Friday, November 07, 2008

First: Call for more information

Our first step, I think, needs to be in calling for information.

The CDC gathers information on abortions. Their most recent report is for 2004.



The latest gestational age they count is "more than 21 weeks". That's 22 weeks and more. There were 8,365 reported.

Over eight thousand babies old enough to have survived outside the womb. In one year.

Every DAY that passes after 22 weeks is a greater chance of survival for that baby. How many babies are we aborting that could survive? That might very well be surviving the abortion, but left to die in clinic toilets or hospital utility rooms?

We need to demand to know week by week.

We need to compare those stats to those babies' chance of survival.

How many of these babies are 23 week babies that have a 10-35% chance of survival?

How many of these babies are 24 week babies that have a 40-70% chance of survival?

How many of these babies are 25 week babies that have a 50-80% chance of survival?

How many of these babies are 26 week babies that have a 80-90% chance of survival?

How many of these babies are 27 weeks or older, with a greater than 90% chance of survival?

How many of these babies are 30 weeks and older, with the same survival rate as term infants?

Then we need to demand to know why these babies were aborted.

Nobody's collecting information on that, as far as I know. The Alan Guttmacher Institute did a survey of why abortions were being done after 16 weeks, and lumped them all in together.

We need to demand this information and start using it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm game. How is this information obtained? People need to know. I've come across so many who have challenged me on the legality of late term abortions prior to the ban. I've come across those who think roe v wade protects reproductive rights only up until the end of trimester one! I've come across people when I mention the numbers NRLC posts as false....because of where the data comes from. Perhaps the CDC report would be a more powerful tool?

Christina Dunigan said...

We need somebody who understands how the bureaucracy works so we know how to put in a demand that they start collecting this data.

Call it the "post-viability abortions information act" and pass it into law if we have to.

The public has a right, and a public health and public policy, need to know how many babies who could survive abortions are being aborted, and why, and whether or not they survived the procedure and what actions were taken.

If somebody's claiming a health reason I want an ICD-9 code. If it's a self-referral the abortionist certainly ought to be able to pick up the ICD-9 and get a code.

Anonymous said...

That shocking. But it is no surprise. America definitely has blood on their hands and is going straight to hell if this does not stop!