How many actual “late term” terminations actually happen? Actual reasons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

There is a law against it. There is a federal law against infanticide if a fetus is born alive, which is what you are talking about if the fetus survives outside the womb. If there are fetal abnormalities that are not compatible with life, then the baby would be given comfort care. If the issue is the health of the mother, then if everybody does survive it’s a happy story.

No one is going around murdering healthy infants in a medical setting.

There are obviously tragic instances of infanticide or baby abandonment. But really, abortion late in a pregnancy means the situation is dire. That’s why the best people to make these decisions are the pregnant woman and her medical providers.

The government has no business making medical decisions.

This post is really misleading. I read about how they perform later term abortions (beyond “take this pill and you will miscarry” early abortions) because like OP, I was curious, and it’s actually not the case that the babies are delivered in a peaceful way and then left to die. I read that their heads are punctured while they are inside the mother and/or they are dismembered while inside the mother. It is horrific and it’s what got me from being completely pro choice to pro choice only before viability except in special circumstances the way I am now.

You have been misinformed.

Such a procedure has been illegal since 2003 and it was extraordinarily rare before then. Certainly never ACOG or medically standard protocol.

Medically speaking, considering how gruesome and dangerous such a procedure would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

There is a law against it. There is a federal law against infanticide if a fetus is born alive, which is what you are talking about if the fetus survives outside the womb. If there are fetal abnormalities that are not compatible with life, then the baby would be given comfort care. If the issue is the health of the mother, then if everybody does survive it’s a happy story.

No one is going around murdering healthy infants in a medical setting.

There are obviously tragic instances of infanticide or baby abandonment. But really, abortion late in a pregnancy means the situation is dire. That’s why the best people to make these decisions are the pregnant woman and her medical providers.

The government has no business making medical decisions.

This post is really misleading. I read about how they perform later term abortions (beyond “take this pill and you will miscarry” early abortions) because like OP, I was curious, and it’s actually not the case that the babies are delivered in a peaceful way and then left to die. I read that their heads are punctured while they are inside the mother and/or they are dismembered while inside the mother. It is horrific and it’s what got me from being completely pro choice to pro choice only before viability except in special circumstances the way I am now.

You have been misinformed.

Such a procedure has been illegal since 2003 and it was extraordinarily rare before then. Certainly never ACOG or medically standard protocol.

Medically speaking, considering how gruesome and dangerous such a procedure would be.

Pp again. And if it’s a live birth incompatible with life, the baby is not just “left to die.” Comfort care is provided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP when does the third trimester start?.

Thanks.

The answer is in the term. Perhaps you should stay out of threads about reproductive rights and read a book on pregnancy.

My understanding is that late abortions are due to massive fetal defect that will endanger the mother. In this case they should be allowed. OB friend once told me no doctor does them as an elective procedure as it’s pretty much inducing early labor and a healthy fetus would be viable. Get ignorant politicians and people like PP out of medical matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

There is a law against it. There is a federal law against infanticide if a fetus is born alive, which is what you are talking about if the fetus survives outside the womb. If there are fetal abnormalities that are not compatible with life, then the baby would be given comfort care. If the issue is the health of the mother, then if everybody does survive it’s a happy story.

No one is going around murdering healthy infants in a medical setting.

There are obviously tragic instances of infanticide or baby abandonment. But really, abortion late in a pregnancy means the situation is dire. That’s why the best people to make these decisions are the pregnant woman and her medical providers.

The government has no business making medical decisions.

This post is really misleading. I read about how they perform later term abortions (beyond “take this pill and you will miscarry” early abortions) because like OP, I was curious, and it’s actually not the case that the babies are delivered in a peaceful way and then left to die. I read that their heads are punctured while they are inside the mother and/or they are dismembered while inside the mother. It is horrific and it’s what got me from being completely pro choice to pro choice only before viability except in special circumstances the way I am now.

Please use more specific terminology. Who is the "they" you are referring to? What do you mean by "later term" - which week, which trimester?

Yes, it is true that if a woman is getting an abortion past a certain week she can choose to have a D&E done that makes it safer for her rather than go through the tortuous process of labor and delivery to expel the fetus. The procedure you are describing is also used on fetuses that are already dead. I'm sorry it makes you feel awful. You know that there's a lot of brutality involved in surgery in general, right? Amputations happen to living human beings. Have you ever seen open heart surgery? Brain surgery? It's horrific.

Personally I doubt you were ever "completely pro choice." You sound like a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP when does the third trimester start?.

Thanks.

The answer is in the term. Perhaps you should stay out of threads about reproductive rights and read a book on pregnancy.

My understanding is that late abortions are due to massive fetal defect that will endanger the mother. In this case they should be allowed. OB friend once told me no doctor does them as an elective procedure as it’s pretty much inducing early labor and a healthy fetus would be viable. Get ignorant politicians and people like PP out of medical matters.

What term?

LOL. Yes anyone like OP using "term" instead of "trimester" for pregnancy definitely needs to read a book on pregnancy.

[Anonymous]

“Trimester.” Idiot. Third trimester. You can’t understand that? Troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, when Trump claims that Democrats support abortion "up to and even beyond the ninth month" and suggests that this includes the "execution" of babies after birth, is he lying?

Yes, as always, he is lying.

People don't support executing babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

One extreme is "no abortions period"
The other is, it should be illegal in the third term except in the instance of the fetus or mother's life is at risk.

What are the crazies on the latter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

it’s because when they law gets involved in deciding what a “very compelling reason” is, you end up with women going septic in the parking lot while the hospital lawyers argue.

I see what you’re saying and I think it’s a cynical view and also not one that plays out in all the other countries in the world that have sensible restrictions.

How is it cynical? There are multiple accounts of this actually happening. In Europe it doesn’t happened because there isn’t the same irrational punitive approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. This is an issue for me too, OP. I’m very pro-choice in first semester and I think women should be allowed to terminate at the anatomy scan (which is not always at 20 weeks, could be 1-2 weeks later to be fair). After that point, I think abortions should be banned unless there’s a very compelling medical reason for the baby or the mother.

I also hear things like “that almost never happens! Right wing talking point!” and if that’s true, I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with a law against it. It’s either happening or it’s not. And it shouldn’t, IMO.

I read something that said the vast majority of Americans have this middle of the road, sensible view on abortion. So I don’t know why we need to choose between one extreme or the other. The crazies on both sides drive me nuts.

One extreme is "no abortions period"
The other is, it should be illegal in the third term except in the instance of the fetus or mother's life is at risk.

What are the crazies on the latter?

Yes, when Roe was the law of the land, almost all states had restrictions on abortions in the third trimester, which starts at week 27/28.

[Anonymous]

Guess what - when you don't have random restrictions on abortions in the 1st trimester and allow easy access to it, you cut down on the number of abortions in the second trimester.

You don't like abortions that happen "electively" after 14 or so weeks? Then make sure women don't have barriers to getting them before then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If half of abortions occurring in the second trimester, after 20 weeks, are the result of not having the funds to get an abortion, then you definitely aren’t paying for a 20,000 plus procedure in the third trimester.

This is the real issue. People are getting abortions late for reasons OTHER than birth defects or health of mother.

OP again. This is the claim I’d like to fact-check.

How many third-trimester terminations are for reasons OTHER THAN birth defects or physical health of the mother?

No has answered that yet.

DP I think the simple answer to your question is that nobody knows because nobody is keeping track of this data.

OP again. Thx.

Sadly, people littered this thread with political statements even after I said not to. And while some information has been shared (thx again), we still do not have facts, which makes debating this kinda pointless.

My guess is you are probably right: no one is keeping track of this data.

If so, there really is no reliable answer to my question: how many third-trimester terminations are purely elective.

Unless someone can post some actual data in answer to my question, there’s no longer much point to anyone posting (again: stop posting political responses! This is about ascertaining basic facts. That’s all).

[Anonymous]

I took misoprostol for retained placenta, after delivering a healthy baby. Since the placenta is products of conception, it was technically an abortion.

Third trimester abortions are quite risky, difficult to obtain and very costly. People aren’t looking up at 29 weeks and deciding to get an abortion. I don’t think doctors would do it for that reason because the benefits wouldn’t outweigh the risks. Most maternal health complications at that point would be solved by delivering the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Copied from another thread:

Here’s a study from Guttmacher showing the reasons women seek abortions after 20 weeks and it was about logistical delays not deformities.

https://onlinelibrary.wil...63/4521013

Here’s KFF

“Individuals seek abortions later in pregnancy for a number of reasons. As part of the Turnaway study out of the University of California San Francisco, from 2008-2010 over 440 women were asked about why they experienced delays in obtaining abortion care, if any (Figure 4). Almost half of individuals who obtained an abortion after 20 weeks did not suspect they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and other barriers to care included lack of information about where to access an abortion, transportation difficulties, lack of insurance coverage and inability to pay for the procedure. A 2022 study of patients seeking abortions later in pregnancy found that they fell into two categories: either they had learned new information about their pregnancies that made them no longer desirable, such as not finding out they were pregnant until very late in the pregnancy or the emergence of serious fetal or their own health issue; or experiencing barriers to abortion services earlier in the pregnancy that force them to delay the abortion until the third trimester.“

Thank you; I appreciate that. At least it helps illuminate the issue better, and provide some reasons behind the phenomenon, to better understand it.

And please understand that “late term abortion” is a phrase used by anti-abortionists and that abortions in the third trimester which starts after week 27 when fetuses are at the point of viability are exceptionally rare and you would find almost no provider who would perform them that late and for no serious reason.

My apologies; I am pro choice so I will use “third trimester” instead. Thx.

I am genuinely interested in what the numbers are for 3rd trimester - looks like a very small percentage (smaller than I thought) but a percentage is not a number.

Also curious how many are medically necessary and how many are purely elective. Can we help define the issue with facts here?

Why this ghoulish fascination?

Exactly. If you are pro choice, then you should probably have a mental orientation where you can do the research and figure this out rather than have a group crowd source for you.

It's not like Medicaid is paying for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If half of abortions occurring in the second trimester, after 20 weeks, are the result of not having the funds to get an abortion, then you definitely aren’t paying for a 20,000 plus procedure in the third trimester.

This is the real issue. People are getting abortions late for reasons OTHER than birth defects or health of mother.

OP again. This is the claim I’d like to fact-check.

How many third-trimester terminations are for reasons OTHER THAN birth defects or physical health of the mother?

No has answered that yet.

DP I think the simple answer to your question is that nobody knows because nobody is keeping track of this data.

OP again. Thx.

Sadly, people littered this thread with political statements even after I said not to. And while some information has been shared (thx again), we still do not have facts, which makes debating this kinda pointless.

My guess is you are probably right: no one is keeping track of this data.

If so, there really is no reliable answer to my question: how many third-trimester terminations are purely elective.

Unless someone can post some actual data in answer to my question, there’s no longer much point to anyone posting (again: stop posting political responses! This is about ascertaining basic facts. That’s all).

I think people can't believe someone continues to claim they are pro choice yet ask over and over, "how many are elective."