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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (30758)	2/13/1999 9:57:00 PM
From: Sidney Reilly	Respond to of 108807

We could bring back the locking chastity belt. I saw one in a picture once. It looked effective but probably didn't ride too well. LOL!

To: Grainne who wrote (30758)	2/14/1999 1:12:00 AM
From: Krowbar	Respond to of 108807

Christine, two of my sisters who worked for gynecologists for about 20 years assure me that there are women who are pregnant for six months who were not aware of it. Most of the time it was obese women who did not show much change, and thought that they had just gained weight. One came in complaining of severe stomach pain and was informed by the doctor that she not only was pregnant, but also in labor! There is a wide variation in the physical changes that occur in pregnant women, and the fact that the changes were obvious to you doesn't mean that they are obvious to all women. I searched the web for about an hour trying to get data on the number of partial-birth abortions and the reasons that they were performed, and this is the best that I could come up with. I tried to avoid extremist views on both sides of the argument. This site seems to try to weigh all points of view. religioustolerance.org Here are some excerpts. ...The terms "Partial Birth Abortion" and "PBA" were recently created when the procedure became actively discussed at a political and religious level. The procedure is performed during the fifth month of gestation or later. The woman's cervix is dilated, and the fetus is partially removed from the womb, feet first. The surgeon jabs a sharp object into the back of the fetus' head, removes it, and inserts a vacuum tube through which the brains are extracted. The head of the fetus contracts at this point and allows the fetus to be more easily removed from the womb. The exact number of PBAs performed is impossible to estimate with accuracy. Many states do not have strict reporting regulations. One often quoted figure was that over 1000 PBAs have been performed annually in New Jersey. From this number, many inflated national totals have been estimated. But the New Jersey figure appears to be an anomaly. Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, estimated (Nightline program, 1997-FEB-26) a total of 3 to 4 thousand annually in the US; i.e. about ten a day. Pro-life groups uncovered an internal memo by Planned Parenthood which estimated that up to 60 (0.2%) of the more than 25,000 abortions performed annually in Virginia were PBAs. Why Are D&X Procedures Performed? 1st Trimester: PBAs are not performed during the first three months of pregnancy, because there are better ways to perform abortions. Also, there is no need to follow a PBA procedure, because the fetus' head quite small at this stage of gestation. 2nd Trimester: PBAs are sometimes performed in the late second trimester, on healthy fetuses, at a time in the pregnancy before the fetus is viable. These, like most abortions, are performed for health reasons - most often the mental health of the woman. Other PBAs are performed because the fetus has been found to be badly malformed or suffering from a serious genetic defect. 3rd Trimester: They are also performed in the very late weeks of pregnancy. The most common justifications at that time are: the fetus is dead the fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would place the woman's life in severe danger the fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would grievously damage the woman's health and/or disable her the fetus is so malformed that it can only live for a short interval after birth. There are two main alternatives at this late point in pregnancy: a hysterotomy, which is similar to a Cesarean section, or a D&X procedure There is evidence that the procedure is sometimes performed for other reasons: in the case of a very young pregnant woman, or a pregnancy which resulted from a rape or incest. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has stated that no competent physician with state-of-the-art skill in the management of high-risk pregnancies needs to perform a PBA. Of course, many physicians lack this level of skill, and so need to resort to the D&X procedure. And, in the United States, not all women have access to good quality pre-natal care. Disinformation about PBAs: Abortions in general and PBAs in particular are extremely emotional topics for both pro-life and pro-choice activists. Sometimes the truth gets bent out of shape: On 1995-JUL-19, on the radio program Focus on the Family Dr. Dobson referred to PBAs as a type of "Nazi era experimentation" in which doctors "suck the brain matter out of a living, viable baby for use in medical experiments". The incorrect impression given was that this is a procedure requested by researchers eager to study brain structure, who didn't mind selecting an about-to-be-born fetus at random from the nearest delivery room, and kill it in order to get more research material. The program generated a flood of telephone calls which paralyzed Federal government switchboards. To our knowledge, Dr. Dobson has never apologized for his misleading statements or corrected his misrepresentation of the facts. Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers testified in government hearings that only about 450 PBAs were performed annually in the United States. Later, on ABC's Nightline program, he admitted that he had been carried away by the lies and rhetoric by both sides in the debate. He now estimates that 3 to 4 thousand is a more accurate value. Senator Rick Santorum, one of the leaders in the Senate of a PBA ban, said that the procedure is a gruesome form of infanticide and that it is a lie to argue that a PBA is sometimes required to protect a woman's health. The term "infanticide" refers to the killing of a newborn infant, whereas the PBA procedure is used to simplify the termination of a pregnancy by killing the fetus before it becomes a newborn. Also, he must believe that a PBA is sometimes needed to protect a woman from very serious health risks. Otherwise, he would have gone along with President Clinton's request that a exemption be added to the bill in cases of serious health risks.... Del