You can probably figure out my views on 3rd trimester abortions from this post.

The term "partial birth abortion" is a lot like the term "pro-life", which has a much better spin value than "anti-abortion" (and, incidentally, the reason we at our house call the movement "pro-birth", because generally anti-abortion organizations don't give a damn what happens to the infant after it's born.) A third-trimester abortion resembles a birth because it follows the physical pattern of one. Technically, a stillbirth is an abortion too; all miscarriages are abortions, uninduced ones. So when you ask me, So I take it you would support making third-trimester abortion, or at the very least partial birth abortion illegal?, you are asking me not if I oppose A or at least B, but A or at least A.

The problem with making third trimester abortions illegal is that there are times when such abortions are appropriate. Admittedly, the medical conditions are rare and catastrophic, but the families and women involved are already traumatized enough and would need that severe remedy. We would be talking about a dead or braindead baby in the womb or of a woman so severely injured or ill that either the continued pregnancy or a caesarian birth would literally kill her, so that she or her family would have to choose between her life and the baby's. These are very hard choices. They don't need to be made worse by prison. But I see no problem with having to file a show cause brief with the courts, to make sure such abortions aren't performed frivolously. (As if! Have you never had a gynecological procedure? Oh, wait... never mind.)

There you have it.

Regards--
Mary Anne