Abortion debate: Pro-lifers differ on abortion provisions found in the healthcare bill 
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When just two out of three is bad
Last week Lynn posted about the Obama administration’s plan to rescind protections for doctors and other medical professionals who are conscientious objectors when it comes to performing abortion procedures.
In his column today, Cal Thomas takes up this issue while asking the important question: “Why do social liberals say they want to make abortion ’safe, legal, and rare,’ but then spend all their time on the first two and none on the third?”
Read Cal’s column in its entirety here.
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back to top58 Comments to “When just two out of three is bad”
I’ve never heard one say just WHY they should be rarely done. If it’s no big deal why worry whether it’s 1,000 or 1,000,000 done per year??
Try to remember it’s NARAL or its affiliates pulling the puppet strings and moving the ventriloquist dummy-politician’s lips!
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I think this is a strawman argument. They do spend plenty of time on the third… they just like contraception for doing so (not that I have a problem with that.)
I don’t want this conscience rule to get overturned, either. But let’s face it: we have to be thoughtful and strategic if we ever want to ban abortion in America, part of that will involve compromise, dialogue, and step-by-step regulations.
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Perhaps the cultural left could spend more time on making abortions rare if the cultural right would come to the table on the safe and legal part of the mantra. It’s nature that they would spend more time on the first two, because it’s those two that are under attack.
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Mynockl, Just what have the pro-life side done to impede safe. Almost every incident of unsafe has been expose by the pro-life side.
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KBells is right. For example, when it is proposed that abortion clinics abide by the rules of every other outpatient surgery center, pro-aborts decry it as an impediment to access.
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Cal Thomas takes up this issue while asking the important question: “Why do social liberals say they want to make abortion ’safe, legal, and rare,’ but then spend all their time on the first two and none on the third?”
Making it rare comes from (1) education, (2) moral reinforcement and (3) access to contraception.
Conservatives dependably fight 1 and 3.The only acceptable way to make it rare, to a conservative — usually the only way they even recognize — is to ban, bar, criminalize.
Brute force is their answer to everything. I’d rather girls not get abortions because they don’t get pregnant, not because they don’t have the choice.
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So, after decades of flooding the schools and the airwaves with contraception has it worked?
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Cal Thomas disappoints me that he refuses to call a spade a spade. They all say safe legal and rare and they do spend a great deal of time on the first 2 and no time whatsoever on the 3rd part which makes it rare. Cal should tell it like it is. The [people that say this are liars and nothing more. They have no intention of ever making abortion rare and ,in fact, want exactly the opposite – especially if they are minority children being murdered.
Also he is right that you cannot find a pro abortion politician that doesn’t think that abortion is personally offensive to them but then somehow votes each and every time to make it legal for mothers to murder their own children. They too are liars of the highest order adn nothing more than accomplises and enablers of child murder.
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Outside criminalizing abortion (which would undermine “safe” and “legal”) what methods might one use to make abortion rare? One might think about emphasizing education, increasing the availability of contraceptives, and challenging failing methods such as abstinence only approaches or chastity pledges. Should social liberals be doing more of this? Maybe.
Also what Mynock said.
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In Cal’s very first sentence, he denigrates the motivation of everyone on the pro-choice side of the equation. It goes downhill from there.
He asks about the separation of church and state. Indeed! If Catholic Hospitals (and other religious hospitals) take taxpayer money (and they do), why should they be able to discriminate on religious grounds in the delivery of medical services? Under the law, they shouldn’t. The solution is simple: stop taking taxpayer money and you can discriminate to your heart’s content in the delivery of medical services.
Cal, like most conservative Christians, is very deceitful about this matter. What it’s about is Catholic hospitals refusing to provide EC to women who need it. It forces a woman who been raped to drive from hospital to hospital to find one that will treat her. It forces ambulance drivers to keep lists of which hospitals will treat women who’ve been raped. It would allow even for ambulance drivers to refuse on religious grounds to transport a woman who’s been raped to a hospital that will give her EC.
What it’s about is protecting a pharmacist who refuses to do their job from being disciplined or fired. Bush’s “conscience clause” would allow, for example, a pharmacist to take a prescription for birth control, tear it up, and refuse to allow another pharmacist or pharmacy to fill it. It would force women to drive from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find one that will fill her legally prescribed medicine.
Essentially, it would put the delivery of necessary and legally prescribed health care services subservient to the religious whims of the person delivering it. It would have allowed discrimination against women in particular.
Thank goodness Obama had the good sense to change these outrageous and ridiculous rules.
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ANLIR says “Bush’s “conscience clause” would allow, for example, a pharmacist to take a prescription for birth control, tear it up, and refuse to allow another pharmacist or pharmacy to fill it.”
That is an absurd and totally false statement. Come on ANLIR you can do better!
BTW, how is Cal Thomas’ deceitful?
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Kbells – 7
Kbells,
Credit should be given to pro-life groups for helping to watch-dog abortion clinics, but rarely have those observations been used genuinely for the good of women getting abortions. If conservatives used their watchdogs resources to cooperate with abortion providers rather than just try to score political points, they would be rewarded with more access and input. And we would all be rewarded with safer abortions for women. Alas, that isn’t the rhetoric of pro-life leaders like Thomas.
And yes contraception has worked in preventing millions of unwanted pregnancies a year. You see an increase in number of abortions preformed and assume that the message is failing, but early numbers for abortion records were under-reported. More importantly teen pregnancy figures have been dropping consistently since contraceptive information became the gold standard. It’s unfortunate that the last 8 years have undone some of that progress. The misinformation common in abstinence only programs has resulted in most noticeably an increase in heterosexual teenagers having unprotected anal sex and oral sex, and not reduced pregnancies.
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13. What were the teen pregnancy stats like before Roe Vs. Wade. How many children were conceived and aborted because of the fallacy put out by pro-abortion people that safe sex is easy, so go ahead. Abstinence education doesn’t work because it is fighting the “sex is a right” culture created by the abortion industries. How about helping us out a little with moral reinforcement.
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Abstinence doesn’t work because teens are extremely horny.
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mynock – 13
Pro-life groups will never cooperate with abortion groups to cut an infant out of the womb -
You call the numbers below progress? 1973 – 615,831 reported by the CDC — today, right this minute we have February 2009 49,551,703 abortions –
The Consequences of Roe v. Wade
49,551,703
FOURTY NINE MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED FIFTY ONE THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED and THREE little souls and lives, lost to the knife of abortion in the United States of America
Total Abortions since 1973
These figures represent 1/6th of our population in the United States of America – such a SINFUL practice, and its legal – a crime against an infant as death, for doing nothing other then nesting in its mother’s womb, and then selfishly killed.
SHAME
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Here is a nice article by Cristina Page that demonstrates how reductions in the number of abortions are better achieved by pro-choice than pro-life policies. It’s about the current deluge of invective ad hom assaults being hurled at Kathleen Sebelius (who over saw a 10% reduction in abortions in Kansas by focusing on CONTRACEPTION programs, kbells, and promoting adoption alternatives) by religous groups who are using her appointment to the head of HHS as another opportunity to grandstand.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/the-majority-of-catholics_b_171300.html
The think I like about what Page does here, is she artfully compares the growing inability of the religious right to meet the political priorities of Americans (abortion didn’t make the top ten important issues of the majority of Catholics in 2008) with the growing irrelevance of Republicans in Congress
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KBells,
Social liberals might agree not to teach that “sex is right” (as if sex were a duty). It seems, however, that you want social liberals to spread the message “sex is wrong” (at least when it is outside of heterosexual marriage). This is a bit much to ask.
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“More importantly teen pregnancy figures have been dropping consistently since contraceptive information became the gold standard. It’s unfortunate that the last 8 years have undone some of that progress. The misinformation common in abstinence only programs has resulted in most noticeably an increase in heterosexual teenagers having unprotected anal sex and oral sex, and not reduced pregnancies.”
Theyve dropped because they kill them early
Which is why Ms has the highest teen pregnancy rate…because Ms doesnt kill its babies.
The question is always how do we get safe, rare, legal abortions, which is a bad place to start with.
The question we should be asking, is how do we protect both the mother and the baby? Why are liberals against protecting both? They were all once babies…dont you want more liberals? Dont you want more dependent on the government groups of people who will continue to vote you into offices?
Abstinence is simply stating that if you dont have sex, you dont get pregnant. That there are consequences to intercourse.
“And yes contraception has worked in preventing millions of unwanted pregnancies a year. You see an increase in number of abortions preformed and assume that the message is failing, but early numbers for abortion records were under-reported.”
Then how can you blame abstenence included education for increasing abortion rates????? You cant. There is no data available that even remotely correlates that abstinence has made things worse.
“If conservatives used their watchdogs resources to cooperate with abortion providers rather than just try to score political points, they would be rewarded with more access and input”
Or they could offer their own alternatives and services…OH WAIT THEY DO…its called crisis preganacy centers. They offer plenty of resources for safe pregnancies, adoption, food, diapers, prenatal, postnatal, you name it that protect both the mother and the baby!!
The left and right could easily find middle ground, when the left starts valuing both the mother and baby.
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Theyve dropped because they kill them early
If there’s conception, it’s counted. False statement, Thorn.
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Anlir — I’m gonna tell you as a gynecologist, with all due respect (and then some), that your post at #10 shows you either don’t have a clue what you’re talking about or you’re a liar. I prefer to believe you’re ignorant.
For obvious reasons, I’m deeply involved and interested in this issue. There are many, evidently including Anlir, who think I should be forced to perform abortions against my will. Really? Are you going to send me to jail because I won’t do abortions? OK, then, I’ll quit OB/GYN altogether. Then, not only do the patients in my underserved area not have access to abortion, they don’t have access to prenatal care, contraception, surgery for incontinence, ….
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Abstinence is simply stating that if you dont have sex, you dont get pregnant. That there are consequences to intercourse.
Duh.
Abstinence “education” also says if you DO have sex, don’t ask us how to prevent pregnancy and disease. We don’t want you to know, even though the consequences can be life-changing and far more than you’re ready for. Your tough luck if you (in all your teenage wisdom) don’t do as we tell you.
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KBells at #14: The problem for your argument is that that IS the culture, like it or not. Rather than hold your ground demanding a return to some half-remembered ‘golden age,’ you COULD decide to support those measures that can be effective now.
The cultural shift you want might come, but it probably won’t come quickly. Meanwhile, people are needlessly suffering now in part because of moralists who refuse to help with any effort to improve things that doesn’t accord precisely to their moral views.
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#21 Stubob,
No you are wrong. He is a liar.
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Come on, you can better than that StuBob. Existing rules as well as the rules being promulgated by Obama still contain the ongoing exemption for physicians and nurses in regards to abortion. This rules change isn’t about abortion – it’s about things like birth control and EC.
*****
Thanks for the personal slur Llama. You are such a fine example of Christ!
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Stubob,
I’ve found that pro-life docs are quitting the OB side of things and just dealing with gyn. Or retiring altogether.
As a woman, I am appalled by the idea of allowing any doctor who uses his hands to kill to get anywhere near me or my babies, born or unborn. It really is a horrifying idea. The forcing of pro-life docs out of the field is distressing to me.
I want abortionists to keep their hands off of me and my babies! And liberals need to keep their doctor-depleting pro-abortion laws off my body, too!
What an upside-down country this has become.
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You’re going to have to show me that exemption, Anlir, because I haven’t seen it. Everything I’ve seen allows the government to mandate that I personally perform abortions or face some sort of sanction.
BTW, I’m not granting for a moment that it would be different if it really was about contraception and EC — There’s just nothing to indicate that’s what it’s about.
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I’ve never heard one say just WHY they should be rarely done.
For the same reason that spilling a big glass of milk is badder than spilling a small one. Moderates who want some compromise between abolition and legalization are blessed with concrete moral imaginations, which some on the left want not to stress.
Besides, abortion is less efficient than alternative birth control.
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If StuBob is a physician as he claims, he knows very good and well that there has been a “conscience clause” for 30 years that protects the right of physicians and nurses to not participate in abortion.
In the last days of the Bush administration, he promulgated a new rule called the “provider refusal rule” that expanded on the conscience clause in several ways:
1. It extended the conscience clause to all health care workers, including janitors and cafeteria workers. So, for example, a cafeteria worker in a hospital could refuse on religious grounds to serve food to a woman who had an abortion. A tech aid could refuse to draw blood from a woman who’s been raped and was seeking EC.
2. It extended the “conscience clause” to all forms of birth control or any other medicine or procedure that someone objected to on religious grounds. So, for example, a pharmacist could refuse to fill an Rx for birth control, and also refuse to allow another pharmacist or pharmacy to fill it on grounds that he/she would be “facilitating” it.
3. It slanted the playing field completely toward giving a person’s religion veto power over a person’s right to obtain medical care. It would force people to travel from hospital to hospital and pharmacy to pharmacy seeking help. In many communities there is only one hospital and it’s a Catholic one. That would force women who’ve been raped to surrender her right to medical care to the religious whims of the hospital or doctor treating her.
President Obama’s proposed rule change returns things to the status-quo under the “conscience clause” where doctors and nurses will still be able to refuse to participate in abortion.
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Anlir, Once you start expanding “conscience” exemptions, can you ever stop? I did a quick google and found no discussion on this blog of “the problem of the Amish bus driver.” Is the Amish bus driver obligated to not take a job driving buses, or is the bus company obligated to give him a horse and buggy?:
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Anlir, that’s not how it worked out. Bush’s Executive Order clarified the nebulous conscience clause because there was already a move afoot to have it abolished. Even with the conscience clause in effect, I have witnessed cases of descrimination against resident physicians who have refused to participate in abortions. I also have been pressured to participate, though my only suffering has been emotional.
I really like your repeated references to people “going from hospital to hospital.” It conjures up an image of some poor waif driving an old car at night, rain streaking down the windshield even as tears stain her cheeks. She tries to soothe the crying baby in the back seat. Perhaps she has blood running down her leg. Not long ago, Julia Roberts could have played the part. Now, maybe Scarlet Johannsen. Either way, pure fiction.
Losing the argument? Cast doubt on the other guy: If StuBob is a physician as he claims, …
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“I’ve never heard one say just WHY they should be rarely done.”
They are emotionally distressing and expensive.
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Cal Thomas asks; “Why do social liberals say they want to make abortion ’safe, legal, and rare,’ but then spend all their time on the first two and none on the third?”
Perhaps social liberals simply don’t always mean what they say. If they meant it, they would at least allow for such reaonable measures as parental notification, denying federal funding, or stopping live-birth or partial-birth abortions.
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See, I don’t buy the anti-choice propaganda your spouting StuBob. I can read, and everything I’ve read says that the “conscience clause” will stay in effect. President Obama is simply returning us to the way it was before the Bush administration’s radical changes.
Bottom line is the anti-choice movement is trying to make abortion legal on paper only, but impossible to obtain practically. They’re also trying to do the same with birth control.
People can claim to be anything on the internet. Shoot, I could claim to be the leader of a country in the Caribbean. Who’s to say I’m not?
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STUBOB, No. 21, a man of my close acquaintance, formerly a successful, well-paid abortionist, became a Christian (I am not sure how it came about), but his life was completely turned around and he discontinued the practice. He moved from a large city to the city where we — he and I — live and continued as a gynecologist. He was well respected and sought after, but pressure was applied for him to resume doing abortions. He walked away from doctoring altogether (he also has a law degree) and now speaks to churches and groups about his conversion and the atrocity that is abortion.
Quitting his former practice has deprived some people of necessary care, but I for one am not about to condemn him.
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Are you having trouble practicing your love with women all across this country, Stubob?
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Anlir, you aren’t reading what’s relevant to the doctors involved. There is a large move to make it illegal to refuse to perform or refer for abortions. You oppose pharmacists’ right of conscience. Who’s “anti-choice?”
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I have been reading up on this subject today and I am very curious what the actual review will look like and what Obama plans to change. I am also curious where the third point goes? Isn’t the now even more massive Gov. spending my money to kill peoples babies? And put people on birth control? (a whole other topic in its self but I think this is bordering on grounds to not pay taxes) Here is a simple solution for people who don’t want to have babies, DON’T HAVE SEX! It is not anyones right to take a life, even if the baby does depend on you. Babies are also dependent on their mothers after they are born, are they not? So why can’t everyone just kill their kids? Whenever they want?
I have been reading anlirs posts as well. If it is as vague as some people are saying it is (I personally have not read the clause) then it does need to be reviewed. But saying that it sends people driving around looking for someone to give them an abortion, birth control, or ec is a bit drastic. Don’t you think? I can think of 5 places within 20 miles of my house off the top of my head who perform abortions. They don’t have problems with it and this won’t change even if the clause is still in place. And I live in suburbia in a small town of 10,000.
The birth control and ec is even easier. Every pharmacy in town has both with no problems. And if someone is morally against it should they be obligated to provide it anyway? People can choose to go to another pharmacy, there are 4 where I live and 3 in the town 10 miles down the road. It is a choice to go on birth control. It has nothing to do with health (except in cases of PMDD etc..) And even that is not crucial to treat. If someone chooses to go on birth control they can find a pharmacy that will fill the prescription. I am sure it won’t affect many pharmacy’s seeing as how the vast majority of America is ok with birth control. And I don’t know where you are getting the thing about pharmacists making it impossible to get a prescription filled? Please explain that? I am curious, I have never heard of such a thing? If a pharmacist does not fill a prescription then you simply go somewhere else. But I may be missing something so please fill me in.
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Rare — better sex ed, alleviate financial burden of pregnancy and child rearing, enforce father support rules.
I don’t see many pro-life people here approving the first two.
Abstinence works but abstinence education doesn’t. I spend most of May and June discussing sex with grades seven and eight. Abstinence is always the first choice of birth control but I also discuss birth control and the need for condom use against STDs. A straight forward sex ed program and open parents will lead to lower pregnant teens — witness the difference in rates between Canada/EU and the US/UK. (as an aside, my Muslim female students participate in health class along with the rest of the class, male and female. They are often the best students)
Secondly, eliminate financial reasons for abortions. Its far cheaper to get abortions than give birth. Although pro-life people may scoff at what appears to them to be a morbid equation, this is an equation that do enter people’s minds. To start make child birth part of Medicare, if you are pro-life this should be a no-brainier. I would advocate a fuller health care program but “baby steps” for the ideologues may be necessary.
Why make abortions rare if you’re pro-choice? Lets face it, abortion is an intrusive procedure that should be done only when necessary. I don’t think anyone advocates appendix removal unless necessary so why recommend abortion unless its absolutely necessary — basis medical practice.
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Only in a scared little conservative Christian mind is there a movement to make it illegal to refuse to perform an abortion. The “conscience clause” is still in effect.
A pharmacist should not have the right to impose his or her religious agenda on another person by refusing to provide them with a legally prescribed medicine.
Good grief. If you’re opposed to meat, don’t go to work in a slaughterhouse. If you’re opposed to medicine, don’t go to work in a pharmacy. If you’re opposed to taxes, don’t go to work at the IRS. It’s that simple.
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StuBob,
I have a hypothetical question. If you where working the late shift in a hospital and where the only qualified physician available, and a woman came in who has a complication with her pregnancy that immediately threatens her life, would you perform an abortion?
I’m looking for a yes or a no.
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kwatson – 42
That is a hypothetical question, one in which makes little sense. I have NEVER heard of a hospital who would have only one doctor on duty – or a situation where a specialist was needed, they can be on duty within minutes.
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“Safe, legal, and rare.”
No abortion can ever be safe. The baby dies.
States with more restrictive abortion laws have fewer abortions. States with less restrictive laws have more abortions. Anyone who supports fewer restrictions on abortion is not interested in making abortions rare, no matter how often they repeat the mantra.
Abstinence programs have not been around long enough to establish any definitive statistics about their long term effectiveness. Despite the claims in the mass media reporting their ineffectiveness in the recent year, the long term results promise to be as effective as alternate contraception-laden curricula. Comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education that stresses abstinence as the only fool-proof method of avoiding STDs and unwanted pregnancies, but give additional information about contraception, are the most successful. That also describes the typical abstinence program supported by conservatives.
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KWatson, A life threatening complication has always been acceptable grounds for abortion. Self defense is a legitimate form of homicide. Fortunately, with the advances in medical technology and obstetric care, such extreme instances are so rare they usually occur only in hypotheticals.
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KWatson (42): Yes.
Since I answered your question, please answer one for me. Tell me of one medical condition that fits the criteria you describe. I’m looking for a pregnancy inside the uterus, the continuation of which is an immediate threat to the mother’s life, and the abortion of which removes the threat.
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That’s not what I asked. I asked what you were talking about when you said that a pharmacist can make it impossible to get a prescription filled. And what if a pharmacist doesn’t oppose medicine, just feels birth control is abortive? That is not opposing medicine, that is feeling you are aiding in some ones effort to kill children. The pill is abortive, it creates a hostile environment for a conceived child and terminates the pregnancy. So is this not the same thing as protecting some ones rights?
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I thought a lot about this thread today, and I thought about the glib promises that liberals have made over the last fifty years.
WITNESS:
*Don’t worry. We just want women to have a choice to end her pregnancy in the first trimester. We’ll never advocate abortion on demand at any point prior to birth.
*Don’t worry. We want to help hospitals and universities with some federal grant money. We’ll never dictate their policies after they accept the money.
*Don’t worry. We just want to protect homosexuals from discrimination in housing and hiring. We’ll never advocate same-sex marriage.
*Don’t worry. We just want to respect the rights of all religious people. We’ll never ban religious expression outright.
*Don’t worry. We just want to regulate business a little and give people tax credits. We’ll never adopt a socialist economic system. (I honestly believe that the liberals in Congress could erect a statue of Karl Marx in the center of the Capitol rotunda and sitll claim not to be socialists.)
=====
Whatever the liberals are saying with their sly smile as they pat our little heads, don’t believe it. The intent of the policy is clear, and if it doesn’t outright violate a doctor’s conscience, it is another step closer to doing it.
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StuBob,
I have no idea. That’s why I clearly stated my question was hypothetinal. Your stipulating that I can only answer with problems that have the pregnancy inside the uterus seems like a tacit admission that a situation may arise if the pregnancy is outside the uterus that fits the criteria of my question, but since I’m not allowed to respond with that answer, why don’t you tell me? After all, you’re the OB/GYN.
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StuBob,
I have no idea. That’s why I clearly stated my question was hypothetinal. Your stipulating that I can only answer with problems that have the pregnancy inside the uterus seems like a tacit admission that a situation may arise if the pregnancy is outside the uterus that fits the criteria of my question, but since I’m not allowed to respond with that answer, why don’t you tell me? After all, you’re the OB/GYN.
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I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what condition it is which poses an immediate threat to a woman’s life and is resolved by abortion. Guess what. I’ll wait forever.
There is no such disease. The immediately-life-threatening pregnancy and the prescription-destroying pharmacist are monsters under the bed. They are used by pro-abortionists to frighten the childish and simple, but they don’t exist.
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OK, sorry. Your posts weren’t up when I was posting. Ectopic pregnancy (any pregnancy outside the uterus, like a “tubal pregnancy”) may be life threatening. With the exception of a few non-medical people who don’t know any better, nobody equates removal of an ectopic pregnancy with abortion. I was stipulating pregnancy inside the uterus in order to head off the “What about tubal pregancy?” dodge.
Untreated ectopic pregnancy is a fatal disease for the baby and the mother. Removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion. It can be life-saving for the woman.
Your question is important, though. The correct answer (yes–I would do an abortion to save a woman’s life if such a condition existed) shows that pro-lifers aren’t the unreasonable woman-haters we’re made out to be.
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Stubob,
Your post (#52) brought back a question I’ve had for years.
About 16 years ago, I worked at a school as a teacher. One of the secretaries had an ectopic tube pregnancy. This is what she was told.
Someone got her to agree to an experimental treatment. They removed the ectopic tube pregnancy and reimplanted it in the uterus. They told her there was only a 10% chance of it working.
But, work it did. She came back to work very large, because they filled her abdomen area with gas or some such to provide a cushion. She gave birth 9 months later to a healthy baby.
I was there when she talked to all of us about this. I was there when she was first diagnosed, and she cried thinking the baby was lost and she would have to go in to remove it.
I was there when she came back to work and talked about the experimental nature of the treatment.
I watched her pregnancy grow. I met the baby that resulted.
But, I’ve never, ever heard of this kind of thing again. I’ve mentioned it to a couple of gynecologists and they look skeptical.
Do you know anything about this type of thing? (i.e. saving an ectopic pregnancy?)
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#51
Exactly. It gets repeated like a mantra. “Health of the mother. Health of the mother.” But, the AMA has said there is simply no such monster that requires an emergency abortion, nor a partial birth abortion for that matter.
But, look at the nonsense Anlir is posting. Facts are irrelevant to the pro-aborts argument.
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TRS — I don’t see how the situation you’re describing in #53 is possible. First off, ectopic pregnancies get very poor bloodflow so they don’t grow normally. So, this wouldn’t likely be a normal, healthy fetus they were moving. Second, I don’t see any way to separate a pregnancy from the tubal wall without destroying the pregnancy. It would be like trying to take wallpaper off one wall to use on another.
Mary Higgins Clark wrote a book called The Cradle Will Fall that had something like what you’re describing in the storyline. That was in the early 80’s, I think. I haven’t heard anything about it since I read that book in college.
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#55
Well, that’s what’s weird. I have no reason under God’s green earth to doubt this woman. I was there when it was all happening, although I will admit that I never went with her to the doctor or the hospital or anything.
I remember her being out from work, because everyone said she was having a miscarriage. But, when she came back, she said it was an ectopic tube pregnancy.
I know that she signed papers to let them do “experimental” work on her. They paid for everything, because it was an experiment.
This was in San Diego, California.
I’ve always wondered what actually happened.
I guess that I’ll have to keep on wondering. sigh
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StuBob,
I’m not sure what’s going on with my double post. I didn’t see it post at all at w.., uh, the other place I tried posting from.
I Goggled the topic of our conversation and came across a research paper on the CDC website that stated that there are 29.1 pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother for every 100,000. The data looked like it was from many countries. Per your previous posts I assume they’re not talking about tubal pregnancies.
This nuber is very low, but it’s not never.
Believe me when I say that I hope you never have to live out my hypothetical senerio, and I do apreciate your yes answer.
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KWatson — I wonder if the CDC number doesn’t include viable pregnancies. For instance, there are disorders involving high blood pressure in pregnancy which can be life threatening, and which resolve with delivery. However, they occur late enough that delivery results in a viable baby.
I’ve heard stories of people who considered abortion because of “life-threatening” hyperemesis gravidarum (vomiting in pregnancy). I’ve never seen it or heard of it being actually done, though. When I was a resident, there was a patient who had an abortion allegedly because of life-threatening acute pancreatitis. In truth, she had significant morning sickness and was just sick of being pregnant. There was no real pancreatic disease, but everyone sort of winked and did the abortion.
TRS — Assuming the woman wasn’t prone to tall tales, I have no ided what happened there.
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