Fact Check NPR- on "Partial Birth Abortions" PLEASE

[underpants]

There is one major "fact" in this article that flies directly in the face of eveuthing I have ever read about abortions and abortions after 20 weeks specifically.

*Specifically the point that a majority of the dilation and extractions done after 20 weeks are on healthy mothers and healthy fetuses.*

Is this article correct and everything I had read before wrong?

'Partial-Birth Abortion:' Separating Fact from Spin
by Julie Rovner



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5168163


But "partial-birth" is not a medical term. It's a political one, and a highly confusing one at that, with both sides disagreeing even on how many procedures take place, at what point in pregnancy, and exactly which procedures the law actually bans.

Where does the term "partial-birth" abortion come from?

The term was first coined by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) in 1993 to describe a recently introduced medical procedure to remove fetuses from the womb. Alternately known as "dilation and extraction," or D&X, and "intact D&E," it involves removing the fetus intact by dilating a pregnant woman's cervix, then pulling the entire body out through the birth canal.

Under what health circumstances are D&X abortions performed?

There is currently no statistical information available on why "dilation and extraction" abortions are performed.

In a widely-publicized interview with The New York Times in 1997, Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, estimated that in the majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother and healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along in development.

Yet the procedure is also performed in cases where the woman's health is at risk, or when the fetus shows signs of serious abnormalities, some of which don't become apparent until late in pregnancy.

[Lerkfish]

1. my impression was the opposite as well, but I'm no expert.

:shrug:

[underpants]

6. I first checked Wikipedia but this could be edited

In fact I am pretty sure this has been at least from the last time I read it. Still this doesn't add up

Circumstances in which the procedure is performed
Intact D&X procedures are rare, carried out in roughly 0.2% (two-tenths of one percent) of all abortions in the USA. This calculates to between 2500 and 3000 per year, using data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute for the year 2000 (out of 1.3 million abortions annually). They are performed at any time between the fifth and ninth month of pregnancy for various reasons, such as:

The mother and baby are healthy, but the mother wishes to terminate her pregnancy.
The fetus is dead (in which case the procedure is not an abortion).
Fetal abnormality or other medical complications to pregnancy.
Some of the babies which fall into this later category have developed hydrocephalus, a generally untreatable condition usually leading to fatal abnormalities or permanent and severe deformity and disability. Approximately 1 in 2,000 babies develop hydrocephalus while in the womb; this is about 5,000 a year in the United States. The defect is not usually discovered until late in the second trimester of pregnancy. If a baby develops hydrocephalus, the head may expand to a size of up to 250% of the radius of a normal newborn skull, making it impossible for it to pass through the cervix. In such a case, the physician may drain the excess fluid in utero using a syringe, thereby enabling a normal, vaginal live birth. Alternately, a caesarian section can be used for the safe delivery of a hydrocephalic baby, but with a larger than usual incision. Or the fetus can be aborted by an intact D&X procedure in which suction is used to extract both the brain and the fluid, before collapsing the fetal skull and withdrawing the dead fetus.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction

[nickinSTL]

2. I smell BS

This is the opposite of everything I've heard in the past...and I suspect that it's BS.

[rodeodance]

3. k

[Warpy]

4. This is a lie.

From what I've seen, the only time a healthy fetus is aborted that late is when the mother is a little girl who thought the pregnancy would go away if she didn't think about it, you know, an eleven or twelve year old. If they consider a "mother" whose body is not yet fully mature and prepared to endure pregnancy and childbirth healthy, they might have a point, although these cases are NOT a majority of late term abortions.

I've seen quite a few late term abortions performed and they've all been for the most tragic reasons: severe deformity of the fetus or injury or severe illness in the mother. I have never seen a healthy fetus aborted from a healthy mother after the fourteenth week. I have never seen a viable fetus aborted, although I have seen the pregnancy terminated. If the fetus is viable, it's called a premature birth, and every attempt is made to preserve the life of the fetus once it's outside the uterus.

[underpants]

10. This Ron Fitzsimmons seems to have admitted to lying

This is interesting. I checked out the National Coalition of Abortion Providersand as far as my limited research shows they are legit. Ron Fitzsimmons appears to have openly admitted to lying about these "partial birth abortions" on Nightline and says in the first link below that everyone (pro-life and pro-choice) KNOWS that mostly healthy women use this to end healthy fetuses.

I am not sure how to take this. I guess I need to do more research. Either this is the suppressing of a fact in order to keep a political fight (and fundraising going) or this guy was a mole/turned. This just seems a little to complete and sudden to pass the reasonableness test.

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/PBA%20NYT%20lied.pdf

http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/RevivalMediaMythsMemo.html

[underpants]

11. BUT here is more about Fitzsimmons (still some discouraging news)

It appears that the numbers used by both sides are all over the place. This Salon article says that many of these abortions are done by women too poor to afford abortions until late in the term.

About Fitzsimmons-he seems to have come out of the blue no one had heard of him before his Nightline appearance and the lies he said he told were never aired. He no longer gives interviews. He seems to have shown up and then disappeared.

http://www.slate.com/id/2086/

Abortion Apostate
The media get suckered by Ron Fitzsimmons--again.
By Franklin Foer
Posted Sunday, March 9, 1997, at 12:30 AM ET

But the media are being as credulous about Fitzsimmons' new story as they were about his old one. For starters, why did it take him 16 months to retract lies he claims to have immediately regretted?

Then there's the underplayed fact that Fitzsimmons' mendacity could not possibly have influenced the national debate, because the segments of the Nightline interview in which Fitzsimmons says he lied through his teeth never aired!

You might think, from the attention paid to Ron Fitzsimmons' recantation, that he was a major player in the abortion debate. But most reporters who cover abortion--to say nothing of pro-choice insiders--say they had never heard of him. "This guy came out of the blue," says an official at one major pro-choice group. At best, Fitzsimmons is a B-league lobbyist. His group, a trade association, represents 220 clinics (but not Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States). While it aims to protect abortion rights, its agenda is mostly more mundane. Right now, its biggest task is negotiating contracts with pharmaceutical companies.



HERE is the part that is so discouraging.

Abortion practitioners have publicly admitted the same for years. Martin Haskell, the Ohio doctor who developed the procedure, asserted in one paper that 80 percent of his patients choose it because it is safer and more convenient than the alternatives. There was no medical necessity. The other leading late-term abortionist, the now-deceased Dr. James McMahon, presented similar statistics before a congressional committee two years ago. These two doctors together performed 500 late-term abortions in one year, and there are at least eight other doctors who administer it--obviously, this adds up to more than 500 IDEs a year nationwide.

[CornField]

17. "done by women too poor to afford abortions until late in the term"

That just doesn't past the smell test either. The reason is that the further along a pregnancy is, the more an abortion costs.

An early term abortion (before 12 weeks) runs about $500-$600. In addition, there are pools of money throughout the U.S. which are used to help lower income women pay for abortions. I seriously doubt women are turned away at such an early stage due to an inability to pay.

Even if that were the case, however, women who were not able to afford an early abortion would not be able to afford a later abortion either. The cost escalates.

[Nabia2004]

5. NPR is emulating FOX again

I no longer listen to NPR. This type of BS has replaced the real news.

[azurnoir]

7. What they're not

saying is that the majority of late term abortions that are preformed on "healthy women" are preformed on "women" under 14 years old ie girls who for various reasons hid the pregnancy until they no longer could.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I always thought the procedure to be very rare in occurrence.

I found this info, but I can't vouch for it's reliability:

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/reproductive_rights/58149

[CornField]

9. Big lie

I'm one of the very few people who have had a so-called Partial Birth Abortion (it's medically known as a D&X). Of myself and the other handful of women I've personally met who have had this done, each and every one of us didn't want it. That is, we wanted to have a child, but discovered later in the pregnancy that our children had terminal defects. In my case, our son had numerous neural tube defects (anencephaly, spina bifida and others). Basically everything which should have been growing within my son's body was floating freely in the amniotic fluid.

By the time I understood that I must have a D&X, he had already died in utereo and infection had begun. Without the D&X procedure, I would have died. Remember that when someone begins spouting off about D&X procedures: I WOULD HAVE DIED. My oldest daughter would have been left without a mother and my husband would have been left without a wife.

In total, D&X procedures account for less than 1 percent of all abortions. Of that one percent, less than 1 percent take place on healthy moms and healthy pregnancies. What those who oppose "partial birth abortions" are truly opposing is an almost unimaginable minute number -- something like .00008 percent of all abortions. The remainder of D&X procedures are done because there is a real and true danger to the mother or because the child will never live (not just a quality of life issue).

If the D&X procedure ban is signed into law without a qualifying statement to allow for health of the mother, women -- women who only wanted to have a child and found themselves faced with fetal demise -- will die. I would have been one of them. I know seven other women who would have also been one of them.

[underpants]

13. Thank you for your personal story

see posts #10 and #11 this explains some of the NPR source but has some rather dubious info too.

[mzteris]

12. all the stats you probably ever wanted to know

http://www.agi-usa.org/sections/abortion.php

EDIT: here's what I found on there:

What about dilation and extraction (D&X) abortions?

Dilation and extraction (D&X) abortions are rare. An estimated 31 providers reported 2,200 D&X abortions in 2000. Overall, approximately 0.17% of all abortions performed in 2000 were done via D&X. The majority of these procedures were performed in the second trimester, previability. <49: Finer LB and Henshaw SK, Abortion incidence and services in the United States in 2000, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2003)[br />


How many women have so-called "partial birth" abortions?

The term "partial-birth" abortion does not refer to any particular medical procedure. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the term is not recognized by the medical community. <48: Statement on so-called "partial birth abortion" laws by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, news release, Feb. 13, 2002, <http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr02-13-02.cfm>, accessed Mar. 29, 2004.>

[Yupster]

15. If the majority of D&X abortions

are performed in the second trimester, then why are so many DU'ers insisting we start calling them "late term abortions?"

Wouldn't second tri-mester be mid-term abortions?

[JitterbugPerfume]

14. It is a recipe for disaster

when the government intrudes into medical decisions

and like it or not , it is a medical decision and womens lives are at stake (like our own Cornfield)

I have never met a woman who had an abortion (of any kind) for FUN

[underpants]

16. Kicking for the West Coast crowd

Just getting up and firing up the DU