From: jfh@rpp386.lonestar.org (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: tx.politics
Subject: Re: Anti-choice vs. Pro-abortion
Date: 30 Aug 92 17:21:34 GMT
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Distribution: tx
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Austin, Republic of Texas

In article <1992Aug28.191853.8496@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>Usually?  What percentage, and from what source?  I know several
>people who have had abortions and what you describe wasn't the case. 

This question, not being a complete sentence, makes no sense.  But I
will try to answer the question.

The number of post-2nd trimester abortions is quite significant.  While
the percentage of the total is usually very small, when you take a small
percentage of a very large number (and 1,700,000 is large as numbers go),
you wind up with a large number.  Each of these post-2nd trimester
abortions is a potential incident of what I was describing.  The two
mechanisms used for 3rd trimester abortions (and those of you with better
information will no doubt correct me ...) include saline (injections of
saline solution in the chest cavity of the child) and prostaglandin (the
mother is given a dosage of prostaglandins sufficient to induce labor).

The saline induced abortions amount to little more than killing the child
in utero.  The mother's body then finds it has a dead child inside, and
delivers the child as with a still-birth.  The child in this case often
has little or no chance of survival (though many do anyway - often with
severe respiratory and cardiac problems).  A prostaglandin induced
abortion often produces a live birth since the child is not killed while
still inside of the mother.  If the abortion is performed before 19 or
20 weeks, the child is almost certain to die because the lungs are not
capable of functioning since they lack the surfactants (chemicals which
keep the insides of the lungs from sticking together) that allow normal
breathing.  But if the abortion is performed AFTER 20 weeks, the child
is quite capable of surviving, as evidenced by the growing number of
21 week births which are being reported in the media.  The typical
method which the doctor will employ in these cases is to discard the
child into a pile of rags, which the child then suffocates in.  This is
well documented in books which I and others have cited.

>Every day?  How many a day, and from what source?

Again, your question is an incomplete sentence, but I will attempt to
answer it anyway.

The greatest source of these abortions is women who decide to have an
abortion, but who for some reason put it off.  They are then stuck with
the choice of finding a doctor willing to perform a 3rd trimester
abortion, and winding up with a child.  The clinic which OR targetted
in Kansas last year was a perfect example of such a doctor.

I believe that John Iacoleti (to use your spelling ...) put the
percentage at 5 or 10 percent of the total being 3rd trimester abortions.
If you take it at the minimum value, that makes 85,000 3rd trimester
abortions annually.  At the usual number of days in a year, that makes
232 possible survived abortions - noting that the 3rd trimester occurs
well after 21 weeks (by more than a month after the 3rd trimester
starts, for that matter).  So, I would say that 232 is a nice conservative
figure to start from.  Taking reality at 1/2 or even 1/3 of that value
still puts deaths caused by what should be illegal abortions somewhere
around the number of deaths caused by handgun related murders.

>No, because RU486 only works very early during the pregnancy.

This is not correct.  Used in appropriate dosages, RU486 will make even
late-term abortions possible in the home.
-- 
John F. Haugh II                   | "The US Government has the Midas Muffler
Ma Bell: (512) 251-2151            |  touch: everything they touch turns to
UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh |  shit."
Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org      |                  -- Jay Maynard
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