"There is a hell on earth"

[crandc]

The Gouveias were happily awaiting the arrival of their second child, when, 5 months into Ms. Gouveia's pregnancy, ultrasound revealed untreatable and fatal birth defects. The legs were fused and the fetus had no kidneys or bladder. The couple were faced with a decision: Ms. Gouveia could carry to term, undergo the pain and risk of labor and delivery, and give birth to a child who would die an agonizing death in 2-3 days, poisoned by her own wastes. Or they could terminate the pregnancy.

They decided to terminate the pregnancy. On arriving at the clinic on what they described as the worst day of our lives, the couple were accosted and verbally abused by two individuals who did not know them, knew nothing of their family tragedy, but insisted that every woman must be forced to carry every pregnancy to term under every circumstance, no matter what. While his wife was in surgery, Mr. Gouveia, who was not allowed to be present during the surgery, confronted them and filmed the argument.

The organizations that picket clinics are notorious for bullying. They have photographed and filmed patients and posted the footage on line. They have picketed the homes of 12 and 13 year old girls to inform all the neighbors the girl had an abortion. They have leafletted high schools to inform the students that their (named) classmate had an abortion. They have called women's supervisors at work to inform them the woman, or her daughter, had an abortion. They have blockaded, stink-bombed and fire-bombed clinics, murdered doctors, clinic workers and police officers. Yet, like bullies everywhere, when confronted they showed themselves as cowards. One individual slunk away, the other threatened to have Mr. Gouveia arrested for speaking his mind on a public sidewalk.

With an election tomorrow, and a seemingly record number of candidates expressing agreement with the views of these picketers, I hereby post a poll.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

If you can store a man's sperm or store woman's unfertilized egg we should look at ways to store a fertilized egg so it can be implanted later on in a woman who wants to get pregnant.

It wouldn't be an abortion, it would be a pause.

Entire problem solved!

 

[maxiep]

I appreciated your evenhanded writing in the poll choices. Have you thought of working for Gallup?

 

[BrianFromWA]

I feel for the mother's grief. I feel for the father's grief. I don't condone the father's actions to bully these women.

He answers his own questions:

"You want to stand out in public but you don't want to make public statements? How hypocritical."
"What are you doing out here making people feel awful about themselves?"

In his own words, they were just standing out there with signs saying "God is pro-life" (He says He is) and holding "after" pictures of the procedure they were going to have performed.

"Because of people like you no one wants to perform these anymore".
"I've seen pictures. I've seen them because of people like you holding up severed heads of fetuses"
'It’s easy to berate people and shame them when they’re too beaten down to fight back'

I feel bad for the father...though I can't agree that his method of blowing off steam was to go yell at women on the street was the best. I don't know the whole story, but I have looked into this issue a bit and can guess that these people were at a clinic (and not with their ob/gyn) because a lot of hospitals don't perform elective abortions. His reason for her being there:

"I don't want her delivering a stillborn baby"

is both elective and misinformed (and it seems as if you need the info as well). At least in the opinion of one ob/gyn:

As a physician practicing in the field of neonatology, I was deeply troubled by your conclusions as well as by the medical misinformation you provided to the public. (ed: in response to a Chicago Sun-Times article)

You erroneously state that women are put at risk when they are not offered "emergency" or urgent abortion as an option for their pregnancy. You use the example of rupture of membranes early in pregnancy, and state that abortion is a "recommended option." In fact, surgical abortion, which mutilates the fetus and also poses some risk to the mother, is not the best medical option in this situation. (ed: the "situation" was a hole in the amniotic membrane that a Catholic hospital wouldn't abort to treat)

Abortion performed to "save" a mother's life almost never -- if ever -- is necessary. Are pregnant women dying in Catholic hospitals, unable to get access to an emergency abortion? Of course not. In fact, Ireland -- a country where the unborn child is constitutionally protected -- has the lowest maternal death rate in the world. More than a decade ago, a group of Ireland's top obstetricians concluded that "there are no medical circumstances justifying direct abortion, that is, no circumstances in which the life of a mother may only be saved by directly terminating the life of her unborn child."

The United Kingdom, on the other hand, where abortion is available practically on demand, has over five times Ireland's maternal death rate.
Colleen Malloy, M.D.,
Northwestern University
Feinberg School of Medicine

Those ladies probably feel that they're protecting the lives of people that even the parents don't care about. So they show pictures and attempt to inform people as a last-ditch effort right before they go in to kill the baby. And obviously the message got through to this father...he'd seen the pictures and been informed. He and his wife still elected to perform the surgery. Yet you're tossing them in with arsonists, murderers, and cop-killers? Or in his words:

"I'm just angry with you right now. You're the lowest common denominator, a waste of human....yes I am (an angry father), angry at you and with good reason."

Bullying out of anger is not justified, either.

I can't remember the last time I heard someone feel shamed to have cancer removed. Or a kidney taken out. Or denture replacement or a bone marrow transplant. Are people "ashamed" and "made to feel bad" of the big scar after open-heart surgery? If this is "just another life-saving medical procedure", why is there shame?

One of the sad parts is that the hypocrisy is misplaced. If the child had been taken to term, the parents couldn't have said "stop working to save my child". They couldn't have said "we don't want to pay the medical bills for this, so just kill the baby now instead of making her suffer for 3 days". They couldn't have elected to just take the baby home and not give her care because it was convenient. So while the grief of losing a child is something almost anyone sympathizes with, bullying women because you're going through a self-described "hell on earth" isn't. At least for me.

 

[BrianFromWA]

btw, of the 4 sentence fragments ("it's a family tragedy". "they need to decide". "every fertilized egg is human". "force them to carry to term".) I agree with two. But since one of the combined choices lets someone decide to kill a human, and the other stops someone from killing humans...

 

[barfo]

btw, of the 4 sentence fragments ("it's a family tragedy". "they need to decide". "every fertilized egg is human". "force them to carry to term".) I agree with two. But since one of the combined choices lets someone decide to kill a human, and the other stops someone from killing humans...

Which two?

barfo

 

[BrianFromWA]

family tragedy and fertlized egg is human

 

[Denny Crane]

Which two?

barfo

Pick two.

 

[Denny Crane]

Abortion is so... yawn... yesteryear.

 

[bodyman5001]

Abortion is so... yawn... yesteryear.

I think so, that ship has sailed.

These nutjobs who picket outside of abortion clinics should turn their eyes to the rest of the world and maybe spend some time trying to influence society for the better. That might help to stop just a few unwanted pregnancies.

I don't know why we can't just agree that abortion should be legal but that we should try not to make a habit of it.

 

[crandc]

I can hardly call it yesteryear when candidates are running for Senate who want to outlaw all abortion and birth control as well.

As for implanting the embryo, it has no chance of survival. None. With hundreds of thousands of children in foster care, a person who wants to parent has options to parent a living child.

As for bullying, telling a grieving woman she's a murderer doesn't count?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

As for implanting the embryo, it has no chance of survival. None. With hundreds of thousands of children in foster care, a person who wants to parent has options to parent a living child.

Well the first thing to do would be to impose a $200,000 tax per child on all American citizens and residents wanting to a adopt a child from outside of the USA.

 

[oldmangrouch]

Is there anyone quite so hypocritical as a politico who claims to be a "small government libertarian", and then turns around and wants to regulate abortion and birth control?

 

[boatsandstars]

Is there anyone quite so hypocritical as a politico who claims to be a "small government libertarian", and then turns around and wants to regulate abortion and birth control?

It's not so much that they want to impose their "regulations against it", but that they want to stop big-bad-insider-socialist-marxist-nazi-big spending-government from creating more "regulations for it". See, when you think about it in a completely idiotic way, they can still be against regulations while wanting regulations against a woman's body. Idiots.

 

[crandc]

Oldmangrouch has nailed it. Example, the Texas Republican Party platform calls for "small government" and for outlawing birth control, abortion, consensual sex in private beween same sex adults, pornography, and strip clubs, and jailing anyone who performs a same sex wedding ceremony. I think this whole big government/small government is a smoke screen, like "state's rights".

Brian, OK, you agree this is a family tragedy and you also say this is (was) a human. So what is to be done? Science fiction stories about removing the fetus and putting the fetus in suspended animation until a woman can be found to carry to term solely in order to give birth to a baby who will die in agony in a few days are not practical politics. Either the couple decides, and has the legal right to decide, to terminate the pregnancy or they don't have that legal right and the woman is required, if you don't like the word force, to carry to term in order to give birth to a baby who will die in agony in a few days. There are no other options.

BTW, in all the claimed words of Jesus, not one is about abortion. A lot of feed the hungry and love thy neighbor and stuff but not abortion.

 

[Ed O]

BTW, in all the claimed words of Jesus, not one is about abortion. A lot of feed the hungry and love thy neighbor and stuff but not abortion.

Nor in the Constitution. I guess it's up to the voters then, huh?

I think it's something that should be handled through the democratic process.

Ed O.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Brian, OK, you agree this is a family tragedy and you also say this is (was) a human. So what is to be done? Science fiction stories about removing the fetus and putting the fetus in suspended animation until a woman can be found to carry to term solely in order to give birth to a baby who will die in agony in a few days are not practical politics. Either the couple decides, and has the legal right to decide, to terminate the pregnancy or they don't have that legal right and the woman is required, if you don't like the word force, to carry to term in order to give birth to a baby who will die in agony in a few days. There are no other options.

BTW, in all the claimed words of Jesus, not one is about abortion. A lot of feed the hungry and love thy neighbor and stuff but not abortion.

Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact!

The fetus wouldn't be implanted until it could delivered completely healthy.

Also this would give women who strongly believe in Right to Life the ability to carry babies to term well into their 60's.

I've asked many people who strongly believe in Right to Life how many children they've adopted. This question seems to always confuse them yet they insist on counseling others on all the options available to women who don't want a baby with a adoption being one of them.


Also Jesus never said any words about guns, chemical warfare, nuclear bombs and cell phones.

 

[crandc]

Nor in the Constitution. I guess it's up to the voters then, huh?

I think it's something that should be handled through the democratic process.

Ed O.

No, personal medical decisions are not up to the voters. Neither are individual civil rights. Would you want me to vote on whether I will allow you to receive a medical procedure you and your doctor decided on? Or marry your fiancee?

 

[hasoos]

Once again people try to force other people to live exactly as they would live their lives. How about they butt out and leave people alone. Folks have a hard enough time in life without fuckheads like this making it tougher for them. There is a right way to protest and wrong way. When you interrupt folks privacy, it is the wrong way.

 

[maxiep]

No, personal medical decisions are not up to the voters. Neither are individual civil rights. Would you want me to vote on whether I will allow you to receive a medical procedure you and your doctor decided on? Or marry your fiancee?

So, you're against the health care bill? Congratulations on seeing the light.

 

[maxiep]

Once again people try to force other people to live exactly as they would live their lives. How about they butt out and leave people alone. Folks have a hard enough time in life without fuckheads like this making it tougher for them. There is a right way to protest and wrong way. When you interrupt folks privacy, it is the wrong way.

Welcome to the world of Libertarianism. We never get what we want, which is to be left the fuck alone.

 

[andalusian]

Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact!

"Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space? "

-- Plan 9 from outer space. Yesterday's science fiction, today's science facts!

 

[Ed O]

No, personal medical decisions are not up to the voters. Neither are individual civil rights. Would you want me to vote on whether I will allow you to receive a medical procedure you and your doctor decided on? Or marry your fiancee?

Those things are DEFINITELY up to the voters. Assisted suicide? Using morphine as a painkiller? Deciding who's a legitimate doctor?

Whether I can marry my sister? Whether I can marry two dudes? Whether I can grow cocaine on my property? Whether I wear a seatbelt?

I think you've made a distinction where none exists.

Ed O.

 

[Denny Crane]

As a true Libertarian (one who votes for Libertarian Party candidates) who follows the discussions of such things among other Libertarians...

Perhaps the whole philosophy can be summed up in a single sentence. You're free to swing your fist as long as it doesn't hit someone else. Government should step in and stop that fist from hitting that other person.

In that light, Libertarians are morally split on the abortion issue. Those who see it as murder want it outlawed. Those who don't see it as murder don't want it outlawed.

My own reasoned view is that it is murder, and life begins at conception. It's based upon the scientific fact that the very first cell that makes up the fetus has human DNA. However, the deliberate taking of a human life is warranted under many circumstances. A soldier can kill an enemy soldier and it's not murder. The state can execute a convicted murderer, and that's not murder either. If you are physically threatened by someone, you can kill in self defense and it's not murder.

In the case of abortion, there are two human beings' Rights in question - the mother's and the fetus'. The woman's body is her own property, and thus only by consent can the fetus remain. It's the woman's body, it's her choice. For absolutely any reason she has and she has no obligation to state it. The taking of the life is warranted, as it is a form of self defense. The law is right and clear at least on this point.

I do oppose late term abortions. At some point the woman has effectively given consent to the fetus by carrying it for a time that is plenty for her to come to a decision to abort or not. Roe says it's 3 months, and that is fine. I'm not a big fan of Roe as a decision proper. The whole trimester logic is twisted, and generally, the decision is far beyond the scope of the court's limit of power (remedy).

Carry on.