
      Check out more articles like this at http://abortion-poop.blogspot....
    • Robert F.
      To Lina:

      George Tiller was no hero. God will judge what he really was. The real heroes are the men and woman who adopt babies from unwanted pregnancies. First of all, irresponsible people need to start making responsible choices (if they don't know how to keep from getting pregnant they need to be told). Secondly, there are couples that are aching to adopt children. Give them a chance to adopt babies of unwanted pregnancies.

      Pregnancies of rape or tubal pregnancies (mother's life in danger) each amount to less than 1%. If you think that George Tiller was only aborting those babies, you've got your head in the sand. Wake up.

      And please don't call viable babies, "maybe people" or "pretend people". It shows your ignoronace.

      We'll pray for you. Seems like you need it.

      Robert F.

    • Lina
      George Tiller WAS a hero. He helped women. Who are actual people. Not maybe people. Not pretend people. Not potential people. Real people, with real suffering. You blind your eyes to the pain of women and familes who very much wanted their pregnancies, who very much wanted a baby, and had to seek Dr. Tiller's help to end a catastrophically failed attempt at new life. Instead of seeing their pain, you stand up and get all sentimental and rosy-eyed about What Might Have Been. Your fairy tales never feature babies with no brains, babies with all their internal organs outside their bodies, babies allergic to their own selves. And your fairy tales say that the grieving would-be mothers of those babies don't exist.

    • Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that what you say is true. How does it help a parent to spend their lives knowing that in a time of stress, they let somebody stab their baby in the heart with a drug that the ACLU is fighting to keep people from injecting into anesthetized, condemned criminals? That they had the baby put to death without ever having known what it was to be held and loved?

      Tiller was a vulture who found out he could get rich taking advantage of other people's shock and fight-or-flight response.

      REAL care for those women would have been perinatal hospice, to help them cherish every moment with their babies.

      What kind of sick mind does it take to think that you're HELPING a woman by killing her baby and having her spend three days in a motel room while it rots inside her, then come back and give birth in a TOILET.


    • Although I had to delete your last line (what I don't understand is why disagreeing has to be so hateful and so personal--I cannot condone that kind of language in what is to be a civil and Christ-centered debate on this site), I decided to post your comment even though I disagree.

      I ask you, just what percentage of Tiller's abortions were for tragic situations like you describe? And how is "tragic" defined? There is overwhelming evidence that it was a very small percentage. You have to remember that abortion is, in part, a business. . .meaning, to make money. As tragic as those circumstances of babies with deformities and life-threatening issues are, I am not willing to play God and I disagree that they were "catastrophically failed attempts at new life"--if the attempt at new life had failed, what was Tiller "needed" for in your opinion? Those are lives just the same and you are dabbling in something dangerous when you say you know where to draw the line between what is a worthwhile life and what is not. Only God has that role.

      I invite you to look into the facts about the business side of abortion and understand that as a pro-life advocate, I can very much sympathize with women and families who are in the situation above, but also recognize that it is a very small part of abortion and I am not willing to throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. And as for myself, I do care (contrary to your uninformed comments) for those women in desperate situations like that--and I back up my care and concern with my time and money.

      Just a few sites that give you another side of the story:
      http://www.lifesitenews.com/ld...
      http://www.abortiontv.com/Meth...
      http://www.montfort.org.br/ind...
    • We can call it "Intrauterine cranial decompression", the name given to it by its originator, Jame McMahon.

      We can call it "Dilation and Extraction" or "D&X", the name give to it by Martin Haskell, the guy who popularized the practice.

      We can call it "stopping in the middle of a breach forceps delivery to stab the baby in the head and suck out his brain", which is what it is.

      We can call it "The Procedure Formerly Known as Prince".

      None of which changes the mean-spiritedness of stopping in the middle of delivering a child to kill him, simply because his mother wants him to die.

      Pretty that up, if you can, abortion advocates.
    • We can call it "Intrauterine cranial decompression", the name given to it by its originator, Jame McMahon.

      We can call it "Dilation and Extraction" or "D&X", the name give to it by Martin Haskell, the guy who popularized the practice.

      We can call it "stopping in the middle of a breach forceps delivery to stab the baby in the head and suck out his brain", which is what it is.

      We can call it "The Procedure Formerly Known as Prince".

      None of which changes the mean-spiritedness of stopping in the middle of delivering a child to kill him, simply because his mother wants him to die.

      Pretty that up, if you can, abortion advocates.
    • aredvoice
      Just found your website today and have been reading thru your posts. I will be coming back here more often & have added it to my blog roll. Thank you for your great work!
    • Thank you for visiting me and for your support and encouragement. I really appreciate it!
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