Whats so special about Partial Birth Abortion?

[Luke T.]

My understanding of Roe v. Wade is that the Supreme Court left it open to states to legalize or illegalize third trimester abortions. So is/are there any state(s) which has/have illegalized third trimester abortions? Or maybe the easier question is to ask if third trimester abortions are legal in any state(s).

 

[Yahweh]

Hmmm. I wonder what is more common. A partial birth abortion, or a rape pregnancy. The prolifers usually toss out "rape preggys are rare" as a counter to the abortion for rape victims argument.

From www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/slides/4015OPH1_03_Stanek.ppt+rape+pregnancy+site:.gov&hl=en]this Power Point Presentation[/url]:

Teenagers who have been raped or abused also experience higher rates of pregnancy — in a sample of 500 teen mothers, two-thirds had histories of sexual and physical abuse, primarily by adult men averaging age 27 (Males, 1993).

“Pregnancy may also be a sign of ongoing sexual abuse; that is, the pregnancy may result directly from an episode of abuse. Boyer and Fine4 found that of 535 young women who were pregnant, 44% had been raped, of whom 11% became pregnant as a result of the rape. One half of these young women with rape histories were raped more than once.”

A conservative estimate of rape-induced pregnancies is on the order of about 5 1/2%.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Can anyone tell me where abstinence-only sex education is being taught outside of a private school? That is one myth I would like to see either debunked or proven.

I believe abstinence is part of an overall sex education program in schools which includes education on birth control.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/grants-catalog-abstinence.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/welfare-book-06.html

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) today announced 50 new grants totaling more than $31 million to help communities develop and put in place abstinence-only education programs for adolescents ages 12 through 18.

http://newsroom.hrsa.gov/releases/2004/Abed2004.htm

 

[Luke T.]

A conservative estimate of rape-induced pregnancies is on the order of about 5 1/2%.

No, it is actually about 0.1 percent. What your linked site is saying is that some women who have abortions were raped or abused in the past, not that the abortion itself is a product of that rape or abuse.

(edited to add link and quote: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html

In particular, the figure of 1% of abortions for cases of rape or incest is widely cited. However, it is probably exaggerated. If correct, it would imply that 15,600 abortions in 1987 were for such cases.[3] Since the FBI only reported 91,110 forcible rapes in the U.S. in that year[4], this would imply that one out of six rapes resulted in pregnancy--a result significantly at odds with medical research. Even if a significant underreporting of rape is assumed, the figure of 1% appears to be too high.

Some sources claim, on the basis of medical studies, that the total number of pregnancies resulting from rape each year is on the order of 200-500.[5] Even if all such pregnancies were aborted (which is not a valid assumption according to some analysts), this would still represent less than 0.1% of abortions.

 

[Luke T.]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/grants-catalog-abstinence.html

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/welfare-book-06.html

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) today announced 50 new grants totaling more than $31 million to help communities develop and put in place abstinence-only education programs for adolescents ages 12 through 18.

http://newsroom.hrsa.gov/releases/2004/Abed2004.htm

None of those links show abstinence is the only form of sex education being taught in public schools.

 

[Cain]

If God really existed, then birth control pills would fall from the sky

I'm definitely pro-abortion. I found myself trapped in a similar discussion just two days ago. A few wishy-washy anti-abortion-but-pro-choice liberals wanted to achieve an "overlapping consensus" among all "reasonable persons" on this controversial issue. They claimed that probably no "reasonable" person could oppose abortion in the first trimester and, likewise, no one could "reasonably" allow partial-birth abortion for any reason in the third-trimester (a "good" reason, probably the sole exception for them, is in the case that the mother's life is in danger). I said that I was in favor of late term partial-birth abortions for *any* reason; they were stunned and before they could recover to spout feel-good liberal pieities I quickly added, "even as a method for weight-loss." Priceless.

That said women do not generally go through the so-called "partial-birth abortion" procedure for kicks and giggles. If for some reason a woman did want a partial birth abortion " "just because" I probably wouldn't oppose a restrictive law. Putting oneself at unnecessary risk etc -- that is, making an objectively uninformed choice relating to personal health -- is not really a free choice. Maybe for this reason we should support post-birth abortions, now commonly called "infanticide." Or maybe not.

 

[Bikewer]

there was a segment on Talk of the Nation a couple of months ago in regards to the "abstinence only" education curriculum.

On the panel were a number of educators, who all agreed that they just worked around this restriction. There are funds earmarked for "abstinence only", and that money can only go to such programs. So, they just fund the more expansive programs from other sources.

The idea of coupling foriegn aid to such programs seems utterly absurd to me.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Let's just make sure we all agree on at least one thing, if this post has done that by itself already.

This is all about semantics and wordplay. I prefer to instead of calling the religious right "pro-lifers" to refer to them as "anti-choicers".

There was an excellent program on PBS recently, called "The Persauders" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/) about how the words we choose to describe something emotionally affect the way we think about a subject. To illustrate this point, they talked about how no one cared much about the "estate" tax that was imposed on families given an inheritence. They attributed this to the fact that the word estate connoted wealth. But, when trying to get this tax repealed in Congress, Frank Luntz smartly decided to tell the members of congress for reforming it to instead refer to it as the "death" tax - an immediately tangible concept to people. You die, and the government taxes you. Bingo! The exact same tax now referred to differently, and suddenly there's a ground swell of public outcry against it.

Semantics.

-TT

 

[Frank Newgent]

The latest Harper's has a nice article on the subject.

 

[thaiboxerken]

None of those links show abstinence is the only form of sex education being taught in public schools.

You asked for evidence of abstinence-only programs being taught outside of private schools, not in public schools. Also, these abstinence-only grants are PUBLIC money.

Oh, wait, lets look at what we have here as some of the grantees.

"Fayetteville Public Schools"
"Booneville School District"

Looks like there are some public schools that are teaching abstinence only programs.

It's also important to note that there are no grants being given out for sex education by any other form.

 

[jj]

It's also important to note that there are no grants being given out for sex education by any other form.

And that, Luke, is the problem. The government is deliberately, conciously refusing to fund programs that teach responsible behavior, unless it's the one that somebody finds RELIGIOUSLY justified.