Is Late-Term Abortion Ever Necessary
Mary L. Davenport, M.D., FACOG (Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) reiterates what I've been saying:
1. The Supreme Court invented post-viability abortions in Roe and Doe.
2. Most late abortions are done for the same reasons as earlier abortions; they're just done later.
3. A lot of doctors are referring women for abortions without telling the women that there are other, less drastic treatment options.
4. If you do need to end a pregnancy after viability, the standard of care is to do it by delivering a live baby, either by inducing labor or via c-sections.
5. A lot of parents are given incomplete information when being urged to abort after a prenatal diagnosis.
6. Even a lethal condition in an unborn baby can leave the possibility of live birth and a meaningful, if short, time with the child.
22 comments:
Tlaloc, are you kidding me? It's staggeringly evil to not kill someone?
You're staggeringly evil.
GG -- thanks for posting this article!
Tlaloc, your reaction doesn't really surprise me. However most lethal conditions are not necessarily painful; besides, we have palliative care for pain, so that's really a moot point. If you were to go to the pediatric cancer ward and open fire, you would be arrested and charged with murder, even if the children were terminal.
If I was faced in the situtation of my child dying shortly after birth and even thought for a second that the baby would be in pain I'd have pain med's available right after my baby was born.
I'm sure a lot of doctors would be happy to make sure my baby wasn't in pain by giving him/her pain meds rather than shoving some scizzors in the back of his/her head and sucking the babys brain outs. Now that sounds cruel and in humane!
Yeah, Krystal, I've never figured out how doctors paint getting stabbed in the heart with a huge syringe or getting a scissors jammed into your skull or any other abortion method is more merciful than being given comfort care.
Tlaloc, your post shows your disdain for human uniqueness. I have found this kind of disdain quite common among those in favor of abortion on demand.
Yes, newborns can indeed receive palliative care. Tlaloc, I pray for you to one day consider all human beings as equals to yourself.
Newborns most certainly sense the outside world... outside "their own pain". They know when they are being held, loved, comforted. It's not about Mom and Dad's selfishness. It's about loving the baby while you can, letting it go feeling loved, being cared for. How dare you suggest that it is somehow more humane to either dismember or perform a complete lobotomy with NO PAIN MEDICATION AT ALL is more humane than giving birth and giving palliative care and loving comfort.
Oops, that last line should have been "How dare you suggest that it is somehow more humane to either dismember or perform a complete lobotomy with NO PAIN MEDICATION AT ALL rather than giving birth and giving palliative care and loving comfort."
Sorry about that.
"Newborns most certainly sense the outside world.."
They sense it, yes, but they aren't able to distinguish that it is something separate. They believe it is merely an extension of themselves. It isn't until later that they come to understand that the world is more than just them.
Didn't any of you study the psychological development of human beings?
"It's not about Mom and Dad's selfishness."
It most certainly is about their selfishness. They have a critically ill person who will die and they choose to prolong that death, to prolong that decay, so that they don't have to deal with letting go and grieving. The baby gets nothing out of it. Don't kid yourself. It's a monument to selfishness that anyone would even consider doing something that vile to a helpless infant.
I'd say the critically ill infant has enough problems without having to bear its parent's lack of responsibility too.
"How dare you suggest that it is somehow more humane to either dismember or perform a complete lobotomy with NO PAIN MEDICATION AT ALL rather than giving birth and giving palliative care and loving comfort."
I'm all for using anesthesia during an abortion. But leaving that aside, yes a moment of pain followed by release is infinitely better than days or weeks or months of suffering. It's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
Tlaloc, mercy does not include murder.
Palliative care exists to comfort someone as he dies. There is no need to inject poison into the heart to speed the process.
PEP, it's kinda like the Hemlock Maneuver. You know -- you see a person choking. You place your hands securely around his throat and squeeze tightly, thus preventing a prolonged dying process.
Tlaloc: "It isn't until later that they come to understand that the world is more than just them."
And this makes babies less needing of life because... why?
So... it's more merciful to dismember or fully lobotomize an infant without anesthesia than to... give comfort and say your goodbyes? Do you not believe that saying goodbye to a newborn is difficult? After all, abortion without anesthesia is the "standard of care" in abortion clinics. Please, give me a break. Merciful my foot.
"Tlaloc, mercy does not include murder."
Euthenasia isn't murder.
"PEP, it's kinda like the Hemlock Maneuver. You know -- you see a person choking. You place your hands securely around his throat and squeeze tightly, thus preventing a prolonged dying process."
A person choking may be saved. We're talking about terminal cases who will not get better.
"And this makes babies less needing of life because... why?"
It doesn't matter if the baby "needs" life, they aren't going to get it- they are dying, and not in the rhetorical "we're all getting closer to our eventual deaths and hence dying" way. I mean we're talking about infants that have life expectancies of weeks or months, if not days.
The question then is just one of do we prolong their decay? In the case of an adult, or even a child, there may be some amount of quality of life to be gotten, despite the process of dying, in those days and weeks. An adult may treasure the time to put matters in order, to see family memebrs, and so on before the end. In that case it is an open question. None of that applies toan infant. They have no sense of other. They are dying and so the world as they know it is dying.
There's no others for them to draw comfort from. There's no affairs for them to put in order. There's nothing for them but the process of dying stretched out as long as possible by people who are too selfish to allow a mercy, the only mercy that infant has coming.
Tlaloc: "There's no others for them to draw comfort from."
If you cannot realize how false you are, the is no need to talk to you. I'm sick of talking to a heartless wall.
"Don't insult us all by pretending you give a d*** about mercy."
The same could be said for you. Being dismembered blindly with a pair of forceps is hardly "a moment" of pain. Look up the definition of "palliative care". It's hardly torture.
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