"This is an area that we just don't know much about,"..."The information just isn't available." Stanley K. Henshaw, a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that has the best available data.
Since the death of Dr. George Tiller and his relationship with the church, one thing is clear, the church is conflicted over this issue as great as anyone. Why? I suppose it's because of the nature of abortion and especially late term abortion itself, and the seemingly inconsistent way that Dr. Tiller approached his profession over the course of his lifetime.
As recorded in This Doesn't Fulfill The Mission Of Christ, We decry abortion in all of it's forms. We believe that the unborn have a right to life. We also don't believe that Christians or otherwise should take the law in their hands and kill medical professionals who provide such services. However, and this is where it gets sticky, We believe that the already born have a right to life also.
In this article I intend to look at some of the facts that we should know regarding these procedures and the the thoughts of some of the medical professionals who perform such procedures? Are they whimsically recommending procedures based on their own thoughts and libertarian attitudes towards life? Are the women wantonly using late trimester abortions as another means of delayed birth control with the endorsement of the state? Most importantly, is the church, in particularly the Evangelical Lutheran Church In America (ELCA) responsible for Dr. Tiller's death in a vicariously strange manner? It's worth taking a look at and discussing so that those of us who oppose abortion will better understand the processes behind these types of actions and attitudes, and filter out some of the noise regarding the issues.
What We Do Know?
According to a 6/5/09 article by Rob Stein at The Washington Post, more than 88 percent of abortions are done in the first trimester, and most doctors will not perform them beyond 22 or 24 weeks because of moral qualms, social stigma, legal concerns, inadequate training or lack of experience. Barely 1 percent of procedures are done after 21 weeks. At 37 weeks, a baby is generally considered full-term. 2001 data from 15 states and New York City indicate that perhaps as many as 2,400 abortions were performed after 24 weeks in the United States that year, most of them probably in the 25th or 26th week. Late term abortions represent roughly about 1% of all types of abortions performed. It is estimated that 400 procedures per year beyond 24 weeks were performed at Tiller's clinic. Those figures would place Dr. Tiller's clinic at about 7.7 late term abortion procedures per week over the course of a year. The figures at his clinic represent about 16% of all annual late term abortions performed in the country.
Since proper records are not gathered as to the necessity of abortions, abortion rights advocates often contend that the only necessity for late term abortions are when the fetus is maldeveloped, in danger of suffering from a painful death itself or when the life of the mother is in danger or she is at risk from suffering a devastating health condition or problem. 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."
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