Late Term Abortion

31.4% of women who’d had second-trimester abortion had at least one prior second-trimester abortion

 

 

By Dave Andrusko
Two posts that I read today shed additional—and very important—light on what are called “late” abortions.
The first, written by Sarah Terzo for Life Action News, appeared yesterday under the provocative—and completely accurate—headline, “Nearly one third of late-term abortion patients had a late-term abortion before.”

To state the obvious, if this number came from a pro-life source it would be instantly dismissed. In fact the figure—31.4%–originated in a January 2006 study in “Obstetrics and Gynecology” titled, “Risk Factors Associated with Presenting for Abortion in the Second Trimester.”
Most of the study’s authors were affiliated in some way with the University of California at San Francisco. National Right to Life’s Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon aptly described UCSF as “America’s abortion training academy.” So, no pro-life tilt here!

According to Terzo’s analysis, “The study surveyed hundreds of women to discover the reasons why they had second-trimester abortions (abortions done between 14 and 27 weeks).”
The Obstetrics and Gynecology study found that 31.4% of women who came in for a second-trimester abortion had had at least one previous second-trimester abortion. Referring to the women in the study, Terzo writes, “Nearly one third of the women who had second-trimester abortions [and] became pregnant again waited until the second trimester a second time, and then aborted again.”
Among the discoveries, according to Terzo, is that

· 45% had trouble finding an abortion provider

· 37% were unsure of date of last menstrual period

· 30% had difficulty deciding on abortion

The other post comes from the invaluable Wesley J. Smith. As NRL News Today has reported dozens of times, eugenic abortions are extremely common in Britain with the net for what qualifies as being “seriously handicapped” cast very widely.
Last week we ran on a story about a major new United Kingdom Parliamentary report which concluded that “The government must review the [1967] Abortion Act and end the discrimination against unborn disabled children” (“UK Parliamentary report: Reform Abortion Act to end discrimination against disabled babies”).
Wesley picks up on troubling report based on a later story in the Daily Telegraph which demonstrated “that pregnancies are being terminated up until full term simply because of cosmetic flaws”—including cleft lip or club foot.

 

What you read in the story about the report, written by the Telegraph’s John Bingham, is both deeply unsettling and encouraging in the sense that the report is the product of a committee that included representatives of all three major parties and Baroness Hollins, the outgoing president of the British Medical Association. The report “is calling for the limits to be equalised between the two categories of termination or for disability abortion to be eliminated altogether,” Bingham writes.

“If not, it is calling for full post-mortem examinations to be carried out on all foetuses aborted after 24 weeks to prevent the rules being bent.

“The committee, which heard from medical bodies, campaign groups, doctors, lawyers and parents, said that a majority of those who gave evidence viewed abortion on disability grounds as ‘discriminatory.’

“’It is time to review the moral, ethical, legal and practical framework within which this provision of the Abortion Act operates and how the law applies to a foetus beyond the age of viability,’ the report says.”

The commission, Bingham wrote, “heard claims that the way the law was being applied amounted to a form of ‘eugenics’ and was no longer fit for a ‘civilised society.’”

Source: NRLC News