Jivin J’s Life Links 12-13-10
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Canada’s National Post has a story on the growing trend to abort via selective reduction 1 child in a pregnancy with twins for purely elective reasons:
Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s — and their first son just over a year old — when this spring the woman became pregnant a 2nd time. 7 weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ontario resident was carrying twins.
“It came as a complete shock,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “We’re both career people. If we were going to have 3 children 2 years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids….
All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen.”
She soon discovered another option: Doctors could “reduce” the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses — and has become increasingly common in the past 2 decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies….
- In another piece on selective reduction, the Huffington Post has a post by Shira Hirschman Weiss about how she “reduced” triplets to twins by aborting the child who they couldn’t get genetic results from:
We had been able to see one thing about the reduced fetus on the screen prior to reduction: He was also a boy. While I’m glad to have known that about him, I am sad that I never got to know him. What would he have been like? Did I do something terrible or did I save my other 2 children?
After the twins’ premature arrival, doctors had said not to regret the reduction. They explained that triplets would have arrived even earlier…. But then I think, well, maybe the doctors would’ve taken the right measures to ensure that I carried them as long as possible….
While there are so many possibilities, I have to stop myself from this vicious loop-de-loop of over-thinking. I can not wonder “what if?”
- Stem cell researchers have transformed immature human sperm stem cells into cells which produce insulin in mice:
Ian Gallicano and colleagues used germ-derived pluripotent stem cells, which are made from the spermatogonial stem cells. They nurtured these cells in the lab with compounds designed to make these cells start acting like pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin.
When transplanted into diabetic mice, these cells produced insulin, acting like the pancreatic beta cells that the body mistakenly destroys in type-1 diabetes, Gallicano’s team told a meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Philadelphia.
[Image via NationalPost]
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.
This is heartbreaking! :(
After the twins’ premature arrival, doctors had said not to regret the reduction.
Because it’s always good when other people order you not to feel something.
Doctors are NOT GOD…they don’t know EVERYTHING. I wish more people would get that through their heads!
“The reduced fetus” = a terribly painful way of saying your departed baby. :(
I keep coming back to this post. I just don’t have the words to express how horribly it pains me. :(
“We’re both career people.
Well perhaps they should stop having sex or have her tubes tied and he, a vasectomy, if they have little interest in family. :(
I imagine that the “singleton” child, as it is called, will always sense something missing in his/her life. The baby-reduction surgery was paid for by Canadian medicare. I wonder if medicare pays for reductions in the USA?
From the National Post article: (How crazy is this?)
A New York City obstetrician and leading specialist in the field confirmed that the demand for twin reductions has increased and likely will continue to do so, especially among 40-somethings. Twins make up about 5% to 7% of the total reductions, said Dr. Mark Evans, who sometimes performs the procedure on Canadians.
While he once believed reductions were ethically warranted only for triplets or higher-order multiple pregnancies, he said the evidence now suggests that reducing twins to a singleton leads, on average, to better outcomes.
The classic twin-reduction case, however, involves a couple on their second marriage who have children and want just one more addition — and might end the whole pregnancy otherwise, Dr. Evans said. “In North America, couples can choose to have an abortion for any reason,” he noted.
I have gorgeous 6-year-old twin nieces, and reading that article about “reducing” twin pregnancies made me feel physically sick. My twin nieces were a huge surprise–my sister and her husband were young, still in college, and had not been married long. My sister had life-threatening complications when her girls were born, and ended up going back to school full-time when they were only 6 weeks old. She never would have imagined killing one or both of her babies just to make her life more convenient.
I’ve had the great privilege of watching two wonderful little girls grow up together, closer to each other than to anyone else in the world. And beyond the horror of killing a child under any circumstances–I just can’t imagine willingly depriving your child of that kind of indescribable, unique, lifelong relationship. I’ve been told stories of children who lost a twin at or shortly after birth, and for the rest of their lives felt that something was missing. From what I’ve seen of my nieces, I believe it. I just… I can’t believe anyone would do that to avoid being inconvenienced.
I am speechless.
I’ve been told stories of children who lost a twin at or shortly after birth, and for the rest of their lives felt that something was missing.
My son has a twin. Apparently his birth mom kept one baby and placed him for adoption. I don’t know how to tell him this (I just found out recently myself). Maybe that’s why he has had problems — he’s always sensed that something is “missing” from his life.
he said the evidence now suggests that reducing twins to a singleton leads, on average, to better outcomes.
Why don’t we just start eating our babies if the winter gets too cold and we don’t have enough resources. 9_9 Freaking animals.
I gave birth to B/G twins when my only other child was 13, I was 40, and was remarried. I had no more monthly reason to believe I could even conceive.
It was scary and wonderful to think of the future. I put the future in God’s hands and thanked him for letting me go thru mommyhood all over again. It has been fantastic, for my husband and i and our children. We live VERY simply. But, we know that as long as we have each other and follow God, we will have everything we need.
These children are 5 now precious blessings that God gave to us and we adore them. I daily and nightly thank God for allowing me to be a part of thier lives.
These woman have commited murder. There is no way around it.
They should NEVER tell their live children, can you imagine how frightening it would be to explain that it was a tossup, but they won and weren’t chopped up like their sibling.
eeny meeny mynee mo…. oh, look, you get to live…
EVIL.
BTW: Twins DO have a twin connection. Preborn twins whether ident or frat, adjust much of their automatic systems and personal behaviors to their twin. (Watch the Discovery show on prenatal twin behavior) They can sometimes seemingly experience the anxiety of their twin. Think about abortion and that?
These women have commited murder.
They need to be honest with themselves.
I know Shira Hirschman Weiss. She had a physical issue and terrible scoliosis which she should have detailed in her story. Her twins arrived at THIRTY WEEKS, yes 30, not any later, and had she tried to carry triplets to term, they would have all perished. She is a loving and a doting mom who saved her twins lives.
Does she grieve the son that was “selectively reduced?””
PS I am a loving and doting mom as well. Doesn’t change the fact that my first child died in my abortion in 1990.