Talk:Intact dilation and extraction/Archive 2

Vocab problems

Intact D&X, is a specific type of medical procedure —wherin a late-term miscarried fetus, is removed from the womb via the uterus Two problems here: 1. This article seems to deal more with IDX used as a means of abortion as opposed to a means of removing a miscarried fetus. See how i've changed it. 2. "removed from the womb via the uterus". The womb is the uterus. I think uterus should be replaced by cervix. --ChadThomson 07:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Why the quotation marks?

As usual, there are two many quotation marks in this article. "partially birthed" for example. Why the quotation marks? If you wanted the baby to be born, and you'd bought toys and a buggy and baby clothes for it, and it was a breech birth, using the author's punctuation rules you might just as a well say "the baby is 'part-way born', only a few more pushes and some rotating by the skilled midwife and everything'll be perfect". In this situation you actually wouldn't use quotes("part-way born") because using quotes shows that it is a claim, not a fact. Like I can say quote 'links' in "The war on Iraq was partially based on 'links' to Al Qaeda". It clearly shows I disagree, which makes my statement biased. Adding quotes is like saying "supposedly" or "claims" in many cases. The fact anyone has to admit is that these children could survive if the mother wanted them to. Or should I say these "children".... The bias is obviously clear. You can put quotes around "children" but then you also have to put quotes around "fetus". The "living" "fetus" was "aborted" by removing the neural tissue (or the "brain"). It's preposterous. ChadThomson 1 July 2005 04:08 (UTC)

I was the one who added the quotation marks, if memory serves -- certainly I did edit that sentence -- so I owe you a response. My rationale was that the deliberate extraction of the fetus, which may not be past the point of viability, would not be considered a "birth" by everyone. The phrase "partially born infant" calls up the image of a baby being naturally born at full term. In any case, that sentence was orignally blatantly POV in the pro-life direction, so it is difficult to make it entirely NPOV. I simply thought that the question of what exactly constitutes a birth (and an "infant," since many people don't consider a fetus to be an infant) was not one that needed to be raised here. Ilyusha 3 July 2005 17:35 (UTC)

Definately POV happening here. The fact that some people consider a viable "fetus" to be something different from an "infant" really avoids the point. Their really can be no difference, therefore, according to your logic, between and "infant" and a "fetus" other than that we want to kill a fetus for some reason, and we don't want to kill an infant. Let facts be facts, if you want to be serious NPOV then just write fetus without the quotes. Putting "infant" in quotes shows that the writer wants us to know that it's okay to suck the brains out of a perfectly viable baby, because he's not really and infant, he's just an "infant", or better yet, a fetus. In reality, basically circular reasoning is being used. We kill the fetus because it's a fetus, not an infant, and we call it a fetus, because that way we can justify killing it. If we called it an infant, someone might be offended.ChadThomson 4 July 2005 05:24 (UTC)

Very well, then. The word should have been fetus in the first place, and now it is, quite regardless of the fetus's moral status. Ilyusha 7 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)

Bill

my friends, this page mistakenly claims that the bill passed yesterday in the United States Senate contains an exemption for allowing the proceedure in case the woman's health is threatened. IT DOES NOT CONTAIN SUCH AN EXEMPTION. please correct your update. thank you.

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)

Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited

(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. This subsection takes effect 1 day after the enactment.

The above section says nothing about exemptions for partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder or physical illness of the fetus itself. Kingturtle 22:13, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? Of course it does, and with perfect clarity. NCdave 12:30, 20 Feb 2005

One could interpret "caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself" to cover that eventuality, although IANAL. --Dante Alighieri 20:09, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Completely the opposite. The subsection says nothing about whose illness is causing the problem. All it says is that when there is an illness, etc., and the mother's life is in danger, then the abortion is legal. After all, what would be the good of performaing an abortion when only the foetus' life is threatened? DJ Clayworth 15:25, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

However you interprete this clause, the bill contains nothing to protect women whose health is grievously in danger when, in the court's decision, the abortion is not seen as absolutely necessary to save the mother's life. So this does not protect women who could be disabled by complications, or even women for whom there is a considerable risk of dying but this risk is not seen as great enough to "necessitate" the procedure. Ntk 14:30, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are no such cases. It is a three-day procedure! When the mother is in danger, you don't wait 3 days to address it. The AMA agrees that PBA is never medically necessary. It is not taught in any medical schools. It is not described in any medical textbooks. NCdave 12:30, 20 Feb 2005

I very strongly disagree with NCdave's post of Feb 20, 2005. First, this procedure may be the safest thing for a woman's well-being in the long run. Just because there are exigent medical circumstances doesn't mean that it cannot wait a single minute more. In fact, many important medical procedures can be delayed slightly. For instance, my aunt recently needed major heart surgery, but she had to schedule it and this all naturally took some time. A woman may not be on the verge of death at that very moment, but, for instance, a vaginal birth, induced labor, or a Caesarian may carry greater risks, and if the baby is going to die anyway (and in some cases the mother may indeed want to have her child but tragically cannot), why should additional risks be posed to the mother?

Certainly no medical journal will talk about "partial-birth abortion" as this term is politically confected to exacerbate this already terribly painful and emotional issue, which scarcely needs to be further inflamed.

This is from a statement by the American College of Obstetricians (ACOG) and Gynecologists: "Termingating a pregnancy is performed in some circumstances to save the life or preserve the health of the mother. Intact D&X is one of the methods available in some of these situations. A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstance under which this procedure...would be the only option...An intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor...based upon the woman's particular circumstnaces can make this decision. The potential exists that legislation prohibiting specific medical practices...may outlaw techniques that are critical to the lives and health of American women. The intervention of legislative bodies into medical decision making is inappropriate, ill advised, and dangerous." (This statement was last affirmed in Sept. 2000. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, included it in the Congressional record in the debates on what is now PL 108-105.)

For those who feel that this procedure should be restricted to dire circumstances, Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-PA) offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the ill-named legislation that would have made it unlawful to perform post-viability abortions except in cases of serious medical complications. It did not single out certain procedures. (108th Congress, 1st session roll call No. 240, House of Representatives, HR 760.)

PL 108-105 not only goes after specific procedures rather than dealing with all late-term abortions, its definition is so vague that one cannot tell what procedures are and are not banned. It is definitely not only intact D&X, however, as that procedure always involves a breech presentation of the fetus (i.e. feet first) and the bill refers to both breech and head-first presentations. I hope this exploitive law abrogated.--ASK Nov 8, 2005

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There have been some complaints on the mailing list about this article. I'll try to summarize the disputed portions and copy them here soon, but until I get to that they're in the mailing list archives for October [1]. The person objecting is "Eileen", and her three posts are: [2], [3], [4]. There's also a bunch of discussion in the threads entitled Major Correction, "partial birth abortion"..., (no subject), Following up -, and a few other threads with partial birth or partial-birth in the subject. --Delirium 20:09, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

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How about we have some pictures of what it really is?

How about we don't, in the interest of keeping Wikipedia work-friendly? Also, those sorts of images can be found on Google easily enough. Finally, the procedures described by the ID&E term are neither a superset of those most activists think of. -- Pakaran 02:53, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Images (or, to be less graphic, line drawings) would certainly enhance the entry. NCdave 12:30, 20 Feb 2005

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The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed.

Are they? What sentences exactly are in dispute for either of these reasons? I assume this is an old statement that was inserted when a previous version of the article was in dispute? Tempshill 18:55, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

See my Oct 30 comment 2 comments above this one. --Delirium 11:24, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)

I fixed the problems Eileen complained about on the list and removed the dispute header. Now it's up to someone new to dispute it. Gdr 20:38, 2004 Jul 4 (UTC)

regarding the image i removed yesterday

i removed the image because it portrays a fetus that is healthy and cute. it is drawn with a POV and implies that this procedure was designed to be used on any fetus. however, this procedure meant to be used in situations such as this: to save a mother's life when a doctor discovers too late that the fetus suffers from acute hydrocephalus.

i trekked around the internet to find a better image. unfortunately, all the drawings i found were drawn from an anti-abortion POV. if someone has the ability to draw, what would work better as an image is drawing a head like this and this on the fetus of the drawing i removed. Kingturtle 15:56, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dr. Haskall (the originator of the procedure) says that 80% of the time the mother and fetus are completely healthy. So removing the image because the "fetus is healthy and cute" is POV bias. Most of the time the baby IS healthy and cute. So please restore the image. NCdave 12:30, 20 Feb 2005

I have listed this image under Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images as it was tagged PD, yet it was taken from a website without any information about the article's copyright status or source. If we use a medical image I don't think it is necessarily POV to show a normal-looking fetus, however we should use a known-free image. NTK 20:00, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Duplication

Can we merge some sections of Intact dilation and extraction and Partial-birth abortion. I request that we use PBA for the political / legal situation and use IDX for the medical situation. Currently, there's a mix of duplication and information that would be better presented at the other page. --Quasipalm 03:42, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

POV changes by anon IP

Dear Quasipalm, thanks for jumping to the defense of the anon IP who cannot justify his/her changes. By now, I'm really curious on what the arguments are.

• It is important to show that a term is not used from a neutral point of view. Can you quote a single (1) source for your claim that partial-birth is not a term used mainly by pro-life movement.

like it or not (I'm with you in that I don't like it), this is a term commonly used in the US now -- as such I think it's important that wikipedia has it. --Quasipalm 16:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

• And vice versa for the image: why do you argue we should not show how the other side argues, if we use the term "partial birth".

not sure I follow you here... please explain. --Quasipalm 16:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I'll agree to the current version of the caption.--Fenice 07:12, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

• addition of the following sentence: "Because the procedure almost always involves the use of extreme violence to kill a well-developed fetus, activists in support of the procedure and against it have developed their own descriptive rhetoric."
  Doesn't this imply that the procedure is more violent then letting the mother die. The second part I think is quite useless.--Fenice 06:00, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Fenice, thanks for pointing this section out -- somehow I missed it. (Just for the record, I am pro-choice, but I think it is possible to make these articles NPOV.) I was browsing the article and didn't see that that had been added since we discussed the removal of the POV tag. I think this paragraph should be deleted immediatley and the entire article rescanned. --Quasipalm 15:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Fenice, I fixed this section, please let me know what you think of my edits. --Quasipalm 16:13, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Remaining issues

Original sentence: The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal. At this point, the baby is 'partially birthed' - thus the name for this controversial procedure.

Current version: The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal, causing what is commonly known as the 'partial-birth' of the fetus.
adds unneccessary pov. If we make a (completely superfluous) judgement on what is commonly known, we should be able to back it up, by some poll. I did a google test on some pro-choice-sites picked randomly from the link section of Pro-choice. One site did not use it at all, one says it's pro-life-rethoric and one uses it as either 'socalled partial birth' or in the word 'Partial-Birth ban act'.--Fenice 06:49, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

How many are actually performed?

The article needs much better data on how many of these are actually performed. The current estimate of 2500 to 3000 per year in the US is arrived at by pure guesswork, and it strains credulity to suggest that this many occur in the US whereas 0 occur in the UK each year. The article is begging for actual data from an actual survey, if someone can locate one. In the meantime, I added the sectfact tag. Tempshill 23:36, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

First, Britain does not allow this barbaric practice and the US does - no strain on credulity, that. Second, the stats come from the abortionists who do the procedure. There is no guess work. Tag is inappropriate.

Planned Parenthood Description

This warning:

is in place for the following reason:

Planned Parnethood's description is so absolutely biased that it does not describe the ID&X procedure at all, and instead describes the D&X. The abortion method Dilation and Evacuation is gruesome, but not half as inhumane as the partial-birth abortion method in question, Intact Dilation and Extraction or "intact D&X". The Planned Parenthood description has no business being in this entry because it has nothing to do with the topic. Its a feeble and cowardly attempt to sanitize the brutality of Intact D&X. Planned Parenthood cannot even bring themselves to offer an accurate description - because they now how sickening it is.

[Given that the heading was actually renamed to reflect the description of a D&X rather than a PBE, the warning seems inappropriate; that is, the warning or the altered heading should exist, but not both. What would be best is if the description itself were corrected, but in light of the agitation, bias and erratic writing by the author of the above, this seems unlikely to occur. -Straker]

National Right to Life Description

The neutrality warning was added to this section because it seems to be biased. The quoted text regards medical professionals in a derisive tone, calling their accepted terminology "obscure, clinical-sounding euphemisms." This, to me, seems to be dismissing the medical knowledge of doctors and calling into question their competence and better judgment. Also, the use of loaded terms like "baby," "alive," and "scissors," and the article's single-minded focus on the graphic nature of the procedure — and not why it might be performed — seems to be an attempt to provoke the NRL's desired reaction. Both the PP and NRL entries seem impertinent to the topic, and should either be removed or consolidated into one neutral entry. --Kyd 04:10, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

According to the abortionist who performs this gruesome procdure, this method is used to exterminate perfectly healthy babies who are 9-months along because the mother has deemed the child "unwanted". Scissors is a good word - its accurate - its what the abortionist uses to jab open the 9-month old baby's skull before inserting the vacuum tube to suck the baby's brains out. 99 of 100 people who see a baby at this stage would call it a baby - and biologically it is clearly alive AND viable.

What abortion doctor? Substantiate your claims, alright? Also, the fact that you've raised your post above mine twice indicates that you are only seeking attention. The NRL description is above the PP description in the topic's entry, and, thus, it would seem logical to have it listed on the top of the discussion page, too. I also fail to understand how some in the anti-abortion camp have come to believe that reiterating an emotionalized (i.e. a description sanitized of all medical terminology, and thus stripped of its proper context) account of various abortion procedures is itself an argument against them. Perhaps a detailed description of the "gruesome" procedure of open-heart surgery could be used to oppose it? But, I'm not here to play tit-for-tat. I'm sorry that I fell for the bait and wasted Wikipedia's bandwidth. --Kyd 11:50, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

• For the record, a sentient viable healthy baby (at 6, 7, 8 or 9 months gestational age) having her skull jabbed open by a "doctor" with surgical scissors and her brains sucked out with a surgical vacuum is GRUESOME. That's why PP won't describe the process they use !!! 214.13.4.151 10:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

* Doctor's practice the healing arts, the "doctors" below (all men) kill many of their patients (Grundman even admits it!), thus the quotation marks. Read on - their own words damn them and should calm your hysterics about there being any deception on the part of pro-lifers. Your friends - your heroes ??? - practice some pretty ugly "medicine".214.13.4.151 10:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• "Dr."* Haskell, inventor of the procedure, in a tape-recorded interview by the AMA: "In my particular case, probably 20% [of this procedure] are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely elective [viable healthy baby]."214.13.4.151 10:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• "Dr."* James McMahon, who by 1995 had already performed 2000 partial birth abortions, submitted the following statement regarding his partial-birth abortion practice to the US House: "After 26 weeks [six months], those pregnancies [babies] that are not flawed are still non-elective. They are interrupted because of maternal risk [viable healthy baby], rape [viable healthy baby], incest [viable healthy baby], psychiatric [viable healthy baby] or pediatric [viable healthy baby] indications." 214.13.4.151 10:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• "Dr."* David Grundmann, the medical director for Planned Parenthood of Australia, has published that his Planned Parenthood clinic offers the procedure after 20 weeks for women who fall into five additional "categories":

• (1) "minor or doubtful fetal abnormalities," [viable largely healthy baby]
• (2) "extreme maternal immaturity i.e. girls in the 11 to 14 year age group," [viable healthy baby]
• (3) women "who do not know they are pregnant," for example because of amenorrhea [irregular menstruation] "in women who are very active such as athletes or those under extreme forms of stress i.e. exam stress, relationship breakup...," [viable healthy baby]
• (4) "intellectually impaired women, who are unaware of basic biology...," [viable healthy baby]
• (5) "major life crises or major changes in socio-economic circumstances. The most common example of this is a planned or wanted pregnancy followed by the sudden death or desertion of the partner who is in all probability the bread winner." [viable healthy baby]214.13.4.151

• "Dr."* Grundmann admitted that he kills children to the AMA: "[A]fter 20 weeks where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it because the potential is so imminently there. I think, 'Gee, it's too bad that this child couldn't be adopted.' On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is: 'Who owns the child?' It's got to be the mother.'"214.13.4.151 10:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• "Dr."* Grundmann, by his own words, will exterminate a "child" if the "owner" asks him to (presumably for a fee). That has to make suporters of this procedure proud. (Apparently "Dr." Grundmann has not been properly coached that the little owned person is referred to as a "choice", not a "child".) 214.13.4.151 13:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why is this not an abortion?

The fetus is dead (in which case the procedure is not an abortion).

Main Entry: abor·tion Pronunciation: &-'bor-sh&n Function: noun 1 : the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus;

According to the above definition of abortion, whether the fetus is alive or dead should be irrelevant. Would someone please explain why abortion has been redefined to mean something different when the fetus is dead and the procedure used is D&X?

Thanks in advance.

Usually D&X is performed after the fetus is already dead; which is more often the result of a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage). Abortion is actually synonymous with miscarriage, but the term is rarely used in that context in the media because of confusion. But anyway, it's not an "induced abortion" unless the fetus is alive at the time of the procedure. Peyna 20:24, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Relative to its use on live fetuses, D&X is rarely used on dead fetuses. ____G_o_o_d____

What do the two quoted descriptions of the procedure contribute to the article?

AFAICS, the first description doesn't contribute anything of value that isn't said in the article's own description of the procedure; and the second quoted description is noted as being a description of a different procedure, and hence appears to be irrelevent.

Wouldn't the article be better if these two sections were simply removed? Roy Badami 16:31, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't look to have been revisited for a bit, but I would just like to add my agreement, the first is redundant, the second is irrelevant, the article would be better served to remove them both. Gheorghe Zamfir 21:12, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

May I ask if Roybadami and Mr. Zamfir are for or against the procedure? If you are both pro-choice, then I understand why you want the sections to be removed. Pro-life advocates would say they should stay. Both of these decisions (to delete or keep) would be based on POV, it seems. Maybe this section could be moved to Partial-birth abortion which discusses more of the controversy. The descriptions do provide a very good picture of how the descriptions of the procedure are made in such a way as to give a certain feel and implant a certain bias in a person considering the procedure or just looking for information. One is descriptive to the point of being almost gory, the other leaves out a lot of the details and says nothing about the fetus being killed, making the person looking for information that they're just having some little procedure done because they were to lazy to buy a condom, they're just removing the "products of conception", cause free sex is no big deal, you just might have to get cleaned out afterwards, and all quick enough to make it back to your boyfriend's house before his parents get home from vacation. Oops no time left to stop by the pharmacy, oh well, that wasn't THAT bad, I'll just get cleaned out again! Now that's disgusting POV!

--ChadThomson 04:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

The article's purpose isn't to illustrate the differences bias in language create, but to simply inform of the surgical procedure. To repeat what's already been said, the NRL description says nothing the article's description, right above it, doesn't already say, making it redundant. The planned parenthood description is for a completely different procedure, and I only imagine was put into this article by mistake, making it irrelevant. I don't see the purpose of having either of them in the article.Gheorghe Zamfir 05:48, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

The language bias discussion perhaps is better fitted for what is currently contained in Partial Birth Abortion than here. Peyna 13:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It would be better off in Partial Birth Abortion--ChadThomson 08:42, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Wording

I removed the words "killing the fetus" from the description because that seems to be biased twords one particular view on the procedure. One side believes it is not alive in the first place, while the other argues it is a free-standing human being.

There is no controvery over whether a fetus is alive, the dispute would be whether a fetus, or embryo is a full fledged human. But there is no question that an abortion involves the death of a fetus or embryo.Gheorghe Zamfir 09:16, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Procedure

Does this procedure always involve the collapse of the foetal skull? Having had two friends go through this procedure in the UK due to fatal deformities of much wanted babies I don't recall either of them talking about this side of things (we are close enough that they have talked through the horrible details that they do know). They would be very distressed to read the article as it currently stands as it is very harsh and seems to dwell on the extraction of the foetal brain. Pansy Brandybuck AKA Sophia^TalkTCF 11:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the inventor of the procedure has described vacuuming out the brain cavity and crushing the skull as essential steps in the IDX partial birth abortion procedure. This makes for an easier delivery of the dead fetus. ____G_o_o_d____ 21:07, 11 April 2006 (UTC)