Well ... I was specifically looking for life threatening coditions that would
have forced the INITIAL abortion in late term (third trimester).

I'm trying to find out if third trimester abortions are done primarily as a
means of birth control or convenience for the mother ... or if there are truly
valid medical conditions that could necessitate the termination of the fetus'
life as opposed to simply removing the fetus and keeping it alive until it dies
of old age / natural causes ... whatever.

Mental illness ... I suppose that's a jugement call ... certainly not a life
threatening condition in the sense that the mother would die if the babies life
were not terminated first.

Mike

--- On Fri, 12/12/08, bruce_horrocks <07.016@...> wrote:

From: bruce_horrocks <07.016@...>
Subject: [TalkScience] Re: Since we're talking ethics here ...
To: talkscience@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008, 2:56 PM






--- In talkscience@ yahoogroups. com, Mike Sims <mikesims10670@ ...> wrote:
>
> Can anyone give me an example of a valid scientific reason to perform
a late term abortion such that the hosting (mother) organism would
actually die if the late term abortion were not performed?

Yes.

The mother lives in a country where abortion is either forbidden, or
extremely difficult to obtain legally. Consequently she goes to a "back-
street abortionist" who botches the operation. The choice is then to
let both the mother and foetus die or to carry on the operation
properly, in a hospital, where the mother will be saved but the foetus
will die.

Regards,