HT: Blithering Idiot
Senator, you seem to assume that the doctor doing an abortion is incapable of making a wrong decision. Or if he does make a mistake, he'll just recognize and fix the problem immediately.
Yes, Senator Obama, we do suspect that here are doctors won't seek adequate medical care for these babies on their own initiative. Because they have a history of sticking these babies in a closet to die. Of strangling them. Of drowning them in a bucket.
Yes, Sanator Obama, we know that when a baby is born alive during an abortion, a doctor has already "made that assessment" -- presumably that the baby in question isn't "viable" -- that is, able to survive outside the womb. But if the baby is born alive, the doctor in question has already established in a pretty palpable way that his clinical judgment isn't all it's cracked up to be. He already thought the baby wouldn't survive the abortion process. Now are we to trust him to judge the baby's chance of survival when she's already proved to be much more tenacious of life than he expected?
Senator Obama , you indicate that it's somehow just burdensome to bring a second doctor in, after the abortion doctor has made his assessment: an assessment that has been proved to be flawed.
As if doctors are all the same. As if a second opinion is never called for.
Imagine for a moment, Senator Obama, that your wife or daughter is in a car crash. She's brought into the emergency room with a serious head injury. A doctor examines her, tells you that there is no hope, and hands you papers for organ donation.
This doctor is telling you that your loved one's brain injury is fatal. If that doctor is a neurosurgeon, how much would you trust the assessment? What if the doctor isn't a neurosurgen, but an ob/gyn? Would you want him making that call?
Probably not. He might be the best ob/gyn in the world, but brain surgery is tricky business. You'd want a specialist, somebody with experience assessing patients with brain injuries.
Some areas of medicine are fairly simple, and don't really require a specialist. Probably just about any doctor can set a simple fracture, drain an abscessed toenail, or treat your poison ivy. But for a brain injury, you're rightly going to want a specialist, with intensive specialized training and extensive specialized experience. The same goes with preemies -- especially the micropreemies that can be expected in an abortion-triggered birth. These tiny babies are not easy to assess and care for. They require a very high level of skill and clinical judgment. Only neonatologists are qualified to assess and care for them.
The doctor making the initial assessment in an abortion is likely an ob/gyn, though he might be a psychiatrist or dermatologist or ENT. There's no requirement that abortions be performed by ob/gyns. But let's for the sake of argument assume that he is an ob/gyn.
Ob/gyns who are providing care to women who don't intend to abort routinely concede that assessing and caring for critically ill, premature, or injured babies isn't their speciality. They have sense enough, when the mother loves and wants her baby, to call in an expert to make an expert assessment.
But, Senator Obama, you are asserting that in the case of an infant born during an abortion, the usual standard of care -- to have a neonatologist assess the premature and/or injured baby -- suddenly doesn't apply. In abortion cases, and abortion cases alone, you assert, the ob/gyn's skill is adequate to assess and care for that baby.
But to reiterate, the ob/gyn in question has already shown poor clinical judgment in his own specialty by trying to abort a baby strong enough to survive the procedure.
Perhaps you are not necessarily endorsing infanticide of babies born during abortions. You might not even have thought through the fact that you're stating that a lesser standard of care is adequate. It might simply never have occurred to you that a premature baby needs a neonatologist, not an obstetrician.
It doesn't show murderous intent. But it shows poor judgment and lack of reasoning. And it still leaves babies in the lurch if they're born after an abortion.
Senator Obama, think of how William Waddill strangled Baby W. Think of how Raymond Showery drowned Baby Girl Doe. Think of how Xemina Renearts was stuck in a bedpan and put into a closet. Think of how Rowan was kept locked in a bathroom with his screaming, desperate mother pleading for help.
Can you find a shred of compassion in your heart for these children? Can you find just a shred of doubt that all doctors can always be trusted to risk their medical license, insurance, and reputation for the sake of a baby they've been paid to kill?
Can you break out of your "abortionists are saints who can do no wrong" mindset, just for a moment?
The thing that gets me most from people who are against BAIPA in whatever form, is that the argument they use is, "This doesn't happen, so this law is unnecessary." Well, if it is so unnecessary, then why not allow it to be on the books? If it doesn't happen, then it's an empty law and will never be enforced. I've heard of laws on the books of some towns making it illegal to do things like tie a camel to a parking meter. Who has camels? It's an empty law, yet still on the books. If all doctors who just attempted to kill a baby by abortion would suddenly have a change of heart and a pang of conscience by seeing that the baby was alive and not dead, and would then of his own accord take what steps were necessary to save the child alive, then this law would affect no one, and place no "burden" on anybody! The law is only necessary in the case of such doctors who would not immediately call in another doctor to give proper care to the tiny baby. If Obama thinks that all abortionists will do this anyway, then he should have supported the bill as being merely an "empty" law, affecting no one. Yet he opposed it, so he must know that despite his rhetoric, that it does affect abortionists. And the babies they seek to kill.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this response. I hope this gets widely read.
ReplyDeleteI'm a pro-choice woman who believes women are capable and smart enough to make their own reproductive decisions. I also believe that a sack of cells barely discernible to the naked eye does not qualify "life". However, I draw the line at abortions where the baby is so developed that he/she can accidentally be "born alive" during the procedure. Any reasonable person would.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I understand that this situation is rare almost to the point of not existing.
Also, you haven't represented Obama's actions honestly here. Obama didn't support the bill in question because the bill was an underhanded attack on Roe v. Wade which would have undermined the court's determination that unborn fetuses are not afforded the same rights and protections as, for instance, the mother. It would have opened the door for pro-life fanatics to attack a woman's right to choose on legal grounds by redefining life. The bill also would have required doctors to take extraordinary measures to keep an infant alive who never would be able to survive outside the womb without life support, surgeries, etc.
Obama did support a similar bill which George Bush signed into law in 2002. This bill accomplished the same thing (requiring doctors to give reasonable care to any viable infant) and protected Roe v. Wade. It was a bi-partisan piece of legislation.
To imply that Obama supports "infanticide" (which many, many pro-life people and organization did at the time) is insane and just plain incorrect.
P.S. I LOL'ed at the "abortionists are saints who can do no wrong" comment. Also at the "babies they seek to kill" comment. as if doctors who perform aboritons spend their nights laughing maniacally and fantasizing about murdering cute, innocent, helpless little babies. preposterous. Have you ever seen "The Cider House Rules"? Doctors have compassionate and VERY logical reasons for doing what they do. Mainly, that legal, safe abortions save lives, empower women, and protect the good men and women of the medical community.
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