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Janet FitzGerald holds a sign during a candlelight vigil for Dr. George
Tiller at a park in Lawrence, Kan., Sunday, May 31, 2009. Tiller, one of
the nation's few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of
protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where
he was serving as an usher. Dr. Tiller specialized in a condition called
anencephaly, which is always fatal to the baby, and often tot he mother.
(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Who was Dr. George Tiller, and what did his medical practice and death have to do with a condition called anencephaly?
Dr. George Tiller, was a late-term abortion specialist killed recently after being repeatedly targeted in what many are describing as a campaign of domestic terrorism against abortion practitioners in general, and specifically against the few doctors in the United States who perform very late-term abortions.
Dr. George Tiller was one of the few doctors to specialize in aborting babies with a fatal condition called anencephaly. In an anencephalic fetus, the neural tubes never fully close, causing partial brain and skull loss. Essentially, the baby is missing most of the top of his or her head. Babies with anencephaly always die before or shortly after birth. Anencephaly is often potentially fatal for the mother as well.
Aborting a fetus with anencephaly is legal, but very few doctors perform late-term abortions, partly due to the controversy, and partly due to the rarity of the condition. One reason so few doctors specialize in this procedure is that only about one out of 150,000 to 200,000 babies born in the United States each year suffers from anencephaly.
Many people wrestle with the question of whether parents who know their baby suffers from anencephaly, should they have the right to terminate the pregnancy? Others wonder if people who do not face the situation should even weigh in. The law varies by state.
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Comments
Please see today's column in examiner.com about the realities of a second trimester abortion from the sex health examiner. I am an OB/GYN. The truthis hard, but people need to know what women face.
My God, what a whitewash this post is.
Dr. Tiller did not ONLY perform late term abortion exclusively on fetuses diagnosed with anencephaly. He performed abortions at any time for pretty much any reason. He also falsified pregnancy trimester information so he could abort a third trimester baby, saying it was still in the second trimester. This man was not a hero. I am not saying he should have been killed, but just like the man who shot him, Dr. Tiller is a murderer. Noone has the right to take another's life, and that includes the unborn!
This post is a joke. Might as well say all he did was perscribe birth control pills.
FYI: the June 2nd post at atheismisdead [dot] blogspot [dot] com makes clear that the notion of an American versions of Al Qaeda & the Taliban is an atheist myth.
....Al Qaeda itself is a myth you moron. The term / entity was created by the CIA. Al Qaeda does not exist.
"One reason so few doctors specialize in this procedure is that only about one out of 150,000 to 200,000 babies born in the United States each year suffers from anencephaly."
This does not appear to be accurate. The number appears to be about 25 in 100,000, and that's only births, and my number is based on CDC reports and not some highly suspicious claim on Wikipedia (where I've seen the number provided in this article). Please, go to the CDC, crunch the numbers yourself, and see if you need to correct your article. Google anencephaly and CDC, since links are not allowed.
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