A Laban para sa Buhay Campaign Focus Group Discussion

presents

Abortion
A brief overview
Today’s Guest:
Dr. Magda Victorino
Psychologist

Hosted by:
Mr. James Christian S. Adan
Abortion: some terminology
(procured) abortion Intentional ending of unborn human
life

spontaneous abortion A miscarriage

human foetus Commonly used to refer to unborn

human life after first weeks

human embryo Commonly used to refer to unborn

human life during first weeks

abortion on demand Abortion available without the need

for reasons
Abortion: some statistics
 Worldwide estimates between
45 to 55 million annually
 Typically 175 000 to 180 000
annually in England and Wales
 Of these…
 Around 3.5% are for females

under 16
 Around 80% for females

aged 16-24 Unborn human life at

 About 85% of abortions are in the end of the first
the first trimester trimester
 About 80% of abortions are NHS
funded
Development of human life
 Fertilization: the sperm
and egg join in the
fallopian tube
 Biologically complete
human
 Needs are human needs:
food, water, nurture…
 Forty-six chromosomes
combine, which pre-
determine all of a
person's physical
characteristics. Fertilisation (Conception)
 Smaller than a pinhead
Development of human life
 Early embryonic human
life contains stem cells
 Stem cells are pluripotent
 They may become any
tissue in the human body
 Process of rapid cell
division occurs over the
next hours, days and
weeks
 This is the main feature of
the first trimester of
pregnancy
Rapid cell division as the human
blueprint carries itself out
Development of human life
 At six weeks recognisably
human characteristics are
starting to become visible
 Human embryo about
size of a raisin
 The spine and spinal cord
grows faster than the rest
of the body at this stage
and give the appearance
of a tail
 The tiny heart has been
beating for weeks
 Own distinct blood type Six weeks after conception
Development of human life
 At eight weeks unborn
human life usually called
a human foetus (rather
than embryo)
 About half an inch (just
over a centimetre) long
 Tiny human life protected
by the amniotic sac, filled
with fluid.
 Human foetus swims and
moves
 Brain waves measurable
Eight weeks after conception
Development of human life
 At fourteen weeks
muscles lengthen and
become organized
 The mother will soon
start feeling the first
signs of the unborn
child kicking and
moving within
 Typically 10% to 12%
of UK abortions occur
in the period of 13 to 19
weeks
Fourteen weeks after conception
Development of human life
 At eighteen weeks the
unborn human foetus
has well developed
limbs
 Grasping, kicking
(somersaulting?) …
 Less than a foot long
and less than three
quarters of a pound
 Fine eyebrows and
eyelashes
 Sex of child identifiable
with ultrasound Eighteen weeks after conception
Development of human life
 At five months the unborn
human foetus begins to practise
breathing by inhaling amniotic
fluid into developing lungs
 For several months, the
umbilical cord has been the
developing baby's lifeline to the
mother
 If the mother takes in any toxic
substances, drugs or alcohol,
there is a chance these will
pass into the baby’s
bloodstream
 In the UK only 1% to 1.5% of
abortions are after 20 weeks Five months after conception
Development of human life
 At present, UK law
allows abortion of a
healthy unborn life
up to the 25th week of
pregnancy
 This limit was
brought down from a
previous limit of 28
weeks
 This ‘viability’ marker
depends on the
quality of pre-natal
medical care 24 weeks after conception
Development of human life

A child born prematurely

Abortion: the crux of the debate
Years ago, while giving an anesthetic for a
ruptured tubal pregnancy (at two months) I was
handed what I believed to be the smallest
human being ever seen. The embryo sac was
intact and transparent. Within the sac was a tiny
human male, swimming extremely vigorously in
the amniotic fluid, while attached to the wall by
the umbilical cord. The tiny human was perfectly
developed, with long, tapering fingers, feet and
toes. The baby was extremely alive and did not
look at all like the photos and drawings of
'embryos' which I have seen. When the sac was
opened, the tiny human immediately lost its
life… Paul E. Rockwell, M.D.
Abortion: some methods
Vacuum Under anaesthetic the cervix is gradually
aspiration widened by probes, suction tubes rupture the
amniotic sac and suck the unborn human life
out a piece at a time.
Curettage Instead of a suction tube, a curette (scraping
tool) removes the unborn human foetus
piecemeal
Late-term For late-second trimester abortions onward,
surgical D&E (Dilation and Evacuation) and, for very
methods late abortions, D&X (Dilation and Extraction)
methods are sometimes used
Abortifacients Various chemical methods that prevent the
pregnancy continuing e.g. the morning
after pill or chemically induced miscarriage
Abortion: the hard cases
He was a healthy little boy and Mirveta had
produced him. But birth, the fifth in her short lifetime,
had not brought joy, only dread. As he was pulled
from her loins, the young Albanian mother took the
child and prepared to do the deed.
She cradled him to her chest, she looked into her
boy's eyes, she stroked his face and she snapped
his neck. They say it was a fairly clean business.
Mirveta had used her bare hands. It is said that, in
tears, she handed her baby back to the nurses,
holding his snapped, limp neck. In Pristina, in her
psychiatric detention cell, she has been weeping
ever since. 'Who knows? She may have looked into
the baby's face and seen the eyes of the Serb who
raped her.’ Observer newspaper, 16/05/2000
Different reactions…
"When I gave birth to her, I didn't Victims of mass rapes are being
want to see her...but on the second shunned by family and friends.
day, when I took her to my breast, I Most of them are stigmatised and
realised that she was the only excluded from society if people
beauty remaining in this world and around them come to know the
so I kept her." truth.

With these words Esma, a Bosnian The children conceived in rapes

waitress, explains what made her were mostly pushed into
keep her daughter Sara, 13. orphanages in Bosnia or
Esma, former medical student, neighbouring Croatia, and in rare
became pregnant in war-torn cases given for adoption. They
Sarajevo in 1992 after being raped grow up knowing nothing about
by Serb soldiers in her Grbavica their parents.
home. Source: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32406
Some issues and responses
Backstreet Abortions? • Those who think abortion is
wrong reject backstreet
• Numbers admitted to abortions along with all other
hospital after botched abortions.
abortions was on the way
down years before 1967. • Wherever or however they
are performed, at least one
• Many so-called ‘backstreet’ life is ended, sometimes two.
abortions before 1967 were
done in ‘front’ streets by
• They would argue that If
private practice doctors. people are being beaten up in
the back streets should we
• Backstreet abortions were establish clinics where they
almost always performed can be attacked in hygienic
early in pregnancy. conditions?
Some issues and responses
Pregnant after rape/abuse? • Those who think abortion is
• Because of the severe wrong would argue that the
body trauma, pregnancy violence of abortion will
after rape is extremely rare. only add to the trauma of
rape.
• However, it does happen.
Mass rape was part of the • As it is, post-abortion
Serbian terror tactics in the trauma/depression is a
Balkan war over a decade common occurrence. It
ago. This produced a could get far worse.
number of rape children.
• Proponents argue that the
• They would also argue that
continuing pregnancy can the developing child should
only be an terrible reminder not be punished for the
of a terrible ordeal. crime of his or her father.
Some issues and responses
Health risk or disability? • Those who think abortion is
• Proponents argue that a wrong would say that for
woman should have access health threats, inducing a
to abortion when her health birth is safer than abortion.
is threatened by the
pregnancy.
• They would also argue that
we are showing a vicious
• They also argue that prejudice against disabled
severely disabled unborn people.
human lives should be
terminated. • It makes the womb by far
• In 2004, 1% of abortions the most dangerous place
were because of risk of for disabled people in the
handicap; 1% because of a western world.
health threat to the woman.
Christian views Pope Benedict
XVI
 Catholic Church
Spiritual Leader
 “Human life must be respected of Catholics
and protected absolutely from
the moment of conception. From
the first moment of his existence,
a human being must be
recognized as having the rights
of a person - among which is the
inviolable right of every innocent
being to life.” Catechism of the
Catholic Church
 The Catholic Church takes an St Peter’s Church, Vatican
absolute stance against abortion
Christian views
 Anglican Church
 "All human life, including life
developing in the womb, is
created by God in his own image
and is therefore to be nurtured,
supported and protected”
 However, the Anglican Church
sometimes sees abortion as a Rowan Williams
less evil alternative in certain
Archbishop of
grave circumstances Canterbury
 Other Christians, for example, He is not a ‘pope’ of
Methodists, have similar views the Anglican Church
on this issue
The Bible
 The Bible  "You created my inmost being,
 No passage you knit me together in my
which says: mother's womb" Psalm 139
“Though shall  The word of the LORD came to
not commit me, saying, “Before I formed you
abortion”… in the womb I knew you, before
 However, there you were born I set you apart; I
are references appointed you as a prophet to
that get across the nations”. Jeremiah 1:4,5
the belief that  Now as soon as Elizabeth heard
human life exists Mary's greeting, the child leaped
from the earliest in her womb and Elizabeth was
moment of a filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke
pregnancy… 1:41