Good grief, I go away for a honeymoon, come back, and look what happens! I'm flabbergasted that this is moving so fast...
Putting on my Genetic Counselling hat for a moment (since I feel this is where I know the most), I can't help feeling that banning post-21-week abortions is one of the silliest places to start with this debate. You probably already know this, but these days most women are offered first or second trimester screening early in pregnancy. When I say offered, although there is theoretically informed consent, many women go ahead without really understanding what the screening test is for.
If you are unlucky, you find out about 14-15 weeks (at the earliest into the pregnancy, that you have screened at 'high risk' for one of a range of conditions - theoretically, we are looking for Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and, in second trimester, neural tube defects, but the way the tests work, other things might be picked up too. A 'high risk' means, you have unusual levels of hormones, the ultrasound had something unusual (usually a thickened nuchal fold), and we think your overall risk, factoring age, is somewhere less than 1 in 250 (obviously, you are given a more exact figure, but it is still only a probability). But you still don't know for certain if anything is wrong.
You find that out by having an amniocentesis - which can only be done after 16 weeks, if I recall correctly, and definitely takes 2 weeks to process.
So suddenly, at 18 weeks in, at the very earliest, you may be facing a very nasty diagnosis, without really having had much time to prepare for it. The child you are now thinking about terminating is not an accident, or if it is, it is one you decided long ago to carry on with. It is a wanted child - except now you don't know whether you can cope with this diagnosis...
If you terminate at this late stage, you have to go through labor. There is generally a waiting period of a few days to over a week before you can have the termination (this is about availability, not morals).
What I am saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that the majority of terminations after 21 weeks are for medical reasons. In fact, it is extremely difficult to have a termination after 22 weeks without a medical reason - I don't think it is possible at all after 24 weeks, except in an emergency (ie, hypertension - mother's life at risk).
When we target abortions post 21-weeks, we are not targeting the 'irresponsible women using abortion as a contraceptive' that some people like to wring their hands over. We are targeting women who have very frightening medical conditions, or who have found themselves with the prospect of raising a child with a very nasty illness.
Personally, I favour mother over fetus every time. But even if I didn't, this seems like the wrong end of the problem to start with.
Catherine, hopefully not too long-winded or over informed, and now she's going to have to write to the Health Minister, which was NOT on her list of things to do on her holiday...
no subject
Putting on my Genetic Counselling hat for a moment (since I feel this is where I know the most), I can't help feeling that banning post-21-week abortions is one of the silliest places to start with this debate. You probably already know this, but these days most women are offered first or second trimester screening early in pregnancy. When I say offered, although there is theoretically informed consent, many women go ahead without really understanding what the screening test is for.
If you are unlucky, you find out about 14-15 weeks (at the earliest into the pregnancy, that you have screened at 'high risk' for one of a range of conditions - theoretically, we are looking for Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and, in second trimester, neural tube defects, but the way the tests work, other things might be picked up too. A 'high risk' means, you have unusual levels of hormones, the ultrasound had something unusual (usually a thickened nuchal fold), and we think your overall risk, factoring age, is somewhere less than 1 in 250 (obviously, you are given a more exact figure, but it is still only a probability). But you still don't know for certain if anything is wrong.
You find that out by having an amniocentesis - which can only be done after 16 weeks, if I recall correctly, and definitely takes 2 weeks to process.
So suddenly, at 18 weeks in, at the very earliest, you may be facing a very nasty diagnosis, without really having had much time to prepare for it. The child you are now thinking about terminating is not an accident, or if it is, it is one you decided long ago to carry on with. It is a wanted child - except now you don't know whether you can cope with this diagnosis...
If you terminate at this late stage, you have to go through labor. There is generally a waiting period of a few days to over a week before you can have the termination (this is about availability, not morals).
What I am saying, in a long-winded fashion, is that the majority of terminations after 21 weeks are for medical reasons. In fact, it is extremely difficult to have a termination after 22 weeks without a medical reason - I don't think it is possible at all after 24 weeks, except in an emergency (ie, hypertension - mother's life at risk).
When we target abortions post 21-weeks, we are not targeting the 'irresponsible women using abortion as a contraceptive' that some people like to wring their hands over. We are targeting women who have very frightening medical conditions, or who have found themselves with the prospect of raising a child with a very nasty illness.
Personally, I favour mother over fetus every time. But even if I didn't, this seems like the wrong end of the problem to start with.
Catherine, hopefully not too long-winded or over informed, and now she's going to have to write to the Health Minister, which was NOT on her list of things to do on her holiday...