[Moved up in case you missed Dear Science‘s offer… Eds.]
…forward me (dearscience@thestranger.com) your receipt with a science question, and I’ll send you a brief personal response.
The cold-blooded slaughter of Dr. Tiller is a potential disaster of Kansan women. The late-term terminations of pregnancy he was bravely willing to perform in an ultra-hostile environment were life-saving for women in an otherwise impossible situation. Care providers are constantly asked to perform procedures that can be grim, unpleasant, ethically contentious and ultimately lifesaving and honorable. There is no such thing as a lightly undertaken late-term abortion.
From a JAMA article on late-term abortions:
Late abortions are fundamentally important to women’s reproductive health. Antenatal fetal diagnosis, such as maternal {alpha}-fetoprotein screening and amniocentesis, is predicated on the availability of induced abortion. Although techniques such as chorionic villus sampling and early amniocentesis have allowed earlier diagnosis, by the time results of midtrimester amniocentesis or ultrasound are available, a woman may be beyond 20 weeks’ gestation.
Ironically, the availability of late abortion is pronatalist. About 98% of women who undergo genetic screening receive reassuring news. Without the availability of prenatal diagnosis with abortion as an option, many of these women would not have become pregnant or would have aborted all pregnancies that occurred. As noted by Cook, “Macroethical reasons favouring legal abortion in such circumstances rest on the potential to do greater good than harm in the community, and reveal the positive, life-affirming aspects of legally available abortion services.”
Illnesses of women and fetal anomalies lead to requests for late abortions. Late abortion can be lifesaving for women with medical disorders aggravated by pregnancy. Conditions such as Eisenmenger syndrome carry a high risk of maternal morbidity and mortality in pregnancy, the latter ranging from 20% to 30%. In recent years, I have performed late abortions for a Kampuchean refugee with craniopagus conjoined twins and a 25-year-old woman with a 9 x 15-cm thoracic aortic aneurysm from newly diagnosed Marfan syndrome. Cancer sometimes makes late abortion necessary. For example, either radical hysterectomy or radiation therapy for cervical cancer before fetal viability involves abortion.
Incest and rape are other compelling indications. Pregnancies resulting from incest among young teenagers or among women with mental handicaps may escape detection until the pregnancy is advanced. Approximately 32000 pregnancies result from rape each year in the United States; about half of rape victims receive no medical attention, and about one third do not discover the pregnancy until the second trimester.
Some of the moral absolutists among us would like to pretend that such grim situations don’t exist—that young teenagers or the mentally handicapped aren’t raped or raped by family members, that the survival of a mother is at least as important as that of a fetus, or that things can horribly wrong in development. For the rest of us, the loss of brave and honorable Dr. George Tiller is a deeply saddening terrorist act against humanity. There will be more widowers, more motherless children and more misery in Kansas with his slaughter.
FOR ALL OF YOU – who have taken this issue for granted.
And who have thought it all solved.
And who think cause Washington State is pro choice, what is all the fuss.
This dead doctor was willing to back his convictions about the right of a woman to control her body with his life.
What are you willing to die for?
Long ago I marched in an anti-Nazi rally knowing they had guns. Called dear mom to say what do you think, she replied, ” if you know what you are willing to die for make that choice accordingly.” I went to the event.
And yes, my mom is the greatest.
There will be celebrations of this Doctors life. Go to them. Send money to NAARAL or Planned parenthood – and take nothing for granted about the nut cases who will kill for their warped beliefs.
(PS – progressive men, this is your issue too!!! Make no mistake. And Gay men – women’s rights have given way to your rights to make all choices in your personal life. Remember.)
Roy
Planned Parenthood is already in my will. Seriously.
Unforeseen health issues/risk to the mother aside, does it really take some women more than six months to decide they don’t want to be pregnant anymore?
Late-term abortions are vanishingly rare, and almost without exception take place in the type of circumstances described, where there are serious medical issues with the mother or the fetus.
These stories are not nearly prominent enough in the coverage and discussion of late-term abortion. The public is ill-informed, and sadly that public includes members of the Supreme Court.
@3, you miss the point of the JAMA article quoted by our Dr. Science. Late-term abortion nearly always involves either health conditions threatening the mother’s life, or health conditions of a fetus which will cause its death at or immediately after birth, and threaten the mother’s future fertility. For very young teenagers and the mentally disabled, as noted in the article, they are no more “choosing” that “they don’t want to be pregnant anymore” anymore than they consented to the sex that lead to their pregnancy.
@3,
There are cases like this one. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/368231_ra…
There are also women who find out that their babies have what are called “conditions incompatible with life,” like missing brains/hearts or non-Downs trisomies. Twin-to-twin transfusions and eclampsia threaten mother and child. Many of these conditions don’t become evident until late in the pregnancy. It’s not just “I didn’t know I was pregnant” situations that ocassion late-term abortions.
“Macroethical reasons favouring legal abortion in such circumstances rest on the potential to do greater good than harm in the community, and reveal the positive, life-affirming aspects of legally available abortion services.” Sounds a little like eugenics to me.
I’m still not convinced that late-term abortion is ethically or morally justified, but what really got me was this:
‘Approximately 32000 pregnancies result from rape each year in the United States; about half of rape victims receive no medical attention, and about one third do not discover the pregnancy until the second trimester.’
That is truly an outrage. People who really want to stop abortion shouldn’t just keep pounding on abortion, but attack its CAUSES, like the fact that half of all rape victims in the United States don’t even get medical attention.
[please excuse me if I sound incoherent, it’s probably the cold meds]
Nice work, Golob. I will send in another donation to PP. No science questions, particularly, unless you want to come work in our shop and help from there.
The situations Golob describes are touching but bear no relation to Dr Tiller’s practice.
It is alleged that Tiller performed late-term abortions to alleviate “temporary depression” in the pregnant woman.
According to reporting data provided to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for the year 1998, for example, all of the post-viable partial-birth (dilation and extraction) abortion procedures performed in Kansas during that year were performed because “the attending physician believe[d] that continuing the pregnancy [would] constitute a substantial and irreversible impairment of the patient’s mental function.”
This post cites generic information about late term abortion but NOTHING about Tiller’s actual practice.
Jonathan, do you have ANY information about the reason for ANY abortions Tiller performed?
Thanks, Dr. Golob.
@9, why don’t we extract the fetuses from the women who don’t want them and put them in your uterus, since you’re so concerned about them? Oh yeah, I forgot, odds are 10:1 you don’t have one.
The grim stories presented here are simply an attempt to deflect attention from the fact that 99% of the 800,000 abortions performed annually in America are for convenience and not health.
Well said, but it still won’t stop the “pro-life” trolls from typing MURDER in capital letters about a hundred times to hammer home their “point.”
Remember, pro-lifers believe in forced pregnancy for rape victims. They think rapists should be rewarded by having their genes carried forward into the gene pool by insuring that their victims don’t have any choice in the matter.
Why bother trying to reason with people who believe something like that?
12
I insist on killing 800,000 babies a year because some opponents of ‘abortion on demand’ may be men….
Late term abortion is the moral equivalent of tumor removal. If you’re not convinced of the ethical and moral justifications, then you have some religious blockage in your brain that should be removed immediately.
Seriously, if you have a problem with abortion, then instead of wasting your life trying to take rights away from women perhaps you should devote your life to coming up with a non-invasive way to transfer fetuses from women who don’t want them over to christian volunteers. Hell, from the moment your kids turn 18, you can immediately turn them into the baby farms you seem to think all women should be. They can reaffirm their commitment to the unborn every nine months until they die. Each girl could save 60 lives or more in her lifetime, and no-one’s rights would be infringed upon. Instead of outlawing abortion, come up with an alternative.
According to reporting data provided to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for the year 1998, for example, all of the post-viable partial-birth (dilation and extraction) abortion procedures performed in Kansas during that year were performed because “the attending physician believe[d] that continuing the pregnancy [would] constitute a substantial and irreversible impairment of the patient’s mental function.”
It sounds to me that they were performed, because the woman’s mental heath and ability it function was at stake. The mental health of woman is just as important as her physical health, especially when it comes to the demands of taking care of a newborn.
“The cold-blooded slaughter of Dr. Tiller”
gee, jonathan,
cut-and-pasting from the pro-life side?
Fundamental flaw in @9’s statement: “it is alleged.” I can allege anything I want. Hell, I can allege that @9 fucks monkeys. Doesn’t make it true, does it?
So where’s the proof? Hmm, funny, it doesn’t seem there is any.
17
But “mom is stressed” wasn’t a single one of the heart wrenching justifications for barbaric partial-birth abortion that Golob floated in this post to deflect attention from what Tiller was actually doing.
19
Jonathan never even alleged that he had any clue why Tiller performed late term abortions.
Feeling credulous, are we?
Dear troll @9, 10, 13, 15, 18: You see, it makes all the difference in the world, to have a functioning uterus and to be making decisions about what is produced therefrom. You simply have no suasion in the argument until you have been there, which you never will.
P.S.–Stop being a complete scrotum and dare to comment from a registered ID. At least bear the courage of your “convictions” from that level of un-anonymity.
22
Make all the decisions you want.
Once you have decided to produce another human “therefrom” however, expect the rest of humanity to have an opinion about how the helpless and innocent are treated.
Dr. Tiller was a brave, brave person. I am humbled by the spine he showed, but disgusted by the price he paid. A great inspiration for anyone who tries to live a principled life in a country full of easily-fooled yahoos.
who knew terrorists could be christian?
23
blah blah “helpless and innocent.” Fetuses are not helpless and innocent. They’re not people. They have no personalities to speak of, so attributing personalities to them is pretty damned stupid. Why don’t you go run your mouth about all the helpless and innocent clams that are being eaten, or the helpless and innocent walls being defaced, or the helpless and innocent boogers being picked?
Do you have some sort of moral breakdown every time a tick attaches itself to you? Are you a willing host to tapeworms? Do you not have the heart to smack at mosquitoes when they’re biting you? I know people on the left always have to deal with being called bleeding hearts, but jesus you pro-‘life’ people can’t even handle the concept of interrupting an unwanted process occurring within the body. What pussies.
Oh, and apparently, Scott Roeder (the suspected shooter) had some affiliation with Operation Rescue.
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/0…
Here is the Google cache of his posting from 2 years ago at http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ZzTS…
>>Scott Roeder Says:
May 19th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp.
Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.<<
A very close buddy of mine was there today for worship when it happened. The last thing you can expect when going to church, I reckon.
Whether you are Christian or other, religious or not, pro-Life or pro-Choice, stop for a moment, and have a good thought for Mr Tiller, his family, and that community.
Way to protect us from domestic terrorists, Obama. Keep fucking around in Iraq, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Everyone, please read the comment from Kim in Portland @17 again.
Thanks Kim!
Oh my goodness. I am actually physically ill over this. The man had been attacked before, and yet he kept on providing this service. I have been involved in cases referred to Tiller. One was a woman newly diagnosed with aggressive leukemia, treatable but…. Her baby was not-quite-viable, and the oncologists were withholding her chemo because of concerns about the fetus. Sadly, her family blocked her travel to Kansas (this was in Pa.) and she died of her disease. Her baby, born by C-section at 27 weeks, when she was in the coma that preceded her death, died of prematurity. Horrible.
I do abortions, and cases like this scare the hell out of me. I have children, and I worry that some idiot’s gonna earn his way out of purgatory by going after my kids or making them orphans.
That said, no one has the right to judge these women. They go through absolute hell in arriving at their decision. You have no idea the kinds of situations they face. “Convenience?” Tell that to the mother of 23 week twins with an overwhelming uterine infection who has hours to terminate her pregnancy or die. Tell that to my patient whose husband locked her up in a Cascades cabin so she couldn’t get to my office for birth control pills and managed to sneak out to get an abortion.
Don’t believe in abortion? Don’t have one. But unless you have faced this kind of miserable choice (and these are real cases) don’t ever think you know better than the women.
The unsupported comments from unregistered sloggers aren’t worth a used piece of toilet paper. @ 9, 13, 15, I’m looking at you.
This is a very sad day, and my thoughts are with the doctor’s family, friends, patients and potential patients who could have benefited from his expertise.
It is pointless to debate the reasons why or why not women have abortions, and ridiculous for others to determine what or what not a woman does with her body. Dr. Tiller probably heard more depressing, painful and horrific stories than any of us will ever care to hear in one lifetime, and he performed honorably and with dignity to help so many. RIP.
32
look at 10 and 21
@31: Thank you for your post, and sharing your experiences.
More importantly, thank you for being an advocate and true health care provider for women in crisis.
Hey gloomy gus, your comments sum up my feelings beautifully, I am sad to say. Dr. Tiller was a brave, brave person.
Hey gloomy gus, your comments sum up my feelings beautifully, I am sad to say. Dr. Tiller was a brave, brave person.
@31 thank you for providing safe legal abortions. You do valuable and important work.
@ 34, 21 seems to be on your side. Ha ha ha ha ha….
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index…
will take you to :
Honor Dr. Tiller: Make a Donation to Help Low-Income Women Overcome the Barriers to Abortion Care
The George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund
In response to Dr. Tiller’s tragic murder, the National Network of Abortion Funds has established a national abortion Fund to help women who face extreme obstacles to abortion. The Fund will provide critical assistance to pay for abortion care and related travel expenses.
Independent providers, especially the very, very few that provide post-21-weeks abortions, like Dr. Warren Hern in Boulder, CO, need your support far more than does Planned Parenthood. Dr. Hern is subject to near constant protests at his clinic and the costs to provide appropriate security for himself and his staff are taking their toll. If you truly want to honor Dr. Tiller, then support the independent docs who will continue doing the important work that cost Dr. Tiller his life. http://www.drhern.com/index.asp
Props for posting this, JG.
For all those who have no idea why abortion is legal– things we have largely forgotten, information instead of name calling– check this book, When Abortion Was a Crime: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/6507.…
Thanks Trevor @ 42. I also recommend John Irving’s excellent “Cider House Rules.”
My own father trained in inner city Chicago at Cook County Hospital where in the bad old days they had a special ward for women with (often fatal) complications of illegal abortions. He never forgot the smell of infection and death there. He actually pulled me aside during my training and said that I owed it to women under my care to offer this service. I was shocked (he was otherwise the most conservative of men), and could barely stammer out in reply that he was preaching to the choir.
Public health historians believe we don’t have any more abortions now than we had before Roe v. Wade, we just have safe and legal abortions. I agree with the other posters: if you don’t like abortion, do all you can to make birth control available to all, and support the programs (WIC, ADC, Medicaid) that support poor families.
The “pro-life” people here on this thread making excuses for this murderer who acted in their name should keep talking as loud as possible. The more rational people grasp that the “pro-life” position is pro-murder as well as pro-rape and pro-incest, the more they will reject it out of hand.
Keep talking, assholes. Post some more photographs while you’re at it. I’ll see your “genuine abortion” photos and raise you these alien autopsy photos I found on the internet…
First, Kim in Portland, if I weren’t straight and you weren’t half a country away, I think I might fall in love with you. Thank you for representing for all of us rational Christians out there who think with our heads and hearts.
Secondly, Dr. Tiller was a member of my denomination. While we are generally a pro-life denomination (which does not necessarily mean anti-abortion), we believe most strongly that individuals are bound to follow their consciences, wherever they may lead, therefore we generally respect a woman’s right to choose (there are exceptions, of course, just like you might find Catholics or even fundamentalist Protestants who are pro-choice).
I know nothing about the person who killed Dr. Tiller, but I do know that, no matter what he might call himself, he is not a follower of the Jesus Christ I know. I will be praying for Dr. Tiller, his family, and his congregation (and yes, the person who killed them). I will also be making a donation to Planned Parenthood when I get paid later this week.
Thank you @31. I wasn’t ready to have a baby at 19 (I’ve never been ready), and I appreciate your courage and the courage of other doctors like you.
Dr. Tiller, and others like him, are almost unintelligible in their heroism. How do they do it? Tiller had been shot before. Unbelievable.
You keep on keeping on, you anti-abortion murdering kooks. I’ve just sent $100 to https://www.ppkm.org/donations/index.asp, Planned Parenthood Kansas and Missouri, and I’m trying to figure out how to send more to Dr. Hern in Boulder (his website’s broken).
Who provides this service in Seattle? $100 I have for you. This is a sickening day.
@31 and 43: as a pro-choice woman whose friends and family members have had safe, legal abortions, thank you, thank you, thank you for what you do.
You’d think all the assholes praying outside clinics for sinners would be more interested in working to fix the causes of abortion, but it’ll never happen because they wouldn’t get nearly the self-righteous fix they get while attempting to intimidate women who have made a choice they disagree with.
@3 good question. does it really take them that long? are you.. wait i can’t be sure. are you saying they, uh, this sounds ridiculous but decide to get an abortion, and then wait three to five more months before actually getting that abortion, just because they, uh, like hurting fetuses?
what are you, fucking twelve?
Thank you Jessica, and Earwig, and @31, and all of your testimony. We couldn’t live on this earth if we didn’t believe that someday reality will win. Safe, legal abortions YES. Murdering doctors in their home towns NO.