I don’t know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn’t do abortions. Ever.
~Mikki Kendall describing her experience with a doctor who refused to perform an emergency abortion on her, Salon, May 26
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The tiny corpses are then bought, stored in household refrigerators in homes of those involved in the trade before they are removed and taken to clinics where they are placed in medical drying microwaves.
Once the skin is tinder dry, it is pummelled into powder and then processed into capsules along with herbs to disguise the true ingredients from health investigators and customs officers.
~ Richard Shears and Rob Cooper reporting on the confiscation of “thousands of pills filled with powdered human baby flesh discovered by customs officials in South Korea”, Daily Mail, May 7
[HT: Hot Air]
Comments (1)
As a former Labor & Delivery nurse, I really doubt the veracity of Mikki’s story. She may believe it happened as it did, but I don’t believe it happened as it did. No doctor, unless a true quack deserving of revocation of his/her license and a lawsuit, would leave a woman bleeding to death from placental abruption.
And why no lawsuit? There’s a whole other side to this that I’m sure makes sense.
Exactly, Jill… After I’ve read the story, I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s more to it… I also find it hard to believe that ANY doctor would leave a very heavily bleeding patient with NO care whatsoever… And it has nothing to do with the doctor being pro-life or pro-choice. She also doesn’t mention what diagnosis was given after the tests – was it partial abruption, complete abruption? With complete abruption the baby dies within 15-20 minutes and removing the remains of a dead fetus isn’t abortion and no doctor would refuse to do it. From the story it seems like she had a partial abruption, since it was taking such a long time and the baby was still alive. If I had to guess – the lady probably had partial abruption, which required some medical care and complete bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy, and who knows – maybe she just didn’t want to deal with that and decided better to have an abortion there and then and now is angry at the doctor who didn’t jump at her wishes and performed the procedure straight away. I wasn’t there and try not to be judgemental, but the story just doesn’t sound right to me, that’s all…
“…maybe she just didn’t want to deal with that and decided better to have an abortion there…”
According to the article, she was losing blood rapidly, so she wasn’t really in a condition to have full cognition of her decision at the time. Her husband had to sign the paperwork for her.
If you peruse through her linked blog, she shares how she was a victim of child abuse, so my heart really goes out to her.
Lots of us were victims of child abuse.
Not sure what relevance that has to this.
Follow the money….
Is or isn’t there a lawsuit, did she or did she not seek to have the doctors liscence removed?
Or was she paid by someone for this revelation?
Just a few more thoughts on why things don’t seem to add up…
“Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, that it couldn’t be viable given the amount of blood I was losing”
Just the amount of blood someone is losing doesn’t mean the pregnancy is viable or not, you might not lose much blood and have a non viable pregnany or lose tons of blood and still have a viable pregnancy.
“…but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything.”
I’m sorry, If she was losing THAT much blood as she says she was, she would have died VERY quickly, probably would be unconscious by the time she got to the hospital, never mind staying there for hours and having ultrasounds. When I had a heavy bleeding during my m/c after about half an hour of bleeding I was already “blacking out”, while still waiting for an ambulance.
“The doctor on call didn’t do abortions.”
And she probably didn’t really need one. Also, as far as I’ve read in several articles – abortion ISN’T a standard treatment for placental abruption. The treatment involves trying to reduce the bleeding and putting the woman on a complete bedrest. And only in the case of complete abruption the baby is delivered either vaginally (depending on the strenght and age of the baby) or via C-section. Never found any information about treating placental abruption with abortion.
“one actually showed me the ultrasound of our dying child”
The baby can survive and keep groving with as much as half of the placenta gone. How does she know the baby was dying? How much of her placenta has separated?
it’s just some questions that I found interesting…
I don’t believe this either. I know from a Catholic perspective, pro-life doesn’t mean trying to save a baby that the body is spontaneously aborting over the life of the mother. That makes no sense.
The whole thing seems odd to me, too. Obstetric hemorrhage is recognized as a life-threatening emergency. I can imagine one doctor totally blowing her off, but an entire hospital full of doctors? You’re risking the death of both the mother and the baby and setting yourself up for a massive lawsuit.
And the savior doctor with AN ENTIRE TEAM? Since when does a doctor coming in to treat an emergency case show up with a posse?
She says that somebody DID think to send for an abortion expert, but that there was a communication mix up. Which would mean the “they were willing to let me die” story doesn’t hold up. Though “they were a bunch of bungling idiots” would.
I’ve seen some pretty appalling stuff, though. It could be that everybody just passed the buck with her until her savior doctor was called in. But I’m not seeing anything that calls for abortion in placenta previa or abruption. There’s just a lot of concern for stabilizing the mother while trying to save the baby. Lots of medications. Monitoring for signs of DIC. I don’t know how much of that they did. If she was loopy, the say she says, she might have been unaware of what they were doing. And if medications were simply being put into her IV, she might not have been aware that they were even administered.
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2007/0415/p1199.html
Though, like I’ve said, I’ve seen some pretty appalling cases of malpractice. An entire ward at Magee Women’s Hospital just sat on their thumbs while Marla Cardamone went septic and died.
First, I have friends who lost a son at 5 months gestation. They didn’t bitterly call their son “some fetus” like this woman did. She already stated that she thought about abortion early in the pregnancy. How committed was she to this child? Doesn’t seem very, imo. She thought about an abortion at 10 weeks then finally decided to give it a go. Her child at 5 months that she most likely felt kicking etc… a child she claimed she was going to mother, died and all she can conjure up is to call her child “some fetus”. Wow. I wouldn’t call my son “some kid”. He’s my CHILD. Where is her love for her dead child? Cold!
The whole story doesn’t add up. I don’t know about early in the pregnancy… a D&C might be needed in situations like this early in pregnancy, I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. BUT at 5 months the child is old enough to have a shot. If it becomes apparent that the placenta is detaching and there is no hope to continue the pregnancy there is no reason a C-section couldn’t be performed and the child’s life given a CHANCE. How does aborting (a D&E I assume? Which is where they tear the child’s arms and legs off and crush the skull) the child at this late stage, which is very risky for her and can lead to perforation and more blood loss and complications, save her life? Her story just makes NO SENSE.
Mama3,
My “abuse” comment was simply a show of sympathy, not an endorsement of her decision.
I should have been more clear on that.
**************
Here are a couple of comments from Mikki on her comment thread:
I’m a disabled vet, and at that time I couldn’t find regular insurance that would cover me (pre-existing condition clauses are fun) so I was being seen by a doctor at the VA hospital. The Hyde Amendment means that she could not perform the procedure. I knew that in advance. Even if she could have performed it she was out of town, and the closest hospital to me was the one I went to. Ostensibly it is one of the best in the city, not a religious institution, and should have been able to perform the procedure with no problem. To those asking about a lawsuit, we have not filed one, but we are discussing doing so.
And to Jill’s comment, here’s her response:
I was admitted shortly after 3 pm. The procedure wasn’t performed until nearly 12 am. There’s even a note about the need to contact Reproductive Health because they perform D & C’s. So, you can doubt away but the nurse that was on duty that night would disagree with you. As for rushing out to file a lawsuit? I was in mourning for my baby and my fertility, going into a protracted lawsuit wasn’t exactly high on my list of priorities.
I read the story and I didn’t buy it. C-section and vaginal delivery are typical treatments for placental abruption. Considering that the baby was dying or dead, this would not be an abortion. It sounds like she is putting her own spin on his actions and we don’t have his version of the story.
Well, we now have the first documented contact from beyond the grave. Given the rapid blood loss and the fact that,
“…but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything.”
we have another first, right here at Casa de Stanek.
Jill,
Ask Mikki how my grandparents are doing up there.
Do they do D&Cs at 20 weeks? Isn’t the baby’s body too strong and bones too strong at that point? She was in mourning for the baby? When did the mourning turn to intense bitterness towards the child? She sounds so calloused and hateful toward the baby like the baby had NO WORTH and like she didn’t care just KILL IT. Maybe she had to write that way to spin the story and get pro-choice support? If she actually admitted that she grieved her child she wouldn’t have gotten the story published in Salon and received all the adulation and kudos from the pro-aborts, now would she.
Gerard,
???
What was her exact diagnosis?
I had both placenta previa and partial abruptia with my first son. I lost a lot of blood. We’er talking waking up and the entire bed being covered in blood (sorry that’s graphic)
However, even though I was about the same point in the pregnancy as this women, abortion was never even mentioned as a “solution”.
I was put on bedrest, and monitored very closely. Had the bleeding continued at that rate, there as some talk of a transfusion, but thankfully the site of the abruptia clotted without needing it.
This entire post is heinous, and you ought to be ashamed. For those you doubt the “veracity” of the story, I was the girl who SAW HER in the hospital bed that day. I was the girl who had to take her sons to my house because the doctors weren’t sure she was going to make it. For you and your “people” (and I use that term loosely because I haven’t decided whether y’all are actually human yet) to be so sanctimonious, so cruel…the mind truly boggles.
Entries like these are the reason why the pro-life movement cannot be taken seriously. At all.
I doubt you even post this, because you don’t have the courage.
How dare you people even call yourselves Catholics? What happened to the concepts of mercy? You see a woman in pain, dying, and then immediately start victim blaming?
Id,
If you are who you say you are, then, all emotions aside, there are some legitimate medical questions here that could be well served by Mikki providing some insight or information.
As you can see, some of the posters have firsthand experience w/ placental issues, so their concerns are not so far-fetched.
Now calm down. We can have a decent conversation.
And that goes for the prolifers, too.
Then address these inconsistencies. Her story doesn’t add up.
Pro-lifers believe in saving lives, mother and child- not saving a child over its mother (it’s rare if that could happen) or saving a mother over a child, although that is often what has to happen to save her life and in that case, the loss of the other human life is just a tragedy. It doesn’t sound here like this woman had no choice but lose her child.
She needs to clarify her story. How can someone lose blood so rapidly and yet live for 8 hours?
Jen, not everyone here is Catholic or even religious.
Carder,
“Calm down?” Really? If any of you had bothered to look at Mikki’s Tumblr posts, you’ll see that she’s answered the questions posed here. She’s just smart enough not to engage with the rabid sheep here. But no, keep on with the amateur sleuthing and the righteous indignation. That’ll totally get people on your side.
thewayoftheid,
I’m very sorry to hear the story is true. I know that cases of medical malpractice can be heinous and horrifying and I’m truly sorry that you and your friend had to go through that.
I believe that where the doubt/frustration is coming from is a) most of us can hardly believe that a doctor would be so cruel and b) While we’re sorry for the situation your friend was in, we don’t believe that abortion is ever the answer. Had Mikki had a good doctor, on time, both she and her baby probably could have been saved.
Jen, Catholics aren’t the only ones who have a monopoly on mercy. I’m a Protestant and have the ability to have mercy, kindness, etc. And just so you know, we are reacting to her testimony after the fact. I am willing to bet that if any one of us here on this website had been at that hospital when she really was in pain and dying, we would have stopped at nothing to show her kindness and mercy and to help her.
What we are responding to is her response to this horrific event, and the fact that somehow, she blames it on pro-lifers/pro-life doctors. She happened to have a bad doctor/hospital staff and while we’re sorry that happened, the fact is, we think her conclusion is wrong.
What a bunch of scumbags you all are. Did it ever occur to you that yes- you DON’T have every single minute detail of the story because a)it’s none of your business b)it’s irrelevant? The point of her story is that sometimes an abortion IS medically necessary and not “voluntary”. Who cares if she was ambivalent in the first trimester? So was I. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been devastated later in the pregnancy if something went terribly wrong. That doesn’t mean that in order to emotionally process and deal with the trauma that I wouldn’t distance myself from personifying the fetus.
I happen to know that she did want the baby and that the story is true. How dare you attack a woman who endured something so awful?
So get off your high horse, pack of vicious rats.
I was a reader of her private blog at the time that it happened. Yes, it happened the way that she wrote it here. At no time since have there been any gaps or wavering from her story. In addition, there are legitimate logistical reasons that she couldn’t go into a lawsuit at the time, as well as the obvious emotional ones around losing her fertility, nearly losing her life, and losing her baby.
There are a lot of people in this comment thread that would rather find some way for every woman who has had an abortion to be cast as some kind of promiscuous irresponsible and callous whore than accept that maybe they are not owed the details of other people’s lives and just need to let other people make their own medical decisions.
Mikki, I’m sorry that you didn’t have access to the kind of medical treatment you needed, and I am sorry that so many people are responding with disdain and a sense of entitlement that you justify your medical history to them. There’s pretty much nothing you could say that would earn their grudgingly-given approval anyway, because haters are gonna hate, and there’s no reasoning them out of it.
Stephanie,
I’m sure it’s none of our business, but since the article was posted on the world wide web, Mikki sort of made it the globe’s business.
There’s even a “comments” section on both Slate and her blog, so in essence she invited the discussion, which really opens her up to reactions, the good, the bad and the ugly.
I’m trying to keep “the ugly” out of our thread here. Let the record show, so far the prolifers have been called a “pack of vicious rats”, “rabid sheep”, and “not actually human”.
Just sayin’.
I just added another comment at Salon in response to Mikki’s rebuttal:
Mikki, there is a two-year statute of limitations for filing malpractice lawsuits. Again, if a doctor almost killed you, why didn’t you do something about it, if not for yourself but to save others from a quack?
I’ve had patients with placental abruption. The placenta is breaking away from the wall of the uterus. It can be minimal or it can be severe.
If minimal, the patient is sent home and watched, particularly if the baby is young.
If severe, the baby and placenta must immediately be delivered, either vaginally or by c-section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placental_abruption). Without immediate intervention the mother will be bleed to death and, of course, the baby will die.
Your story has too many holes to recount, Mikki. If there were medical students present, then you were at a teaching hospital, and there most certainly were doctors available on the premises or on call to perform the necessary emergency surgery.
Your story defies logic, Mikki, I’m sorry. No doctor in a hospital would sit there and let a pregnant patient bleed to death.
The mere fact that the doctor who eventually cared for you transfused “two bags of blood” first indicates this wasn’t a dire emergency. Each bag required 1-4 hours to tranfuse (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/bt/bt_whatis.html). It would make no sense to force a patient supposedly bleeding to death to wait for surgery that would stop her from bleeding to death until she is given 2 pints of blood.
Name the hospital, Mikki. Name the doctor. Show me the charting.
You may really believe your story, Mikki, but it is fiction, and the editors of Salon were irresponsible to print it.
The fact that Mikki shared anything at all about the circumstances of her pregnancy is more than a bunch of random people on the internet are owed. If she deigns to give us more information about her pregnancy and the circumstances under which it ended, then thank you Mikki. She doesn’t have to, though. She is not (or shouldn’t be) obligated to suffer cross-examination because she had the temerity to speak publicly about the fact that she’s had an abortion.
The sense of entitlement to the details of other women’s lives is just shocking. Even if some commenters personally believe that no abortion really has to happen and that anybody who has one simply wasn’t trying hard enough to keep the baby, there’s nothing in there that says people have to be so intrusive, entitled, and insensitive about an issue they should know is deeply personal. Somebody’s baby that she wanted didn’t get born. If you all had half as much sympathy for a woman who lost this chance to be a mother as you have for the fetus, you’d have a little goddamn class about this and nobody would have reason to call you vicious rats.
I added a PS at Salon, since Mikki wrote her charting indicated she had a D&C:
One other thing. If your baby was 20 weeks old, a D&C was impossible. Your baby was too big, with calcified bones. Only a D&E, where babies are removed piece by piece, would have been possible, if vaginal delivery and c-section were ruled out.
More on D&Es here: http://women.webmd.com/dilation-and-evacuation-de-for-abortion (“larger pieces of tissue” meaning parts of the baby).
What a bunch of scumbags you all are. Did it ever occur to you that yes- you DON’T have every single minute detail of the story because a)it’s none of your business b)it’s irrelevant?
By placing her story within the public sphere, Mikki has invited public judgement. She wanted a particular one, true, but by the very dint of inviting public judgement there is tacit permission to do exactly that: judge the story. As carder has pointed out, when you invite public scrutiny, you should either be prepared for some of that attention to be negative, or you shouldn’t do it it at all.
To everyone here who seems to know Mikki, I would like to point out that she choose to share her story in order to support abortion.
In that light, it is only rational that she give as many details as possible in order to verify if her testimony actually supports the conclusion she says it does.
A few months ago there was a woman who was complaining that she couldn’t get an abortion following a Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes. She went home, and delivered her child about a week later. The child died shortly after delivery. Her claim was that she should have been able to have an abortion when her water broke, but she wasn’t able to because of Nebraska’s ban on abortion past 20 weeks.
I called BS on her claims, because i’ve also had a PPROM (I know, my first pregnancy was the pregnancy from hell, but it ended with my sweet son being born alive, so I’d do it again in a heartbeat!!) Doing nothing was one of the options given to me, but it was not the only option. I was able to stay pregnant for 7 weeks after my water broke thanks to a heavy dose of medications and complete bedrest. My frist question for that woman was if her doctors had told her all of her options for saving her baby.
Apparently they had, and it became clear that she had chosen to do nothing because of fears about her child’s “quality of life.” That’s not exactly the story she told the newspapers, was it?
Because there is almost always something that can be done to try to save the child when these things happen post-viability, there should be natural skepticism when someone claims that abortion was necessary. Ending the pregnancy? Yes. Killing the child? No.
JMS,
My, what a cold, bitter person you are. I’m truly sorry for whatever happened in your life that has caused your heart to turn to stone. Maybe it’s the lack of the God of love? Hm.
50% – that’s a nice, little tidy figure. Did you make that up? Where did you get that evidence from anyway?
And I’m not a fool, though you may think so. Of course I know that some babies cannot be saved. It’s so sad! (doesn’t seem to make you sad though). So some older, born patients can’t be saved either. But in a case where a child with cancer “can’t be saved” do doctors prematurely kill them in their hospital beds? I would hope not – I love humanity at all stages and I would fight for anyone’s chance at survival, despite the odds – yes, even yours, JMS, though you seem to hate life, I would fight for your chance of survival in the hopes that maybe you can eventually find truth and love and happiness.
You are putting up straw arguments with your babies with no skull and and risky pregnancies stories. I know people who were in situations where the doctors told them that they/their babies would not survive. But they did. Against all odds. Personally, I would rather see what happens and give birth than just kill the baby. Then you’ll never know how long the baby would have lived and you would be responsible for snuffing out the babies life – that’s murder.
But there is where our difference lies – I value life, all life, at all stages and I would see everyone given the chance of a miracle, even if the miracle doesn’t happen and you, you would snuff out hope before life could even have a chance.
If that hope and compassion for all human beings – mothers, unborn infants who are deemed “imperfect” by society, the elderly isn’t a sign that “God is love” I dont’ know what is.
And there is more to life than money, JSM. SO yes I would hope that parents would do all in their power to save their baby.
When I was four years old, the doctors told my parents that I wouldn’t live, that they should goodbye. And do you know what? They didn’t give up. They insisted that the doctors keep trying, they prayed constantly, they got into debt that they paid off for years and by the grace of God, I survived. And I’m so happy I did. And my dad, who worked for years at horrible jobs for long, hard hours to pay off the hospital bills, has always told me that he would do nothing different – that having his daughter live was more important than medical bills.
Calder, in spite of the fact that your own personal comments have not been vicious, I think it’s important to note that that was only after commenters on this blog implied Mikki was a liar, suggested she had been paid money to lie, called her a zombie, bitter, and cold. You don’t think that deserves and angry response from the person who was with her at the hospital? I think that every person on this blog would have a right to be angry if they went through a harrowing, life-threatening experience and strangers accused them of lying and demanded that they share more details than they were prepared to share to “prove” their story.
This isn’t an issue of pro-life versus pro-choice as a debate. This is an issue of people immediately accusing someone of lying and demanding that she lay her personal life bare. She shared as many details as she chose to share– personally, I think we should all act with gratitude and compassion that she felt that she could share that much of her story at all, not act like she has an obligation to lay bare every gory detail, especially when dealing with something so personal, like the loss of a child and a traumatizing medical experience. While I certainly haven’t been through what Mikki has, I nearly lost an arm in an accident ten years ago, and the resulting PTSD sent me into panic attacks for two or three years afterward just from hearing people talk about similar situations. It takes a lot of guts to face something like this and talk about it at all– no one has a right to demand that she talk about it more or differently than she feels comfortable talking about it.
A very large part of the comment exchanges in this post is incredibly dehumanizing, treating Mikki like she is a fictional character in a crime drama, where there must be a piece of her story that is wrong, and not like a real, living, breating wife and mother who went through something terrible.
Jill, my grandmother died because a doctor let her bleed to death after a still birth. She was honest about the fact that she was having a child out of wedlock, and he said he would not treat her because of it.
Not all doctors are decent people.
“Mikki was a liar, suggested she had been paid money to lie, called her a zombie, bitter, and cold.” Huh?
Huh?
To all the prochoicers here: I haven’t read the article, but you are responding with indignation at people who question Mikki’s story. This is what many PC women do to women who have negative experiences at abortion clinics, or have been devastated by their abortion experiences. Perhaps both sides could learn a little compassion.
Mikki is asking us to agree with her that pro-life doctors are scumbags, abortion is necessary and being pro-life puts women with legitimate issues in danger. I am saying that I need more information before I run willy nilly to her side of the argument. If she can’t or won’t provide the facts in her story (its not my job to read all her blogs and other writings. I am reading the article. The article should have the FACTS to support her claim) then I’m going to call her on it. Thats not being mean or lacking compassion or trying to vilify her (who even made a comment about her sexuality? A pro-abort brought that up but not one pro-lifer even discussed her sexuality. She is married. She should be having sex!)
But keep ranting and spitting pro-aborts. You’re making yourself very transparent. You call us sentient adult human beings who are not in wombs rats. You question if we are human. Well here we go… slippery slope. If you can call an unborn human child “not human” based on your whims at the moment then it becomes very easy to call other adults with whom you are having a disagreement “not human”. Guess what? you don’t get to decide who is human and who isn’t human based on if you took your prozac this morning. Which btw, you pro-aborts need to get on that.
Plus, Mikki herself admits that she is merely speculating about the situation. She writes:
” Supposedly there was a communication breakdown and they thought she had been notified, but I doubt it. I don’t know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn’t do abortions. Ever.”
Lauren, go read the comments. Jill started out by saying that she doubted the veracity of the story. Then we have:
“Or was she paid by someone for this revelation?”
“They didn’t bitterly call their son “some fetus” like this woman did.”
“Where is her love for her dead child? Cold!”
“I told you zombies exist”
Phillymiss, that’s very true, but I would personally never do that to another person, and I have had friends who have had bad abortion experiences. I would never question another woman’s experience, especially with something so deeply personal. You can’t assume that the people commenting here would do that. We know that the people commenting here questioning Mikki’s story are doing that. I agree with you that no one should ever do that to a woman, which is the only reason I am commenting here– because this conversation has had almost nothing to do with the question of the morality or ethics or facts of abortion, and everything to do with trying to shame someone who was brave enough to talk about her personal experiences.
Tea,
Jill’s a nurse, so of course she knows not all doctors are decent people.
One doctor in particular was responsible for attempting to terminate a Down’s Syndrome baby, wasn’t successful in doing so, and it was left to Jill to hold the dying baby in her arms for the last 28 minutes of its life.
So if anyone knows about callousness, I’d put Jill into that category.
Now to your point about Mikki and her courage to speak up.
Speaking for myself, yes, it’s quite the leap to make a story like that public and open to scrutiny.
She doesn’t want to clarify her statements, then fine. Welcome to the USA.
I invited her to join the conversation because I don’t want to see prolifers jump to all sorts of conclusions when some rational conversation can help clear up matters.
And I put out the gentle warning that I don’t want to see prolifers ravage Mikki, because, at the end of the day, her baby is dead and no one on either side is doing a happy dance.
I can talk about this decently. Anybody else?
Tea, yeah, I said her response to her dead child was cold. She called her child “some fetus”. Thats cold. I stand by my statement. What of it?
This may shock you guys, but pro-abortion folks’ opinions of my character are no consequence to me. Anyone lacking the moral compass insomuch as they support a mother killing the very child she created is not someone who can make any valid statement on right and wrong. So a pro-abort says I am a horrible person: Since they think someone horrible is good- is this a compliment? I simply disregard it all.
I don’t think pointing out the emperor has no clothes on means I can’t have a respectful conversation. But I am going to call it as it is, not try to mince words and pitter patter around the truth.
I only know Mikki from what she chooses to say in her article. She is using her child’s death to defend killing other children. She dehumanizes her child. She doesn’t call her child by his/her name. She doesn’t even refer to her child as HER CHILD. She calls him/her
“some fetus”. Is that warm? Is that loving? The whole thing is lacking any compassion for her child whatsoever and I call it for what it is. Mikki might be a wonderful mother and wife but I don’t know her. I can only judge her for the face she presents to the public via her article. I call it as I see it. Oh well.
First of all, pr-choicers have to realize, that if her abortion story was so very personal – she would have kept it to herself, not published it for all the world to see on the internet. So, stop saying that oh it’s so personal, stop poking your noses in other peoples lives, if these same people actually WANT the story to be discussed publicly.
Secondly, however much I regret that she had to go through obviously horrific experience and that her baby died, it’s wrong to say that abortion was her only option. I don’t know if she was misinformed by the doctors at the hospital or misunderstood what’s going on, but abortion is NOT a treatment of placental abruption.
Anyone who’s still trying to make heads and tails out of this story – read Jill’s comments again, I think she sums everything up pretty well.
“By placing her story within the public sphere, Mikki has invited public judgement”
Mikki is calling for the condemnation of those doctors who didn’t think she needed an abortion.
She started this whole thing. She is framing and blaming and making the accusations. The burden of proof is always on the accuser. That she doesn’t name the doctor likely means she doesn’t dare name him.
Wow, this comment thread is hard to stomach. While I hate abortion, God knows, I’ve had people doubt my own story to my face. It’s gruelling. I feel for Mikki because I wouldn’t wish this kind of scrutiny on anyone. We don’t always know how things will be after we make a public disclosure about something, and now her story has “grown legs” as they say.
Mikki’s story illustrates why elective abortion is so wrong, so damaging to all mothers. In a pre-elective-abortion culture, everyone pulled for the baby’s life, everyone. Now, from the second a woman realizes her period is late, there is a continue-or-not dilemna that ALL mothers face post-Roe-v-Wade. During every phase of her pregnancy, today, a woman faces terrible pressures to abort even if from conception she loves and wants her baby. In my extended family alone, 4 people, count them 4!, have been pressuring a mother who loves and wants her baby to abort. And I mean pressure: nagging, nagging, screaming, and more nagging. This is no way to run a society.
In an ideal world, Mikki would have received prompt adequate medical care and not had the medical and other staff of a facility add to her woes during an already frightening and dangerous time. Many of us have faced terrible crises in our health and our families. If there had never been legal abortion, Mikki wouldn’t be posting this experience on the ‘net and then be subject to all this terrible scrutiny. If abortion had remained illegal during the 20th century, and into the 21st, her story would be one to call for better care in all health facilities, clinics, hospitals, etc. Instead, her private trauma is turning into a political football. This helps no one.
PS. Under my real name, I endured dozens and dozens of terrible comments on the net about something that was supposed to be a fun and charitable event (not at all related to abortion or pro-life). You Do NOT realize how internet scrutiny will blow up or how you will feel. Mikki couldn’t be expected to have a crystal ball to predict how this would go down, so to say she posted it in public and now deserves this, well, it just ain’t right. Why do you think I use a pen-name on the web today?
Sorry SM but Mikki was (rightfully) more concerned with leaving her BORN children motherless or with a mother severely physically/emotionally damaged from a terrible pregnancy. Claiming that she should have been like St. Gianna or something smacks of just so much self righteousness ignorance and zealotry
After spending the last few weeks investing a good portion of my life towards propagating the prochoice message, I’ve had countless nasty encounters with Antichoicers. I expected this type of backlash after I read Mikki’s article because while she decided so eloquently to share intimate and personal details of her life, she neglected to mention all of the “specifics.” What hogwash!
The real question here is should a woman’s health and life be placed in direct peril due to a political power play or a doctor’s personal perspective on a medical procedure?
What Mikki shared was truly heart wrenching; her words painted a poignant picture of a woman whose life was compromised by the very people who were in a position to help her. Every woman deserves the RIGHT to defend HER OWN LIFE if she feels threatened. Mikki’s story should serve as a cautionary tale, a glimpse into a very foreseeable future for women if Antichoicers get their way.
Sorry Krys,
Mikki is making the accusations. She is the accuser. If she had a real case, it would be in court, not in Salon. Her real complaint is that the hospital tried to save both her and her baby. That she didn’t die is pretty well evidence that they were within standard practice to try to save the baby. Just because she really thought she was bleeding to death, doesn’t mean she really was and obviously she didn’t. This case is more about emotion than anything else.
“Every woman deserves the RIGHT to defend HER OWN LIFE if she feels threatened.”
Sounds like an NRA commercial.
Anyway, when an over emotional pregnant woman feels her life is threatened, doesn’t mean that there is in fact a real threat to her life. The doctors assessed her actuall physical condition. Doctors don’t treat you for what you perceive your condition may be. They use actual criteria, not just the feelings of the patient.
Jill, you were A nurse, you were not HER nurse.
This is a disgusting show of calloused people pretending to be compassionate when it suits their interests.
Shame on all of you.
Sydney- I have gotten the exact same kind of comments from people who were horrified that I jokingly called my baby “Parasite” when I was pregnant after two miscarriages, one of which was with twins (in fact, this miscarriage happened shortly before Mikki’s, and she and I had some long phone conversations about our losses after the fact). The people that acted so horrified had no way of knowing that I *was* trying to distance myself because it hurt too much to think of those babies as babies or children or anything that might have put a face or name to them. I suspect it is the same for Mikki. I know that she very much wanted that baby girl, despite what you guys have decided about how committed she was to the pregnancy. Not all of us grieve the same way, you know? And Mikki doesn’t have to call the baby a baby, a fetus, a parasite, her little girl or Pumpkin to prove that she did want that baby in the same way that I don’t have to refer to the twins I lost with their names or sex or characteristics to make sure you or anyone else understands that I loved them and I lost them, and you have no right to call someone cold or lacking compassion or unloving.
Alright she made it up! Its all made up just to make a political statement. Is that what you want to hear? But seriously how the eff can you pretend to know the reasons why she didnt press charges? Maybe it was too traumatic, maybe she has plans to and isnt making the public privy to it. If the baby was viable and they wanted to save it then they should have AT LEAST discussed this option with the woman and her husband, like said, “Hi this is what we are going to do.” Not treated her like a piece of dirt who was only worth so much as a holding cell for an unborn baby. They treated her inhumanely and nobody here is taking issue with that??
Um hello Krys. Why do you assume I am Catholic? I never brought up any “saint” so the St. Gianna reference is lost on me. Why don’t you argue with real facts? Oh, right, cause you can’t. See ya!
The only Gianna I know is Gianna Jessen who survived her mother aborting her. Abortion kills humans. Thats the facts. Born children are not any more valuable than unborn children. Mikki’s born sons were not any more worthy or needy than her unborn son/daughter.
This thread makes me so sad. What will happen to you when real life doesn’t conform to your rigid preconceptions? When it’s your best friend that needs an abortion? When it’s your pastor that turns out to be a child rapist? It makes me sad because that’s how it happened for me. I was pro-life once. Now I am for life, for all of your lives, your real, messy lives that can’t be lived in black-and-white. I hope that when it happens to you, you’ll find the feminist hotlines, the women’s shelters, the network of those of us who made it out of the world of certainty alive. I hope you’ll find someone to hold your hand when you’re coming out of the anesthetic, to hold you when you cry. I hope you’ll find friends like Mikki.
And her physical condition also encompasses her emotional and mental condition….also valid health-related reasons for getting a late-term abortion
Beth, I am sorry for your loss as well as Mikki’s. But when Mikki publicly dehumanizes her child (no matter the reasons) and tries to bash pro-life doctors I do have a right to call it as I see it. She presents herself as cold and I call her on it. If she didn’t want public criticism then she shouldn’t have publicly told her very one-sided story.
Oh, rereading my comments, I realize I may have confused the issue myself a bit. Although Mikki didn’t realize she was pregnant earlier, many women do find out earlier. Sorry for any confusion.
I wish there had never been a single elective abortion of any healthy child. Then, Mikki’s whole perspective would have been completely different. Her story would be about privacy-invading students and an extended time of being in pain while left on her own, hearing the other patients around her. Her trauma shouldn’t have been about abortion at all.
Hippie,
“When an over emotional pregnant woman feels her life is threatened, doesn’t mean that there is in fact a real threat to her life”
Ah, yes. Pregnant women are incapable of making decisions in regards to their personal health care. Yawn.
Doctors ARE to make informed decisions. It’s when their PERSONAL FEELINGS motivate their reactions that I consider them to be dangerous.
No Krys. Why must the baby be killed to help her emotional and mental condition? Abortion has been shown to HURT women emotionally but you offer it as a valid treatment for such? WHAT? If the pregnancy threatened her life Mikki could have had the baby delivered early. There is not reason to PURPOSEFULLY kill the child by ripping her arms and legs off in the womb and crushing her little skull. Ending a pregnancy is not always wrong. Ending the life of the child IS ALWAYS WRONG. You try to save the child. You try to give the child a chance especially when the child is well into the second trimester. You don’t purposefully dismember the child and pretend it was medicine.
Ninek this is about abortion it’s about doctors who arent even equipped to perform the procedure in emergency circumstances, because med schools under political pressure are putting the kabosh on teaching the practice.
SM sure okay let’s say that all three of her children’s lives had the same moral worth…still doesn’t justify the woman sacrificing her own life/health, and potentially ruining her ability to care for the other two
Re: “Why must the baby be killed to help her emotional and mental condition?”
Because she is a thinking and breathing human being who doesn’t want to be treated like a freaking piece of meat. If she wanted to end the pain of that pregnancy there and then that was her decision, tragic as you thought that decision was. Her nightmare, her decision to end it in abortion rather than getting cut open like a fish to have the child put in the NICU with who knows what chance of surviving and with what conditions.
Krys, I am NOT saying that she should have sacrificed her life to continue the pregnancy. I am saying you don’t have to rip a child to shreds in order to end a pregnancy. If there was a very real threat to her life and needed to end the pregnancy there are ways to do that without intentionally killing the child. What are you not understanding?
The unborn are real human beings and you treat them like a piece of meat. I am saying lets not treat ANY human beings like a piece of meat! Lets respect life! If we denied Susan Smith the right to kill her boys would that be “treating her like a piece of meat”? so not allowing a woman to intentionally kill her child is “treating her like a piece of meat” is what you’re saying? Good to know. Good to know. Gosh, you are so lost.
“it’s about doctors who arent even equipped to perform the procedure in emergency circumstances, because med schools under political pressure are putting the kabosh on teaching the practice.”
First of all, this is moving the goal posts. Mikki doesn’t talk about this issue at all in her article. Second of all, all doctors know how to perform D&C’s (which is what Mikki claims to have had) because they are sometimes required following a missed miscarriage.
LibertBelle:
That nice, round number was the approximation provided in my human genetic counseling class when I was taking my PhD in human genetics. The approximation has actually improved in recent years, with more sensitive assays. From Fritz and Speroff, Clinical Gynecologic Endocrinology and Infertility, 2010:
Up to 60% of all conceptions miscarry within the first 12 weeks of gestation and 20-40% of all early pregnancy losses go unrecognized.
It’s nice that your family had the ability to weather the costs of a medically-intense child. It’s nice that your family had a *choice* about whether or not to maintain a medically-intense child. It would be nice if all these people who are so concerned about one woman’s abortion spent their energy (and their monetary donations) on something like, oh, say, keeping living children alive.
If you’re really so concerned about life, try reading Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ anthropological work Death Without Weeping (http://books.google.com/books?id=YJVt4YxX_vsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Uni%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BDo#v=onepage&q&f=false), which talks extensively about the desperately poor in Brazil, and how the mothers there have to learn not to be attached to their children because the infant and childhood mortality rate is so high that they are more likely to lose their children than keep them. Try spending your “compassion” on, say, keeping those kids alive, or even on improving the quality of life, health, and education of the desperately poor children here in the US (by, say, supporting socialized medicine so everyone can have access to health care, or equalizing funding for all school districts to everyone can have access to excellent education), and keep your nose out of the business of women who are making hard choices every day on how to live their lives.
“Her nightmare, her decision to end it in abortion rather than getting cut open like a fish to have the child put in the NICU with who knows what chance of surviving and with what conditions.”
Ok, so now we’re really getting to the heart of the issue. The abortion didn’t save her life, ending her pregnancy saved her life. However, as you note above, there were ways to end her pregnancy that did not require her child to be killed.
NO SM because Susan Smith’s kids weren’t living.inside.her.body. Your argument is just stupid. WE are talking about respecting the decisions people make about what takes place inside their physical BODIES. Crucial distinction.
“…to have the child put in the NICU with who knows what chance of surviving and with what conditions.”
If that statement were a picture, it’d be worth thousands and thousands of words.
I’m very sorry for Mikki’s loss. That being said, if you write an article about ANY subject and put that article in a public forum, open to comments, you need be prepared to be called on any potential inconsistencies. That’s the nature of public discourse.
If this article had been by a woman claiming that her abortionist had almost let her bleed to death, and pro-choicers called her on her inconsistencies, would they also be cold, cruel, mean, etc.?
Mike, Jill doesn’t have to be Mikki’s nurse to spot inconsistencies in her story. I recognized a few myself and I have no formal medical training. For example, the D&C vs D&E. It’s possible that Mikki just confused the terms, but Jill is absolutely right. A D&C is almost never done in the 2nd trimester (and it’s never done to either remove a dead baby or kill a live one past 20 weeks), and it’s not usually done to treat a placental abruption, either.
I am also confused because an abortion is not the standard or recommended treatment for placental abruption. I had a suspected partial abruption when I was pregnant with my son, so I’ve done some research on it in case it ever happens again. Her story simply doesn’t add up. If she’s addressed the inconsistencies elsewhere then perhaps she should modify her Salon article accordingly.
Yatima – my favorite teacher in high school was recently convicted of possessing child pornography. I considered him a close friend and he sang at my wedding. His crime didn’t change my views on abortion at all. If my best friend wanted an abortion, I would encourage her to continue the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, and encourage her in any way I could. In fact, one of my friends is currently pregnant and facing single motherhood, and I am encouraging her in any way I can. Again, her situation has not changed my views on the evil of abortion.
Oh and as someone who has been “cut open like a fish” and had my child “put in the NICU with who knows what chance of surviving and with what conditions.” all I can say is that I find it very depressing that instead of advocating for giving a child a fighting chance at life, this woman is advocating killing other children.
After my experience, I started volunteering to help with women who were placed on bedrest following abruptia or PPROM. I helped them fight for their babies. Sorry if I find someone fighting against these same children to be a bit upsetting.
It isnt respectul of life to say to a woman “ok we are going to rip your abdomen apart and pull a fetus from you without your consent because we want to save this child’s life, youll heal somehow and then itll be your responsibility to figure out how to financially and emotionally support this child who may very likely be disabled for life.” That’s not respect that’s being extreme.
Lauren those were YOUR CHOICES. The beauty is that you got to choose them for yourself they werent imposed on you. And jeez how privileged you are to have been able to take extended bedrest. Other women arent so lucky because they might need to work to support their families or take care of other kids. What we are dealing here is with someone who has no awareness of their own privilege which is appalling and gross.
“youll heal somehow and then itll be your responsibility to figure out how to financially and emotionally support this child who may very likely be disabled for life.” That’s not respect that’s being extreme.”
A child born at that gestational age will almost surely qualify for both SSI payments, and medicaid. A world of services exist to help parents of micropreemies.
If her child, sadly, did not survive, there are even funeral homes that will perform their services for free or at a heavily discounted rate.
“What we are dealing here is with someone who has no awareness of their own privilege which is appalling and gross”
I was a freshman in college, living in a 400/month efficiency apartment. My husband worked as a temp at Cash America.
Excuse me while I finish laughing at the thought of my supposed “privilege”.
But again, let me point out that you are admitting that abortion was not necessary to save this woman’s life. She had other options. Thus her claim that “abortion saved my life!” is false. Ending her pregnancy saved her life, but that could have been done without killing her child.
“NO SM because Susan Smith’s kids weren’t living.inside.her.body. Your argument is just stupid. WE are talking about respecting the decisions people make about what takes place inside their physical BODIES. Crucial distinction.”
No, there is not a distinction. People are restricted from doing things with their bodies all the time. Men cannot use their bodies to have sex with 14-year-old girls. I cannot put LSD in my body. It is has nothing to do with not “respecting people’s decisions about their bodies”, it is about trying to maintain something that somewhat resembles a civilized society. And no, despite all the rationalizatons of the “pro-choice” movement, allowing people to rip their offspring to shreds does not count as “civilized” or “progessive”, even if said offspring resides in their body.
JoAnna: Not yet.
Yatima – not ever.
“supporting socialized medicine so everyone can have access to health care, or equalizing funding for all school districts to everyone can have access to excellent education.”
1) Socialized medicine means that women who go into very premature labor, as I did, will face the certain death of their children.
2)It has not been shown that money spent translates to an “excellent education.” There are real solutions to the education gap, but simply throwing money at the problem will not fix it.
” What we are dealing here is with someone who has no awareness of their own privilege which is appalling and gross.”
What is it with pro-aborts that anything life-affirming is privilege? And when did privilege become this horrible, monstrous thing to be avoided at all? And why do you ascribe the term ‘privileged’ to someone you know nothing about? Sheesh!!!
I think what really rubs a lot of us the wrong way, and certainly rubs me the wrong way, is the fact that Mikki is using her experience in order to support other children being killed.
As others have said, were it not for her insistence on pushing abortion, this story would be about a woman being neglected (at least in terms of caring patient care, it is unclear by her story if she was actually medically neglected). Instead, she chose to frame it as a story about how horrible some unnamed doctor was, and by extension the entire pro-life movement, because of something she has no proof he even did.
Try spending your “compassion” on, say, keeping those kids alive, or even on improving the quality of life, health, and education of the desperately poor children here in the US (by, say, supporting socialized medicine so everyone can have access to health care, or equalizing funding for all school districts to everyone can have access to excellent education), and keep your nose out of the business of women who are making hard choices every day on how to live their lives.
Here we go with the old mantra “prolifers don’t care about children after they’re born” stuff. This is simply not true! There are many people on this board and in the prolife community at large who work with children, the elderly, the disabled. I am a sorcial worker who deals with underprivileged families every day. Its stressful and tiring and often exasperating, and you sure don’t make much money, but I do it because I CARE! And so do most prolifers.
.
If this article had been by a woman claiming that her abortionist had almost let her bleed to death, and pro-choicers called her on her inconsistencies, would they also be cold, cruel, mean, etc.?
The story would be ignored or dismissed. Look at the silence from PC’ers about Gosnell.
JMS:
Whether or not that’s true, a miscarriage is a natural event. It’s sad, but it is entirely different from a woman who deliberately kills her unborn child. That’s a huge difference. You can’t choose a miscarriage – you choose abortion.
JMS, we barely made it, just so you know. I think you’d be surprised at the resiliency of people. People scrape by on nothing all the time and come out alive. It’s horrible but it’s not the end of the world. Don’t you get it? Babies in the womb are living too! They are living children that I’m defending. They only need more defense because people like you can’t see that and so these little preborn babies get wantonly murdered!
Why doe you put my compassion in quotation marks? Do you think I’m not compassionate? Have you ever even met me? Do you know my heart? (kinda doubt it)
Ah, here we go with the “poor children in Africa” ploy. Let’s stay on track, please. I feel horrible for those poor children in Africa and around the world who die. But listen – I’m one woman! I can’t do it all. Just because I want to defend the lives of unborn babies in the US does not mean I don’t have compassion for those poor mothers and babies around the world. (and besides, how do you know I don’t donate to world-wide humanitarian charities? I do, as does my fiance).
And, with all your study of third world countries and concern for them, I’m sure that you’ve noticed that even the desperately poor in the US have a better quality of life and healthcare than the desperately poor in third world countries. But of course, you are once again totally getting off track. I am fighting to defend the life of the unborn. I’m a very young female, trying to earn a living myself, and so I can only do so much. I can stand up for the unborn and I can (and do!) budget for helping those who are worse off than I am. That’s compassion, JMS. Giving up things I may want in life to help others.
I don’t want to put my nose in anyone’s business except to save the life of their unborn baby. And listen, I know women in crisis pregnancy situations have hard choices – but the answer is never murder!
Megan, will you be officially changing your moniker to Krys?
JMS –
And like phillymiss, I have volunteered countless hours with disabled children and adults and helped homeless people and various other organizations because I have the Love of Jesus and because I care about people. I love people and want to help them. I plan on adopting unwanted US babies oneday and hopefully will also be a foster parent.
Sorry I haven’t done enough in your book in my very short time here on earth. Good gracious. But honestly I couldn’t care less about what you think about my compassion – I know where I stand with my conscience and my God.
I think it’s interesting that many of you have decided that the author is cold and unfeeling, when her editorial is anything but–and especially when almost all of you have immediately responded with “BUT WHERE’S THE LAWSUIT!?” Really? Is that the first thing that would occur to you upon losing a child? You wouldn’t bother mourning the baby, no–you’d contact a lawyer because that would fix it? And you have the nerve to call someone else cold and unfeeling.
And also, one of you already commented that as far as you’re (and I mean the general and the plural “you”), abortion is never the correct procedure. If you feel that way, what’s the point in trying to dissect what Mikki wrote? The details will never matter to you, so make up your minds, folks:
You either NEVER believe an abortion is the correct choice, regardless of the consequences,
or
You acknowledge that that view is flawed, short-sighted, cruel, and anti-woman, not to mention anti-life, when not performing an abortion can lead to a woman’s death.
Carder,
That was my sarcasm earlier. The severity of the hemorrhaging she claims, paired with a four hour wait would have been fatal, hence we see Mikki communicating ‘from the other side’. So, I want Jill to ask Mikki how my grandparents are doing ‘up there’.
I don’t find Mikki’s story credible.
It’s not written by a 3rd party that has a vested interest in keeping journalistic integrity. It’s not providing full verifiable facts/nameplaces. The one who has the most to benefit from putting it out there – is Mikki.
It seems she doesn’t have a lawsuit going against the hospital or malpracticing staff – her recent move out of state precludes the whole discovery process.
She has an interest in creating a fan-base for her fiction – whether that’s negative pro-life villification, or obtaining status as a champion for the pro-abortion cause. From what I can gather, any attention is beneficial:
http://www.verbnoire.com/editors
The timing of the Salon article publication coinciding with your move – along with her own numerous admissions – all adds up to considerable doubt on my part.
And Mikki can be as pissed as she wants, she has a paid article in a major website and notoriety from the pro-life community. She’s trying to make a point, but overall, it just looks like she’s being a useful tool to Plantation Parenthood of America at the expense of her very own child. (which I can’t find any other mention of on her website.)
“when not performing an abortion can lead to a woman’s death.”
This is the key fact of the situation that we’re trying to establish. Was the abortion necessary to save her life, or could she have had another procedure that would have both saved her life and given her child a chance at life?
That’s a pretty big point of contention. All we’re asking for is something to back up that claim.
Well, it didn’t take long for the stereotypes of the “cold, bitter, callous” Black mother to crawl out of the woodwork. I cannot help but wonder how these comments might have been different had Jill not so helpfully included Mikki’s picture (how, after all, would people efficiently stalk her otherwise)?
But of course Black people can’t possibly be telling the truth about anything to do with pregnancy and birth, including their own birthplaces, and must show papers documenting every last aspect of their lives in order to be believed.
“…getting cut open like a fish.” “rip your abdomen open” ..???
You certainly don’t know much about c-sections, do you?
My daughter was born at 33 weeks by c-section, and she is not “disabled for life” in any way.
I was born with several medical conditions myself. All of which were corrected by surgery. No one knows how a child’s life will turn out just because of some condition(s) that existed when they were born(or in my case, BEFORE I was born).
What are you talking about Jezebel?
The characterization of “cold” came because Mikki used the term “some fetus” to describe her dead child.
As for the picture, Jill posts a picture of everyone she quotes for the QOTD unless the quote is from the bible. Try again.
Jezebel,
Your comments are utterly ridiculous.
No one here mentioned her race until you came along.
We use the same terms to describe white abortive mothers as well.
Take your racist comments elsewhere, please. Thanks.
Just so you guys are clear, Salon did not pay Mikki for her article. It had been published elsewhere (on her blog!), and they don’t pay for reprints. Stop making things up without knowing the truth.
The publication of Mikki’s story bothers me because she accuses the doctors and they cannot defend themselves.
We have exactly no way of knowing the truth, and the reporting indicates that no one who published it is even interested in the truth.
There is a real problem with the unsubstantiated claims.
Is skepticism dead?
Give me a break, Jez.
Facebook pictures are hardly classified information.
And you, the prochoicer, are the first one to mention race. Nary a peep from us.
JMS – I wrote this blog post for people who think as you do.
Jezebel, why play the race card? It doesn’t make any difference what race Mikki is; it doesn’t change the fact that her story has inconsistencies that cast doubt on its veracity.
JoAnna: Maybe so. But we’ll still be here for all the other kids whose favorite teachers turn out to be child pornographers, and whose ministers turn out to be rapists. For all the people who figure out that right and wrong and life and death are not easy or simple, who grow up and find out that they’re on their own and need to be able to make their own choices. And we’ll be here for you too, if you change your mind.
“people can’t possibly be telling the truth about anything to do with pregnancy and birth, including their own birthplaces, and must show papers documenting every last aspect of their lives in order to be believed.”
Not all people at all times can be believed.
Therefore, all accusers must supply substantiation for their accusations.
The media would love to do more with this story, but the NYTimes can’t touch it because of all the problems that have been cited. That is why it is in Salon.
“that right and wrong and life and death are not easy or simple”
And once again the scourge of moral relativism rears its ugly head.
Jezebel – I am black and even though I don’t know Jill personally, she hardly seems racist. I don’t think this issue has anything to do with race. Believe me, if I think anyone on this board is being racist, I will say so!
Yatima, I am truly sorry for what happened to you. It sounds like your church and people you trusted, especially your pastor betrayed you. I hope this person was arrested and punished to the full extent of the law.
I related my story of how my daughter was sexually molested when she was barely four years. She is now a lovely young woman, a college graduate and engaged to be married, but it was a nightmare for all of us.
I am sure there are people here who have been victims of sexual violence, so why do you think that prolifers don’t care about this issue?
“Name the hospital, Mikki. Name the doctor. Show me the charting.”
Ms Stanek, I assume you’d have no problem showing me your medical qualifications (Please excuse my not knowing the terminology, I’m English and don’t know exactly what you call them in America.)
Along with this, of course you’ll have no problem showing pictures of your driver’s license so we can verify that your qualifications belong to you?
Otherwise, I’m just not sure I can *believe* you’re a nurse. I don’t feel like the facts add up – I feel like you might emotionally believe you were a nurse, but you know, the things you’re saying make me doubt the veracity of your story.
Jezebel – you’re the first person to mention race. The judgments of her level of attachment came from he behavior in the story and her calling her allegedly wanted child “that fetus.” The comments would have been the same regardless of race.
Krys/Megan? (why the switch?): And her physical condition also encompasses her emotional and mental condition….also valid health-related reasons for getting a late-term abortion.
And this is why we laugh at those who pretend abortion isn’t available on demand through all 9 months of pregnancy.
I feel bad about what she went through, but she’s selling an agenda with this story. And based on the facts, it’s not one I’m buying.
I never said anti-choicers don’t care about these issues. I simply pointed out that for some of us, these kinds of betrayal drive us away from dependence on people who claim moral authority for themselves, and (if we’re lucky) bring us into a state of trusting people to make decisions for themselves.
Or, as lauren called it, “the scourge of moral relativism”
“She has an interest in creating a fan-base for her fiction – whether that’s negative pro-life villification, or obtaining status as a champion for the pro-abortion cause. From what I can gather, any attention is beneficial:”
Chris – you do realise that you’re the first person to link to Verb Noire? I think it’s disingenuous to link to something then accuse someone *else* of publicising it.
How many links did you click to get to that site? Was it more than one? Did you make an effort to find it? I have the Salon article open in another tab and I don’t see anywhere where Mikki promoted her fiction.
In addition to this, while you’re arguing she is gaining something, couldn’t the argument be made that she’s alienating potential pro-life readers, who seem to be a significant segment of the population? Hardly the marketing strategy of the century.
“bring us into a state of trusting people to make decisions for themselves.”
Trusting people to make decisions for themselves doesn’t mean that all decisions are moral.
Yatima – and how would abortion help in any of those situations? It wouldn’t, at all. I will never change my mind. I don’t believe that any circumstance justifies the direct murder of an innocent human being.
Jack – Jill Stanek has testified before Congress. Do you think that Congress routinely accepts testimony from those who are faking their credentials?
JoAnna – Going into what I think the government gets up to is likely to derail the thread. My point was more that if Ms Stanek believes someone she doesn’t know should put her personal details on the internet – and considering medical records are personal enough that your own mother can’t see them without your say-so – then she should be willing to put her own personal information on the internet.
And you can say “But Mikki started it by posting” – yes, she did, and Ms Stanek started her side of things by posting this. Therefore she should be subject to the same demands.
Actually, Jack, you questioned Jill’s credentials, so it’s up to you to prove why you think Congress would accept testimony from someone who allegedly faked those credentials.
I don’t recall Jill asking Mikki to post those details publicly. She just asked for further clarification, and if Mikki wanted to she could provide those to Jill privately, or she could clarify some of the inconsistencies that wouldn’t require divulging any further level of detail then she’s already provided publicly.
“Trusting people to make decisions for themselves doesn’t mean that all decisions are moral.”
Guess what. Your morality isn’t hers. Your morality isn’t anyone’s but yours. Nor is it your place to play judge. And jury. And, if you’d had your way, or the doctor had had his, executioner.
Oh, great, Ophy. That means I can go and rob a bank, given that my morality is mine alone. Who is anyone to tell me I’m wrong if I steal? My morality is mine and it is no one’s place to judge.
JoAnna – correct, that’s why we have laws. and currently, law of the land says I get to choose what happens to my body, and accept the consequences of same. Law and Morals are entirely separate and not equal.
(edited for clarification and slang usage)
Actually Ophy, morality must, by its very nature, be able to be universalized.
“Law != Morals.”
Ophy, in Ireland abortion is illegal. Does it then follow, by your logic, that abortion is immoral in Ireland? Stated differently, is a woman acting immorally if she undergoes an abortion in Ireland?
Interesting, Ophy. So, I assume that you believe slavery was moral in 1865, as the law stated that black people weren’t persons? And I assume that you fully support the Holocaust, given that Jews weren’t legally people in Hitler’s regime? If legality = morality in your world, then of course you must fully approve of the latter two examples.
Lauren, incorrect. my morals come from a different place than I suspect yours do. I believe different things than you do about the primacy of a living woman’s body vs. a collection of growing cells. (ooh, can’t wait to see the ‘bitter’ comments on that one.) BUT, that doesn’t mean I get to disbelieve in laws, or not obey them, because they conflict with my morals. I may believe (as JoAnna notes above) that’s it’s okay to rob a bank, because i’m gonna donate that money to an anti-abortion group and save a thousand babies! that’s moral! but it’s not legal, and I don’t get to pick what’s legal.
Roe v. Wade is law. What the doctor did or didn’t do in terms of care is morals. And it’s not okay for his morals to take precedence over law.
Please allow me to clarify: != is a hacker-slang construction I should not have used. it says Law DOES NOT = morals.
so yes, Ireland’s law against abortion is, I believe immoral, but I (if I were Irish) could still be prosecuted if I chose not to obey it. Slavery was immoral before 1865 as it is now, but I could still be horsewhipped or hung in the South for assisting slaves to escape.
Interesting, Ophy. So you believe that German doctors in Hitler’s regime were morally obligated to kill Jews if their employer required them to do so?
Where do your morals come from, Ophy?
edit:you addressed this above, while I was writing the comment. nvm.
Yatima – unfortunately churches and “religious” people have caused a great deal of church. It really is a disgrace. Once again, I am sorry about what happened to you.
Well folks, I am leaving this board now and getting ready to enjoy my long holiday weekend. I hope that all of you do the same.
In other words, get off the internet and HAVE SOME FUN!
Why bring up legality at all, Ophe? We all know the current state of the law. When debating the morality of a situation, the current state of the law is of little use.
JoAnna – legally obligated, for whatever sickening reason hitler dreamt up, but that’s not the same thing as morals. Law and Morals are NOT the same. They aren’t and never will be. Laws may be moral or immoral (I think RvW is moral, I’m pretty sure you’d disagree), but that doesn’t change its status as a law.
Then, Ophy, you believe that employees must do what their employers mandate, as long as the behavior is legal, even if they are morally opposed? In other words, you believe that German doctors in Hitler’s regime were indeed justified in killing Jews even if they were personally and/or morally opposed?
Where do your morals come from, Ophy?
From Jesus and Buddha and the Tao and Islam and a few other minor belief systems, most of which seem to be pretty firm on “love the divine in yourself, and be nice to other people”, ignoring the regrettable overlays of people trying to use whatever authority they can find to justify their own twisted worldviews.
You seem to have the relationship between morality and legality reversed. Is abortion immoral in Ireland or Poland? Was it immoral in America prior to 1973?
Nope, I believe firmly that a woman’s body is her own, and an abortion is a completely moral choice. Unfortunately, in the situations mentioned, it wasn’t a legal one.
The doctors were free to make a moral choice and face punishment or death. Many of them did. Many other people did. Some got killed for it, some got away with it. that doesn’t change the fact that those laws existed in Germany at that time. Why is that conceptually difficult for you?
I can make choices for me according to my morals, and accept the consequences of having done so. I can choose to kill other people, but better be able to accept that I’m going to get shot like a dog by a cop for making that choice. I can choose to rob a bank, or embezzle from my employer, but if I get caught, I’m probably going to end up in a tiny room with unpleasant housemates for a while. I can choose to abort a baby, and accept that I’m going to suffer grief, and still know that it’s the best choice for me morally.
I can choose these things because I’m an adult, and understand that there are consequences to my actions. I do not get to make choices for other adults based on my morals. Their actions, and consequences, are theirs.
(edited for paragraphs. dammit.)
“be nice to other people”
How do you square that with “abortion is a completely moral choice”?
Abortion is most certainly not “nice” to the child being torn apart limb by limb.
“I can choose to abort a baby, and accept that I’m going to suffer grief, and still know that it’s the best choice for me morally.”
Based on what moral maxim?
phillymiss-
pro-choicers do not support Gosnell. They don’t support doctors that don’t treat women well, or that violate the Hippocratic oath.
lauren- forcing a woman to endure an unwanted pregnancy is not being “nice” to other people either.
Why bring up legality at all, Ophy? We all know the current state of the law. When debating the morality of a situation, the current state of the law is of little use.
However, the law vs morals issue is an important one, because one of the great thrusts of the pro-life campaign is to turn one group’s set of morals into laws that will affect me, and a lot of other women, very personally.
From opposite sides of the fence, we agree on this completely (and, I suspect, on more than just the issue at hand.)
also, Joanna-
L O L we have CONGRESSMEN that lie in front of congress.
Remember ol’ John Kyl? Stating that 90% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion?
full on, straight-up lie. Celebrities are allowed to testify in front of congress, for no real qualifications of their own, and Jill Stanek was allowed to testify in front of congress not because she is an expert in ANY way, but because she was willing to say what her special interest group wanted her to say. She was a puppet, with minimal qualifications, and a large following of simpletons.
“Be nice” is not my moral imperative, Mike. It’s Ophy’s.
“the pro-life campaign is to turn one group’s set of morals into laws that will affect me, and a lot of other women, very personally.”
We are agreed that morals do not necessarily equate to laws. I highlighted the flawed statement. It is not simply “one group’s set of morals.” it is the only logical conclusion that can follow from the facts of the situation.
You seem to be of a more sound head than a lot of the pro-choicers that come here, so I do have hope for a fruitful conversation.
What I want to do is establish what your thought process is that leads from “be nice to people” to “abortion is a moral choice.”
She was a puppet, with minimal qualifications, and a large following of simpletons.
Just out of curiosity… have you read Jill’s story?
Interesting how you continue to visit this “puppet’s” blog, full of “simpletons” you can’t seem to stop interacting with.
But I guess I’d rather be a “simpleton” who believes killing developing preborn children is wrong than an abortion supporter with a superiority complex.
Krys, this event in Mikki’s life shouldn’t have ever been about abortion at all. (Legal abortion pits a healthy mother against a healthy child, and therefore pollutes all doctor/patient/mother/child relationships). It should have been about a medical staff trying to save the life of both mother and child. If the child was lost while trying to save the mother, that is not an abortion. If the child is deliberately killed and then they tried to save the mother, that is abortion. You cannot attack the child, you must try to save the mother. If me and my twin fall overboard and we struggle toward the same small life preserver, should someone throw a brick at my twin so I have a better chance? No. Try to save both, and if you can’t succeed, well, then you can’t.
When abortion is illegal again, ALL doctors will have to do this:
Try to save the mother. Try to save the child. Do not attack the child to save the mother. Do not attack the mother to save the child. If one of them dies while doctors are trying to save them both, that is indeed a terrible tragedy.
“be nice to other people”
How do you square that with “abortion is a completely moral choice”?
Abortion is most certainly not “nice” to the child being torn apart limb by limb.
And here’s where your morals and my morals will part ways, so I’m going to make this statement and leave it. Because I know the audience I’m speaking to, and there is exactly zero point in debating it.
TO ME, FOR ME ONLY, AND I KNOW OTHER PEOPLE DON’T THINK THIS WAY, the fetus is a collection of cells. it’s not a living, breathing, thinking anything. It’s like asking me to be nice to my liver. (Actually, I should be nice to my liver, it’s put in yeoman work over the years.)
When I was pregnant at 19, and had my abortion at the end of what would be my first trimester, I experienced no guilt or grief. Just went on with my life, took precautions so that wouldn’t happen again, and have had no lingering emotional effects or trauma or anything else. Because it was a collection of cells that had the potential to be a baby, but it wasn’t a baby. didn’t cry, didn’t move, didn’t have a brain or a heart or anything but a bundle of nerves.
Other living breathing human beings, my friends’ babies, strangers’ kids, the cashier at the supermarket, the people behind the IDs on this board, all deserve my kindness, and my respect for their connection to the divine, and their own freedom to make choices, even if I think they’re bad ones. But a collection of cells, I can’t privilege.
But that’s MY answer to the question. You guys don’t think this way, no other pro-choicers I know think this way, this statement is in no way intended to speak for anyone except me, all legal disclaimers apply.
Lauren, since I know what I wrote above will probably shoot all hope of further rational discussion in the foot, I’d like to thank you and the others of this board also for the level of discussion and the chance to talk without immediate descent into rhetoric. It’s a good reminder that it is possible to find common ground, even between two very inflexible poles.
Ninek,
“When abortion is illegal again, ALL doctors will have to do this:
Try to save the mother. Try to save the child. Do not attack the child to save the mother. Do not attack the mother to save the child. If one of them dies while doctors are trying to save them both, that is indeed a terrible tragedy.”
Are you SERIOUS? Women WANT TO LIVE. We have lives, other children, families, friends, social obligations, occupations, dreams, thoughts, ideologies, etc. Women should be able to decide if they wish to give their OWN LIFE to give birth.
Ophy, I understand that it is your belief that a fetus – at the end of the first trimester – is merely a collection of cells with no brain or heart, but biological fact contradicts your belief. Therefore, though you claim you have had no trauma or emotional effects, it appears that you are in denial of the fact that an 11-12 week fetus is far, far more developed than most people realize.
I have an ultrasound of my daughter at 11 weeks gestation. It was my first pregnancy and I did not expect to see a fully formed little human, kicking, moving, and turning on her side, as well as sucking her thumb and moving her mouth, visibly, on the ultrasound. Your description of a late first trimester fetus is simply wrong. Please look at the link I placed above. I understand that telling yourself these false characteristics about the child you carried help you to go on with life without having to consider the humanity of your child. I always cringe when I see someone who has had an abortion say, “It was just a clump of cells.” That tells me the person was not fully informed before having her abortion. Many of the women on these boards have had abortions and later learned the truth. They are here for you should you ever need assistance.
Ophy, if you look at any medical textbook, you will see that your “collection of cells” at the end of the first trimester, could move, and did have a heartbeat. Here is a description of the 9 to 12 weeks of pregnancy:
http://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/your-pregnancy-week-by-week-weeks-9-12
Elizabeth – I totally agree, it is really sad to read these comments…
But, you will never get anyone on this blog to actually admit that abortion helps people. You just hear about the fetuses… Oh the poor fetuses… who cares about the women they can die and if they choose to have an abortion rather than die they are sinners and are going to burn in hell….
It is like a fetus cult in here…
Being pro-life is a position I understand completely. It’s a personal choice for many women that they would never get an abortion and can’t understand how anybody else could. These women should not ever be forced to get abortions, which is why pro-choicers (and I think that having done a lot of activism for Planned Parenthood, I can speak with some authority on what pro-choicers tend to argue for) disapprove of compulsory sterilization and compulsory abortion. A woman whose personal convictions are strongly against abortion should never be forced to get one, because that is what informed consent is all about. That is what bodily autonomy is all about.
When it verges over into anti-choice territory, though, things start getting dodgy. When we start arguing that a pregnant woman is not morally mature enough to be trusted with the decision of whether to stay pregnant? Dodgy.
Furthermore, as far as the whole “life begins at conception” thing, that’s not a scientific or medically-founded point. How do I know this?
Obstetricians define a pregnancy as starting at implantation (which is the point when the zygote sticks to the inside wall of the uterus). They do this because this is the point at which the woman’s body acknowledges that it is pregnant and that it needs to start adjusting.
This isn’t a political stance on their part so that they can help Planned Parenthood get women their whore pills. This is a medical judgement based on when a woman’s body begins to behave “pregnant.” The pregnancy doesn’t start at fertilization, because in many cases the zygote will fail to implant and the woman won’t even know that the egg she’s flushing with this period was fertilized. Spiritual life as you define it begins at fertilization, but the pregnancy doesn’t start until implantation.
I suspect that the medical argument isn’t your primary point, though, so I’ll address the theological angle.
I am always sort of puzzled by the whole allegedly-Biblical view that life begins at conception. I’ve been giving it some thought based on what I remember from the Bible study I did in college and looked some stuff up and wanted to bring what I pulled together.
RE: Life beginning at conception. Yes, I realize that it is Catholic dogma that this is the case. The Catholic Church also only admitted about forty years ago that the Earth revolves around the sun. Are we really going to use them as a science authority? I mean, I guess you can. I won’t be. But this isn’t even a scriptural or Biblically-founded point they are making. That stuff is NOT in the Bible.
So what’s actually in the Bible? When does a human acquire a soul? Well, let’s ask when Adam was alive. When God breathed life into him.
Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
This is why, for a very long time historically, a woman’s fetus was not considered an autonomous human being until it took its first breath. It’s only when science gave us a view into what actually happens in the uterus that Christian churches had to start figuring out when this thing became a human with a soul.
At no point does any secular governing body have any call making law based on who has a soul and who doesn’t. I certainly hope that in this thread we can agree on that much. However, for those Biblical literalists who care more about getting on Santa’s Nice List than they do about what godless obstetricians say, I refer you back to Genesis. A fetus is a baby when it takes its first breath. Even Adam wasn’t human before that.
Surprise surprise, Bible-thumping anti-choicers need to lern2Bible before pulling out their half-understood regurgitated dogma. Unless you’re a Roman Catholic, your own Iron Age obstetrics manual (harr harr) points out that breath is life. Even the word “spirit” in Hebrew means “breath.”
“There is a spirit [Hebrew, ruach, breath] in man: and the inspiration [breathing in] of the Almighty gives them understanding. … The spirit [Hebrew, ruach, breath] of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.” -Job 32:8 and 33:4.
So seriously, to the “life at conception cuz YHWH said so” regurgitating fundies: go get some formal Bible education and then come back and tell me what it says.
It’s probably obvious that the Biblical view doesn’t actually hold any water with me. I prefer to use obstetrics texts that were written after the advent of modern medicine. However, I know there are a lot of people who do care about what the Bible says about what we are, who we are, and how we should live. I also know that many such people haven’t had opportunity to actually sit down and do formal study of this book that rules their lives, and have to simply believe what church authorities and their parents tell them is true.
So yeah. If you want to decide how to live based on what the Bible says, I’m gonna think you’re a little nuts, but at least find out what’s in the book before you start making decisions and constricting the decisions of others and make sure that it’s really telling you what you’ve been TOLD it tells you.
The doctors were free to make a moral choice and face punishment or death. Many of them did. Many other people did. Some got killed for it, some got away with it. that doesn’t change the fact that those laws existed in Gernany at that time. Why is that conceptually difficult for you?
In other words, in your view the Holocaust was entirely justified because the people involved believed they were acting morally, and because it was legal to kill Jews at that time and in that place.
Okay then. Good to know. I can’t say I give too much credence to your personal moral code if it allows you to justify the Holocaust.
Mike – so all Congressional testimony is worthless, and everyone lies to Congress to further their own agenda. You must also believe that every word of testimony that Planned Parenthood has given before Congress is also a lie. Given that, how can you support them? They have told Congress that they support women and provide needed healthcare, but you’ve just said this was a lie, since it was said before Congress.
Biggz – Women deserve better than abortion. So do children.
Kel – thanks so much for the “explanation,” but Dad is a biologist, and Mom is a teacher. While not a scientist myself (stupid math dyslexia), i *love* science writing and Nova and Cosmos and Lewis Thomas essays and Richard Feynman books, and my Discover and SciAm subscriptions. I adored Thomas’s conception of the world as a single organism, and his relation of music to math and astronomy.
I was one of those kids who actually preferred public TV to cartoons. And I thought the TV shows and that photographic series on stages of pregnancy was both fascinating and aesthetically beautiful. (I also think Body Worlds, while ooky at first, is amazing art.)
It’s a clump of cells with potential. It’s more genetically interesting than a virus or a tumor. But it’s not a baby. And I’m not a poor helpless girl who was led astray by doctors. Excellent attempt at taking my agency away from me, though.
I don’t believe life begins at conception because the Bible tells me so. I believe it because scientifically, it is true. Also, read here about the zygote.
Philosophy and theology don’t even need to enter the equation. Are you aware that there are atheist and agnostic pro-lifers as well as non-Christian, religious ones?
Why is the immediate response to this story “Let’s see how we can pick it apart, discredit it, and cast the woman telling it as dishonest”? Why not, at the very least, “I’m terribly sorry that she lost her child and had such a traumatic health crisis,” or “The health professionals at that hospital treated her terribly”? Why not assume, at the very least for the sake of argument, that the story is true, and ask how we can ensure that pregnant women can get proper medical treatment while also respecting the lives of their children? If we believe that it’s really possible to do both, then we should be able to handle listening to this story and figuring out what needs to change for women like Ms. Kendall to get better care.
I just don’t understand why a woman who lost a child and nearly died has to be cast as an enemy.
No one’s taking away your “agency” here, Ophy. But the fact remains that you are dead wrong in your description of a first trimester fetus. So, maybe you should have watched more Nova growing up.
The doctors were free to make a moral choice and face punishment or death. Many of them did. Many other people did. Some got killed for it, some got away with it. that doesn’t change the fact that those laws existed in Gernany at that time. Why is that conceptually difficult for you?
In other words, in your view the Holocaust was entirely justified because the people involved believed they were acting morally, and because it was legal to kill Jews at that time and in that place.
Okay then. Good to know. I can’t say I give too much credence to your personal moral code if it allows you to justify the Holocaust.
This is so ridiculously and deliberately misconstrued that it made me LOL. Thanks for the Godwin. Bored now.
Biggz, your contempt for those of the pro-life, religious persuasion is duly noted.
Perhaps you might want to choose less inflammatory words in the future or you risk being banned from the “fetus cult.”
Ophy,
Just a general comment: You’ve handled yourself beautifully in this debate
I suspect that the medical argument isn’t your primary point, though, so I’ll address the theological angle.
And that’s where you’d be absolutely wrong.
But as far as the science goes, please tell me how a human life ending naturally by failing to implant/genetic disease/accident is the same as a mother making a conscious decision/choice to end the life of her child either via an abortion or Andrea Yates-style. I fail to see your point, and I’m sorry but from my perspective the “science” you’ve provided seems like just sound and fury signifying nothing.
From my own experience I can tell you that IF the pregnancy is no longer viable… as is suggested by the writer… even a Catholic Hospital will “remove the foreign tissue” in order to prevent rupture and/or hemmorage which would endanger the mother.
I had it done twice – at a Catholic hospital each time.
This is why, taking the writer at her word, a doctor that acted to sacrifice the mother’s life for a pregnancy which was no longer viable should be prosecuted and removed from practice. THIS is why I want to know WHO he is and if there is litigation or criminal prosecution pending. THERE SHOULD BE!
But that’s a lot of IFs… which I think is what the prolife contingent is getting at here…
So – If the pregnancy *was* still viable why didn’t she choose the alternative treatment? If the answer is either incovenience, discomfort or fear, THAT’S got prolifers in a twist.
OPHY: “the fetus is a collection of cells.”
Right, so you don’t care to have a discussion based on facts. You are only interested in saying what you think, even though what you think is contradictory within your own moral system.
It is easy to win a moral argument when your system is built retrospectively. Simply pick and choose stand alone beliefs, regardless of contradiction, that justify the thing you want to believe.
You want to believe that abortion is justified, so you simply come up with an arbitrary system to justify it. For example, you claim that a fetus is a collection of cells, so it is okay to harm it, yet all living beings are collection of cells and you argue that you must NOT harm them. This is a contradiction.
You also argue that a fetus is not a “living” thing, lacking a heart and brain, which is absolutely false based on demonstrable science. Even so, there are humans with no hearts (artificial hearts) that you believe deserve kindness. Again, your system contradicts itself.
Additionally, and I could go on and on, you claim that a fetus is not a “thinking” being, and THUS does not deserve to be treated well. This is something you believe despite that you (likely) believe that severely handicapped humans, who lack the ability to truly think, deserve kindness, or at least to not be ripped apart callously by his/her caretaker.
I mean, you yourself openly admit that your system is completely unlike any other system. To me, this smacks of an implicit understanding of its invalidity. I mean, if you do not believe your system is applicable to any body else, why even talk about it? I mean, abortion doesn’t involve only you, so why should a moral system applying to you alone be the arbiter of justice?
(In short, if you don’t believe in any sort of universal morality, contingent or non-contingent, then why even argue with someone? Why try to enact legislation? Why do anything other than vote your opinion if you openly admit that your arguments are only meaningful to yourself?)
Just a general comment: You’ve handled yourself beautifully in this debate
Yes. The “Nanny-nanny boo-boo, I’m not listening! *sticks fingers in ears*” form of debating tactics have always been fascinating to me, as well. 9_9
Yes. The “Nanny-nanny boo-boo, I’m not listening! *sticks fingers in ears*” form of debating tactics have always been fascinating to me, as well. 9_9
Haha!
Yeah, it’s always fun when you’re debating someone who totally ignores reality and invents their own.
Hi Oliver!
Xalisae,
Actually, I was referring to the fact that she never rose to any of the baiting tactics that you’re so fond of
Me: The doctors were free to make a moral choice and face punishment or death. Many of them did. Many other people did. Some got killed for it, some got away with it. that doesn’t change the fact that those laws existed in Germany at that time. Why is that conceptually difficult for you?
JoAnna: In other words, in your view the Holocaust was entirely justified because the people involved believed they were acting morally, and because it was legal to kill Jews at that time and in that place
Joanna: Okay then. Good to know. I can’t say I give too much credence to your personal moral code if it allows you to justify the Holocaust.
Me: This is so ridiculously and deliberately misconstrued that it made me LOL.
(edited to add to comment, which was eaten dammit.)
I’ve changed my mind and am going to engage, perhaps foolishly, this logical pretzel you’ve twisted in an attempt to prove me wrong.
In small words: Law and Morals are different.
Law is an attempt to codify group Morals and enforce desired behaviour with rewards or punishment. But they’re still different.
Law can make humans less human, as you have so eloquently Godwinned. That’s immoral. But it’s not illegal.
Laws can make corporations equivalent to humans. I think that’s immoral, personally. But the Supreme Court said it wasn’t illegal.
Laws can give me the right to choose whether or not to have medical procedures performed. I can refuse transfusions not only for myself, but for a child of mine, because it’s against my religion. I may have strong feelings about the morality of refusing life-saving medical treatment in favor of prayer, but it’s not (currently) illegal.
Laws do not equal Morals.
I can choose to do things about Laws. I can live under them, or work to change them, or I can defy them. I can expect consequences to occur for each of those options. But I cannot do anything about anyone’s Morals and the choices based on them, except my own. And you don’t get to do anything about the choices I make, based on your Morals, because they aren’t mine.
Are we all clear now?
(edited for html. Damn, this interface is frustrating.)
“I just don’t understand why a woman who lost a child and nearly died has to be cast as an enemy.”
She’s not cast as the enemy, but because she is using her story to support abortion on demand, we are asking for clarifications to make sure that the picture she’s painting is an accurate representation of her case.
”
Furthermore, as far as the whole “life begins at conception” thing, that’s not a scientific or medically-founded point. How do I know this?
Obstetricians define a pregnancy as starting at implantation (which is the point when the zygote sticks to the inside wall of the uterus). They do this because this is the point at which the woman’s body acknowledges that it is pregnant and that it needs to start adjusting.
This isn’t a political stance on their part so that they can help Planned Parenthood get women their whore pills. This is a medical judgement based on when a woman’s body begins to behave “pregnant.” The pregnancy doesn’t start at fertilization, because in many cases the zygote will fail to implant and the woman won’t even know that the egg she’s flushing with this period was fertilized. Spiritual life as you define it begins at fertilization, but the pregnancy doesn’t start until implantation.”
This is actually not a true statement. The medical definition of pregnancy changed in the 1960′s when hormonal contraception came into being. In order for it to classified as “contraception” instead of “abortificient” the medical definition had to be changed. This does not change the biological fact that a new, unique human life begins at conception.
Ophy, the Wikipedia article on Godwin’s Law states:
Godwin’s law itself can be abused, as a distraction, diversion or even censorship, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent’s argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.
You said: “Law can make humans less human, as you have so eloquently Godwinned. That’s immoral. But it’s not illegal.”
Exactly! And current US law has deemed that unborn children are less human, even though they are not. Therefore, how can you say that pro-lifers are not justified in trying to change US law to recognize that the unborn are, in fact, human beings?
Furthermore, as far as the whole “life begins at conception” thing, that’s not a scientific or medically-founded point.
*sigh* I will never understand why pro-choicers are so anti-science.
“Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception). Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.” [Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]
Oliver: Arguing that an in-utero fetus is a living separate human being is like arguing that my liver should be emancipated.
It is easy to win a moral argument when your system is built retrospectively. Simply pick and choose stand alone beliefs, regardless of contradiction, that justify the thing you want to believe.
So, your belief system was implanted pre-birth, was it? or was it the product of your education and raising? or what you read and saw later in life? Isn’t faith, by definition, believing what is contradictory or un-provable? ooh, i LOVE this argument!
You want to believe that abortion is justified, so you simply come up with an arbitrary system to justify it. For example, you claim that a fetus is a collection of cells, so it is okay to harm it, yet all living beings are collection of cells and you argue that you must NOT harm them. This is a contradiction.
I believe I stated up front that I don’t think most people think like me about this. All living beings are collections of cells. But some of those cells (like, say, a tapeworm, or a mosquito) are separate from me, and some (like my liver, or an implanted zygote) aren’t. And hey, even the Dalai Lama agreed that it’s okay to swat mosquitoes, as long as you’re mindful of what you’re doing.
Good grief Ophy! Why do you glory in sounding like an ignoramus? At the end of the first trimester the baby has a HEARTBEAT that actually started at about 3 weeks. The baby has a BRAIN with brain waves that were measurable by week 5. The baby has arms and legs that formed about week 4 and fingers and toes that formed about week 6. The baby has a face that by the end of the first trimester has discernible family features (like daddy’s big nose or mommy’s big chin or grandpa’s small forehead etc…) The baby starts moving by the end of the first month and by the end of the 3rd month is making deliberate, calculated movements and even sucking his/her thumb. But keep believing it was a bunch of cells, collections of nerves and not moving. You choose to be ignorant. You choose to sound uneducated. Congrats. This is not the middle ages. You can readily access and see information these days. There is not excuse for spewing ridiculous, untrue statements about fetal development in this day and age. We know the earth is round now too. Did you know that? Or do you still subscribe to the flat earth theory?
Cobalt, Biggaz, Mike — who is talking about religion here? You’re the ones who are bringing it up.
Also, this has been an absolutely fascinating discussion, and allowed me to clarify some of my own morals, in my own head. So thank you all for that.
and now, I need to get on with my actual workday…
“She’s not cast as the enemy, but because she is using her story to support abortion on demand, we are asking for clarifications to make sure that the picture she’s painting is an accurate representation of her case.”
That’s not how it comes across when people are saying they don’t think she’s telling the truth, that she just didn’t want to deal with bed rest, that maybe she wasn’t really committed to having this child, etc. Suppose that the details were exactly the same, except that the article had been written by a pro-life woman who was told by doctors that she had to abort, but then later came to doubt whether that was true. Would people be making the same assumptions? Would they feel bad if they later found out that she was telling the truth and that they’d cast aspersions on someone who went through a tragedy?
JoAnna,
Just as Prolifers’ opinions vary, as do the opinions of Prochoicers. I’m not anti-science at all – I believe that life begins at conception and that it has the POTENTIAL to become a person. Is that life human? Absolutely. Is it a person? Absolutely not.
If you consult The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the very first article states:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
All people are BORN. The semantics over where life begins, etc, is rather irrelevant to the larger picture. Regardless of when life begins, we don’t allow others to use another person’s body against their will. This is why we prosecute rapists. So even if the fetus IS determined a human being or even a person, IT STILL DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO USE THE WOMAN’S BODY AGAINST HER WILL.
Perhaps in a few years, science will develop a means of removing an embryo/fetus from a woman’s uterus and placing it into an artificial womb where it can fulfill its potential and become a person – but until then, women have the absolute RIGHT to ensure that their body remains their own.
Elizabeth,
So, just to be sure I’m clear on your position, your opinion is that a fetus is not a person until the moment s/he has emerged from the womb?
Also, the bodily autonomy argument doesn’t hold water. In 99% of cases, the partners freely consented to sex. Sex is the biological act meant to create babies. If people are not prepared for the natural consequence of the sex act, they should exercise their free choice not to engage in it. Otherwise, they need to accept responsibility for those natural consequences. It is not the child’s fault that the circumstances of his/her conception were not carefully thought out by his/her biological parents.
OH, dammit, one more, and you’ll like it.
JoAnna: Exactly! And current US law has deemed that unborn children are less human, even though they are not. Therefore, how can you say that pro-lifers are not justified in trying to change US law to recognize that the unborn are, in fact, human beings?
Laws do not equal Morals.
I can choose to do things about Laws. I can live under them, or work to change them, or I can defy them. I can expect consequences to occur for each of those options. But I cannot do anything about anyone’s Morals and the choices based on them, except my own. And you don’t get to do anything personally to me about the choices I make, based on your Morals, because they aren’t mine.
You go girl, work to get that law changed. I’ll work to keep it the way it is.
(edited for clarity of expression.)
Oh my, Oliver just joined the conversation.
Now if Bambino can come on board, we’ll have the “Logic Brigade” in full gear.
JoAnna,
My personal opinion, yes, but as stated, I believe it’s rather irrelevant to the larger issue. Regardless of whether or not we grant embryos/fetuses personhood, they still haven’t the right to utilize a woman’s body against her will.
Ophy,
So, it is your opinion that people should not work to change unjust laws?
I’m very glad that abolitionists did not share your opinion.
Elizabeth,
Interesting. So do you believe that the Unborn Victims of Violence Act is an unjust law, and anyone who kills a pregnant woman should not be prosecuted for the murder of the baby, even if the woman was 38 weeks pregnant?
JoAnna,
Just because someone consents to sex -especially considering the limited amount of sexual education in America – doesn’t mean that they consent to being pregnant. Condoms break, birth control fails, and there is NO 100 % effective method of birth control aside from abstinence which isn’t realistic. Sex is used for NUMEROUS different reasons and procreation is just one.
While you may disagree, abortion, adoption, parenthood, are ALL responsible options to pregnancy.
JoAnna,
I don’t think the law is unjust but rather misguided. The person who kills a pregnant woman (if premeditated) should be convicted of murder 1, I think the bill means well – to protect women from violent offenders – but the logic is skewed.
there is NO 100 % effective method of birth control aside from abstinence
Precisely! That’s why consent to sex carries an implicit consent to the natural consequence of that act. If the sex WORKS, and creates a child as it is meant to, then the parties who consented to the act that created that child have the responsibility to care for it, just as parents who give birth to or adopt a child have the responsibility (enforced by the government) to care for it.
I’m sorry but I will never agree that the brutal dismemberment of a healthy, living child is a responsible option in response to a crisis pregnancy. It is a violation of the right of a human being (who is also a person, because one’s location alone does not establish one’s personhood).
Also, why don’t you think the law is unjust? If it stipulates charging a person with two murders when in your view only one was killed, don’t you think that is inherently unjust? If not, why not?
I believe it’s rather irrelevant to the larger issue. Regardless of whether or not we grant embryos/fetuses personhood, they still haven’t the right to utilize a woman’s body against her will.
It’s quite relevant. Once they are considered a person (as they should be), it would logically follow that that person is the pregnant woman’s biological child. A biological parent who has default custody is required to provide anything for his/her child they might require in order to sustain that child’s life. In this case it would entail nutrients/oxygen from his/her mother and the residence to remain safe and healthy.
I’m sorry but I will never agree that the brutal dismemberment of a healthy, living child is a responsible option in response to a crisis pregnancy. It is a violation of the right of a human being (who is also a person, because one’s location alone does not establish one’s personhood).
Word.
Elizabeth quote me,
“When abortion is illegal again, ALL doctors will have to do this:
Try to save the mother. Try to save the child. Do not attack the child to save the mother. Do not attack the mother to save the child. If one of them dies while doctors are trying to save them both, that is indeed a terrible tragedy.”
Then added:
Are you SERIOUS? Women WANT TO LIVE. We have lives, other children, families, friends, social obligations, occupations, dreams, thoughts, ideologies, etc. Women should be able to decide if they wish to give their OWN LIFE to give birth.
Elizabeth, you obviously did not read even what you quoted from me. Please reread what I said again. There is no reason to do violence to a child to save the mother. Both lives are valuable. If the child is removed from the mother in the process of trying to save the mother’s life, that is where we differ:
Abortion is deliberately killing that child.
Medical treatment is doing what you can for the child, who may not survive.
Can you really not see the difference? This is why abortion has got to go. It pits a mother and father against their own child, as if life is some kind of competition, some kind of death match. It’s not. ”Social obligations” are not a justification for murder. Neither are dreams, thoughts, or idealogies. If abortion had never been legalized, Mikki would be telling a story about how her privacy was invaded by students and her pain left un-addressed by doctors/nurses. Instead, her tragic story is now a political football. This is the poison that is elective abortion. It has polluted Mikki’s thoughts and yours and every other person on the planet who believes that it should be ok for a mother to decide the life or death of her child. Pro-choice idealogy is poison. It is toxic to the human race.
JoAnna, if you look more closely at my response to you above, you will see I am absolutely in support of you working to change the legal system, because those are your chosen actions, based on your morals.
That doesn’t mean I’m not going to work to keep the laws the way they are, because that is what my morals dictate to me.
But I privilege individual agency, informed choice, and freedom above just about everything else. I believe that you are an informed adult human, who ought to make her own choices about her own life and her own body (and sorry, I’m assuming the ‘her’, so please don’t take it amiss.)
Would you grant me the same respect, if the situation were reversed? or would you believe that you had the right to make my choices for me?
Also, Elizabeth, well done, keep calm & carry on.
And now, I REALLY need to get some actual work done…
Oliver: Arguing that an in-utero fetus is a living separate human being is like arguing that my liver should be emancipated.
No. It is like arguing that two surgically connected humans are still individual human beings. Easy example, conjoined twins. Physical connection is completely meaningless. A living organism is not defined as “not physically connected to another living thing.” If you fail to see the difference between two separate organisms, then you are essentially just making stuff up.
So, your belief system was implanted pre-birth, was it? or was it the product of your education and raising? or what you read and saw later in life? Isn’t faith, by definition, believing what is contradictory or un-provable? ooh, i LOVE this argument!
Well my belief system is based on rationality a priori, not empiricism a posteriori, so I supposed you could say it was “implanted pre-birth.” I discovered it by empirical evaluation, but it was always there. What does faith have to do with my moral belief system? Besides, you don’t even need a rational belief system to recognize that logical contradictions are problems. Have you never thought “A fetus is not a person because it does not think like a person! But hmm…most infants don’t think like persons either. A ha! I have a contradiction in my system! Either a fetus is a person, an infant is NOT a person, or maybe there is some other consideration outside of thinking. Etc. Etc…”
I believe I stated up front that I don’t think most people think like me about this. All living beings are collections of cells. But some of those cells (like, say, a tapeworm, or a mosquito) are separate from me, and some (like my liver, or an implanted zygote) aren’t.
How do you square that with conjoined twins? Are they not persons? Or, what if I removed your liver and attached you to my own liver as a life support system? Would you be a person then? I am pretty sure you are confusing personhood with right to use my body.
I don’t believe life begins at conception because the Bible tells me so. I believe it because scientifically, it is true. Also, read here about the zygote.
Philosophy and theology don’t even need to enter the equation. Are you aware that there are atheist and agnostic pro-lifers as well as non-Christian, religious ones?
Kel, I agree that life is there at conception, that the zygote is a “human being” – a broad use of the term but still undeniably true. (A less-inclusive and more applicable use of the term with respect to the abortion debate would be in the sense of “legal human being,” since that’s what’s really at issue – just a side note, there.)
Anyway, okay – we agree on the physical reality of the unborn, the scientific facts. Now what? Doesn’t Philosophy (which really includes religion or not) have to then come into play?
Great thread here.
stop being interesting. Oliver, I think that’s a fascinating question, and I have to think about it for a while. Will you give me leave to come back and answer you later?
Edited. There is no swearing allowed here Ophy
Just because someone consents to sex -especially considering the limited amount of sexual education in America – doesn’t mean that they consent to being pregnant
Just because a women consents to pregnancy, does not mean she consents to parenthood. So does a mother have the right to kill her child after birth? Hypothetical: If a pregnant woman, who does not consent to parenthood, has her child at home during a snow in, is she morally responsible to care for the child? If there is no possibility to feed the child other than by nursing, is she responsible to nurse the child until the snow clears up?
Would you grant me the same respect, if the situation were reversed? or would you believe that you had the right to make my choices for me?
I also am the proud mother of an 11-week-old baby, whose separate and complete body is currently growing in my womb; he or she is due to be born in December 2011. I had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and I could see my beautiful child waving his/her arms. It was a lovely sight. My other three children are looking forward to their new sibling!
Ophy, I absolutely believe that you have the right, both legally and morally, to make your own choices about your own life and your own body . However, I absolutely disagree that you or anyone can make the choice to kill someone else and to destroy someone else’s body, which is exactly what abortion is, hence why I and others are working to change that.
I understand you are working to change laws to conform to your own moral beliefs, and I’m glad you understand that I, and other pro-lifers, have the right to do so. That is why I’m confused about this earlier statement of yours: “Your morality isn’t hers. Your morality isn’t anyone’s but yours. Nor is it your place to play judge. And jury. And, if you’d had your way, or the doctor had had his, executioner.”
It seems to imply that pro-lifers should not be working to change laws to conform to what we believe to be both justice and morality.
By the way, I am a “her.”
Doesn’t Philosophy (which really includes religion or not) have to then come into play?
Sure it does. I’ll start. All living human organisms are deserving of basic human rights out of universality or empathy. You already believe this because you believe that the most useless, and therefore most helpless, humans are deserving of the most protection. Think infants, (severely) mentally handicapped, elderly, etc etc. Why do you think this? Infants have no true rational faculties. so it must be something else. The reason, I propose, is that humans are are able to put themselves in the shoes of other humans. We extend aid and help to these other humans because if we were in their place, we would want help, regardless of whether we would know we would want this help. So, despite that a fetus is unable to rationally wish to not be killed, we know that if we were in that position, we would want to not be killed.
If it is hard to wrap your head around that, think of it like this. If a wizard were going to turn you into a fetus, but you could outline some basic necessities, wouldn’t you wish that you get food, water, shelter, and wish to not specifically to be killed? Don’t you agree that, regardless of being attached to another person, that as a fetus you would deserve those things?
Here is an alternative idea I have been bouncing around. Maybe the issue has nothing to do with personhood. Maybe the issue strictly has to do with whether all humans deserve basic amenities and protection. So, an infant ISN’T a person, but it deserves to be fed, cared for, etc. Seems to me it has to be either/or. I mean, really, how on earth is a fetus that much more different than an infant?
JoAnna said: I understand you are working to change laws to conform to your own moral beliefs, and I’m glad you understand that I, and other pro-lifers, have the right to do so. That is why I’m confused about this earlier statement of yours: “Your morality isn’t hers. Your morality isn’t anyone’s but yours. Nor is it your place to play judge. And jury. And, if you’d had your way, or the doctor had had his, executioner.”
My friends are having rashes of babies and have been for the last year, so I’ve been getting to play ‘Auntie’ all over the place. (and I get to hand them back when they’re crying and stinky. Awesome!)
You know, i was feeling annoyed and hyperbolic when I wrote that. To clarify: your morals are yours, and you gotta act how you’re gonna act based on those. But your right to swing your fist stops at my nose, to use another allegory. What I meant was, work to change the legal system, but don’t personally enforce your morals on my body. That doctor in Mikki’s case, by refusing treatment based on his morals, caused someone else physical agony, and could have killed her.
Congratulations to you on your wanted pregnancy.
Oliver,
I have empathy for non-humans, too. That’s why I have a house full of previously-homeless, formerly hungry animals.
But no matter what, empathy is an example of human exceptionalism. If we can’t feel for our own kind, we are no better than animals.
Dammit, stop being interesting. Oliver, I think that’s a fascinating question, and I have to think about it for a while. Will you give me leave to come back and answer you later?
Sure, but only if you honestly evaluate yourself and the way you truly think of things. Don’t just try to find some sort of loophole. (Besides, plenty have tried to find loopholes before. It really doesn’t work in this case.)
As a starting point for your introspection, keep in mind that we are strictly arguing whether a fetus is a person despite that it is physically not independent. We are not arguing whether the fetus has the right to use the mother’s body, despite that it may be a person.
But your right to swing your fist stops at my nose, to use another allegory.
Just so, your right to do what you want with your own body stops where the baby’s body begins.
I don’t agree with you on Mikki’s case as of yet because of the inconsistencies in her story, as noted above. I’ve never heard of a case where abortion was necessary to treat a placental abruption, or a legitimate OB-GYN who wouldn’t treat a bleeding pregnant woman (I have, however, heard of many abortionists who refused to treat a bleeding post-abortive patient.)
We are having a rash of babies among my friends and family. My sister had a baby girl about a month ago, and my stepsister adopted a beautiful baby boy around the same time. He is such a blessing to our family and we’re all so thankful that his birthmother chose not to kill him.
“Doesn’t Philosophy (which really includes religion or not) have to then come into play?”
Sure it does. I’ll start. All living human organisms are deserving of basic human rights out of universality or empathy. You already believe this because you believe that the most useless, and therefore most helpless, humans are deserving of the most protection. Think infants, (severely) mentally handicapped, elderly, etc etc. Why do you think this? Infants have no true rational faculties. so it must be something else. The reason, I propose, is that humans are are able to put themselves in the shoes of other humans. We extend aid and help to these other humans because if we were in their place, we would want help, regardless of whether we would know we would want this help. So, despite that a fetus is unable to rationally wish to not be killed, we know that if we were in that position, we would want to not be killed.
Hey Oliver. : )
Okay, first of all – yeah – my point at first was that it’s not just “science,” but rather our philosophies that is the abortion debate.
I don’t see it as coming down to “useless” or not. I agree than infants are not rational. I do think that infants (in all but a tiny amount of cases) can suffer, though, and as such I have empathy for them. I have empathy for pregnant women. I don’t think that the unborn can suffer, to a point in gestation. I don’t think that empathy is really possible, there – empathy meaning to identify with the feelings of others. If there are no feelings there in the first place, there can’t be empathy.
What I see is many people personifying the unborn. That’s fine by me, but it doesn’t outweigh the pregnant woman, IMO, who is most definitely there with feelings.
Putting ourselves in the place of the fetus – if my mom had had an abortion, there would never have been a “me” to feel, have emotions, to know or care about anything. There would have been a “living human organism” there, sure, a “human being” under a broad use of the term, but I don’t think the “somebody” was present yet, as far as personality, cognizance, etc.
Good grief. Am I the only one who’s noticed that a new nest of “Concern Troll” eggs must have hatched? Heavens, there are lots of them in this particular swarm…
My friendly advice, y’all: pick and choose the ones to whom you reply carefully; many of these newcomers are simply here to vent, rile up people, and flame… not to have any civil exchange of ideas. Let the trolls run themselves out and leave, like a swarm of locusts that’ll move on when the food runs out. I suspect it’ll be far easier on the blood pressures and heart rates, all around, that way…
in all but a tiny amount of cases
So humans that cannot feel pain don’t count? This is a real problem. There are people born without the ability to feel pain. When they are infants, they don’t really experience emotional pain since they are not rational. So do these people not count? What about a hypothetical purely rational being? What if a person were able to void themselves of physical pain and emotional pain and simply exist as a rational mind within a human body. Would you honestly say that this person…is not a person? Do you mean to imply that pain is what makes us humans worthy of care and nurture?
That’s fine by me, but it doesn’t outweigh the pregnant woman
This is irrelevant. You are confusing whether the fetus has any rights with whether the fetus has the specific right to use its mother’s body. If it helps you, imagine the fetus is grown in a test tube in an artificial womb from the future.
Putting ourselves in the place of the fetus – if my mom had had an abortion, there would never have been a “me” to feel, have emotions
I knew this would be confusing for people. You are considering how you feel about being a fetus from your current perspective. Go to the wizard analogy to better understand. If the wizard planned to turn you into a fetus and asked which things you would like, wouldn’t ask for food/water/food and to not be killed? Empathy isn’t just trying to experience someone’s feelings. That is a very narrow definition. I mean empathy to mean imagining yourself in a different position and what you would want to happen to yourself in that position from your current perspective.
Sup Paladin.
Congratulations to you on your wanted pregnancy
Well, my son’s birthmom, obviously experienced an unwanted pregnancy. But my son is 20 now and though we’ve had some rocky times, he’s doing fine now, thank you. He and his girlfriend are expecting their own little boy (not the best situation in the world, but I won’t go there now). An unwanted pregnancy doesn’t necessarily result in an unwanted child.
The only responsible options to pregnancy are:
1) the mother raises the child, or
2) another family or person raises the child
Murder is not a “parenting option” nor should it be. I am sorry for people who’s minds have been so poisoned that they think life is a competition between children and parents. As members of the human race, we should be fighting to help each other, not fighting for the ‘choice’ to kill each other.
Greetings, Oliver!
“your right to swing your fist stops at my nose.”
Funny, this exact argument can be used to oppose abortion. Your right to control your body stops when another human being is involved.
Congratulations to you on your wanted pregnancy
You know what’s interesting about this statement? To be completely honest, this wasn’t really a “wanted” pregnancy. My youngest is just 14 months old, and my husband and I had been planning on postponing pregnancy for a while longer, as we’d been hoping to fly to my home state to visit my family this summer. However, we’re NFP users, and we jointly made the decision to have sex when I was potentially fertile, knowing that pregnancy could result. During my luteal phase I was hoping the test wouldn’t be positive, but it was.
Now that we have an unpaid maternity leave coming up in December, we can’t afford to go on the trips we’d planned for this summer, nor will my husband get the new computer he wanted. Plus, finances are going to get tighter with 3 in daycare.
You know what, though? Even though this pregnancy isn’t exactly what I wanted right now, I’m nonetheless very much in love with this baby and am eagerly awaiting his/her arrival. The fact that the pregnancy wasn’t exactly wanted has no bearing whatsoever on our love for our child, or his/her status as a living, growing human person.
Beth @ 2:39 said: Just so you guys are clear, Salon did not pay Mikki for her article. It had been published elsewhere (on her blog!), and they don’t pay for reprints. Stop making things up without knowing the truth.
Beth – is there something you need to share with us? I mean, do you factually know Mikki was not paid for the article? Are you on Salon’s editorial staff that dealt specifically with Mikki’s submission? Or are you Mikki’s lawyer? I hardly think authors make in-kind donations of their expressive works to publishing companies which profit from revenue generation via ads, subscriptions and the like.
If Mikki did donate her article to Salon – that simply proves my point regarding motive.
My understanding from Salon’s article submissions page was web page writings do not constitute reprints, which are generated from a particular publishing source. Generally, a publisher doesn’t like to pay for an article published elsewhere, however, an author is entitled to all rights and usage of their own content, because they own the copyright(s). Publishing rights and licenses can be sold, completely detached from full transfer of ownership of copyright.
Lastly – let’s talk about “making things up” – Salon doesn’t solicit fiction or poetry. This indicates 2 very important pieces of information: 1) they purchase articles; and 2) their editorial staff should verify the factual nature of the submission, however, their acceptance agreement very likely has an indemnification clause that guards them against their failure to do so.
We would like nothing better than full disclosure – the factual truth, about Mikki’s incident and what she believes about the “baby” she aborted. I’ve provided solid reasoning and evidence for believing what I do – your turn.
Chris- her piece was originally published at Angry Black Woman (here: http://theangryblackwoman.com/2011/05/24/abortion-saved-my-life/) and on her blog, which is why it wasn’t paid. I am not her lawyer or on their editorial staff (I wish!). I happen to know her personally and spoke to her about it before it was published, which is why I know it wasn’t paid. I believe they contacted her to ask to reprint it- reprints don’t get paid. That’s what she, personally, told me, though you’re welcome to believe whatever you want.