Posted on 04/15/2013 4:51:53 PM PDT by jocon307
One of the strongest practical arguments in favor of the Roe regime is that abortion has been around since time immemorial and outlawing it only drove it underground, leading women to endanger themselves by seeking out the services of back-alley quacks. The Philadelphia grand jurors recounted a powerful example from their own city's history.
It was called the Mother's Day Massacre. A young Philadelphia doctor "offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women who were bused to his clinic from Chicago on Mother's Day 1972, in their second trimester of pregnancy." The women didn't know that the doctor "planned to use an experimental device called a 'super coil' developed by a California man named Harvey Karman."
A colleague of Karman's Philadelphia collaborator described the contraption as "basically plastic razors that were formed into a ball. . . . They were coated into a gel, so that they would remain closed. These would be inserted into the woman's uterus. And after several hours of body temperature, . . . the gel would melt and these . . . things would spring open, supposedly cutting up the fetus."
Nine of the 15 Chicago women suffered serious complications. One of them needed a hysterectomy. The following year, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. It would be 37 more years before the Philadelphia doctor who carried out the Mother's Day Massacre would go out of business. His name is Kermit Gosnell.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Absolutely read the whole thing.
In a way I may be doing the piece a disservice by quoting this strange story that is recounted near the conclusion. But it was such a shocking tale and I was so amazed that I had never heard it before, I just had to post it here
Again, I urge everyone to read the entire article, there is much more to it that this (another!) lurid story from the career of 'doctor' Gosnell.
That means they have root workers and quacks in mind.
Which means they probably did have Gosnell on their minds when they wrote their decision ~ they wanted more of that!
I find it ironic that abortionists insist that abortions be legal so that women wouldn’t have to seek “sleazy back alley abortions”. This looks pretty sleazy to me.
“. . . early-term abortion, or the use of an abortifacient to prevent implantation, is different in kind from a late-term abortion or infanticide. “
And some estimate that we’re at about 50 million deaths, here. That brings us, the US, to killing levels of about the same rate as Mao and Stalin combined.
Of course I do not agree with that angle.
I can allow that it SEEMS different, but as a point of scientific fact, it is not different at all.
I also want to point out that abortion is never really going to be a safe procedure. It is highly unnatural and dangerous, no matter at what point during pregnancy or by what method it is done.
Let’s face it, your body wants to stay pregnant.
I love how the right is called “anti-science” when it is the left that denies the scientific truth at every turn.
Here’s the problem with abortion - how many decent doctors really want to do abortion? Not too many.
So of course they have to try and enlist bad doctors and non-doctors to carry it out
>James Taranto has a long and thoughtful piece today on Gosnell and the socio-politics of abortion in America.
Absolutely read the whole thing. <
The comments are well worth reading. Many, many thoughtful replies are contained within.
It's finally generating a reaction by the BS media. Gosnell's name was in 10 link titles at Real Clear Politics including two WaPo stories and one in the NY Times.
Actually, between the time of implantation and when an "early-term abortion" can be committed, there is a clear developmental milestone that happens. At around 3 weeks, the neural tube starts forming. The nervous system is the center of our awareness as human beings; we sense and evaluate the world through the nervous system. Before the nervous system is present, the embryo really is a mass of cells which aren't all that different than any other mass of cells resulting from any other process. After the nervous system is present, the embryo is aware. As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty clear line, which is fully supportable through scientific argument.
I should also point out that, at the time of neural tube formation, the embryo is rapidly taking on the appearance of a human being in other respects, as well. Organs form, limbs bud, and there are distinct head and tail ends.
That is interesting. Let me first of all say that I do not support abortion at any time during pregnancy, nor for any reason. (Although I will allow that there are circumstances such as ectopic pregnancies where the loss of the fetus may be unavoidable.)
And yes, I’ve been through a couple of unplanned pregnancies, my own included (my kid, not baby me!), but I’ve never been faced with any of the “hard cases” by the grace of God. But I still think I’d find killing the baby a pretty negative “choice”.
However, I think it is very unlikely that ALL abortion will ever again be outlawed in this country.
Your “bright line” makes sense, but I think the problem is that hardly anyone knows they are pregnant that early. Unless you were trying really hard to get pregnant, who would know? Maybe not even then.
I posted the piece of course because of the story about Gosnell, but even though I don’t agree with Taranto on abortion per se, I thought he did a great job of exposing the BS euphonics the left uses in support of that cause. Maybe the best job I’ve ever seen done on that angle.
I think I made that word up “euphonics”, but I kind of like it. You know what I mean, words...just words...just pretty, dissembling words.
I will go back and read the comments, darnright, even though I never read them for that column.
In February 2004, US Senate candidate Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, sent a fund-raising letter with the "alarming news" that "right-wing politicians" had passed a law stopping doctors from performing p/b abortions (stabbing half-born babies in the neck with scissors, suctioning out their brains and crushing their skulls).
Michelle Obama considers partial-birth abortion "a legitimate medical procedure," and asked supporters for $150 to attend a luncheon for her candidate husband, b/c he would fight against "cynical ploys" to stop p/b sbortions.
(NOTE: nurses at an Illinois hospital in 1999 discovered babies were being aborted alive and placed on shelves in soiled utility rooms to die unattended.)
BACKGROUND Legislation was presented on the federal level and in various states called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. It stated all live-born babies were guaranteed the same constitutional right to equal protection, whether or not they were wanted.
BAIPA sailed through the U.S. Senate by unanimous vote. Even Sens. Clinton, Kennedy and Kerry agreed a mother's right to "choose" stopped at her baby's delivery. The bill also passed overwhelmingly in the US House.
NARAL went neutral on it. Abortion enthusiasts publicly agreed that fighting BAIPA would appear extreme. President Bush signed BAIPA into law in 2002.
But in Illinois, the state version of BAIPA repeatedly failed, thanks in large part to then-state Sen. Barack Obama. It only passed in 2005, after Obama left. Obama articulately asserted that legislation protecting live aborted babies might infringe on women's rights or abortionists' rights.
In 2003, as chairman of the next state Senate committee to which BAIPA was sent, Obama stopped it from even getting a hearing, shelving it to die much like babies were still being shelved to die in Illinois hospitals and abortion chambers.
(NOTE As chair of that same committee, state Sen Obama once abruptly ended a hearing early, right before the parents of six children killed as a result of Illinois' drivers licenses-for-bribes scandal, were to testify in favor of Choose Life license plate legislation. Obama stalled. He later killed the bill when no one was around.)
Every woman has the option of using contraceptives. Yes, I know they have a very small chance of failing. However, as far as I can tell, the biggest risk factor for "unplanned" pregnancy is being pro-abortion. The attitude that "accidents can be taken care of" leads to risky behavior and careless attitudes towards contraceptives. I have some major qualms about Plan B (for health reasons), but it *is* available to prevent pregnancy. There really is no excuse for the "unplanned" pregnancy rate to be as high as it is.
The first time I got pregnant was accidental, the second time intentional. I knew immediately that I was pregnant both times, long before the pregnancy tests turned positive. So I knew it about 1-2 weeks after implantation.
I hear what you are saying. I told my daughter that, if it came to it, she SHOULD come home pregnant.
But, I think you are way more in tune with your body than most women are.
I’ll tell you the story of how I *knew* I was pregnant. It was a beautiful spring day, that first day we get around here in the NYC area where suddenly we go from winter cold to summer hot. (We had that day last week this year!)
The day before you wore your winter coat and were glad you had one, then on the very next day it shoots up to 70 degrees and it’s amazing.
Me, my beloved and our friends were hanging around, it was Saturday afternoon on this amazing day, and somebody offered me a beer. The beer was p.e.r.f.e.c.t! And I took one sip and set it aside.
At that point I said to myself, gee I hope I’m pregnant, because otherwise it must be pretty bad!
In thinking about this now (and counting) I realize you may be more correct than I’ve realized. That was an April day (for sure it was April) and my daughter was born in mid-January. So maybe I was kind of in tune with myself!
My daughter is by far and away the best thing that ever happened in my life or her father’s life. And now she has a baby who is even better than her!
Children are a gift from God, they are meant to be treasured. Yes, they’re a lot of work at the start, but they’ll repay that many times over even before they reach the super-annoying teen-age years.
I hate how the feminists turned pregnancy and babies into “punishments”. They’ve done far worse than any prudish Victorian ever could.
You should check out another piece in the WSG, a big lib NYC lawyer watches her own son get caught up in some campus “sex abuse” kangaroo court...and she’s SHOCKED SHOCKED at what happens to him.
The comments there are perfect.
So, we’ll carry on, some days it seems like we’re winning, some days not. But as long as we keep our own sanity we’ll be OK in the long run.
Free Republic really helps with that, I’ll say!
Well, the first time I got pregnant, I really was not in a position to think about keeping him. I gave him up, and then every year, on his birthday, I would wonder how he was doing. I know now that he’s a husband and father. I just sent him a birthday card for the first time. Yay.
My challenge now is to instill a sense of sibling rivalry so that my other son, who is still at home, will feel motivated to get a job, find a girlfriend, and have his own kids.
I love them both, I always have. And I thank God every day that I was not stupid/gullible enough to fall for abortion industry sales pitches.
I’m happy for you, that must have been such a good feeling to send that card!
I’m pretty sure the sibling rivalry strategy WILL work.
I grew up with 2 younger brothers, we were all very close in age, born in 3 consecutive calendar years (yes, we’re Irish, mostly!)
I will always remember a lunch we had with my mom (I don’t know where my dad was, he was still alive but not there that day), we all 3 were grown up, in our twenties, and there we were over a very ordinary lunch vying pretty aggressively for my mom’s attention.
And grandkids are very nice, I have one now and he is just the nicest little boy. Although still in my mind my daughter’s my “baby”, I don’t think that will ever change.
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