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- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!taco!csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu!dsh
- From: dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
- Subject: Re: Abortion and Infanticide
- Message-ID: <1992Jul29.161719.26070@ncsu.edu>
- Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System)
- Reply-To: dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
- Organization: North Carolina State University
- Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:17:19 GMT
- Lines: 77
-
- In article <1992Jul28.230839.14412@cs.yale.edu>
- rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
-
- >dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
-
- [.. comparing the safety of prostaglandin abortions, which sometimes
- results in live birth, against the safety of D&E, which always kills
- the fetus ..]
-
- > I am, however, a bit concerned about statistical significance.
- > Do you have the absolute numbers?
-
- I can do better than that, I can give you a controlled study comparing
- the safety of the two procedures.
-
- Here's an abstract from an article in the Feb. 17, 1984 issue of
- The Journal of the American Medical Association:
-
- "Although dilatation and evacuation (D&E) is currently the most
- common method of midtrimester abortion [13 to 24 weeks] in the
- United States, the intra-amniotic instillation of hyperosmolar
- urea and prostaglandin F2alpha combined (U-P) has been proposed
- as a safer technique. To evaluate the comparative safety of
- U-P and D&E, we analyzed 2,805 U-P and 9,752 D&E abortions at
- 13 to 24 weeks menstrual weeks' gestation. The U-P procedure
- resulted in significantly more serious complications than D&E
- (1.03 v. 0.49 per 100 abortions). After adjusting for patient
- age, race, parity, follow-up information, and preexisting
- conditions, the relative risk of serious complications associated
- with U-P was 1.9 (95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 3.1). This
- advantage for D&E stems from its applicability to the 13- to
- 16-week interval. Although D&E appears to be safer overall in
- the midtrimester, for women obtaining abortion after 16 weeks,
- the rates of serious complications were comparable, with a
- relative risk of 1.0 (95% confidence interval, 0.4 to 2.5)."
-
- So after 16 weeks, the D&E is about as safe as a prostaglandin
- abortion (during 1984), and before 16 weeks, it's twice as safe.
-
- Here's a portion of the article which might explain why the D&E is
- the more commonly performed abortion procedure, even after 16 weeks:
-
- "The D&E procedure has several other advantages. It can be
- performed in less than 20 minutes, whereas the U-P requires
- a labor of uncertain length. The D&E procedure is less painful
- than U-P; local or general anesthesia is customarily used
- for D&E, whereas analgesia is given for labor pain caused by
- U-P. Also, D&E spares the woman the emotional stress of long
- labor and subsequent delivery of the fetus. In addition, D&E
- can be performed on an outpatient basis, whereas U-P usually
- requires overnight hospitalization. This fact is reflected in
- the lower cost of D&E compared with U-P. The D&E abortions
- usually cost $200 to $300 less than instillation abortion
- methods."
-
- So a woman/physician might select the D&E procedure over a
- prostaglandin method because a) it's less painful, b) it takes
- less time, c) it's cheaper, and d) the D&E always kills the
- fetus. After 16 weeks gestation, the two methods are comparable
- in safety. It seems that the D&E procedure is more popular than
- the prostaglandin method because the D&E is the more expedient
- method; the fetus is killed because it's cheaper, faster, and
- less painful to the woman.
-
-
- >> Then what is the justification for abortion?
-
- > Come on, Doug. We've done this many times. Straight out right to
- > bodily autonomy.
-
- So why doesn't the fetus have the right to bodily autonomy?
-
- >-Ekr
-
-
- Doug Holtsinger
-
-