1 To get to the nitty gritty technical differences:

Partial Birth Abortions are not as horrible as many make them out to be. The methods we've been shown are old fashioned and not really performed anymore. Instead, they usually inject the baby with sodium chloride while it is still in utero and this kills the fetus; then labor is induced and the dead fetus is partially born- the doctor finishes the process with forceps and handling of the fetus. It's still just as wrong, just not as barbaric as the methods we've all been brainwashed with. I have to speak to the facts of this. I would be disingenuous if I didn't.

Very few doctors will perform a PBA after 29 weeks.

In the cases that are done after that point, it is almost always done on a woman who has been in a life threatening accident or other trauma. The fetus is usually dead at this point and a caesarean section is done. Some times the fetus is still alive. In the cases where allowing the pregnancy to continue would threaten a mothers life (one in a 50 MILLION chance...)again, they inject SC into the fetus and do the CS. When a woman has experienced a severe medical trauma to her body and is in a state of septic shock or in a coma, the body tends to protect the fetus' life over the mother's life. A decision has to be made. Modern medicine is OFTEN able to keep these babies alive now. And more often than not, women in life threatening medical conditions, such as a coma, can carry the pregnancy to full term and a healthy baby is usually delivered by CS.

2 I'm with you Ogre, but personally I would love to see some attorney (and I'm not far from earning that title) use this as precedent to COMPLETELY OUTLAW PBA's, but then again, I am just an evil
Republican, and you know that means I will beat my wife into submission, leave her home (pregnant and barefoot) and never allow her to leave the house without me (oh, wait, that isn't the U.S. that is what IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN were like before WE FREED THOSE PEOPLE), but that requires logical thought, and that just can't be allowed, can it now.

3 My wife suffered a still birth at 28 weeks, i can assure you that the child was quite well formed, and was large enough to where it took two hands to hold his body... by that point in the pregnancy, we are talking 7 months along, 95% or more of the babies could survive outside the womb. also, i cant imagine how any mother could make the choice to do something like that to something that has been moving and hiccuping and kicking inside her... a woman that could do that really has no conscience... the ONLY case i could see that being justified in would be in a situation where the child cant be C-sectioned and the mother is in a situation where she will die if something is not treated before the baby is born... for example a mother has cancer and MUST undergo chemo within the next couple weeks or she dies... then it would be a choice between the baby or both.... not an easy choice, but i would imagine that those cases would be EXTREMELY rare

4 I understand the various procedures, Raven, thanks for the education -- but can anyone explain the difference between that procedure and what this woman did? Is it simply because the baby presumably suffered when it was drowned, but when a doctor does it, it doesn't suffer?

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