<p>“I don’t personally know what the other route was. But I do know that it’s not accurate to say that C-section will always save a woman’s life or that there’s no difference in risk between vaginal delivery and intact D&X. Or as you claim, that there’s no situation where an intact D&X is more likely to result in the woman’s survival than vaginal delivery or C-section.”</p>
<p>I don’t know the woman’s situation. I just know that whenever I have been involved in an emergency delivery, the option is generally to do a c-section. I have not seen the OBs and perinatologists saying: “well, we will just have to kill the baby and get it out vaginally!” And with this very ill woman, hindsight is 20/20. It sounds like she very well may have been too sick to survive any procedure. Unless you have personally reviewed the chart and know that her survival would have been ensured with a partial birth abortion vs an emergency c-section, then I would stop pointing fingers. Maybe it would be helpful for you to bring to this forum the type of peer-reviewed article that you are referring to. I know what standard of care is.</p>
<p>And I have not said that emergency c-sections are 100% safe. But they sure do solve a lot of emergency obstetrical problems during late trimester pregnancies. There are risks of any surgical procedure, but c-sections themselves, in good hands and for the right reasons, are the safest alternative in the vast majority of emergency cases.</p>
<p>Sorry, I’m not the one making the claim that Intact D&X can never save a woman’s life when all other options fail. You are. So you should be the one to justify it. </p>
<p>The AMA has already said that such cases can exist and that doctors should be the ones to determine it:</p>
<p>My “finger-pointing” is limited to the fact that hospital policy at that hospital forbid doctors from any action that would promote the mothers’ survival at the expense of the child’s and forbid the husband from being told this. If you feel it’s inappropriate to save the mother at the expense of the child, fine. Just say so. But don’t try to pretend that the women who die don’t exist.</p>
<p>In any case, conyat’s acquaintance would still have legal access to partial birth abortion in order to save her life. That option has not been eliminated. If she was a patient at a Catholic hospital, it is possible that the policy was to save the baby first. I find it a little hard to understand why an educated patient didn’t understand hospital policy prior to admission.</p>
<p>But even the Catholic church accepts that sometimes a baby will be lost in trying to save the mother.
<p>“Sorry, I’m not the one making the claim that Intact D&X can never save a woman’s life when all other options fail. You are. So you should be the one to justify it.”</p>
<p>I just wanted to know what this case was, as it is highly unusual. That is why partial birth abs became so rare. </p>
<p>There probably aren’t too many studies about partial birth abs vs emergency c-sections, as it is a bit of a fringe issue in medicine.The truth is, these types of abortions shouldn’t really be happening anymore since the Supreme Court ruling. </p>
<p>So now the anti-abortion folks are freed up to turn their attention to first term abortions. That will be the next big battleground. Where does Hillary stand on this? I know she was becoming “more moderate.” How about Obama?</p>
<p>I have above the US median in education. I’ve been admitted to hospitals four times for various things, including once for childbirth. It never even occured to me to ask about this, even during my one pregnancy. </p>
<p>I took it for granted that I’d be presented with any options or information that were relevent to my care. People don’t expect their doctors to hide information from them. Perhaps this is a naive expectation, but I don’t think trust in the medical profession is limited to the uneducated.</p>
The problem I have with this is that it is so clear cut about saving the mother’s life. Where is the line drawn between “this woman will die without this procedure,” “this woman is probably going to die without this procedure,” “this woman may die without this procedure,” “this woman may die or experience severe harm without this procedure,” “this woman will likely live but will almost certainly be disabled without this procedure,” “this woman will likely live but will end up in a coma state without this procedure,” or any of the other possible senarios? Remember that doctors can’t necessarily differentiate easily between all of the above cases, especially when the decision needs to be made in tense seconds and minutes. I wouldn’t want my doctor to have to weigh what he believes the best option for me and the baby is with a court decision that drew a strict line between when he can and cannot legally perform this medical procedure. It doesn’t even account for the viability of the fetus. Maybe, if born successfully, the baby would be severely impared or is known to have a fatal or debilitating illness or would die within the first hours or days or months after birth. I don’t think that this call is a court’s decision.</p>
<p>Conyat, my personal belief is that all life has value, even for the disabled or impared. Any of us could have a child who becomes disabled through an accident or could develop cancer or whatever. We never know what challenges lie in front of us. But just because raising a child entails risk doesn’t mean it’s not worth having children. I’ve known parents of children with autism, Down’s and other disabilities who would tell that of course there are challenges, but that the journey is still worthwhile. It’s just a different path.</p>
<p>What on earth does this have to do with me? Where did I ever say that people with even severe disabilities don’t have quality of life or deserve to live? I know you don’t like me, but I think it’s insulting that you would direct this to me as though it were something I was likely to disagree with.</p>
<p>I spent 15 years of my life helping individuals and families with severe disabilities get services to live quality lives outside an institution, including children who had terminal illnesses. </p>
<p>I even specifically said in the post that I personally wasn’t making the call that the life of an otherwise healthy adult female was more valuable than the life of a profoundly disabled and gravely ill infant. Because I simply can’t make that call.</p>
<p>When I was pregnant myself, I didn’t even bother with amnio or any test for a condition that couldn’t be corrected in utero, because I personally had no interest in termination, no matter what the health of my child. Since I had no other children to consider, I would not have accepted an abortion even if my life were in danger. </p>
<p>So I’m not sure what it is about me that made you feel that your remarks needed to be addressed to me personally. The fact that I lamented that the family wasn’t given information that could have saved the mother’s life? That the family had no input in the decision to sacrifice the mother to save the child? I’ve never even said what I thought they should have done with the information, only that they should have had it.</p>
<p>If you don’t agree that families should have this information, fine, just say so. But don’t try to smear me by pretending that my position is something that it isn’t.</p>
I was responding to this comment. I also neither implied or stated that you felt the disabled did not have a right to life. I simply shared my views, which you chose to interpret as a negative comment about you.</p>
<p>That was my post, #86. I was speaking in context to situations where the mother is in serious danger of death or permanent harm. The law, as I understand it, does not account for saving the mother from serious harm at the expence of the fetus even in cases where, if born, the baby would die within a matter of days or months. Like Conyat, I believe that these issues should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor–not the court.</p>
<p>Hence the reason for my shock at sjmom’s post being addressed to me completely from nowhere. </p>
<p>Now it makes sense. I’ve done that too (well, I did it once), confused posters whose names look somewhat similar at first glance. I guess ours are a little similiar looking:
c*n (hanging letter) *</p>
<p>With that said, I’d be rather surprised if corranged’s views on the sanctity of life for the disabled are much different from sjmom’s. </p>
<p>All corranged has said so far is that the courts aren’t allowing doctors or the family to give any weight to relative outcomes for mother and child, if the mother isn’t going to die outright. (And that deciding how much risk it takes to say that the mother’s life rather than health is in danger is going to be a tricky issue.)</p>
<p>My mistake. It was corranged’s post #86, immediately prior to my post #87. In any case, I really was just sharing my general thoughts, not trying to attack any other posters. Why is it so hard for people to give other posters the benefit of the doubt? Could you have just said something like, “Wow, I don’t know where you got the idea, but that’s not how I feel.” That would at least have given me the opportunity to more fully explain my post without accusing me of insulting you. I would have thought that our previous exchanges would have set the stage for better understanding.</p>
<p>Edited to post #94: I don’t sit at my computer 24/7, so it’s difficult for me to respond to every post that flows from your fingertips. I did correct my mistake above, but I still don’t feel that I have anything for which to apologize. As I’ve now stated twice, my comments were of the general value of human life, regardless of its status, and did not state in any way that you did not value life. And yes, I do think it’s childish to wait for an apology for something that was never said or intended.</p>
<p>I don’t think that anyone here does not value human life, SJmom. The fact that you felt the need to say that you do implies that you do not believe the rest of us share that value. Implying that someone does not value life is insulting to most people. I think all of us see the inherent importance and value in the miracle of life, even if the person has autism (baby cousin) or cancer (mother, most recently) or a birth defect (me) or a genetic disease (father, sisters, me). These things effect us all, and you shouldn’t have felt the need to state that you value life. We all do.</p>
<p>If you value human life, how do you justify abortion? The two seem incompatible to me. It often seems that people use fetal defects to justify. Is that not so?</p>
<p>Yes, I noticed. I guess I have to admire your chutzpah. Very few people would misquote someone then turn around and use the reaction to the misquote as the basis for criticizing the person some more.</p>
<p>But whatever, I only posted in this thread because I thought it was important to correct the meme that women don’t die in childbirth in this country anymore because they can just have C-sections.</p>
<p>Now that that’s been done, the floor is yours.</p>
<p>Most abortions are done because a woman became pregnant while not using birth control or in fewer instances, because with true compliance, the birth control method failed. The abortions done for rape or incest or to protect the health of the mother are very few compared to just “not right time, right place.” It is the use of abortions for essentially birth control that is being targeted.</p>
<p>I don’t think that Roe v Wade was intended to legalize abortion as it is currently used today. I also don’t think that abortion rights should define the “women’s movement,” but it does for many, not all, of its leaders for the past few decades.</p>
<p>What do Hillary and Obama think about abortion? How about McCain? I think Rudy is for abortion legislation staying as it is(?)</p>