Congressman says abortions never necessary to save life of mother

[seekerz]

I do appreciate you’re feedback, I was beginning to wonder if I was not making myself clear enough… There were a few posts back there that were just a little bit frustrating for me. :coolinoff:

(normally I don’t treat other posters like that, maybe it’s just an extremely emotional topic for some people… In this case, I felt like I had the right to defend myself.)

Oh, you’re making yourself clear alright. Some aspects of the abortion argument I will freely admit, are way up in the philosophical/theological stratosphere (for example, how we can justify acting or not acting when a pregnant woman’s life is at risk in specific diseases/circumstances), but this life/personhood issue seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

[Cariethra]

I actually have had to make this decision. It really was a this or that decision.

I found out I was pregnant in December of 2010. I didn’t have insurance and was waiting on DSHS to see my doctor. One day I started to have mild bleeding and clots. I had previously lost one child and almost bled to death during the miscarriage. I had to be on progesterone until 14 weeks to keep my daughter alive. So I bit the bullet and called the doctor. I was seen within 2 hours. I had a blood draw and an ultrasound. They found that the baby was at the top of my uterus near my right fallopian tube. I appeared to be only 4.5 weeks along (although I knew that is should have been 5.5).

I was told that 1 of 3 things could happen. The baby could move down and implant lower in my uterus. The baby could go back up into my fallopian tube. The baby could stay where he was. Obviously the first was the one we were hoping for, but it was highly unlikely to happen. I was told that if the baby stayed where he was, I would die, not a maybe, a would. My uterus would rupture and I would bleed to death.

They kept me on the progesterone hoping that the baby would move down. But the progesterone didn’t work, I miscarried him a few days later. The bleeding never stopped. I was told that chances are, it had been too late even when I first went in.

I firmly believe that God knew that I wasn’t going to abort that baby. I think that baby knew that too. He gave up his life for me, willingly. He gave up his life so that his brother could be born (he was conceived 2 months later).

I knew this one thing: It would have been better for my daughter and my husband that both the baby and I died, than for me to not be there due to grief and guilt for the rest of the daughter’s life.

 

[Trees33]

This congressman is an idiot. Clearly he doesn’t understand the human body at all.

 

[SophiaK]

I think there are a few things we need to address before we as a society can get anywhere on this issue.

At times, there is complete ignorance on an obstetrician’s part in regards to the safety of medical treatment in pregnant women. It leads to alarmist reactions. This is atleast my experience:

I was taking an anticonvulsant, and I found out I was pregnant half-surprisingly (Husband and I talked about it for the first time and then it happened, poof ). I did not have time to speak with the person prescribing the medication prior to conceiving. I made an appointment with him, he discussed the likelihood of birth defects from the medication. The drug has been on the market for almost twenty years (kid is three), and the most frequent birth defect is cleft palate. The risk for cleft palate, a pretty much treatable condition, in use of this drug for pregnancy is 0.7%. My doctor told me this and suggested I continue the medication because of the reason he prescribed it and the tiny chance just wasn’t worth ditching the drug.

Come to my OB appointment, I was told 1) The chances of my kid inheriting my disorder were high (No kidding, I work in the field that treats it), 2) I needed to discontinue the medication I was taking and use something “safe” for pregnancy. The list consisted of drugs inappropriate as first-line treatment of my diagnosis - which was what I needed - because there is evidence that the class actually aggravates the condition in many people, has less data for use in pregnancy than the drug I was taking, and is associated with severe withdrawal symptoms and correlated with childhood behavioral problems. Don’t get me wrong, if you need the drug, you need. But I did not appreciate medical advice that was/is flat-out wrong.

There are two OB offices in my town, and I thought I was picking the lesser of the two evils. I did see a few different OB’s at the practice because that was how they did things. Most gave me the same line of garbage. I don’t expect physicians to know everything about the human body, but I do expect them to be able to read the prescribing info sheet of the drug they’re lecturing about.

Later on, I was referred to a maternal fetal medicine doctor because of a spot on the heart found during the 20 week ultrasound. Doctor reviewed the results of the first ultrasound and the second as it was being done, said there wasn’t jack on there and the kid was perfectly healthy, and canceled my genetic counseling appointment that regular OB didn’t tell me about. I ended up getting referred back to him because of a quad screen that regular OB did not tell me about came up positive for Down Syndrome. He called me and told me the chances of me having a kid with Down Syndrome based on blood work alone were lower than getting into a car accident and he couldn’t recommend anything but enjoying picking out baby clothes.

Oh, and there was a midwife who thought I was ten years younger than what I was. That would be flattering to a lot of people, but I was twenty-five and she was treating me disrespectfully. Not related, but it is a fun aside.

Luckily, those people willingly left or got fired, and the doctor who delivered my baby was great. I knew several people who went through similar rigamarole as me, which was rather suspicious. U.S. c-section rates are also absurdly high, but that’s another topic.

I completely understand wanting to be prepared for pregnancy complications, but brushing up on statistics prior to walking into an OB’s office is needed. If they say “statistically significant,” that is supposed to mean that there is a 5% chance of one thing being correlated with another. Assuming they know what statistical significance means (you’d be surprised how many people with a lot of education and in health fields don’t), we’re still talking miniscule. If they say significant, it may not mean much of anything.

That is just medical woes. Abortions done not in the name of severe physical or mental health risks to the mother have a different set of problems. Our society needs to treat parents with more respect. The Welfare Mom and slang typically used to describe prostitutes needs to stop. Employers need to stop covertly penalizing parents who are stuck staying home with sick kids (I get sick kid duty usually because my husband can lose a few grand per quarter if he calls off of work). We need to stop saying derogatory things about infants and children who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or of different ethnic groups than the dominant one. I could go on. People make some outright idiotic decisions regarding sex and romantic relationships, but the messages society sends are not productive and end up hurting children.

We need to not make it so terrifying and overwhelming to have kids.

 

[Personanongrata]

Walsh has been voted out of office, along with Akin, Murdock and the not so great Allen West.!!! Yesterday was a good day all around!

:clapping:

 

[pannonius]

Sophia,

With respect, as someone who deals with biostatistics on a daily basis, I would like to correct your statement regarding statistical significance. Apologies to the forum for going off-topic, but I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t address this misunderstanding.

If they say “statistically significant,” that is supposed to mean that there is a 5% chance of one thing being correlated with another.

This is incorrect as written, as you’ve missed a very important point. Statistical significance, in the widely accepted sense where the p-value is < 0.05 (for those unfamiliar, “p” essentially stands for “probability”), means, simplistically, that the probability of a relationship existing between one thing and another due to chance (i.e., by pure coincidence) is 5% or less. In other words, there is at most a 5% chance that one thing is not related to another. Alternatively, for simplicity’s sake, you could turn this around and say there’s essentially a 95% chance that the two things are related (granted, technically speaking, this is not the conclusion supported by the math involved).

Assuming they know what statistical significance means … we’re still talking miniscule. If they say significant, it may not mean much of anything.

You are absolutely correct in saying that statistical significance may not mean much of anything. Depending on any number of variables involved in the statistical analysis, a statistically significant relationship might be observed which does not amount to much of a risk (or benefit, depending on what you’re looking at) when considered in the context of the practice of medicine.

That said, presuming the doctor in question is competent, he/she has likely made a determination, in his/her professional opinion, of whether he/she thinks a given relationship between two things is medically significant as well as statistically significant. Likely as not, he/she will tell the patient there is a “statistically significant relationship” as a way of providing some objective measure of what he/she has likely already seen in the scope of practice. This isn’t to say that he/she necessarily understands what statistical significance means – you are right, it’s quite possible he/she doesn’t – but chances are they’re weighing it against his/her own clinical experience rather than simply parroting “statistically significant” as though it were the ultimate answer rather than an indicator/helpful tool for understanding an interaction between one thing and another.

To your overall point, however, I fully agree it’s important for patients to be armed with information as they decide what kind of treatment or procedures they do or don’t want to undergo. In our overly litigious culture, the fear of getting sued I am certain is a factor, whether consciously or not, in forming doctors’ treatment recommendations, and is all the more reason to get second or third opinions depending on the severity of the situation.

Once again, please forgive my tangent here; the soapbox is hereby relinquished.

 

[SophiaK]

With respect, as someone who deals with biostatistics on a daily basis, I would like to correct your statement regarding statistical significance. Apologies to the forum for going off-topic, but I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t address this misunderstanding.

I sincerely appreciate you addressing this. I’m in the middle of a crash course on statistics, and at the moment a few of the basic concepts make sense when reading but I have trouble articulating them and should keep it to myself when I am up much too late only for the sake of getting some peace and quiet!

It’s good to be mindful of how numbers reported in news articles, TV, journal articles, and so forth affect how people interpret legal issues like this. Sometimes questionable research gets published, and sometimes preliminary studies get misinterpreted, and sometimes research gets misrepresented. It unfortunately affects more in life than what one might notice.

Obstetrics is one of those fields that has a higher-than-some-rate of lawsuits, and so my skepticism on advice given regarding treatments in other realms coupled with my bias based on my one experience is ever present. You are certainly right that many doctors base recommendations on a balance of clinical experience and research, and the good ones explain their recommendations. I don’t doubt obstetricians usually care very much about helping families through pregnancy and birth, and how difficult and at times emotionally painful are their jobs. It’s a mix in every profession.

I’m done now.

 

[terricasey]

Oh Thank God, someone who said leave it up to someone who actually went to medical school - God gave them those brains. If there are 5 other children at home, I think they need their mother alive.

 

[tijeras]

I just asked a doctor I know about this the other day, whether there were in fact any instances in which elective abortion is the only or best treatment. She’s a family practice doctor who also sees many pregnant women.

She said no, there aren’t any. Another friend of mine, a Muslim who’s an obstetrician, also said that abortion is not an emergency medical procedure she would have to provide for her patients.

The doctor I asked also said that a doctor she knows of, Dr. Goodwin (can’t remember first name, sorry, think he was in LA area) who specialized in high-risk pregnancies for decades, said there was never a case that he had in which he lost a patient whose life could have been saved by abortion. Again, he specialized in high-risk pregnancies: the women with pre-eclampsia, pulmonary hypertension, etc; the cases that people typically cite when claiming this needs to be an exception.

To my knowledge, ectopic pregnancy actually falls outside of this current discussion, as it is typically fatal to both mother and child. To my knowledge, the Church teaches that if both will die, save the one you can.

This doctor whom I queried the other day told me that in ectopic pregnancy, it is considered acceptable (that is, the Church accepts it as an ethical choice), to remove the part of the fallopian tube in which the baby has implanted. This is not directly killing the child by cutting it up or administering methotrexate (the other two options, typically). I hope that one day we can incubate these babies and save them.

There’s always a risk of something happening with any pregnancy, with any woman, no matter how initially healthy she was. Pregnancy is difficult. But we have made great advances in saving both mother and child. I think though, that advances could be made faster if people didn’t get hung up on the idea that we should just kill the baby if something goes wrong.

HOWEVER, abortion is more fatal than childbirth, according to recent studies (Planned Parenthood will have to update the ancient information they have on their website claiming abortion is safer than giving birth. They probably won’t though).

According to the Church, if there is a medical condition that needs treatment, and the treatment endangers the child but the mother needs it, go ahead and provide that treatment (radiation and chemotherapy, for instance). If the baby dies, that is a tragic side effect, but it’s not the same as directly killing the child through abortion. Sister of a friend of mine had breast cancer and was pregnant: her doctor told her he could “take care of that for her” (as in, kill her baby). She’s Catholic, wasn’t going to do that. A pro-life doctor told her about treatment that could be done while not killing the baby. She did that, saved her baby and her own life.

The problem with the phrase “danger to the health of the mother” is that, since Doe v Bolton, it has been used to justify killing babies whose mothers are simply emotionally unprepared for a child, that is, they don’t want him/her.

Do the research, people. One who learns facts ceases to be pro-choice.

 

[seekerz]

Do the research, people. One who learns facts ceases to be pro-choice.

You might want to take that advice yourself: the Church does not teach that when both lives are at risk “save the one you can”, but even if it did, the act of removing any living baby from it’s mother (intentionally or accidentally) still falls under the scientific definition of abortion. So the Congressman is mistaken.

 

[BroomWagon]

I just asked a doctor I know about this the other day, whether there were in fact any instances in which elective abortion is the only or best treatment. She’s a family practice doctor who also sees many pregnant women. She said no, there aren’t any. Another friend of mine, a Muslim who’s an obstetrician, also said that abortion is not an emergency medical procedure she would have to provide for her patients. The doctor I asked also said that a doctor she knows of, Dr. Goodwin (can’t remember first name, sorry, think he was in LA area) who specialized in high-risk pregnancies for decades, said there was never a case that he had in which he lost a patient whose life could have been saved by abortion. Again, he specialized in high-risk pregnancies: the women with pre-eclampsia, pulmonary hypertension, etc; the cases that people typically cite when claiming this needs to be an exception. To my knowledge, ectopic pregnancy actually falls outside of this current discussion, as it is typically fatal to both mother and child. To my knowledge, the Church teaches that if both will die, save the one you can. This doctor whom I queried the other day told me that in ectopic pregnancy, it is considered acceptable (that is, the Church accepts it as an ethical choice), to remove the part of the fallopian tube in which the baby has implanted. This is not directly killing the child by cutting it up or administering methotrexate (the other two options, typically). I hope that one day we can incubate these babies and save them. There’s always a risk of something happening with any pregnancy, with any woman, no matter how initially healthy she was. Pregnancy is difficult. But we have made great advances in saving both mother and child. I think though, that advances could be made faster if people didn’t get hung up on the idea that we should just kill the baby if something goes wrong. HOWEVER, abortion is more fatal than childbirth, according to recent studies (Planned Parenthood will have to update the ancient information they have on their website claiming abortion is safer than giving birth. They probably won’t though). According to the Church, if there is a medical condition that needs treatment, and the treatment endangers the child but the mother needs it, go ahead and provide that treatment (radiation and chemotherapy, for instance). If the baby dies, that is a tragic side effect, but it’s not the same as directly killing the child through abortion. Sister of a friend of mine had breast cancer and was pregnant: her doctor told her he could “take care of that for her” (as in, kill her baby). She’s Catholic, wasn’t going to do that. A pro-life doctor told her about treatment that could be done while not killing the baby. She did that, saved her baby and her own life. The problem with the phrase “danger to the health of the mother” is that, since Doe v Bolton, it has been used to justify killing babies whose mothers are simply emotionally unprepared for a child, that is, they don’t want him/her. Do the research, people. One who learns facts ceases to be pro-choice.

Great post, this is very informative.

Apologies that my computer does not seem to format the quote correctly.

The Congressman was indeed correct, your answer is convincing.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Oh Thank God, someone who said leave it up to someone who actually went to medical school - God gave them those brains. If there are 5 other children at home, I think they need their mother alive.

I don’t fall for the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. Someone without any medical training is perfectly capable of giving a sound and valid argument against abortion, even if it is “to save the mother’s life”.

 

[seekerz]

Someone without any medical training is perfectly capable of giving a sound and valid argument against abortion, even if it is “to save the mother’s life”.

I agree. Anyone who takes the time to inform themselves can opine intelligently on this issue which affects some women somewhere every single day.

 

[jediliz]

Oh Thank God, someone who said leave it up to someone who actually went to medical school - God gave them those brains. If there are 5 other children at home, I think they need their mother alive.

If Saint Gianna’s husband had listened to your advice, she would not have become a saint for the willingness to sacrifice her life to save her unborn baby.

The doctor has TWO PATIENTS…and should SAVE BOTH if its possible!

 

[seekerz]

If Saint Gianna’s husband had listened to your advice, she would not have become a saint for the willingness to sacrifice her life to save her unborn baby.

The doctor has TWO PATIENTS…and should SAVE BOTH if its possible!

Why her husband? Isn’t St Gianna the one who made the decision to forgo treatment?

I agree that the doctors should save both - it simply isn’t always possible medically.

 

[tijeras]

You might want to take that advice yourself: the Church does not teach that when both lives are at risk “save the one you can”, but even if it did, the act of removing any living baby from it’s mother (intentionally or accidentally) still falls under the scientific definition of abortion. So the Congressman is mistaken.

I do take that advice myself, thank you.

Peace be with you: here’s the research for you:

catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0140.htm

This is from “When Pregnancy Goes Awry” by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a leading Catholic ethicist.

As far as “the scientific definition of abortion”: I think you’re a bit confused on that. Miscarriage also falls under “abortion”: it’s called “spontaneous abortion.” Obviously, no one is held morally culpable for that. Nor is anyone held morally culpable for unintended abortion such as would occur in the removal of the fallopian tube with an ectopic pregnancy, or a miscarriage occuring due to chemotherapy treatment.

Elective, spontaneous, unintended: there are different types of abortion. The one the Church has a problem with is the elective type, as it is chosen, intended, direct killing.

We make similar distinctions for other types of killing: someone who conspires to murder someone (intentional homocide) is treated differently than someone who killed someone while driving drunk (unintentional homocide due to reckless or negligent behavior) or a doctor who lost a patient while performing surgery (unintentional homocide while trying to save a life). All are killing of one person by the actions of another, but not all are equally “murder”.

Anyway, we’re off topic here, but I just wanted to try to make the Church’s point clearer. Remember that the Church doesn’t deal in nonsense, so if it sounds crazy (such as, “no treatment for ectopic pregnancies because it’s murder even if the pregnancy isn’t viable and will kill the mother”) it’s probably not Church teaching.

Peace : ).

 

[lococoa]

One must be careful when the word “never” is used, even doctors. About 30 years ago, a friend was told she had very severe TB when going for a pregnancy test, that turned out to be positive also. She was given advice by her doctors to terminate the pregnancy to save her life because the powerful medications she needed, could kill or severely deform the baby, and possibly kill her, especially if she were pregnant. All options she received were bad. A second opinion provided her the same diagnosis. She ended up aborting and was eventually cured of the TB, however she is pro-life and this decision was traumatic for her.

 

[Personanongrata]

Allen West - solidly defeated!!!

:clapping:

 

[BroomWagon]

Allen West - solidly defeated!!!

:clapping:

Very charitable.

 

[BroomWagon]

Allen West - solidly defeated!!!

:clapping:

Link? Or are you so behind in the news, you don’t know there is a recount and votes impounded. Please do not be unfair and state news that has not occurred and mislead people. I’m not sure if this is proper etiquette on this forum.

Maybe you are happy because he is a black man. I don’t know.

This gloating you seem to be engaging in is reported.