New attention on late abortions involving abnormalities
June 6th, 2009‘Doctors who perform procedures provide little data but underscore reasoning’
Washington Post staff writer Rob Stein interviews Susan Fitzgerald, a patient of George Tiller’s who had an abortion “near the end of her pregnancy” after she learned her fetus had “a rare condition that left his bones so brittle he would live less than a day.”
Stories like Fitzgerald’s have surfaced in the wake of Tiller’s death, focusing attention on late-term abortions of fetuses with abnormalities. Still, Stein writes, there is no firm data on the number of terminations involved, or the number of providers who perform them. An official at the Guttmacher Institute estimated that as many as 2,400 abortions were performed after 24 weeks in the United States in 2001.
Abortion rights activists argue that late-term procedures are performed only when absolutely necessary — often when devastating abnormalities in the fetus or life-threatening problems in the woman are discovered … Abortion opponents condemn the procedures, regardless of the circumstances.
… Under Kansas law, an abortion can be performed after a fetus is viable only if the doctor performing the procedure and an independent physician agree that the woman’s life is at risk or that continuing the pregnancy would cause “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Many are performed in cases such as Fitzgerald’s, where a major abnormality in the fetus is discovered late, [said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, and others.]
… “Many of these women are truly desperate. Many have a desired pregnancy that is terribly complicated by a lethal fetal anomaly. The baby is totally impaired, may die in delivery or after terrible struggle and pain. There is no justification for forcing the woman to carry this baby to term,” said Dr. Warren M. Hern.
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