Fetus

Commentator Maria Santo's specious arguments for why everyone should be of the same mind about abortion only reinforces my conviction that the decision of whether to continue a pregnancy should be up to a woman and her doctor ("Dishonesty underlies abortion law," March 5). Ms. Santo's intellectually dishonest use of the word "child" in reference to the unborn is a poetic and linguistic ploy that paints everything with one long, obscuring brush stroke. We do not all agree that there is no difference between a fertilized egg, a fetus at six months and a two-year-old child.

Commentator Maria Santo's specious arguments for why everyone should be of the same mind about abortion only reinforces my conviction that the decision of whether to continue a pregnancy should be up to a woman and her doctor ("Dishonesty underlies abortion law," March 5). Ms. Santo's intellectually dishonest use of the word "child" in reference to the unborn is a poetic and linguistic ploy that paints everything with one long, obscuring brush stroke. We do not all agree that there is no difference between a fertilized egg, a fetus at six months and a two-year-old child.

A fetus was found in a Dumpster Tuesday evening near Seasons at Bel Air apartments. Police received a call around 6 p.m. Tuesday from someone reporting that a mother had placed a stillborn baby in a metal trash container in the 900 block of Sablewood Road in Bel Air, according to Bel Air Police, which is handling the investigation. A woman, who identified herself as the mother, reported the birth of the baby to Baltimore County detectives and was escorted to the Bel Air address to point out the trash bin, according to a Bel Air Police Department news release issued Wednesday morning.

There has always been something truly unseemly about the desire of conservatives in Congress to assert their control over the residents of the District of Columbia. Not only because it represents a white and male-dominated culture forcing its values on a city of more than 617,000 (more than half of whom are black and an even higher percentage female), but it runs so blatantly counter to the GOP's alleged preference for a hands-off federal government. Tuesday's vote by the House of Representatives over a proposed ban on abortion for all District women after 20 weeks of pregnancy, even those who are the victims of rape and incest, surely represents a new low for this plantation mentality.

City police say a human fetus was found in a jar yesterday in an alley behind the 500 block of N. Chapel St.Police said the fetus was found around 1 p.m. by a Southeastern District officer responding to a report that the jar might contain a fetus.After police determined the fetus was human, it was sent to the state medical examiner's office downtown, where it was to be examined to determine its sex and age and whether it was placed in the jar while alive.Police said the fetus may have been left in the jar following a miscarriage.

By combining three blood tests, doctors can sort out younger pregnant women most likely to be carrying a fetus affected by Down syndrome, according to a recent study.These women can then be offered amniocentesis, the definitive test for the chromosome abnormality.The finding, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, is important because four out of five children with Down syndrome are born to mothers younger than 35. Until now, however, doctors have recommended amniocentesis, a test for detecting a Down's fetus, only to women over 35.The reason is that amniocentesis, which involves sticking a needle into the uterus to retrieve a sample of amniotic fluid, precipitates miscarriage in 1 case out of 200. Among women under 35, the miscarriage risk from amniocentesis is higher than the average likelihood of finding a Down fetus.

IS IT morally right to keep a dead woman who is pregnant attached to life support machines in order to let her fetus live? A recent case in California shows that such a question is not hypothetical.Trisha Marshall died of a gunshot wound to the head on April 21 while she was 17 weeks pregnant. David Smith, the father, asked hospital officials to do whatever they could to save the fetus. Marshall's body was kept on life support machines at Highland Hospital in Oakland in the hope that her fetus would develop to the point where it could live.

WASHINGTON -- The long-term campaign to gain legal protection for fetuses made another significant gain this week as Oklahoma's highest court ruled that it is homicide to kill a fetus still in the womb but developed enough to live outside.Since the point of "viability" is around 23 to 24 weeks, the unanimous decision by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals could mean criminal prosecutions for the death of fetuses that have reached the third trimester of pregnancy.The Oklahoma tribunal, the highest court in that state for criminal cases, on Monday joined three other states -- Kansas, Massachusetts and South Carolina -- in abandoning a legal rule dating from the 14th century and once followed across the nation: that a fetus must have been carried to term and have been born as a live child before it is protected against murder or manslaughter.

A Woodlawn High School student is pitting the First Amendment against the school's dress code in an effort to obtain a federal court's permission to wear a graphic anti-abortion T-shirt to school.Jeffrey M. Baus, 17, testified yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that he should have a constitutional right to wear the T-shirt, which displays a drawing of a dismembered and bloody fetus."It's part of my right to free speech," he said, "and I would like for people at my school to realize what abortion really is. It's murder, and it must be stopped."

A man accused of fatally shooting the mother of his unborn child in a shopping center parking lot could become the first person in the state to be prosecuted under a law that considers the murder of a pregnant woman whose late-term fetus also dies a double homicide, authorities said yesterday. David L. Miller could be charged with murder in the death of the unborn child, said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, who said he would wait for detailed autopsy results before making a decision.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for snow, mainly after noon, with a high near 39 degrees. It is expected to be snowy early tonight, followed by clouds, with a low temperature around 32 degrees. TRAFFIC Check our updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM LAST NIGHT... Fetus found in trash bin in Bel Air : A fetus was found in a Bel Air trash bin Tuesday night, following a phone call alerting police to the dead child, officials said.

A fetus was found in a Dumpster Tuesday evening near Seasons at Bel Air apartments. Police received a call around 6 p.m. Tuesday from someone reporting that a mother had placed a stillborn baby in a metal trash container in the 900 block of Sablewood Road in Bel Air, according to Bel Air Police, which is handling the investigation. A woman, who identified herself as the mother, reported the birth of the baby to Baltimore County detectives and was escorted to the Bel Air address to point out the trash bin, according to a Bel Air Police Department news release issued Wednesday morning.

Maryland law does define when it is too late to perform an abortion ("2 doctors face murder charges in botched Elkton abortion," Dec. 31). In light of the recent indictment in Cecil County, it is necessary to restate the provisions of the statute the voters approved on referendum in 1992. The state may not interfere with the decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is viable. A fetus is considered viable when, in the best medical judgment of the attending physician based on the particular facts of the case before the physician, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside the womb.

The voters of Maryland overwhelmingly approved the law protecting a woman's right to choose when to have a child. By a 62 percent-38 percent margin, they decided that the state should not interfere with this very personal decision before a fetus becomes viable. This reflects the will of the people, not "the extreme agenda of the abortion industry," as Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien wrote in his recent letter to the editor (Readers respond, Sept 12.). Under our law, once a doctor decides that the fetus is capable of sustained survival outside the womb, an abortion can be performed only if it is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother or if the fetus is affected by a genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality.

How times have changed. Only a few short years ago President George W. Bush called for a Sanctity of Life Day that has now been replaced by President Barack Obama with the anti-Christian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month (June). At least we can say one thing about President Obama. He is consistent. He always takes the side that is short-sighted, harmful to individuals and society and focused on self. He sides with those demanding that the innocent (i.e. the human fetus and embryo)

The Sun's argument regarding the amendment banning the funding of abortions from government-backed healthcare is fatally flawed ('The anti-choice," Nov. 10). The comparison between an abortion and a gall bladder or kidney stone procedure assumes that a fetus is an infected organ or an abnormal collection of calcium. Rather, a fetus is the first stage in human life. Regardless of one's religious views, it is an undeniable fact that the heart starts beating around 22 days after conception and stops beating when the body dies.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- They call her Tia. She is 9 1/2 inches long, weighs 14 ounces and was named by the Operation Rescue leaders who use her to symbolize the human lives lost to abortion.But since police confiscated the fetus at an anti-abortion demonstration here Tuesday, Tia has come to symbolize the very question at the heart of the emotional abortion battle.Is Tia a baby or a fetus? A human being or fetal tissue?Or, on a practical basis for medical and legal officials, is Tia to be given a proper burial or disposed of as medical waste?

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- In the next few months, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to decide whether county officials in this Milwaukee suburb acted legally when they took custody of an unborn child a month before its due date.The pregnant woman was using cocaine, drugging the developing baby. The local social services agency asked a Juvenile Court judge to place the fetus in Waukesha Memorial Hospital. The judge issued a detention order to the Waukesha County sheriff.The 24-year-old addict carrying the fetus had no say in the matter.

The sentencing hearing of a man convicted of killing a pregnant woman and the pair's unborn baby in Parkville last year was postponed yesterday after the judge discovered that a pre-sentence investigation was not completed. David L. Miller, 25, had been scheduled to be sentenced yesterday in the June 2007 deaths of Elizabeth Walters and the fetus she was carrying. It was the first time Maryland's fetal homicide law had been used in the death of an unborn child. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz decided to reschedule the sentencing after attorneys in the case determined that the judge's order for a pre-sentence report never made it to the Department of Parole and Probation.

A man accused of fatally shooting the mother of his unborn child in a Baltimore County parking lot last month will face two murder charges, one in the woman's death and one in the fetus' death, marking the first prosecution under the state's fetal homicide law. David L. Miller, 24, was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder by a Baltimore County grand jury yesterday in the death of Elizabeth Walters, 24, and her unborn child, Baltimore County State's...