{"id":759,"date":"2004-04-04T07:52:06","date_gmt":"2004-04-04T15:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/04\/04\/how-pro-lifers-view-the-pba-issue\/"},"modified":"2004-04-04T07:52:06","modified_gmt":"2004-04-04T15:52:06","slug":"how-pro-lifers-view-the-pba-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"How pro-lifers view the PBA issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s always interesting to read After Abortion<\/a>, if only as a sort of portal into an alternate universe, in which pro-choicers are evil evil subhuman demons who only favor reproductive rights because we just hate babies that much<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This comment by After Abortion reader “Selma” <\/a>really impressed me for how much it got wrong in so few words. It seems worth blogging about because so many pro-lifers seem to share Selma’s mistakes. Let’s take a look:<\/p>\n

The AMA says: “According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about intact D&X.”<\/div>\n

This supports the pro-lifer belief that intact D&X is absolutely, positively never <\/i>needed (and thus, women won’t be hurt if it is banned). Unfortunately, Selma’s quote lies by omission – she’s only quoted part of the paragraph. Here’s the whole paragraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which intact D&X is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about intact D&X. The AMA recommends that the procedure not be used unless alternative procedures pose materially greater risk to the woman. The physician must, however, retain the discretion to make that judgment, acting within standards of good medical practice and in the best interest of the patient. <\/div>\n

Quite a difference those extra two sentences make, don’t you think? In fact, the AMA (which has gone back and forth on the PBA ban) is, in this statement, taking the opposite point of view from Selma. They’re saying that there may be some times when alternative procedures could be riskier <\/i>for women, and that doctors need to be able to have intact D&X as an option.<\/p>\n

Selma is like a movie ad which quotes a reviewer as saying “A great movie!,” when in reality the reviewer wrote “if you want to see a great movie, avoid seeing this stinker.”<\/p>\n

Anyhow, Selma goes on:<\/p>\n

If pro-choicers really cared about women’s safety, they would provide scientific evidence that their preferred methods are safe.<\/div>\n

But pro-choicers don’t have “preferred methods,” in the sense of liking one abortion procedure better or worse than another. That pro-lifers like Selma think pro-choicers “prefer” intact D&X shows how utterly ignorant they are of what pro-choicers think. Pro-choicers don’t favor any single medical procedure; we just favor a process in which women and their doctors have the freedom to choose what’s best for themselves. (Pro-lifers, in contrast, want the choices to be made by the federal government.)<\/p>\n

Selma goes on:<\/p>\n

I think the main reason abortionists have tried to defend partial birth abortion (aka D&X) is simply because they’re easier for the abortionist than late-term D&E. It has nothing to do with caring about women.<\/div>\n

Of course, pro-choicers don’t care about women; we’re all unfeeling, evil demons. Boy, Selma’s sure got our number.<\/p>\n

But another misconception here is more interesting: Selma believes that “parital-birth abortion” and “D&X” are the same thing. That’s not true. Here’s what intact D&X means, according to the AMA<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The term ‘partial birth abortion’ is not a medical term. The AMA will use the term “intact dilatation and extraction”(or intact D&X) to refer to a specific procedure comprised of the following elements: deliberate dilatation of the cervix, usually over a sequence of days; instrumental or manual conversion of the fetus to a footling breech; breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and partial evacuation of the intracranial contents of the fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus. This procedure is distinct from dilatation and evacuation (D&E) procedures more commonly used to induce abortion after the first trimester.<\/div>\n

That’s what an intact D&X is, according to medical authorities. Compare that to how pro-lifers officially define “partial-birth abortion”:<\/a><\/p>\n

`(1) the term `partial-birth abortion’ means an abortion in which–<\/p>\n

`(A) the person performing the abortion deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and<\/p>\n

`(B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus;<\/p><\/div>\n

So an intact D&X, by definition<\/i>, is feet-first (“footling”). “Partial-birth” abortion, on the other hand, includes head-first deliveries. Why is that important? Because second trimester D&E abortions can be head-first; late-term D&X abortions, in contrast, are never <\/i>head-first. By sticking in the “head-first” language, pro-lifers are trying to sneak a ban of second trimester D&E abortions (the most common and safest procedure for women who need second-trimester abortions) into law – and claim that they’re just trying to ban late-term D&X abortions. They could never get the votes to ban second-trimester D&Es honestly, so they do it by lying instead.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the specific way intact D&X abortions kill the fetus – by removing the contents of the skull – isn’t part of the “partial birth abortion” definition. Instead, “parital birth abortions” forbid any “overt act” that would kill the fetus. Again, by being vague, the pro-lifers get to pass a ban that would in fact apply to many different abortion procedures, but they claim they’re only after D&X.<\/p>\n

Finally, the medical definition of intact D&X specifically distinguishes D&X from D&E abortions. Of course, the partial birth ban doesn’t do that, because the entire point is to include <\/i>D&E abortions.<\/p>\n

I don’t think “Selma” is deliberately lying – she’s just parroting what the pro-life leadership says. Nonetheless, it’s a lie to claim that “intact D&X” and “partial-birth” abortions are the same thing..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always interesting to read After Abortion, if only as a sort of portal into an alternate universe, in which pro-choicers are evil evil subhuman demons who only favor reproductive rights because we just hate babies that much. This comment … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-partial-birth-abortion","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}