AP: “Life of the mother” abortions now a nonissue
The AP had to positively portray the liberal agenda in its Feb. 11 article, “High-risk pregnancies rising in U. S.” But it tripped up.
It does not bode well for the feminist movement that the reason for the headline was, “[p]atients are getting older, so by definition, they’re higher-risk.” The feminist movement has persuaded women to ignore their biological clocks and pursue careers before family.
But by expending the bulk of the article’s thrust that medicine is overcoming these obstacles, the author made point after pro-life point that abortions for “life of the mother” should be history. Consider these quotes….
But in this otherwise troubling trend is also some good news. A small but growing number of women are successfully having children despite life-threatening conditions that once made a safe pregnancy almost inconceivable….
[D]octors say that tens of thousands of organ transplant recipients, breast cancer survivors, women with heart defects, and even women with the AIDS virus have decided to risk childbearing in the last several years.
Not all of these stories have happy endings, and many people worry that some of these women will not live long enough to raise their children, or that they will pass on their medical problems.
But most results have been so surprisingly good that they are overturning decades of gloomy dogma about who is medically fit to have a child….
“We have to change our mindset about the perfect pregnancy,” [Temple University’s Dr. Vincent Armenti] said. Women should be given advice based on solid research “instead of an emotional feeling that some people just shouldn’t have a baby.”…
(Or the abortion industry’s financial stake.)
Birth outcomes for older women and those with medical problems “have been better than we would expect,” although complications are more common, [Dr. Mary D’Alton of Columbia University Medical Center] said. For example, about half of organ transplant recipients give birth prematurely, although often by just a couple of weeks….
Dr. Gabrielle Fish [pictured right] felt optimistic when she decided to try pregnancy after her kidney transplant. Fish, of Cherry Hill, N.J., was in her mid-30s and had been stable on her anti-rejection drugs for two years…. The result: a healthy daughter, Madelyn, now 6….
A delivery room nurse from New York, [Carla Taylor] was 42 when she discovered she was pregnant after having artery embolization to treat uterine fibroids. Such women are advised not to try pregnancy because the treatment plugs blood vessels that feed fibroids, and that might keep a fetus from growing properly.
Taylor had a healthy daughter, Bailey, now 6. Moritz, the gynecology director who works with Taylor at Roosevelt Hospital, said 16 of his patients have unexpectedly had children after the fibroid treatment and most have done well….
Women with congenital heart defects used to die young. Those who lived were urged not to get pregnant. Now many such defects can be fixed, and children of women with heart defects are having their own children….
Nearly two-thirds of women who gave birth from 1996-2000 took a medication during pregnancy, a large federally funded study found. Of those, nearly 40 percent took a drug whose safety in pregnancy is not established, and nearly 5 percent took a drug potentially risky to the fetus. More pregnant women have taken new medicines for cancer, depression and other problems….
Each year, about 6,000 to 7,000 HIV-infected American women give birth. Such pregnancies have been controversial because of the risk of spreading the virus to their babies. But modern AIDS drugs are so effective at protecting babies from the virus’ spread that more doctors are accepting these women’s choice to have children.
The article also noted, “More people with high blood pressure are getting pregnant,” which to a large extent erases the toxemia/pre-eclampsia pro-abortion talking point.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
[Photo courtesy of AP.]



Dr. Gabrielle Fish [pictured right] felt optimistic when she decided to try pregnancy after her kidney transplant. Fish, of Cherry Hill, N.J., was in her mid-30s and had been stable on her anti-rejection drugs for two years…. The result: a healthy daughter, Madelyn, now 6….
I remember when I was trying to get a handle on “high risk” pregnancies. How likely was the woman to die? So I delved through medical journals and found out that the woman’s survival is expected, even for women with multiple organ transplants. The measures of success are the survival of the baby, how close to term the baby is born, and what sort of complications the woman is treated for.
Think about that.
That said, when I was working at Life Dynamics and we were collecting lawsuits against abortionists, I found that some of them killed obstetric patients with quackery, too. We have Nabil Ghali, for example. In 1978 he was sued over the death of woman and injury of infant in delivery in Kentucky
Another interesting bit of information. Obstetric patients can be divided into four categories, from lowest risk to highest risk, by the number of prenatal visits.
The lowest risk has around the recommended number of prenatal visits.
The next lowest risk has at least one, but less than half the recommended number, of prenatal visits.
The high risk has no prenatal visits, or higher than recommended number of prenatal visits.
The highest risk has an extremely high number of prenatal visits.
Now, correlation isn’t causation. The reason the women with the highest number of visits are the highest risk is because sick women go to the doctor more often. But what’s particularly interesting is that a single prenatal visit moves a woman to a lower-risk category. The theory is that this screens for problems and gets them taken care of, and also gets the woman things like prenatal vitamins and education.
So, one thing we can do to reduce maternal mortality (which seems to be fairly unpredictable) is to provide a prenatal screening for every pregnant woman.
But I’ve never seen the abortion lobby, that screams about how risky childbirth is, suggest this. They instead want every pregnant woman immediately “advised as to the safety and availability of legal abortion.”
A prenatal exam being offered with every diagnosis of pregnancy helps both women who intend to continue to term and those who end up aborting. After all, a woman going in for an abortion will benefit from taking vitamins (with iron to get her blood count up) and having a health screening. A prenatal exam for every pregnant woman is no risk, and great benefit.
But again, the people whose panties are constantly in a twist about how “risky” childbirth is never suggest this.
Gosh, I wonder why.
Stop bashing the Associated Press. They showed both points of view in this article, and if you are looking for an unbiased source the AP is the best you can do. They cover a broad number of subjects and have reporters all over the world; AP articles are printed in liberal and conservative newspapers as well.
I recently learned (before this article) that HIV+ women can have uninfected babies. What a miracle! How better to face your own mortality than to give life?
That’s great, but and HIV+ woman would have to have sexual intercourse with someone in order to have a baby, thus passing on the disease. Or, depending on your views on abortion, you could use stem-cells and in-vitro fertilization.
Christina, interesting stuff you write. But wouldn’t the abortion industry say its mills give prenatal screenings before abortions?
Michelle, amen.
Leah, I’ll stop bashing the AP when it deserves not to be bashed. Read this.
Leah, re: HIV, once a mother becomes pregnant, no matter what the circumstances, the baby she is carrying is a blessing and deserves to live.
Jill,
What I was referring to with the HIV+ thing is that a woman shouldn’t go out of her way and give a man the virus just to have a baby.
And as an English student that OWNS an AP Stylebook, I looked up fetus: well, it wasn’t in there. If it’s not in there, it’s up to the writer to decide which term is most appropriate.
However, I found a really interesting entry for “abortion” that you may want to remember in the near future when bashing the AP:
“Abortion: Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions; use a term such as abortion doctor or abortion practicioner.”
So while AP reporters may occasionally blunder in saying “pro-choice,” they are clearly following the rules by saying “anti-abortion.” If you don’t believe me, buy the book.
Just if people were smart enought to know that babies cannot feel the pain at that age. Besides, what if a 12 or 13 year old got raped, and pregnant? Would you say “Fuck you”. Because thats exactly what it is like.
Hi Leah,
I know it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m supposed to be all lovey-dovey this a.m., but I woke up with this urge to challenge your ignorants re. this. A mention of God is NOT a religious expression necessarily. Many very smart people wondered if there were die-hard proofs for God’s existence. This is as much (even more-so a strictly philosophical problem …. because without the existence of God, there is no such thing as rights …. yours, mine nor any one’s.
I asked you to re-read (or for the very 1st time) read your rights outlined in the American Constitution. You will find that there is not even a hint in this document of what for you is pro-choice let alone pro-abortion. So what I ask is: Do your ‘rights’ exist?
Challenge: if you can refute this argument, please let me in on how you did it, because many folks have worked on refuting it but in the past 800 years have been unable to do so. In that age Thomas Aquinas depicted 6 ‘proofs’ for God’s existence. Thomas looked around and saw the sun rise in the east and settle in the west; water if streams and rivers – flowed [in rain – fell] … there are thousands of examples. So he wondered what could make inanimate (without life) objects – move. So he named God – THE PRIME MOVER. [Only a animate being can initiate movement.] Since saying this I do not know of a single person to refute this ‘proof’. [No scientist has even come close!] But just in case you were thinking in terms of Mother Nature … try thinking about the existence of ‘change’ … from the dance of fire in a campfire – to the existence of growth – to the change-of-seasons – even a change in our mind from ignorance(without knowledge)-to-understanding.
The reason I’m saying this is to put a halt to you silly mantra about separation of church and state. [Sorry, but saying stupidity over and over does not make it real …. it is and always will be ‘just your illusion’.]
you wrote:
Sorry, but saying stupidity over and over does not make it real …. it is and always will be ‘just your illusion’.
The EXACT same thing thing could be said of your reference to ‘god.’
Sorry Gary,
but an illusion is an idea/belief without proof … Thomas’ ‘proof’ is just that … no such illusion here! Unless of course you can dispute this and show this to be false!
Many loud curses will not unravel this either. C’mon, I dare you to try ………… remember of the 6-proofs, this Thomas considered one of the ‘minor’ ones!
Leah, your reference to the AP stylebook makes my point. You quoted: “Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice.”
If the AP was being completely fair, it would use anti-abortion and pro-abortion. “Abortion rights” is positive, while “anti-abortion” is negative.
Your rationale that since the AP does not include “fetus” in its stylebook, it is not bound to use the term properly falls flat. There are hundreds of thousands of words not in the AP stylebook because the dictionary covers that base. Try looking “fetus” up there.
John:
There’s this thing called gravity that causes water to fall from cliffs. Gravity makes inaminate objects fall. And my “silly mantra” about the separation of church and state makes sense. Look at world history- see how much could have been avoided if religion had not influenced (or had anything to do with) politics, royalty, and government affairs. England is an excellent example…Spain as well.
And here is the definition of a fetus from dictionary.com:
(used chiefly of viviparous mammals) the young of an animal in the womb or egg, esp. in the later stages of development when the body structures are in the recognizable form of its kind, in humans after the end of the second month of gestation.
So using “fetus” in a news article makes sense, doesn’t it?
Leah,
if only you were a wee bit of a scientist! Gravitation only refers to a single type of movement … what is rotation …why is there rotation? Does gravity explain the motion of a flame, or of clouds, or of light, or of electricity; of sound or magnetism … on and on. How about the change in time and the fall-in-love (as in Valentine’s Day) … all a movements of a type … and there are many more.
Should I interject with some thoughts about the word ‘fetus’. When many moons ago I was your age, the phrase baby-to-be-born was in common use. The word ‘fetus’ was reserved for medical use … the same way ‘neonate’ is now used (only in medicine). The popularizing of this word has allowed us to distance ourselves from this dependent-being. Instead of being called a baby and evoking protection, we call the identical creature a fetus … so we can distance ourselves from being obliged to protect.
If you do not believe me … a fetus is the medical name for any mammal. I dare you to tell the owner of a pregnant dog … that she(her dog) is just a bitch carrying a bunch of fetuses … all true, but if you make it out of there alive, I’ll bet you won’t have an invitation back to repeat your erudition.
In the definition of fetus, “viviparous” refers to mammals that give birth through a uterus (unlike birds and turtles, who lay eggs, etc. there are other examples). It still denotes what you referred to as a “dependent being.”
And since I’m learning about rotation in my physics class, I can tell you that rotation occurs through torque (force multiplied by the ‘moment arm’) and a change in rotational intertia. Rotational velocity and rotational inertia account for how fast the earth rotates each day, and thus how long the days are.
Hi Leah,
I’ve always wondered what the instrument that applies torque to earth’s rotation is … even galaxy rotation http://users.accesscomm.ca/john/.
[the concept of torque helps when you are removing the nut off a flat tire. The instrument that applies this torque is the lug-nut wrench.]
this site is wild in its use of dynamics very differently than what is in most texts.