Monday, June 09, 2008

Election year pro-abortion push

If you don't want your child to suffer, you don't choose Partial Birth Abortion (Intact Dilation and Extraction or "D&X") and you certainly shouldn't complain about State laws concerning prevention of fetal pain during the abortion.

msnbc.com and Self Magazine have teamed up to discuss "When there is no good choice."

In the story, we read about abortions - one at 22 weeks and and one at 30 weeks pregnancy, after two mothers learn that their babies have severe birth defects. While the story spends a lot of space trying to explain that the mothers are having the abortions because they don't want their babies to suffer, the story condemns laws requiring anesthesia, informing the mothers that their children may feel pain during the procedure, or mandating lethal injections to kill the child before dismembering him or her. Of course, we are told how wrong it is to call "D&X" "partial birth abortion," or to ban the procedure itself.

This is a story about the politics of an election year, written to tug on our heart strings rather than inform.

Obviously, I am pro-life, and so, I must be one of those the article calls "anti-abortion." The story claims that I "demonize" the mothers who have abortions at 28 weeks, and mentions that because of George Bush, the Republicans, and "red staters," these women have troubles and the doctors claim that they worry about being charged with breaking the law. However, each woman does abort her child.

The author doesn't seem to notice the irony that she is practicing demonization, herself.

The good news is that the article reports on perinatal hospice, now available across the country:

Today some 60 U.S. hospitals, hospices and crisis pregnancy clinics offer perinatal hospice services; in Minnesota, women seeking to abort fetuses with fatal anomalies are required by law to be informed about hospice as an alternative. “Women appreciate the grieving process and being able to spend time with their babies,” says Dr. Calhoun, vice chair of obstetrics and gynecology at West Virginia University School of Medicine in Charleston. “Perinatal hospice gives women an alternative that is a better choice than abortion.”

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Pallimed (a blog on palliative care) on the cadaver

I stumbled on the blog, Pallimed, while chasing links last week. Today, I was able to read some of the posts. The blog is owned by a doctor and discusses the various elements of Hospice and Palliative medicine.

Read this post for a beautiful excerpt of a statement by a Mr. Thomas Lynch while testifying to the President's Bioethics Council on the way we humans regard the bodies of our loved ones after death.

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