Rick Santorum: "mainline Protestants aren't real Christians"

[Aliantha]

Not it's not a miscarriage if it lives for even a minute. It's considered a live birth.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Not it's not a miscarriage if it lives for even a minute. It's considered a live birth.

That's what I thought - if my article is referencing the same pregnancy as Clod, then using the term miscarriage - medically induced or otherwise - is wrong, and the debate is prettymuch over on that count.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Not it's not a miscarriage if it lives for even a minute. It's considered a live birth.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This is the problem with charts.

According to this one, if a fetus is born alive at 23 weeks, but then dies afterwards, it's considered a miscarriage.

Because there's no time limit shown, does that mean if the fetus lives to the ripe old age of 96 it's still considered a miscarriage?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Not it's not a miscarriage if it lives for even a minute. It's considered a live birth.

Correct.

There is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding this discussion. Medicine is not as pure as it looks on the face. I suspect that even Santorum is miss-using the term which is confusing everyone else.

Induced labor of a viable infant where the baby is born and lives for one minute is a live birth. Induced labor of a non-viable infant is not a medically induced abortion, regardless of date of confinement or conception.

The term abortion is restricted to a viable fetus regardless of date of confinement or conception.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

The term abortion is restricted to a viable fetus regardless of date of confinement or conception.

I remember a big hoo-hah about 15-20 years ago, where a woman who had miscarried saw the word "abortion" on her medical papers.

Her body had aborted a perfectly healthy foetus.

I know little about what the exact words mean now, but that did stick in my head.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Sundae

I remember a big hoo-hah about 15-20 years ago, where a woman who had miscarried saw the word "abortion" on her medical papers.

Her body had aborted a perfectly healthy foetus.

I know little about what the exact words mean now, but that did stick in my head.

Yes, and to this day the terms "spontaneous abortion" remain in medical records, I see them every day, and no one doubts the meaning.

[Stormieweather]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Induced labor of a viable infant where the baby is born and lives for one minute is a live birth. Induced labor of a non-viable infant is not a medically induced abortion, regardless of date of confinement or conception.

The term abortion is restricted to a viable fetus regardless of date of confinement or conception.

This is NOT true. From the good old Merriam Webster dictionary -

abor·tion noun \ə-ˈbȯr-shən\
Definition of ABORTION
1: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as
a : spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation — compare miscarriage

b : induced expulsion of a human fetus

Another definition:

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability.

An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced.
The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy.

From http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_resear...l_abortion.pdf

A medical abortion is one that is brought about by taking
medications that will end a pregnancy. The alternative is
surgical abortion, which ends a pregnancy by emptying the
uterus (or womb) with special instruments. Either of two
medications, mifepristone or methotrexate, can be used for
medical abortion. Each of these medications is taken
together with another medication, misoprostol, to induce
an abortion

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Stormieweather

This is NOT true. From the good old Merriam Webster dictionary -




Another definition:



From http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_resear...l_abortion.pdf

Proof that medical experience trumps what you can look up on the internet and people are just more confused by the terms and what they think they mean vs how they are used and documented in medical records and how healthcare professionals understand them. And so far this thread is filled with a lot of mis-understanding....

[Happy Monkey]

On a non-Santorum-specific tangent:

Originally Posted by Aliantha

OK, I don't believe there's any such thing as 'Induced Labour Miscarriage/abortion'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_labor

Common suggested reasons for induction include:

...

• Premature termination of the pregnancy (abortion).

...

It also lists fetal death (and I know I've heard of people inducing labor for dead fetuses), so there are at least two possible reasons to induce labor on a non-viable fetus.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

On a non-Santorum-specific tangent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_labor





It also lists fetal death (and I know I've heard of people inducing labor for dead fetuses), so there are at least two possible reasons to induce labor on a non-viable fetus.

Yeah, I get that, although I think it's very rare for parents to elect to go through a labour in the case of a dead fetus, and I doubt doctors would generally recommend labour as an option for a fetus with no chance of survival. I would think it would only be for theological reasons in general, and those cases would be rare.

So I guess I admit to being wrong about it not being a fact, but I don't think it's a highly common procedure.

I just don't think the term is applicable to the santorum situation either, simply for the fact that he's misusing the term.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I just don't think the term is applicable to the santorum situation either, simply for the fact that he's misusing the term.

Who's misusing which term? At the moment I'm, at least, not sure that Santorum's 2-hour-old baby is the same pregnancy that was EITHER naturally miscarried OR was given an induced miscarriage.

So right now we have three explanations for what happened:

1.) as per the article I linked, the pregnancy was terminated by an induced miscarriage
2.) as per Klein's article, the Santorums decided not to terminate pregnancy, and later, Karen miscarried
3.) the baby was EITHER induced or naturally-born, lived for two hours, and then died - and was thus not a miscarriage at all.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Who's misusing which term? At the moment I'm, at least, not sure that Santorum's 2-hour-old baby is the same pregnancy that was EITHER naturally miscarried OR was given an induced miscarriage.

So right now we have three explanations for what happened:

1.) as per the article I linked, the pregnancy was terminated by an induced miscarriage
2.) as per Klein's article, the Santorums decided not to terminate pregnancy, and later, Karen miscarried
3.) the baby was EITHER induced or naturally-born, lived for two hours, and then died - and was thus not a miscarriage at all.

It is my understanding that for a birth to be considered medically induced, the mother has to be induced with drugs which specifically encourage the onset of labour.

A baby can be induced and still be classed as a natural birth. It is my understanding that the term natural birth simply means born through the birth canal.

You'll need to check up on what's considered a live birth. I don't believe HM's chart is definitive. My understanding is that a live birth means the fetus or baby has a heart beat when it's born.

eta: I think Santorum is misusing the term which is why there is such debate about it.

eta also: No one but the doctors and the Santorum family are ever going to know exactly what happened.

My feeling is they made a choice which goes against what their voters expect of them, and they're trying to cover their arses by using weird terms to confuse the voters and make it seem ok. I doubt anyone will ever know the real truth, and in my opinion, it's no one else's business anyway, even if they are hypocrites.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

It is my understanding that for a birth to be considered medically induced, the mother has to be induced with drugs which specifically encourage the onset of labour.

A baby can be induced and still be classed as a natural birth. It is my understanding that the term natural birth simply means born through the birth canal.

You'll need to check up on what's considered a live birth. I don't believe HM's chart is definitive. My understanding is that a live birth means the fetus or baby has a heart beat when it's born.

eta: I think Santorum is misusing the term which is why there is such debate about it.

yeah, sorry, i meant natural as opposed to induced, not natural as in "a natural birth". My sloppy language, there. replace "natural" with "non-induced" where I said it back there.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

[...]and in my opinion, it's no one else's business anyway, even if they are hypocrites.

But see, I think that when a candidate wants to use the office of the President of the United States to enforce their theocratic principles, but doesn't even live by the principles they intend to use the power of the Government to make other people live by - that disqualifies you, right there. You can't make me live by the moral codes of your religion, especially if you don't even live by them yourself.