Would you assist in abortions?

Laura2000mi · May 7, 2004

I found this pro-life debate with a search.
http://www.equip.org/free/DA020-4.htm

Thank you very much for the link. It is going to take me a long time to digest it. Deep stuff!

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · May 7, 2004

I'll have to bookmark the site to read later, right now i'm to my eyeballs in drug reports.

julieftRN · May 13, 2004

Peg, I think you and I have been through this. To me, there is a really big difference between a living baby and an 8 week old embryo, so my beliefs on how a baby should be treated are different than how an embryo should be treated. I don't consider an embryo a baby or alive since it isn't at viability, so I don't consider it killing. I don't believe in abortion after viability and most states have laws to prevent this except in cases where the health of the fetus or the mother are at stake.
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Just a question, but what would you consider viable at 9 wks as opposed to 8 wks? Just curious.

fergus51 · May 13, 2004

Just a question, but what would you consider viable at 9 wks as opposed to 8 wks? Just curious.

No. Viability is a term used to describe a fetus at the age where it can be born and survive with medical care. So until the 20s (23 weeks and up is considered viable in most hospitals), it isn't viable. As far as I am concerned, abortion before viability is ok.

I must have missed all the extra posts on this topic since the last time.

Deb123j · May 14, 2004

I would definately not assist in an abortion! I believe it is wrong! But that is my opinion and I try not to harass others with my opinion if it's not asked for.

However, I do have a questions for those who are pro-choice. What exactly are the statistics of abortions done to women whose lives are in danger, women who have been raped and girls molested? I'm not trying to be argumentative, but what I've heard in the past is it's like maybe 2-5% of abortions.

Peace y'all!!!

Jaaaman · May 14, 2004

"Pro-choice" arguments

"'Fetal tissue' is no more a human being, than a bolt is a Buick."

Virtually every secular medical book and even a senate hearing declare human life begins the instant of conception.

A report from Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 1981 reads: "Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being--a being is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."

A split second after conception, this one-celled forty-six-chromosomed human being possesses everything it needs to grow into an adult human except time.

It's not a blueprint of a human being. It's not a part of a human being. It is a human being. Never has a bolt grown into a Buick!

Because words are so important in this debate, Dr. Jack Wilke, the former director of "National Right to Life," warns pro-lifers to avoid emotion-laden words like "murder" and "baby." He urges the use of "kill" and "human life." Pro-choicers can engage in wordplay arguing that a "baby" is not "murdered," but cannot refute--with any scientific credibility--that abortions do indeed kill human life.

A close cousin to the "it's not human life" argument is . . .

"A woman has a right to choose what she will with her own body."

Again, this pro-choice/pro-abortion argument reveals ignorance of human physiology or, again, the perpetuation of a deliberate lie.

The life growing within the mother is not her body.

It has a very different chromosome structure with a separate circulatory system and often a different blood type. There's even a fifty-fifty chance it's a different gender!

"A woman should be able to choose life in her medical care"

Only 2 percent of the one and a half million abortions performed each year in the United State were for the express purpose of saving the mother's life. The overwhelming number of abortions performed do not "save" anyone's life.

"An abortion is less dangerous than childbirth for very young girls."

The New York Times quotes The Journal of Youth and Adolescence finding's "that teenage mothers, given proper care, have the least complications in childbirth. The younger the mother, the better the birth. [if there are more problems,] society makes it so."

In my book Sex is Not a Four-letter Word, I list twelve studies from medical journals that list such complications from abortion as pelvic inflammatory disease, problems with next pregnancy, damage to cervix, and severe blood loss to name a few.

I also note that a University of Minnesota study, tracking the psychological effects five to ten years after an abortion, revealed that 81 percent of women having an abortion became preoccupied with the aborted child, 75 percent had flashbacks of the actual operation, 54 percent had nightmares, 33 percent reported visions of aborted child visiting them and 25 percent experienced hallucinations related to the abortion.

Contrary to the pro-choice/pro-abortion rhetoric, abortions are not always "simple and safe" operations."

Abortion should be legal because of rape and incest."

Only a fraction of 1 percent of rape and incest victims become pregnant. That means that for every abortion for rape or incest, there are 25,000 for convenience.

And, we must consider what is best for the rape or incest victim. It's the vicious attack and violation that causes emotional damage--not the pregnancy itself. Will additional physical and mental health threats noted earlier result by subjecting her to an abortion?

"Abortion reduces child abuse by making each child a 'wanted child.'"

If that is the case, we should see a reduction in reported cases after Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. In 1960, before the Supreme Court decision, five thousand child abuse cases were reported in New York City. Fifteen years following Roe v. Wade, twenty-five thousand cases were reported in New York City--a 500 percent increase!

National statistics reveal that child abuse is sky-rocketing across the United States as well. Over 167 thousand cases were reported in 1973, 711 thousand in 1979, and 929 thousand in 1982, and in 1989 nearly two and a half million!

To be fair, there are many possible explanations for the incredible statistical increase: more people willing to report abuse, more accurate reporting of abuse, stress of economic conditions, increase in drug use in adults, the pressures of single parenting, etc.

But one possible cause could be that abortion creates the mentality of "disposable children." If children are viewed as having no value in the womb, it follows they may be viewed with little value outside the womb.

However complex the causes of child abuse, pro-abortionists cannot argue that abortion on demand has reduced child abuse when there has been a 1,400 percent statistical increase since 1973!

fergus51 · May 14, 2004

I appreciate the article but it is very one sided and ignores the other arguments.

For instance, it says human life begins at conception because it has a certain number of chromosomes, but glosses over all the things it doesn't have that make a human. It doesn't have a brain, a heart, a circulatory system... and even when it has those things, it can't survive outside of a uterus. (How many people do you know that need to live inside my body to survive?). It glosses over "time" as though it is completely meaningless. Time does matter. A zygote can become a person, but it isn't one. Potential and reality are different things.

The argument about safety is also misleading. He as much as admits that young women don't have healthy pregnancies because of social factors (prenatal care, nutrition, etc), but then focuses on the psychological implications of abortion and ignores those associated with pregnancy. My birth mother saw a therapist for years relating to the trauma of a teenage pregnancy and giving me up for adoption.

The argument he makes about rape and incest victims is offensive ("I know what's best for them"). I don't really care what he thinks is best for these women, and it's really easy for someone who will never be raped to claim they know best isn't it? Rape and incest survivors can make their own decisions. They've had enough control stripped from them already.

minnieme104 · May 14, 2004

My opinion on this whole abortion issue is that if my job as a nurse required that I look after a patient who has had an abortion or is going to have one that is fine. I am personally against abortion but I would not inflict my opinions upon anyone else, and nor would I not care for someone because of their values and beliefs. Everyone should be equal.

llgRN · May 18, 2004

Hate to be cavilier, but now...really...snuffing out kids must be ok somehow if you want it to be? Is that what it comes down to? Do you really think that it is ok to SNUFF out lets say a two year old baby?.....how about a one yr old?....6mths?......snuff them out just right before birth?....the moment before that and the moment before that? same genetic material in all places...just needs time to eat and grow and of course some stages live in different environments....

Sorry to all my colleagues...I really am not wanting to personally attack someone....just wanting to protect innocent lives. Without naming names or copying a part of anyone else's post....My husband also was adopted, he has dealt with many different feelings over the years related to that...he is a brillant man...chemical engineer...can you imagine the loss to this world if his birth mom had decided to snuff him out? Can you imagine vast amount of loss of genetic material that would have become maybe another Einstien...or another street worker....or policeman....or....healthcare worker or ....hamburger short order cook....? Everyone has a place....role.........I commend any women who dispite difficult situation, carries the prescious life to term. even though they themselves need to have therapy. Most people that I know that have actually place a baby for adoption, have the satisfaction that when faced with a difficult...maybe embarassing situation...they CHOSE LIFE for their zygote. This satisfaction helps them go on in life, knowing they made a very unselfish decision....

The answer to the starting question was about wether we would assist with abortions...and NO WAY would I ever again assist in one...I did work in a clinic along time ago that performed them...I was the insurance secretary...but after seeing small feet with legs attached, but ripped off the little body...with a ribcage floating in the rest of the fluid (the clinic only did 1st trimester AB) ...that was enough for me........

Now this may make you think I am "back-peddling"....BUT...If I got floated to another unit and there was a post AB patient, I would provide the same care that I would anyone....they are really needing support....

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · May 18, 2004

Being rude to others is not a good way to introduce yourself to this BB.

ChrisA · May 18, 2004

I'm a male. It's not for me to say what a woman's personal ethical or moral position should be on this issue. On such a complicated issue, I can trust that the pt knows what they're doing, and even if they don't seem to have their wits about them, it's not for me to say. If I was assigned to it, I'd help.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · May 18, 2004

If someone finds it necessary to personally attack someone to express their own opinion, then they've obviously proven the validity of their point (NOT!). :rolleyes: