d.: I was going to print a silly blog today. I had one all planned out in my head, until I read the local newspaper. Everyone has a “hot button,” and a lot of people's hot buttons are abortion isssues. There is a hotly-debated case that has been raging in the news for days.
I will say, up front, that I’m a nurse. Almost all medical professionals fall on one side of the abortion issue, and I’m no different (and if you can’t guess which side that is, you probably haven’t been reading this blog for very long). As an adoptive parent, I believe that is a very good alternative for many people, but this issue is different.
This lady’s fetus has been diagnosed with Trisonomy 18. That means that her baby will probably only live for two weeks, at the most, outside of her womb. The best case scenario is one year, but that is extremely rare, and the baby may still die in utero. That is a horrible thing to happen to anyone, and this lady has already had a miscarriage (I’m avoiding the medical terim “spontaneous abortion” on purpose). Having a baby die is devastating, and it affects the whole family, but it affects the mother the most.
Having said that, I have known of at least two courageous ladies who were told that their babies would be either stillborn or die soon after birth. Both were offered abortions to avert this situation, and each opted to carry their babies to term. This was a hard decision, I’m sure, and it probably did put their health in danger in some ways. There are risks to carrying a fetus that isn’t viable to term.
If you read or listen to the news reports and don’t understand the details, you may believe that this person may die if she doesn’t get an abortion. One hundred years ago, this may have been true. However, with proper medical care, I doubt that a greater than two percent chance of this happening exists. There is also a two percent chance that she’ll get hit by a bus when crossing a street. There are risks in every situation in life.
If this was my decision, I don’t really know what I would do. The tests for Trisonomy 18, a.k.a. Edwards’ Syndrome, can lead to a miscarriage. Therefore, an ethical doctor wouldn’t even test for this condition unless s/he is fairly sure that it will be diagnosed in the fetus. I do know that one of the ladies I mentioned earlier said that she just wanted to hold her baby, even if that lasted only five minutes. I’m not sure that I would have the courage to do what she did.
My final thought on the subject, though, is this, “How is a judge, who doesn’t possess any medical training, more qualified to make this decision than a doctor who had been through four years of college courses, most of which are specific to medicine, four years of medical school, and four years of residency?” This makes no sense.
Cal.E. will be back tomorrow, so please join my co-host and me tomorrow for another episode of Cal.E.’s Korner.
Comments