Late Term Abortion

Stop Murdering the Defenseless

In most states in our nation today abortion is illegal when the fetus becomes a viable human being, meaning that it can survive outside of its mother's womb. This is often referred to as a late-term abortion, which usually occurs between the 24th and 28th weeks of a pregnancy. One of the problems associated with the ban on late term abortions in the United States is that viability is not defined. That is, there is no set week of gestation where a fetus is said to be viable. Late term abortions are performed for several reasons: sometimes the woman was not aware she was pregnant until the third trimester, some fetal abnormalities can not be detected until late in pregnancy, a mother may become too ill to carry her baby to term or sometimes it is just a choice the woman may make that for some reason or another she does not wish to continue on with the pregnancy. Although according to Susan Dwyer, a professor of philosophy and author of many books, late or third-trimester abortions "account for less than one percent of all pregnancies terminated in the United States, about six hundred per year" (56), the process of late term abortion, the emotional and physical pain suffered by the mother and the pain experienced by the baby is completely inhumane and must be banned completely.

Third-trimester or late-term abortions are usually procedures that take two to three days to complete. The abortion itself is performed on the second or third day once the cervix has dilated wide enough to ensure that the fetus can be safely extracted or expelled. In most cases, fetal demise occurs the first day of laminaria insertion, being "a cone of dried seaweed that swells as it absorbs water and thus dilates the cervix non-traumatically in preparation for induced abortion or induced labor" (Dwyer 89). The drugs that are used during this procedure are digoxin and lidocaine, which are inserted directly into the uterus. Once dilation is complete, late-term abortions usually take two to four hours and are performed with IV sedation or a general anesthetic. Some babies though are not deceased before the abortion begins. Registered Nurse Brenda Shafer recounts a particular abortion where the doctor, "delivered the baby's body and the arms-- everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus. The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp" (Johnson). If a newborn baby was treated this way it would be considered murder and so should this. As pointed out by Mary E. Williams, those that are against late-term abortions maintain that "it is a grisly and immoral procedure akin to infanticide" and as physicians M. Leroy Sprang and Mark G. Neerhoff claim, "the procedure is hardly ever performed as a result of a medical emergency" for "the vast majority are done not in response to extreme medical conditions but on healthy mothers and healthy fetuses" (13). Most mothers who are unable to carry their babies to full term due to illness or injury would be offered a much more caring and humane way to end the pregnancy. Dr. Curtis Cook, an OB/GYN physician in West Michigan stated that partial birth abortion "is never necessary to preserve the life or the fertility of the mother, and may in fact threaten her health or well-being or future fertility. In my practice, I see these rare, unusual cases that come to most generalists' offices once in a lifetime-- they all come into our office. We see these every day...The presence of fetal disabilities or fetal anomalies are not a reason to have a termination of pregnancy to preserve the life of the mother-- they do not threaten the life of the mother in any way.... [and] where these rare instances do occur, they do not require the death of the baby or the fetus prior to the completion of the delivery" (Johnson). Most of the time a mother would be given a chance to deliver her baby vaginally and then the baby would be wrapped up and held by the parents for the remainder of its time.

One important area concerning late-term abortions is the trauma experienced by the mother during and after the procedure. The trauma is both physical and emotional and may be experienced for years. There is actually a syndrome called Post Abortion Trauma Syndrome, this syndrome causes depression and actually increased suicidal tendencies for women who have had abortions. "Many women are known to have committed suicide 20 or more years after having an abortion as a direct consequence of abortion. This generally is accomplished only after years of suicidal thoughts and many failed attempts" (Life Enterprises Unlimited). It is also thought that abortion may cause an increase in child abuse to other children of the mother due to emotional trauma. Renee Nicely of New Jersey beat her three-year-old son to death the day after her abortion. "She told the court psychiatrist that she "knew that abortion was wrong" and "I should