Though I'm as big a fan of murder as the next person, I think that the negative effects of abortion have become so underrated since Roe vs. Wade that it's sickening.  I know that most of you can't vote, but you should still educate yourself on how abortions are performed and the effects they have on womens' bodies before you do so that you are able to make an educated decision when you do vote.

Upper left, dilatation and curretage                         Upper right, hysterotomy Lower left, suction                       Lower right, salt poisoning

To perform the suction aspiration method of abortion, doctors paralyze and stretch open the cervical muscle ring before it is ready to open.  The doctor then inserts a hollow plastic tube with a knife-like edge into the uterus.  This tears the unborn baby into pieces.  Next, the deeply rooted placenta is sucked from the uterus.  The suction is 29 times more powerful than a home vacuum cleaner.      The dilatation and curretage method is similar to the suction method, only a curette (a loop shaped steel knife) is inserted into the uterus instead.  The placenta and baby are cut into pieces and scraped into a basin.      For a prostaglandic abortion, the mother is given a drug called prostin F2 alpha, which induces labor.  If the baby is large enough, it is born alive, and considered a complication of the operation.      Suction and saline abortions both commonly result in profuse hemorrhaging and infection from parts of the fetus left in the woman's body.       In the saline, or salt poisoning method, a concentrated salt solution is injected into the amniotic fluid with a large needle.  After breathing and swallowing it, the poisoned baby struggles and sometimes convulses.  If the operation is successful, the mother delivers the dead baby after about a day.  A significant number of babies are born alive, but then killed at the hospital.      The hysterotomy, performed late in the pregnancy, is like a Caesarian section.   The mother's abdomen and uterus are opened, and the baby (almost always alive at this point) is lifted out, smothered, and discarded.      Because the cervical muscle is stretched and permanently weakened to perform the abortion, mothers who later decide to actually have their baby have a higher risk of delivering a premature baby.  Abortion also significantly raises the risk of sterlity, miscarriage, and tubal pregnancies.

click on Lindsey to go home