3rd Trimester Abortions and Organ Harvesting

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Anyone by chance have some factual information regarding abortions, organ harvesting, and if 3rd trimester babies are delivered, kept alive, and then euthanized for their organs? I'm seeing all sorts of commentaries on the issue since Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam made his comments regarding House Bill 2491.

I'm so confused on the issue because pro-lifers are doing a good job at deconstructing the organ harvesting industry around abortions, and I'm frankly appalled.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

Google pulls up a Newsweek piece talking about how this started with Alex Jones on the Seth Rogan show spreading whacked conspiracies.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, 3rd trimester babies aren't delivered, kept alive, and then euthanized for their organs? I went to the source, the bill and shamefully I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the language:

https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp60 ... ful+HB2491

I think the thing in the bill I'm having a hard time understanding is:

(c) 3. Measures for life support for the product of such abortion or miscarriage must shall be available and utilized if there is any clearly visible evidence of viability.

Like, why in the “F” do you need life support for an abortion? If the baby is delivered, or, uh, aborted, but is still alive outside the woman and it's on life support isn't it murder at that point if you kill it or deny it life-saving medical support if it's viable (whatever that means)?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I think the thing in the bill I'm having a hard time understanding is:

(c) 3. Measures for life support for the product of such abortion or miscarriage must shall be available and utilized if there is any clearly visible evidence of viability.

Like, why in the ____ do you need life support for an abortion? If the baby is delivered, or, uh, aborted, but is still alive outside the woman and it's on life support isn't it murder at that point if you kill it or deny it life-saving medical support if it's viable (whatever that means)?

- Doc

That language here seems to be that if the abortion attempt or miscarriage results in a live birth with any signs of viability, then the infant must be put on life support. The idea that it's trying to provide a legal basis to keep infants alive long enough to harvest their organs is cray-cray. It's possible to imagine a scenario in this law where an abortion attempt to protect the health of the mother incidentally results in a live birth where an infant is put on life support, but it does not make sense to continue the life support because the infant is a vegetable, then donating its body for medical/scientific purposes. But describing even that scenario in those terms is way off the ranch.

[_honorentheos]

There was a fair amount of buzz a decade ago over the law including the provision for keeping an aborted fetus on life support if it shows signs of viable. It was at about the same level of buzz as the recent attempts in Louisiana to limit abortions to facilities that have admitting privileges and be within 30 miles of a hospital with certain levels of facilities.

Virginians, and other bible-belt states, have a history of asserting the Christian belief that any sign of life should be protected regardless of medical opinion. Such as the mid-90s case of the infant born without a developed brain whose mother insisted doctors keep the infant alive using mechanical breathers rather than follow the typical practice of caring for it until it passes away due organ failure and the inability of the undeveloped brain to regulate breathing. Or the more recent case of a couple refusing to allow doctors to turn off assisted breathing to determine if brain death had occurred in the case of a toddler who had suffered from lack of oxygen for a period due to choking. The insertion of the language in 2009 into the state's abortion law included the provision that any sign of life from an aborted fetus required the doctor to attempt to keep it alive.

It's another example of science skepticism that asserts God's imminence over the medical profession demanding faith Trump professional medical judgement.

ETA: While it could be debated as to how far the proposed law should go, there is something devilish involved in misrepresenting it as the conspiracy-driven elements of the far right appear to be doing here. It shouldn't go unnoticed that the provisions that undergird this misrepresentation are going after the aspects of the law that place the judgement of the doctor in determining if a woman's life is threatened such that an abortion is necessary to save it, or where the doctor would judge if there is reason to attempt to keep a fetus alive that is aborted for medical reasons but where it may still show signs of viability as it says. The intent of the law was to make the doctor subordinate to a Christian-occupied state asserting Godly imminence over medical science. If one holds views where this is obviously the way of the universe, it's going to sound reasonable. If one doesn't, then those supporting it have to rely on more secular but radically misrepresentative claims in the attempt to make the morality of the law appeal to those who might not share the same beliefs about God.

[_Kevin Graham]

That language here seems to be that if the abortion attempt or miscarriage results in a live birth with any signs of viability, then the infant must be put on life support. The idea that it's trying to provide a legal basis to keep infants alive long enough to harvest their organs is cray-cray. It's possible to imagine a scenario in this law where an abortion attempt to protect the health of the mother incidentally results in a live birth where an infant is put on life support, but it does not make sense to continue the life support because the infant is a vegetable, then donating its body for medical/scientific purposes. But describing even that scenario in those terms is way off the ranch.

Yeah, and I could be wrong but from what I remember of the controversial Planned Parenthood video from a few years ago, the "organ harvesting" amounted to placenta and fetal tissue and was only done with the consent of the mother. Apparently there is a scientific use for such material, but the image from the Right is that they're being used in witchcraft ceremonies.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pp-ab ... est-brain/

What's True

According to unedited Center for Medical Progress video reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the heart of an aborted fetus was briefly restarted before its brain was harvested.

Why in the world was the baby's heart 're-started' ? IT'S BRAIN WAS "HARVESTED"?!?

- Doc

[Guest]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pp-abortion-harvest-brain/

What's True

According to unedited Center for Medical Progress video reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, the heart of an aborted fetus was briefly restarted before its brain was harvested.

Why in the world was the baby's heart 're-started' ? IT'S BRAIN WAS "HARVESTED"?!?

- Doc

Harvested is the medical term (poorly chosen) for when organs are removed from a donor.
The rhetoric from the anti abortion side is simply sickening. Terms like post natal abortion are being thrown out as if it is possible to abort a baby after it is born. It isn't.

These are horrible medical and personal choices that are being made and to paint this as if a mother can simply decide after the baby is born to toss it into the dumpster, is simply not what is going on. In realty I suspect this is an issue this weekend because the Republicans needed something, anything, to distract the news from Trump's monumental failure in Vietnam and the Cohen testimonies.

[_EAllusion]

The Virginia bill is designed to take their state's fairly stringent medical exemptions to allow a 3rd trimester abortion and slightly expand them. The pro-lifers who have decided to combat that by claiming the bill is intending to legalize infanticide for organ harvest is ridiculous. It's sad and unforunate that pro-life activists so consistently resort to deception for political purposes. It's a chicken or the egg issue with evangelical "lying for the lord" culture, and it doubly sucks in this case because it doesn't feel like pro-lifers even need to do it to have some measure of political success.

[_Kevin Graham]

My Facebook page is my business page and I occasionally get friends requests from lenders, closing attorneys, contractors, etc because they're trying to expand their network and they want realtors to bring them more business. I think about 2-3 per week is the norm and as agents we generally accept friend requests to expand our own networks. I typically don't accept requests from complete strangers unless we have mutual friends in common and most of these folks sending requests are already friends with other realtors I know.

But over the past month or so I've noticed something weird going on. I'll get a request probably once or twice per day. These are complete strangers who I assume are trying to network because our only thing in common is our mutual relationships with other people in the real estate world. But then I wake up the next day and I see on my timeline a post one person made with a fetus cut in half. My business Facebook page is off limits to issues of religion, sex or politics so it caught me off guard. So I deleted that person. Then the next day there is another, and then another, and then another. So many anti-abortion posts that it became clear to me that this was some kind of campaign started, probably by some Churches here in North Georgia. I say this because after looking more into their profiles, they all reside is tiny towns up in the mountains. Either this is some Church effort or maybe the Russians are involved.