cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) (02/18/85)
> The Jan 14 issue of Newsweek cites their own poll indicating that > 58% support a ban on abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or > threat to the mother's life (and, I think, severe birth defects). I noticed that according to Newsweek data 51% of all abortions are performed within 8 weeks of the beginning of pregnancy. It also has little picture of what a fetus looks like at that stage. It totally resembles a shrimp if the pucture is accurate. Anyway, there is not a thing that could support such anti-abortion films as "Silent Scream". The film - widely characterized as fraud - deals with 12-week old fetus' abortion, but the idea is that all abortions should be outlawed. What about 51% done early? Why ban those? Nobody could even cook up a fraudulent film. Also - what about IUD again? Any opinion on that from pro-life thought? Mike Cherepov
pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (02/20/85)
A response to Mike Cherepov: >> The Jan 14 issue of Newsweek cites their own poll indicating that >> 58% support a ban on abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or >> threat to the mother's life. > >I noticed that according to Newsweek data 51% of all abortions >are performed within 8 weeks of the beginning of pregnancy. ... and that 40% are done between 9 and 12 weeks. That's nothing to wink at either. The earliest that pregnancy can be detected is 3 weeks. The number of women who actually find out for sure that early is another matter. It depends on how soon she suspects that she is pregnant and gets a test done. (If her menstrual cycle is very regular she has a better chance of suspecting it early.) Even then the accuracy isn't too high. There are common conditions that can produce a false positive pregnancy test (e.g. Not keeping the chemicals refrigerated, bladder infection). The Pregnancy Distress Center where my wife works suggests that women see a doctor and have an examination to confirm a positive pregnancy test. I think most abortion clinics will just make an appointment--that same day in many cases. There have been women who, for one reason or another failed keep their appointments with abortion clinics and later came to the PDC for help only to find out that they weren't really pregnant. This happens often enough to make one wonder if a significant percentage of these women who get early abortions are not even pregnant. For the woman's own sake, she should at least get her pregnancy test confirmed by someone who does not have a financial stake in the results. Even if you're pro-choice and don't care about the fetus, an abortion is not so inconsequential a procedure that you want to risk having one when you're not even pregnant. Anyway, from a practical standpoint, the window for the 51% is, at most five weeks and quite possibly less. Many women don't even suspect they are pregnant until they are 4 to 6 weeks along (depending on the regularity of their menstrual cycle). Then there is the matter of calculating actual gestation which is done using the date of the woman's last cycle (if she remembers). All said, there is a lot of guesswork involved in determining how old the fetus is. Determining what dividing line the fetus falls under is a much fuzzier business than the graph in Newsweek makes it appear, especially in the early stages. If the gestation time were determined by looking at the aborted fetus instead of calculations made beforehand, the graph might be skewed differently. Determining the age of the fetus is not a crucial matter when it's going to be carried to term, it helps the parents to make plans accordingly and the estimate can be updated later on. If, however, we are going to set a cutoff date (e.g. eight weeks) to determine who should live and who should die, you had better be more accurate in determining when the fetus actually crossed that threshold. Also, once you draw a line for these purposes it often suffers from being arbitrary. What real difference is there between a fetus who is eight weeks minus a day and one who is eight weeks plus a day? >It also has little picture of what a fetus looks like >at that stage. It totally resembles a shrimp if the pucture is accurate. So is the 8-week-old fetus in fact a shrimp? >Anyway, there is not a thing that could support such anti-abortion >films as "Silent Scream". The film - widely characterized as fraud - >deals with 12-week old fetus' abortion, but the idea is that all >abortions should be outlawed. Widely characterized as fraud by whom? I don't think the point of the film is that all abortions should be banned. The only point is to dispell the euphemisms like "fetal tissue" and "products of conception" and show that the fetus is more than those terms imply. Also, the fetus in the film falls into the first trimester, which is a legal dividing line. >... Also - what about IUD again? Any opinion on that from pro-life thought? Does anyone really know for sure how the IUD works? I'm sure that what's done in abortion clinics is abortion, not so sure about the IUD. Also, abortion wouldn't be the only reason for not using the IUD. Health risks for the woman are greater than with most other methods of birth control. (Especially if she gets pregnant with it in.) I don't know what factors would make the IUD the only choice for a woman (i.e. If it weren't available, she couldn't use anything else) in the same way that abortion is touted as the only reasonable choice for parents who, once they are pregnant, don't want to be. -- Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd
annab@azure.UUCP (A Beaver) (02/21/85)
> What about 51% done early? Why ban those? Nobody could even cook up > a fraudulent film. -->Also - what about IUD again? Any opinion on > that from pro-life thought? > > Mike Cherepov What is it that you are suggesting? That women use IUD's as a means of avoiding the need for abortion? Then we would just have to deal with the medical problems that the IUD causes. Annadiana Beaver A Beaver@Tektronix "Coi-tus-into-rup-tus-bon-us-mey-um. Ki-mo-sob-bi-wat-chum-what-chu-say-um. Lord have mer-cy on my so-o-o-oooo-lo." - Peter Schickele- as the monk in Hansel & Gretel & Ted & Alice
tjm@homxb.UUCP (T.MEAGHER) (02/28/85)
> Anyway, there is not a thing that could support such anti-abortion > films as "Silent Scream". The film - widely characterized as fraud - > > Mike Cherepov Who has widely characterized "Silent Scream" as fraud? Where has this characterization appeared in print? What do you mean by fraud? Tim Meagher
cher@ihlpm.UUCP (Mike Cherepov) (03/01/85)
> Who has widely characterized "Silent Scream" as fraud? > Where has this characterization appeared in print? > What do you mean by fraud? > Tim Meagher The statement questioned here was not a very relevant one for my point about EARLY (<8 weeks) abortions. The questions above represent 1) nitpicking 2) attempt to change the issue raised. Nevertheless, to remove those doubts: 1) I did not write down the names of the people who renounced the stuff, but the ones that did so were physicians, no less qualified then the narrator of the film. Some of them belong to Planned Parenthood Society (sounds close). 2) Characterization appeared probably everywhere, but I saw it in Chicago Tribune (late January). 3) By fraud I mean the narration of the movie. Here are few things that I remember: 12-week fetus is called "fully formed human being". The words "fully formed" are a joke - major systems have not achieved the stage where they are anywhere near being functional. The statement that the fetus is screaming is questionable to highest degree. Present it as a fact is intellectual dishonesty. The narrator gives it as rock-hard evidence. When the suction cup is applied, the movements of the fetus are described as "horror of a child that seeks to escape the imminent danger of destruction that it senses" - or some shit like that. Opponents observe that the real reason is the suction device that causes flow. To sell stuff of such questionable validity ( in such emotionally loaded manner) is fraud, as much as any other call to action based on unsubstanciated claims. Honest approach would require that the narrator present his stuff as far-fetched conjectures. It's been a while and I do not remember all the details. Anyway, what about the questions I asked previously? They are not strongly tied to stuff I just typed. Mike Cherepov
barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry) (03/03/85)
The basic fraud in "silent scream" is that the fetus can feel pain, and realizes the "mortal danger" it is in. I have seen large numbers of doctors, biologists, etc. refute these assumptions by reminding us that at 12 weeks, the cerebral cortex of a fetus is not developed enough for pain, or realizations of any sort. Whether anyone would like to argue this point or not is irrelevent. The issue is that since there is such widespread disagreement as to whether the fetus feels pain or realizes danger is enough to refute any medium that plays upon an unfounded emotional theory, and tries to cause pregnant women to make a decision based on innacuracies. Espcially when such a theory (held by a minority of the medical community, and not even by all right-to-lifers) is stated as fact, and all assumptions of the movie are based on it. I wonder on what premise the right-to-lifers got the permission from the aborting woman to make the film in the first place. Did they tell her it would be used to generate propaganda that would make her seem a murderer of her "fully formed human being"?
daf@ccice6.UUCP (David Fader) (03/04/85)
> > Also - what about IUD again? Any opinion on > > that from pro-life thought? > What is it that you are suggesting? That women use IUD's as > a means of avoiding the need for abortion? > Then we would just have to deal with the medical problems that > the IUD causes. I suspect the question was refering to the fact that the IUD works by causing the woman to abort. -- The Watcher seismo!rochester!ccice5!ccice6!daf or allegra!rochester!ccice5!ccice6!daf