20-week abortion ban vote coming in the Senate. Physician schools Mitch McConnell on fetal pain...

[CousinIT]

IN RESPONSE TO THIS:

Link to tweet

Dr. Daniel Grossman schooled Mitch McConnell on the ACTUAL FACTS about fetal pain and late term abortion (Dr. Grossman is an abortion provider):

Link to tweet

UNROLLED thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/956914762486550528.html

Hi @SenateMajLdr! I'm a board certified Ob/Gyn, clinical and public health researcher, and abortion provider. May I share some medical information about later abortion with you? Perhaps you can read it over the weekend ahead of the vote to ban abortion after 20 weeks.

There are many reasons why patients need abortions after 20 weeks. Some due to the fetus having a lethal anomaly, some for the patient's own health, and others because financial and logistical barriers make accessing an abortion earlier very difficult. http://laterabortion.org/general-information/why-women-need-later-abortion

As a doctor, I talk with my patients to determine the best course of action for their health and situation. Forcing my patients to carry a fetus with a lethal anomaly until they go into labor or deliver at term is unsafe for their health. http://laterabortion.org/legislative-news/women-must-carry-nonviable-pregnancies-term-because-restrictive-new-york-law

If patients are forced to continue a nonviable pregnancy, they will be forced to withstand the physical impact of of childbirth and the mental trauma of carrying a child that is dead or will die. It's very difficult for patients and their families go through that.

I listen to my patients as I support them in making medical decisions.

You can listen to Valerie Peterson share what making that decision is like: http://billmoyers.com/story/no-choice-valerie-peterson/

You can read @defending_grace's story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-had-an-abortion-to-save-my-baby-from-pain-in-my-state-that-didnt-matter/2017/03/10/1b93bf4e-fa1a-11e6-bf01-d47f8cf9b643_story.html?utm_term=.e46d498f8901

.@SenateMajLdr, you noted that “fetal pain” is your main reason for banning abortion at 20 weeks, and I’d like to take the opportunity to share some evidence-based medical information on this with you, as well. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/201429?hc_location=ufi

Our best evidence-based research indicates a fetus cannot perceive pain until the third trimester, 26 weeks, not 20 weeks as you have claimed. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/201429?hc_location=ufi

I know that some of your Senate colleagues are confused about why providers use anesthesia if the fetus can't feel pain. The anesthesia relaxes a patient’s uterus, preventing premature contractions, immobilizing the fetus to ensure the surgery goes easier.

During surgery, doctors must be precise and cautious. Uterine contractions at the wrong time can be dangerous. This helps providers give their patients the best and safest care.

In fact, experts from @rcobsgyn have concluded that “use of analgesia provided no clear benefit to the fetus.” https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/guidelines/fetal-awareness---review-of-research-and-recommendations-for-practice/

“Studies suggest that the first pathways associated with pain perception are not present until well into the third trimester.”



Research has shown a fetus does not yet have the capacity to experience pain until at least the third trimester, and unlikely until birth. http://www.laterabortion.org/sites/default/files/FetalPain.print.7-2010.pdf

A fetus may have a reflex reaction to a painful stimulus by 18 weeks, however the neural connections to the cerebral cortex do not exist to allow the fetus to perceive this as pain. You can learn more at laterabortion.org

I am a doctor and abortion provider. I do what’s best for my patients, their health, and their families. I listen to them and offer evidence-based medical advice. I am also a citizen, and I believe our laws should be based on scientific evidence.

I rely on evidence-based science to offer my patients options to have safe, and healthy pregnancies. I hope you will too, @SenateMajLdr.

One more thing –– are you aware that many of the restrictions on abortion that you support are creating barriers to access, thus forcing patients to seek abortions in the second and third trimesters? http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Second-and-third-trimester-abortions-increased-11124481.php



These restrictions make access difficult, forcing patients to travel to a clinic, experience delays while saving money to afford an abortion especially if insurance won't cover it, take unpaid time off of work, and make multiple appointments. Healthcare should be accessible.

Healthcare is a human right, and abortion is a part of of healthcare. We shouldn't be restricting access to healthcare, @SenateMajLdr.

[Docreed2003]

1. K&R

[TheBlackAdder]

25. McConnell's using Globalist view with abortions, while we're one of 2 nations against Paris Accord?

[BumRushDaShow]

2. This whole issue is nothing but a "solution" in search of a "problem"

just like the idiotic "Voter ID" ALEC legislation... and is just another way to torpedo Roe vs Wade.

[oberliner]

3. The other 4 countries are Canada, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Vietnam

[ProudMNDemocrat]

4. I find it even more appalling......

That Male lawmakers still are adamant to REGULATE a woman's body, thus forcing a woman to carry to term a fetus dead or dying, forced to carry to term a fetus conceived through rape or incest, and could be denied even Contraception to prevent pregnancy.

Perhaps if men could have children, there would be more clinics and NO calls to REGULATE a man's body.

[smirkymonkey]

7. I know, it just burns me up that this is the situation in 2018.

What a sick system we have in this country. The government should have no say over women's healthcare.

[MadDAsHell]

39. Or any healthcare for that matter. nt

[Kath2]

8. Like I have often said...

If Catholic men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

[gilpo]

31. If men carried the babies and endured child birth...

...the human race would have been extinct a long time ago.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. kidneys

The pertinent question here is, does McConnell have 2 kidneys? There are so many citizens in dire need of a kidney. It is unconscionable that he continue to horde twice as many as he needs when so many will die for the lack of one. We need legislation that requires old farts like him (but not me) to submit to surgery so that more of Jesus' children shall live!

What's next? National law that forbids menstruation because it kills pre-babies that might have been?

[dicksmc3]

12. Amen to that!!

I totally AGREE with your statements. Men should just STFU when it comes to women's health!! I've supported that for my entire ADULT life and I'm 70 years old now!! Just let the women make the decision, not some old fucking republicon like Orin Hatch or Turtlehead McConnell!!

[MadDAsHell]

40. 100% agree. This is the same reason all drugs should be legal and provided for free.

No government should regulate what I put in my body.

[onecent]

5. Tell Mitch Mc. this year is 2018!!!

[Farmer-Rick]

6. So antiabortion religious zealots are now doing science...right... just lies.

[LittleGirl]

10. great info. thanks for sharing. n/t

[Kath2]

11. This is why we marched.

This is why we will vote in November.

[Eliot Rosewater]

28. Borrowing those signs, thanks.

[Ilsa]

13. kick & rec. nt

[logosoco]

14. I picture future historians trying to figure out and explain how the folks

who stood behind these thoughts were the very same people who did nothing at all and never saw a problem with all the shootings happening at the same time.

[left-of-center2012]

15. Republicans don't care about facts

Whether it's about abortion or climate change.
I doubt McConnell read the doctor's letter.

[procon]

16. Attempts to ban abortion at 20 weeks aren't based on medical facts, just superstition,

religious dogma, ignorance, alt facts, and political expediency. Abortions are the sole decision of the woman. Her doctor has provider the fact based information she needs to make an informed decision, but it's her choice. Abortions are a illegal procedure, any every woman has the right to make that choice. Healthcare is also a human right, and the government shouldn't be is business of denying women basic rights basic on self serving political schemes, or ancient religious taboos.

[AlexSFCA]

17. this has never been about facts but votes

the turtle conviniently omits to mention that in many of those countries that ban abortion after 20 weeks, it is sill legal to do so for medical reasons and access to abortion before 20 weeks is easy and covered by universal health care. Aso, China is not a good expample with its one child policy, abortion is near mandatory.

[CanonRay]

18. As if they care about science.

but good try

[Corgigal]

19. Like McConnell

gives a damn about any baby, ever. He's just playing doctor without a license. I can't wait till I vote against this clown, and I'm gonna make sure the local college students have all their paperwork in. He screwed my son over once from voting, we got the game down now.

Also have to hire great IT people to monitor the Russians involvement. He's motivated more students and colleges due to screwing them over on the tax bill.

[Sophia4]

20. Finally, a doctor speaks out -- to the public, to the religious and to politicians.

There are many reasons to have an abortion.

I had a friend who carried a dead baby insider her until she lost it in a toilet in a hospital. Yes. She lost it in the hospital toilet (not in the US). She refused to have an abortion, and the dead baby just aborted itself. Carrying a dead baby in you can lead to sepsis and poisoning the doctors told her. It was her doctors who insisted that she at least go to the hospital where they could watch her.

Men who stand around and complain about abortion and have never, themselves given birth or known the pain or rare but very real dangers that pregnancy can mean for a woman should keep their opinions to themselves.

I can't stand those men. And the women who never have serious problems in their pregnancies should be quiet too because they don't know what they are talking about.

I don't have diabetes, but I certainly don't go around judging people who do and who adjust their diets accordingly. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes pregnancies go very wrong. Women alone have to make the decision whether to have an abortion or to risk a problematic pregnancy. I hate to be so harsh about this, but men like McConnell should just shut up about abortion. It's none of their business. It is between a woman and her doctor.

[sandensea]

21. Bitchy Mitchy couldn't care less; this is just for the RW peanut gallery

Had he been a woman, Mitchy himself would have probably had aborted several times by now.

[Tanuki]

22. I salute Dr. Grossman's courage and fear for his life.

[cilla4progress]

23. Abortion

is a sad and private fact of life for women, that is only between her and who she chooses.

Stay the fuck out of it mitch and focus on REAL prolife issues you sorry excuse for a human being!

[area51]

24. F McConnell

If the republinazi party was so fscking concerned with saving lives, they'd fight for enhanced Medicare for All and for making the social safety net better.

[jmowreader]

26. If youre going to be that way, Mitch...

Only 59 countries still allow executions, and no other country allows people to walk around with a gun on their hip for no reason.

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. Mitch and friends WANT to kill disobedient women in back alleys.

Does anybody debate that?

[Beartracks]

29. Want to reduce abortions? Increase healthcare access AND...

... increase economic opportunity (i.e. reduce wealth inequality).

Ironically enough, Republican policies do not do either of these things.

========

[bitterross]

30. They want to get it back before SCOTUS w/ Gorsuch

It's a calculated move to get the issue before SCOTUS now that they have Gorsuch. They want to see if they can get the whole issue reviewed. Not an unlikely thing to happen given the current makeup of the court. I'm not sure just how far Roberts' commitment to Stare Decisis goes on this issue.

[not fooled]

32. Abortion is the issue

because puke strategists casting about for something that would get numbers to the polls stumbled across it while running focus tests years ago. As Frank Schaeffer pointed today on AM Joy, even Billy Graham was pro-choice. It's like guns--just another ginned-up phony crisis to delude dumbasses into voting puke.

And, I can guarantee mcturdle and lyin' ryan don't give a rat's ass about fetii.

[Honeycombe8]

33. The Courts have previously found that 6 mos is the cutoff (24 weeks).

Because at that point the fetus could live, and therefore becomes a person at that point.

It's not unreasonable these days for it to be 20 weeks, now, because medical technology is such that many fetuses at 20 weeks could survive fine. But not sure it's within the powers of the legislature to dictate abortion times. If they do 20, next year it may be 18, and so on.

[Lokilooney]

34. I would like to point something out.

Many seem to wonder why evangelicals would ever vote for a person like Trump or Moore. Well, this is why. Legislation beats out how many wife's someone has had by a large margin, it's actually very savvy. Lets say this does pass and gets challenged and goes to the supreme court, gee who just got a new judge appointed and could very well get another one in before he leaves office?

This might be straying a bit from the core of the post but one could say the reason it is being posted is because policy before person can be a winning strategy.

[ehrnst]

35. Any politician who contradicts non-partisan public health analysts, and mainstream medical

groups on matters of medical health care delivery and public health policy is suspect in their judgement.

We are the party of evidence based policy, not dogma, and that is something that we must hang onto tightly, even if we are told it will "alienate the white working class male vote."

[DownriverDem]

36. All part of the plan

The repubs want an abortion law to go before the Supremes so the now 5-4 conservative court can strike down Roe v Wade. We were all warned and here we are.

[Demoiselle]

37. Thank you.

[McCamy Taylor]

38. Right to Life inlcudes too many people who hate women and see forcing

a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy as a way to punish and control her. Woman haters should not write legislation. If baby lovers wrote legislation, SCHIP would not be in trouble

[dflprincess]

41. I seem to recall that one of the states (maybe Ohio or Indiana) passed a bill like this that was so

poorly the "prolife" governor vetoed it because it would have banned c-sections at any point in the pregnancy.

[Mc Mike]

42. ..

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/06/13/trent-franks-abortion-bans-and-the-fetal-pain-lie/

Discusses refutation of the 'fetal pain' lie by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Also talks about repug rep Trent Franks and his buddies' fetal pain 'proof' consisting of a single 2007 commentary paper containing 7 studies of rats, which he termed 'recent' research, and completely unsourced 'research' from a group called 'Doctors for Fetal Pain'.

[CousinIT]

43. Vote on this supposedly going on now (5:30 ET?)

Just FYI.