h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm with our resident, raving Sat on that one. We can't /judge/ people? We judge people all the time. We judge murderers and genocidal maniacs and people who let their dogs poo in the park.

We judge people because we think they're doing something /wrong/, morally or socially or - admittedly - just because we're bigoted, but we've got every right to do it, it's healthy, and I'm all for it.

You'll have to remind me what I've forgotten. As I've forgotten it. Obviously.

I'll repeat the question then, milo.

"When do you think abortion was first made legal in this country?"

You said it would be unlikely to be banned, apparently not realising that it was *illegal* in the UK until 1967 - well within the lifetimes of quite a few contributors to this thread. It remains illegal in the Republic of Ireland.

I'm just making the point that you cannot take stuff like this for granted - it's a relatively recently-won freedom, and if you don't fight to keep it, you might find it snuck out from under you before you realise it.

H.

We're off for a drive through the country in our new convertable, so I can't argue about abortion any more.

Although, I do think we always judge people, and we're right to do so.

I don't think any man can imagine the sheer horror of the what it would be like to give birth, or to be pregnant... it sounds like one of the worse things that could possibly happen. The only reason it would be at all beaerable would be because of a desire for a child.

I can only imagine that it if the child wasn't wanted it would be an even worse experience.

Any man who blames the women for getting into trouble should really look at himself and ask if he's ever had sex when he hasn't wanted a child? because however many precautions that they take it there is a chance that it might go wrong.

I suspect that I will lose the judgement debate, because it is even more complex and rather more sophisticated than this one, and I have not thought the thing through in detail.

S9 said that there was 'nothing wrong' with judging people. I said that there was.

The examples that MA gave were all legal issues, (including the dog poo one, it is against most local byelaws to let your dog foul the footpath). In which case it is rightly the legal system which tries and judges them, and as such they were outside the scope of my comment and of S9's too for that matter.

As I said - I know I am going to lose this one. Most people are fond of being judgemental to a greater or lesser degreee because judging people to be wrong means that the person doing the judging feels right and therefore good about themselves. Most of us have an investment in feeling good, no matter at what cost to ourselves.

Judging someone to be morally inferior is a very slippery slope to tread. It is almost always done on partial information. "To understand all is to forgive all" and all that. Actually I think the better phrase is "to understand all is to understand all". I am not really sure about the forgiveness bit. Actions bring about consequences sure as cause brings about effects. And we have a system of criminal law to try to make sure that happens justly and fairly.

But being judgemental, which is what my post was about, is a narrow path, it deminishes the judger even more than the judged, it permits lazy thought or no thought at all, it prevents questioning and challenging of the other person's assumptions and more importantly of your own. It damages both parties. It closes down options. It is the path to assumption, self-righteousness, arrogance and bigotry. I find that the words 'judge not, lest ye be judged' to be a bleak and slightly sinister observation about the way the world is. And almost every time I wonder whether but for the grace of the goddess there go I. How do I know that I would be any different with the same childhood, the same experiences, and the same life as the other person? Hell, dammit, I could be worse than them, just luckier.

I do judge people, of course I do, judgementalism creeps in when I am not looking.

But that does not mean that I think there is nothing wrong in it.

B

Applauds Ben... (hows the belief project coming along btw, is it on teh front page without me noticing!)

As regards the original question in post 1, I've been trawling the books, and there is only one case in which something similar, though not entirely the same would occur which is necessary to save the life of the mother.

It is in the case of a breech vaginal delivery (which is rare these days - the majority of breech births are delivered by c-section as few obstetricians have the expertise to deliver breech babies vaginally) where the head of the foetus is too large to pass through the pelvis, or the head of the foetus is tilted too far back for it to pass through the pelvis.

In the usual 'head first out' delivery, this would be noticed and the mother would undergo an emergency caesarian section. However, being a breech birth (i.e. bottom first), no one would know this until the body has been delivered. According to the book, in this stage, 'a baby with a trapped head will rapidly die.' As a result, the only way to rectify this would be decapitation, and forceps removal of the after-coming head.

Unless this is done, the membranes and placenta will still be inside the uterus. What would happen if they are left inside would be that a post-partum haemorrhage could occur, and if the membranes aren't removed quickly, the mother could bleed to death.

However, this isn't techinically a termination - as the baby would have died before the procedure required to save the mother's life would have been carried out. But it is the closest one that I could find.

WD

WD, you always seem to know so much more than me...

I wonder when a partial birth abortion would be performed, I presume it would be late in the pregancy when a termination was needed, this this country it would only to save the life of the mother or if there was a serious risk of significant handicap, (ground E)

But I'm sure there is a alturntive method isn't there?

Z - after your 4th year, you too will be spewing out this kind of stuff ...

In the case of an obstructed breech... I'm not sure - this is pretty rare (it only really occupies 3 sentences of the book I'm referring to), and I think they would try with forceps first. But if the baby dies whilst trapped, then the outlook is very poor, and I don't see any other option than that which I've posted before.

But if anyone's an obstetrician out there - feel free to correct me - Neither Impey nor Ten Teachers (the books I'm referring to) disagree on this point, unpalatable though it may sound.

I have to reiterate to everyone reading - this is *not* a termination as the baby is dead before the procedure takes place.

WD

Now, i cant remember where i saw about this (shame cos one should always reference a source) but it was a program about pregancy etc.

The baby had some deformity or disease that meant it would not survive birth or even the rest of the pregnancy, so rather than waiting for the baby/foetus to die (at this stage it was a baby - late in third trimester)the mother was given the choice of having labour induced to terminate the pregnancy. (I wonder whether there was a risk to the mother too?)

Point being I remember the mother asking about her baby being alive when its born and the doc saying they would inject something into the baby (via the mothers abdomen) that would make the babys heart stop. When the baby/foetus has died then labour is induced.

I remember this because i thought it was euthanasia (however much they deny actively euth'ing people - but thats been another discussion!)
If this is a medical practice, then why would there be a need for inducing labour with a live foetus in the 'partial birth abortion' arguments?

If we take the two extremes, what we find midway between the two is often the truth.

Mort,
(pro choice, pro respect and pro debate not argument)

That's what I'm thinking I can't why you'd need to do one of these, to save the mothers life or otherwise...

Sir Mort - what I think you are describing is a 'late medical termination', which can take place between 14-24 weeks gestation. I doubt if a ToP would occur in the third trimester as this, under the Abortion Act, would be illegal - ToPs can only occur when the foetus has not yet completed its 24th week.
Labour is induced, and if the woman is more than 21 weeks pregnant, potassium chloride is injected into the heart of the foetus, which would cause it to stop, and the foetus would then die.

WD

Can you think of an indication for a TOP using this method? WD?

Z - Severe pre-eclampsia or the HELLP ayndrome. For those who don't know what this is - pre-eclampsia is a condition unique to pregnancy, which features in the top 5 of maternal mortality (alongside pulmonary embolism and infection) in the UK, and can only be cured by delivery of the foetus.

The mother has loads of protein in the urine, high blood pressure which just goes through the roof, and general multisystem failure - kidneys, liver, clotting, brain (convulsions). In the case of fulminating pre-eclampsia, to save the life of the mother, the foetus must be delivered.

WD

Okay.. so is partial birth abortion usual pracise in this situation? or could you perform a c section? I don't have any textbooks with me at this time!

Well - I don't think the woman would be medically fit for an anaesthetic due to the fulminating hypertension and the convulsions, so a c-section would be out of the question - a late medical termination would be far more appropriate I think. I don't know what the protocol in the US is.

As for a partial birth termination - as there is nothing in the textbooks regarding this procedure, then I can't say.

WD

WD I can't remember reading about it when I ws browsing that chapter..

No probs Z I'm off to bed now, as BBC News 24 is on BBC 1, which can only mean that it's far too late...

WD