Word: fetus
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...pleased enough that they have found "a place to grow" in appreciation of the Law. Orthodox Judaism, he insists, is a living religion, and its laws provide practical guides for behavior. On the issue of abortion, for instance, one must consider the rights of "potential life" (the fetus) and the usually more compelling rights of "present life" (the mother), both sacred under Jewish law. The rabbi must help the conscientious Jew decide which law takes precedence in the case at hand. It must be the Law-not individual whim-that decides, but it is a flexible, not a frozen code...
Comparatively few who seek abortions have strictly medical reasons, such as their own health or suspected congenital abnormality in the fetus. Rape and incest account for a negligible percentage of unwanted pregnancies. Women seek legal abortions for the familiar reasons: reluctance to interrupt career plans, lack of money, fear of losing personal freedom, uncertainty about their relationship with the man involved...
Some states have gone far beyond the A.L.I.'s model. An 18-month-old Hawaii law allows unrestricted abortion of a "nonviable" fetus for any woman who has been a resident of the state for 90 days; a 14-month-old Alaska law permits abortion up to the 19th week for women who have lived in the state for a month. A Washington State law, adopted last December by voter referendum (56% to 44%), removed all restrictions on abortions through the fourth month of pregnancy...
...Saline induction, which is used between the 16th and 24th weeks of pregnancy, is one of the more drastic means. A doctor inserts a needle through the patient's abdomen into the uterus, draws off most of the amniotic fluid in which the fetus floats and replaces it with a salt solution. The saline substance kills the fetus, and then a miniature labor begins-with real pain-and continues until the fetus is expelled some 24 to 72 hours later...
...great fear about abortion, among doctors and nurses as well as patients, is that a fetus will be born alive. Claims by anti-abortion groups that doctors routinely throw "screaming, wriggling bundles of humanity" into garbage cans are unfounded. But despite laws banning abortions after the 24th week, well before a fetus can survive outside the womb, "live births" do occur. The reason, often, is that the date of conception has been miscalculated or misstated by the woman. At least 40 fetuses have reportedly been born "alive" in New York. All died within hours, despite doctors' efforts to maintain...