George Tiller shot to death

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

I found a chart for Fetal Survival Rates , it gives 0% at 21 weeks and less.

 My mother was severely premature, weighing only 2 lbs at birth. She was born *ahem!* the year the incubator was introduced at the World's Fair so they didn't yet have one in the small rural Iowa town where she was born. They put her in a drawer, not expecting her to live the night. When she was still alive the next morning, to everyone's surprise, that's when they decided to start feeding her.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

Are we back to the antiquated idea that a fetus passes through multiple species before becoming human?

quote>

The point is that there's a distinction between being of the species homo sapiens and being a person with rights. Nobody charges you with murder for circumcising your baby, but that bit of foreskin is very much human. What it's not is a person with rights.

The place where it gets tricky is when you start talking about zygotes and embryos. They are human, no doubt, and they will be people with rights eventually if permitted to become so... the question is whether they are people with rights already.

Given their incapability of surviving independent of their mother, I'd say no.

My mother was severely premature, weighing only 2 lbs at birth. She was born *ahem!* the year the incubator was introduced at the World's Fair so they didn't yet have one in the small rural Iowa town where she was born. They put her in a drawer, not expecting her to live the night. When she was still alive the next morning, to everyone's surprise, that's when they decided to start feeding her.quote>

Charming story. Sounds like the details have been embelished a bit (stuck in a drawer? Really?), but charming nonetheless. One important detail that's missing, though: how premature? Give me a length of time, not ambiguous adjectives.

[Meg 368]

"How premature" is important regardless of birth weight.

A low weight, almost full term baby can have well developed lungs, which are a key factor in survivial.

A low weight, not-close-to-full-term baby is likely to not have well developed lungs.

The lungs are important.  Premature babies are not designed to breath.  Their lungs aren't developed enough and their nervous system isn't mature enough to remember to do something it isn't supposed to be doing at that point.

 

Most preemies go home while still wearing monitors to detect apnea and bradycardia.   Often it just takes a nudge to remind the nervous system what it's supposed to be doing.  Sometimes it takes CPR.

 

 

[Patricius Maximus 236]

What species or lifeform would it be, then? Are we back to the antiquated idea that a fetus passes through multiple species before becoming human?quote>

First explain what species or life-form a tumor would be. After all, a fetus or embryo is a growth of cells in the body of a person, in this respect like a tumor.

[fukuda 351]

Ain't you being a bit too reductionist here, patricius? "Species" only applies to organisms, not uncontrolled tissue growth. An embryo is not an uncontrolled tissue growth, neither shares the same genome as its mother and is a growing new organism. It's almost as accurate as saying that an embryo is a person

[Patricius Maximus 236]

Ain't you being a bit too reductionist here, patricius? quote>

Not really. In the respect I mentioned it is like a tumor. However, in most others it is not. Unlike a tumor, a fetus develops and eventually exits the body (assuming it isn't aborted), and a tumor just grows and does not exit. I can't see how anyone can deny that both fetuses and tumors are cell growths inside the body, albeit with different end points.

"Species" only applies to organisms, not uncontrolled tissue growth.quote>

That was the general idea I was getting at. A fetus is a collection of growing human cells. No one ever says what species human cells are, because they are not independent organisms.

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[coconutislandboy 0]

c

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: coconutislandboy

cquote>

Euclid Avenue bound or 168th Street bound?

[BulletMagnet 0]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this before, but these are no ordinary abortions. Late-term abortions such as those Dr Tiller and his colleagues performed are not like other abortions, neither are they performed under similar circumstances.

Normal abortions, the end of an unwanted pregnancy, are performed much, much earlier. These, however, are invariably exceptional circumstances.

These are not abortions done on a whim. When women discover that they are pregnant and don't want it, they get an abortion fairly quickly, what comes out is indistinguishable from a chicken of the same age. But Dr Tiller terminated pregnancies that were usually eagerly awaited, that the parents wanted to carry to full term, until something went terribly wrong. The parents truly want to be anywhere else but Tiller's clinic, preferably at home, preparing for their child's life. These are later-term therapeutic abortions: they are necessary for the mother's health. Be it that she has mental health problems, they have discovered something seriously wrong with the child and/or the pregnancy process that threatens the mother, she contracts a disease that neither child nor mother will survive while she is pregnant etcetera. Many would be the victims of rape who are in no state to terminate their unwilling pregnancies any earlier. More often the child would have profound, unimaginable medical problems, was already dead or dying, formed without a head etcetera. And these situations take a major toll on the mother, mentally and physically.

Dr Tiller's clinic was renowned for the thoughtful patient support it provided: counselling, support groups, religious services for the lost child etcetera. Here was a man and his staff who genuinely cared about women's health, and every day, because of people who deem women valuable only when pregnant, of people whose concern for human life ends at birth, he and his staff risked life and limb in order to provide this valuable and necessary service to women, many of whom had to travel a great distance indeed because of the actions of the fringe pro-life terrorist groups have frightened away many potential doctors and killed a few more.

As far as the far-reaching consequences go, these misogynists may have already won. We have lost a great man and suffered a major blow to women's rights and women's health.