Holly, I honestly don't know what you are talking about when you refer to misinformation about AIDS/HIV. Why can't you just say what you are talking about? I am very outspoken in general, and if I know what someone is referring to, I don't play games, and frankly find your insinuation that I am a little insulting.
The website you are referring to as using "graphic horror effects" is simply a diagram of what happens in a partial birth abortion. This is simply fact. You are not the only person who finds it horrific though--this is exactly what the debate is about on partial birth abortions. This is what actually happens.
I deliberately chose three very different web sites to begin discussing this issue. Certainly, there may be many more to choose from. But one thing I have now read in two different articles is that the majority of partial birth abortions are NOT to save the life of the mother or to remove a dead fetus, and I have also read in two different articles that most of them are to abort fetuses in young women who are in such denial about their pregnancies that they wait to long for any other procedure. On a Sunday news discussion on a network this morning, newswoman Cokie Roberts, who I think is very intelligent and very balanced in her comments, remarked that the Democrats had been sold a bill of goods on partial birth abortions, and that indeed most of them were elective procedures, not to save the life of the mothers.
Holly, you are welcome to look around and use your own urls in discussions here. I just did a quick search, and I am sure there may be other interesting ones. But here is something I found this morning that is quite disturbing, if it is true:
Fitzsimmons admits to lying and
misleading the public on Partial Birth
Abortion!
Copyright c 1997 N.Y. Times News Service
WASHINGTON (Feb 26, 1997 00:06
a.m. EST) -- A prominent member of
the abortion rights movement said
Tuesday that he lied in earlier
statements when he said a
controversial form of late-term
abortion is rare and performed
primarily to save the lives or fertility
of women bearing severely
malformed babies. He now says the
procedure is performed far more
often than his colleagues have
acknowledged, and on healthy
women bearing healthy fetuses.
Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive
director of the National Coalition of
Abortion Providers, said he
intentionally misled in previous
remarks about the procedure, called
'intact dilation and evacuation' by
those who believe it should remain
legal and "partial-birth abortion" by
those who believe it should be
outlawed, because he feared that the
truth would damage the cause of
abortion rights.
But he is now convinced, he said,
that the issue of whether the
procedure remains legal, like the
overall debate about abortion, must
be based on the truth.
In an article in American Medical
News, to be published March 3, and
an interview Tuesday, Fitzsimmons
recalled the night in November 1995,
when he appeared on "Nightline"
on ABC and "lied through my
teeth" when he said the procedure
was used rarely and only on women
whose lives were in danger or whose
fetuses were damaged.
"It made me physically ill,"
Fitzsimmons said in an interview. "I
told my wife the next day, 'I can't do
this again.' "
Fitzsimmons said that after that
interview he stayed on the sidelines
of the debate for a while, but with
growing unease. As much as he
disagreed with the National Right to
Life Committee and others who
oppose abortion under any
circumstances, he said he knew they
were accurate when they said the
procedure was common.
In the procedure, a fetus is partly
extracted from the birth canal, feet
first, and the brain is then suctioned
out.
Last fall, Congress failed to override
a presidential veto of a law that
would have banned the procedure,
which abortion opponents insist
borders on infanticide and some
abortion rights advocates also
believe should be outlawed as
particularly gruesome. Polls have
shown that such a ban has popular
support.
Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has
suggested a compromise that would
prohibit all third-trimester abortions,
except in cases involving the "life of
the mother and severe impairment of
her health."
The Right to Life Committee and its
allies have complained repeatedly
that abortion-rights supporters have
misled politicians, journalists and the
general public about the frequency
and the usual circumstances of the
procedure. "The abortion lobby
manufactures disinformation,"
Douglas Johnson, the committee's
legislative director, said Tuesday.
He said Fitzsimmons' account would
clarify the debate on this procedure,
which is expected to be renewed in
Congress.
Fitzsimmons predicted Tuesday that
the controversial procedure would be
considered by the courts no matter
what lawmakers decide.
Last April, President Clinton vetoed
a bill that would have outlawed the
controversial procedure. There were
enough opponents in the House to
override his veto but not in the
Senate. In explaining the veto,
Clinton echoed the argument of
Fitzsimmons and his colleagues.
"There are a few hundred women
every year who have personally
agonizing situations where their
children are born or are about to be
born with terrible deformities, which
will cause them to die either just
before, during or just after
childbirth," the president said.
"And these women, among other
things, cannot preserve the ability to
have further children unless the
enormity -- the enormous size of the
baby's head -- is reduced before
being extracted from their bodies,"
Clinton said.
A spokeswoman for Clinton said
Tuesday night that the White House
knew nothing of Fitzsimmons'
announcement and would not
comment further.
In the vast majority of cases, the
procedure is performed on a
healthy mother with a healthy
fetus that is 20 weeks or more
along, Fitzsimmons said. "The
abortion-rights folks know it, the
anti-abortion folks know it, and
so, probably, does everyone
else," he said in the article in
the Medical News, an American
Medical Association publication.
Fitzsimmons, whose Alexandria, Va.,
coalition represents about 200
independently owned clinics, said
coalition members were being
notified of his announcement.
One of the facts of abortion, he said,
is that women enter abortion clinics
to kill their fetuses. "It is a form of
killing," he said. "You're ending a
life." And while he said that
troubled him, Fitzsimmons said he
continued to support this procedure
and abortion rights in general. |
