Live birth abortions across the pond
Several news sources have reported on the British study finding that one in 30 babies who are aborted for birth defects survive up to several hours (here, here, and here). These are usually late-term induced labor abortions, following testing for abnormalities.
The study itself, conducted over 10 years from 1995-2004 in 20 hospitals and published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, contained additional interesting information not yet reported:
[Photo, courtesy of The Evening Standard, is of Gianna Jesson, aborted alive 30 years ago at the age of 7.5 months]
Apr.23, 2007 7:48 pm |
Aborted alive |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
OMG!!!
My son was born at 31 weeks. We were told of all the problems he was going to have. He barely had any problems.
BTW – I don’t think I told anyone here. At his last school psyhiatric evalution his scores for an autistic spectrum disorder dropped to the ‘very low’ catagory. This means he is outgrowing the symptoms. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an extrememly mild form, but it won’t cause him any major problems in his life. He is turning 5 in June and has been given the okay to go to kidergarten! We were excited to hear this. There is a good chance he will have to repeat Kindergarten because his socail skills may not be up to par, but he is getting better!
We were told that he wouldn’t crawl or walk until after 2 years of age. That he wouldn’t be able to talk or understand language until after 3 years of age. We were also told that he would have neurological damage.
None of this came true.
(BTW – I think I posted some of this before, I had the ages wrong on when they said he would be able to do things. I looked it up in my baby book before posting this time)
Valerie, that great news about your son ( he’s going to do fine )…. It seems like 1/3 of the kids in our neiborhood have been diagnosed with some type of mild autism.
on the posting”:
wow, this is a great story about this Woman – from the acticle:
Thirty years ago, Gianna Jessen’s mother had an abortion when seven-and-a-half months pregnant.
The abortion failed and, 18 hours later, Gianna (pictured) was born alive.
She suffered cerebral palsy as a result of the botched abortion, yet has defied doctors’ predictions that she would never walk.
In fact she has run a marathon, is an accomplished singer and writer and travels the world to campaign against abortion.
I have seen the story about this beautiful and courageous young woman before.She is a voice for the pro life side.What an awful thing to imagine.[The mangling of that baby 30 yrs. ago]As for babies being aborted alive,I wonder what happens to these poor souls? I’m not sure I even want to know.
That’s excellent news about your son, Valerie. I’m glad the doctors were wrong about him.
Congrats, Val! Jill, didn’t know these stats. Very interesting…
I wonder how much $ Gianna Jessen gets for speaking to right-to-life groups.
SMOG:
What would be too much? Let’s see, you want to abort woman in the womb and if that fails and they’re born you want to abort their income.
Guess if she was pro-deather, even you’d send her money?
I hope she’s a zillionaire.
I just saw Gianna this winter…
She is a truly amazing human being.
SOMG,
Gotta give you credit brother. You do stay true to form. A woman is aborted and survives, forgives her would be murderers, goes on to accomplish what everyone told her she couldn’t and the only thing you can say is:
“How much MONEY does she get paid!”
I’d have been disappointed if you had said anything else.
mk
I hope Gianna is a zillionare too.
From the This is London article:
They lived for an average of 80 minutes – although in some cases foetuses survived for over six hours.
Is it just me, or did anyone else find it odd to hear of tiny human beings who were born alive referred to as “foetuses”?
John J. that is sad indeed.
John, 8:35a: It is not just odd, it is incorrect.
For all the media flak over such pro-life terms as “so-called” partial birth abortion, it repeatedly misuses the word “fetus” to describe born babies. The AP is infamous for this. Both Doug Johnson at National Right to Life and I have repeatedly called them on this. Obviously, it hurts the liberal agenda to acknowledge abortion sometimes results in live births of BABIES. Eek.
Jill, haven’t you and Bethany repeatedly stated that baby is a synonym for fetus? If so, that works both ways.
Interestingly, this BBC article reports that the abortionist had to sign Gianna Jessen’s birth certificate. She is indeed a good speaker–I went to see her speak several years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4500022.stm
I guess we can say that this fetus has survived for about 30 years now.
I guess we can say that this fetus has survived for about 30 years now.
Do you think they’ll accept this “proof” that babies are born alive,or is it too biased?
Thanks so much,
sorry i don’t have time to stay,
I’ll pass on these reports, wherever I can
I had not seen these articles, (and I’m fairly new to pro life campaigning.) First protest this coming Saturday.
Take care
Sarah
ok MK are you in this one?
Less, 11:09a, said: “Jill, haven’t you and Bethany repeatedly stated that baby is a synonym for fetus? If so, that works both ways.”
Less, I’ve never made the claim that solely scientific terminology should be used in our discussions. Your side, including the mainstream media, does that. We’re talking about journalistic organizations incorrectly using the word “fetus” to describe born babies. Look them up.
Valerie- my son was born at 31 weeks too! Glad to hear that your son is doing well.
My son will be two next month and is on target for every developmental milestone. His only “problem” is that he’s a shrimp!
This, from the woman who calls fetuses pre-born babies. Pot, meet kettle.
Actually, I believe this is a specific rule in the AP Stylebook, which would govern what, specifically, to do in such a circumstance. I’m afraid I don’t have an AP Stylebook, and they are not offered online: I do, however, seem to remember that the AP discusses this, and that is has to do with the fact that the fetuses were NOT carried to term: they were aborted.
I’m sorry but this just makes no sense, Less. My son was born at 31 weeks. Upon his birth he was described as a “pre-term infant” not as a “post birth fetus”.
Lauren, the AP stylebook is used for journalistic writings, not everyday life. It governs exactly how you write stories: not much else.
Right, but it makes no sense to dictate that writers refer to preterm infants incorrectly as “fetuses”.
It would be like refering to an 8 month old as a “neonate”.
I have no idea why they do it, Lauren. A lot of times, the AP style manuel just does not make sense. Another reason why they mandate what word to use is to keep writers from putting any implication of opinion with news stories by using baby vs. fetus, for example.
I believe the rule is that the correct word is fetus until full term, and as these babies were not carried to term, fetus was the mandated word. Journalists are sticklers for the AP manuel, thus we have fetus in this story.
Of course, all this goes out the window when writing editorials.
Jill,
First of all, your links don
I undertsand not wishing to insert bias (though we all know this is rarely the case on any controversial issue). It’s just that by using “fetus” incorrectly, it inserts a dehumanizing bias.
Perhaps the AP should look into correcting this oversight.
I have an AP stylebook and it does not mention fetus. Less, you’re likely thinking of its rules for pro-life/pro-choice, etc.
As I said earlier, the AP and other mainstream media outlets have been called on this before, ever since the passage of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
Any medical or nonmedical dictionary will define these distinctive terms clearly:
Webster, fetus: an unborn or unhatched vertebrate… a developing human from usu. three months after conception to birth
Mosbys, fetus: the human being in utero after the embryonic period… usually from the eighth week after fertilization until birth
Webster, baby: an extremeley young child; esp: infant
Mosby, baby: an infant or young child
There is no logical reason to mix those terms up, only ideological.
“Jill, haven’t you and Bethany repeatedly stated that baby is a synonym for fetus? If so, that works both ways.”
LMAO!!!
Good one
fe
Cameron, 5:20p: The links work for me. The complete BJOG article costs $39, which I paid, to get the information you can’t read on the abstract.
Mislead? How?
Yes, shame on me for broadcasting the fact that babies are being aborted alive and shelved to die.
Cameron, 5:28p: I believe from your definition given that “in the womb” means in the womb.
I second Jill’s observation that “in the womb” means just that.
Also as far as fetus = baby =/=baby = fetus
Every fetus is a baby (in the coloquial usage) no neonate (or “baby”) is a fetus.
I hope that makes sense. Sort of like how every square is a rectangle, but every rectangle is not a square.
“[Origin: 1350
Cameron, then you can’t read – “unborn”…”unhatched”… “week of PREGNANCY.”
Maybe you’re just unclear when pregnancy typically ends because in your mind they only last 10-12 weeks until termination time.
I’m getting it now. You don’t know what a postborn baby actually looks like!
Jill,hi.I have a question for you. How could you ever find out if your local hospital performs abortions? Do you know? I’ll watch for your reply.
Hey Heather, plan to spend a half-day at the hospital. Be polite but persistent. Go to the chaplain’s office and ask whether the hospital commits abortions or not. Listen for a key word, “elective.” They may say, “We don’t perform elective abortions.” Then ask if they perform therapeutic abortions. If they say no, then I don’t think they do.
Thanks Jill. I will do that. I was asking because the hospital that delivered all 3 of my children, had RTL’s picketing over the weekend. I never thought to stop and ask questions.
Yes, I remember you saying that now, so you can pretty much bet the hospital is involved in abortion if the group was picketing it. Why not call your local pro-life group and ask?
Lauren –
I’m glad your son is doing well too. How long was he in the hospital before being able to go home?
Danny was off the ‘adjusted’ charts for age and weight by the time he was 8 months. At 31 weeks he weighed 3 lbs 10 oz which I am told is quite big. He is now past the 95% in height. It probably helps that my hubby is 6’2″ and one of his sisters is 6 foot and the other is 5’10’. I think he got the height gene from my husband considering I am 5’3″ if I stretch as far as I can!
One aspect of this story that I don’t understand is why would the nurses or whomever just leave a baby that is alive? How? I just don’t understand the cruelty in that. ugg… I have to stop thinking about what those poor babies go through being left alone. Having seen all those preemies in the NICU (I’m sure Lauren may know about this) and seeing how well they did when they were being held… I have to stop now.
Jill,
I’m getting it now. You don’t know what a postborn baby actually looks like!
Sure he does. First you take it’s legs and you put them over there. Then you take it’s arms and you put them over there. That’s him, all over!
Spoken by the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. You know, the one without a brain?
Valerie,I know. It rips my heart out.I can’t think about it for too long,because it causes a lump in my throat and tears begin to well. It’s also a feeling of being totally powerless to stop it. I used to think that abortions were only performed in clinics.Now I am finding out that private OBGYN’s will do them as well as hospitals.
Valerie- My son had IUGR due to my water breaking at 23 weeks. He didn’t grow in size much between that point and his delivery. He weighed 2lbs 4 oz at birth.
He’s still small (about 20lbs at 2 years) but he hasn’t had any developemental problems that we’ve seen thus far. He did have a few minor physical problems such as hernias, but other than that was very healthy.
He was in the hospital 7 weeks. I believe 6 of those were spent in the isolet.
As for the NICU really changing my views on abortion:
Before my son was born they took me to the NICU so I would have an idea of what to expect. They showed me a child born at 25 weeks. I can not even explain how it felt to see that little girl. She was so tiny, yet so perfectly formed. Later I saw her parents who were there every day desperately fighting for her life. It was a very stark contrast between those parents and the ones who have their children killed.
Lauren –
I didn’t get to visit the NICU until Danny was in there. It sure was an eye opener.
The hospital we were at is one of the best heart hospitals in the mid west. Riley’s children hospital would send babies with major heart problems to our hospital. There were alot of little babies in there that had already had open heart surgery. Right before Danny was released (he was there for 35 days) quintuplets were born. I think the biggest one was almost 1 pound. Those parents were there all day/everyday. Last I heard (we became friends with one of the nurses so she gets info) they were all doing well. All 5 pulled through. Amazing. I know they were born early, but I can’t remember how early.
That experience changed me on the abortion issue too. Before, I was pro-life but didn’t really think much of it. Then when Catherine was born and I saw all the healty babies something inside me made me start being active. To go from NICU, sick babies (and health of Mother)which result in approx 6 % of aborions to seeing all the healthy babies which is approx 93% of abortions my spirit couldn’t just sit by with my eyes closed.
I think it is lovely to see families aknowledging a life they made and giving there child the best possible chance o survival and seing there compassion at work and pride in there miracle babies. Such a beautiful site.