In light of the recent assassination, by a member of a right wing Christian anti-abortion cabal, of a physician who specialized in late term abortions, it may be worth having a look this medical phenomenon.
Well, my blog colleague Monado contacted me a week ago or so and we discussed this, and I felt that she should write up what she had, since she had done some research. I would then hope that my readers who are interested in this will go and have a look at her post.
The bottom line is that third trimester abortions are done for a diverse set of reasons, and a lot of what is said in the public debate is not accurate.
Have a look at "What causes third-trimester abortions?" at Science Notes.
More like this
Forty years ago, the US Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade that states could not ban first-trimester abortions.
One of the problems with denialists is that they simply can't accept that science doesn't conform to their ideology.
The July 28 edition of the Lancet has a superb editorial about the need for legal and safe abortion in the developing world, particularly in Latin America (I've snipped parts; italics mine):
Inspired by this Jeffrey Feldman post, I'm putting together a post about abortion, evolution, and the dislike by some scientists of framing.
Why ?
http://accel23.mettre-put-idata.over-blog.com/0/21/41/34/avortement.jpg
http://eucharistiemisericor.free.fr/images/230108_avortement_big.jpg
Are you kidding me, humorix? Did you not actually do any reading?
Oh, that's right: The likes of you don't actuall educate yourselves. You just spew idiocy.
The problem is that there are at least a few examples of unethical twistings of the rules in situations that didn't really justify it (and of course no one gives those reasons in a study survey), and in our world of Legislation from Worst-Case Example (a profoundly stupid way to write laws), those were what was trumpeted in Congress.
Using these statistics like they are a slam-dunk, as if all late-term abortions have been completely medically justified, is just naive, and I think that propagandistic approaches from either side of the issue are destructive to the discussion.