Only Four Doctors Still Perform Late-Term Abortions

Despite threats to their lives

Just four doctors in America still perform third-trimester abortions, i.e. terminations of pregnancies at 6 months and onwards.

These doctors know they risk their own lives every day, according to After Tiller, a documentary shown at the Sundance Festival last weekend. They receive frequest death threats, and they can't forget what happened to Dr. George Tiller. In 2009, Tiller was killed outside a church in Wichita, Kansas.

One of the four, Dr. Susan Robinson, worked with George Tiller and spoke highly of him: "'We learned at his knee: Kindness, courtesy, justice, love and respect."

"People tell me every single day, 'Dr. Robinson, you've given me my life back,'" she told ABC. "For these women it is life or death. Many women try to self-abort."

In New Mexico, where Robinson works, all terminations are carried out at the doctors' discretion - including late-term abortions. Robinson says the fact that the women have made it to her clinic at all indicates they haven't made the decision lightly.

"If a woman comes to me, particularly if she struggles to get there, she's come from Canada or California...because she feels so strongly that she needs an abortion," said Robinson. "This woman has struggled with this decision."

Third-timester abortions account for around 1% of all terminations in the US. They're widely condemned, even by supporters of abortion rights: 79% of "pro-choice" Americans support banning them, according to Gallup.

Via the Daily Mail.

Do you have any admiration for these doctors' work?

[RobertJHarsh]

Stupid question Politix <facepalm>. I see the NEED for Abortion and it should remain legal, but who in god's name would "admire" them...or the Doctor's who carry out the procedure. Your socialism is really showing on this one, Mary.

[PolitixMary K]

Hey @RobertJHarsh, I asked the question because the documentary After Tiller seems to be inviting us to admire the doctors. I didn't mean the question to suggest that they *should* be admired. Hope that makes sense.

[PolitixMary K]

Actually, on reflection, I can see that your position wasn't covered in the original poll options. I've added the option you've suggested here - "no I don't admire it, but I see a need for it." Thanks for your helpful input!

[jessejaymes]

@PolitixMary I can't answer your choices because I don't think "no I don't admire it but see a need for it" is acceptable. A better question would be Only to save a mothers life. I see the need for THAT but nothing else. I am FIRMLY opposed to late term abortion unless the mother's life is in imminent danger.

[harold_lloyd]

Nobody is pro-abortion, but it's a choice that needs to be available.

What I admire them for is principled resistance to threats from jihadist
anti-abortion fanatics.

Will the PPACA fix this?

[RobertJHarsh]

@PolitixMary Thanks for adding that option...because that is where I was coming from. No one is pro-abortion...but it is a need for any society. If it worked the way it was supposed to, it wouldn't be a political issue. It would be something that a woman who needed could obtain...quietly and without drawing any attention and getting doctor's killed who perform them.

[NormalFlora]

This should ONLY be an option for risk to the mother's life or for severe fetal abnormalities that were not identified in the first or second trimesters.

[jules61]

flora, you are not normal. i assure you that a righteous and holy God knows these children are being born with defects and killing them is very displeasing to Him. I use the displeasing term lightly. If you knew how they dismembered, burned and deflated the heads to suck them out, you would be pro life.

[NormalFlora]

@jules61 I thought this was a medical discussion, not a mythology class.

[CaryNickel]

What they do may be currently legal, but there is absolutely nothing noble in the "work" they do. The tone of this article, which suggests these abortionists are somehow heroic because they trade in the business of death, disgusts me. The wanton killing of children in their mother's womb is a stain upon our nation that won't soon be washed away.

[harold_lloyd]

Abortion is not a 'stain', it's a medical procedure that is sometimes necessary.

And a fetus is not an 'unborn child', it's a fetus.

I can't even begin to think of a fetus in terms of being human until it has enough brain cells to from a self-aware brain.

[CommonSense]

@harold_lloyd
Define "self-aware".

[harold_lloyd]

@CommonSense
I was afraid someone would call me on that.
I don't have a number to cite, but it takes a certain number of brain cells to form a brain that is capable of the concept of 'me'.
An embyo doesn't have it, I'm pretty sure.
When the brain actually reaches 'critical mass' is up for discussion.
But to me, that's when it becomes a potential human.
Thankfully, I haven't had to make the distinction in real life.

[jules61]

@harold_lloyd why don't you ask God if it is just a fetus. You all have no idea how they kill these infants. suck them out limb by limb, burn them, or birth them to the shoulders and put a sharp instrument in their skull and deflate it and pull it out. please come to your senses. They feel it all. Shame on you.

[harold_lloyd]

@jules61
You ask your god, and I'll ask my god, and that pregnant girl over there, she'll ask her god, but the government doesn't have a god, and it's only goal should be the welfare of it's citizens.

[WebNavigator]

I don't see how any woman having looked at a sonogram could have an abortion, let alone at 6 months. What a vile and evil thing to do to a innocent child. It just makes me sick to think about it.

[MetaphorBreeze]

I admire these soulless AssHats as much as much as I do any other murdering thief of beauty and innocents.

[AMSCountryboy]

Im pretty "pro-choice" but this is sick... who the hell waits until they are 6 months pregnant or after to get an abortion?

[marine1]

those that should have been aborted and weren't

[Bobolinsky]

I can still compare the humanity of these ....... to Joseph Mengele while still not condoning the murder of their fallen her can't I?

[bsking]

I suppose the risks of that business outweigh the rewards as evidenced by the tiller case.

[tobylerone]

I am at a loss as to how these so-called doctors can live with themselves. Hideous.

[Tralee]

That's 4 doctor's too many aborting viable children. It's one thing if the baby can't survive on it's own, I guess, but at that point a child can and many many do survive. Most children born that early go on to lead healthy and happy normal lives. I guess that's why Obama was so hot to trot to vote for the bill in his home state to let survivors of late term abortion die in a cold dark room with no care. Nice way to die, alone, cold, scared and unloved. I wish the same for all of them.

[PNWest]

It's not nice to wish anyone to die, alone, cold, scared and unloved.

[jessejaymes]

Couple of points here. There is one scenario that would justify a late term abortion. IF the monther's life is in imminent danger then there can be mitigating circumstances, such as she has children at home that need her. Secondly, most seniors die in a cold dark room with no care, alone, scared and unloved. Your point is moot.

[Tralee]

@PNWest Take it up with your president then, that's what he voted for while a State Senator. I just wished him the same as he wished the poor surviving babies. I guess I can echo your sentiment, it's NOT nice to wish anyone to die, along, cold, scared and unloved.

[Tralee]

@jessejaymes I love it, you are at least consistent, always with the Apples and Oranges. The Subject is surviving abortions, living breathing children who are capable of living being allowed to die of neglect. That, sweetie, is the issue. No old person that I am in contact with, and no baby either, will ever be allowed to die along, unloved, scared and in the dark. I guess you don't like it for the elderly but have no problem with a little tiny baby.

[jessejaymes]

@Tralee If it comes down to saving the life of a mother who has other children and responsibilities to those children I'm coming down on the side of saving the mother's life. Sorry but that's the way I feel.

[DARSB]

Late term abortions are not done for birth control purposes. One indication is lethal fetal malformation, such as anencephaly, absence of a brain. Are opponents to all abortions really willing to tell a woman she has to carry a such fetus to term?

[Bobolinsky]

'Women whose fetuses have terrible abnormalities are a lot easier for people to understand,' she told ABC.'The husband and wife want to spare their baby whatever suffering that baby would have.

'Then there's the group of women who didn't know they were pregnant,' she said.'They were told they were not pregnant for one reason or another and they are just as desperate.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-22660...

[Tralee]

Actually, fetus's with such lethal malformation are found much sooner than after the 2nd. trimester. At 4 months my newest grandchild was shown in 3-D with all the proper parts, eyes, brain, brain stem, back bone, beating heart and dimples in her cheeks and thankfully not her fathers nose. She looked just like she did the day she was delivered, just smaller. See that and tell me that is not a child, they already move around try to suck their thumbs, grimace and exist. No need to wait until the last trimester for that sort of information. Talk to an Ob-GYN someday, the ones I questioned could think of NO reason for a baby in the last trimester to be terminated (killed) as any malformation or genetic defect, if it doesn't result in a miscarriage, can and is found in the second trimester, well within the already permitted guidlines for abortion.

[methinks]

They receive frequent death threats...I wonder why? At 6 months (24 weeks), that baby can live. At this point you can't call it a fetus any longer.

If the mother's life is in danger, do a c-section and let the baby live for Christ's sake! Now that we can't go to Russia for adoptions, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would take in one of these unwanted children.

[jessejaymes]

The problem in the American adoption market is that the majority of babies up for adoption are minorities and whites simply do not want to adopt minorities in any great number. Of the white babies up for adoption many are crack or meth addicted and that doesn't make for a great demand either. It is what it is. Everyone person wanting to adopt wants a perfect baby for the most part and of their own race and to be frank white people adopt more and put up for adoption less. Way it is.

[DARSB]

Whether their work is viewed as admirable or even necessary, these docs do demonstrate commitment to providing a legal medical service despite the desire and intent of "right to lifers" to murder them. By comparison, the typical sign-waving zealots outside Planned Parenthood offices are merely loudmouths anxious to make decisions for other people that the zealots don't have to pay for.

[twinertia]

I thank goodness for the remaining doctors who'll perform these procedures. Knowing the numbers, I shudder to think of all the women who are forced to deliver malformed messes, gasping for breath, that die twisted in pain mere hours later.....all because nobody on staff had the training (or balls) to make the best choice. That happens more than most anti-choicers suppose. Pregnancy is a wild mine-field of a ride, fraught with medical dangers throughout; tens of thousands of women in this country alone die from its complications every year. There should be more of these doctors available, even if they had to be flown in from other countries.

[DARSB]

@twinertia The last mortality data I looked at indicated that many more women die of complications of pregnancy than abortion.

[twinertia]

@DARSB Just what I wrote. Both situations are bad news.

[OhWiseOne]

I noticed that they showed a pic of mass murderer George Tillers casket. If it was meant to evoke sympathy, it was a big fail. I'm glad he's gone. A lot of babies are alive today because Tiller is dead.

[Dan_Tien]

I admire the courage to risk your life in order to do what you think is right, but I do not support the idea of elective abortions for fetuses at the same stage of development when premature babies can survive. If a fetus is found to be so severely deformed that it cannot survive (or cannot survive with anything like a normal life) then that may be justifiable.

[Canoochee]

Only four huh? Bet they are making a ton of money. Anyone know if they are paying their 'Fair Share' or not?

[hwyangel]

If they just wait 3 more months they just strangle it, smother it, or run it over with a car like they do in china or India and save themselves a doctor bill.

[ACTSmom]

I think it is absolutely sick and should not even be a consideration! These doctors must have no conscience whatsoever. If necessary, take the baby via surgery to save the mothers life, but give the baby a fighting chance. How could a civilized nation ever have made this legal anyway?

[Thunderchicken]

I believe the "Hell No-s" have it.

[Jack-Black]

Becareful politix writers are the only ones allowed to use Hell in their post. If any of us used it, it would get pulled for a trem of service violation.....LOL.