Althouse: Heroic...

November 3, 2007

Heroic...

... baby.

19 comments:

Trooper York said...: Rachel: It is always women like you who are most victimized by anti-choice: indigent women, third-world women, women of color.
Ruth: I'm not a colored woman!
(Citizen Ruth 1996); 11/3/07, 4:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann, my dear,

Abortion is the very worst thing that could have happened to women since Eve's transgression in the "Garden of Eden". Cyclicity will reveal such to women eventually. But, because of feminist nonsense, the human race may very well become extinct well before then.
As I noted yestereven, I been a-thinkin. Your blog has -and is- helping me to clarify my thoughts (although in a way that feminists, faggots, lesbians and other deviants find dismaying). So I owe you something.
Howse-about you hops aboard the D train -from your lesbian strong- hold in Park Slope, Brooklyn- someday and ride it to the the last stop in the Bronx (205th St.,right around the corner from where my law office used to be -before the NYS Appellate Division threw my out of practice because I set out to prove that the legal profession was crazy for letting women become lawyers) and I buy you a cup of coffee at the Chariot Restaurant on 204th St,
just down the block from Bain bridge ?
For I can ride my bike down; it always helps to be "permenantly and totally disabled" -as verified by the U.S. Social Security Admini- stration- as well as a LT. Col. in the U.S. Army, Defense Intelligence Agency [in charge of my own sector having to do with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PSI/PK ] in order to do what you want to do, when you want to do it.
Let me know if you're intere- sted -and what your schedule is like.
Send it to tbitom58@yahoo.com.

Tom
8:4; 11/3/07, 6:34 PM
former law student said...: Reading the article made my eyes tear up.; 11/3/07, 7:05 PM
Trooper York said...: Special Agent Jason Gideon: You know the worst thing a serial killer can do when he reaches out to contact us?
Agent Aaron Hotch: Write letters to the newspapers like Son of Sam?
Special Agent Derek Morgan: Send audio or video tapes to a TV station?
Dr. Spencer Reid: Mailing pieces of the victims to the police in bizarre game of Hansel and Gretel?
Special Agent Jason Gideon: No, it’s definitely when they ask you out for coffee.
(Criminal Minds, 2005); 11/3/07, 7:22 PM
bearing said...: Sometimes the twisted language people use around abortion stuns me.

Doctors performed an operation to let Gabriel die.

No, they performed an operation to make Gabriel die. What part of "trying to sever the umbilical cord" didn't she understand?; 11/3/07, 7:50 PM
KCFleming said...: The operation was a complete failure ...the patient lived.

Cute kid, though, dammit.; 11/3/07, 8:24 PM
MadisonMan said...: Who would have thought it: medical science is not infallible.

A more complete article might have included comments from a mother facing the same situation in the past, but going a different way with different results. Assuming such stories exist. But apparently the journalist here tries only to tug heartstrings, not inform.; 11/3/07, 9:04 PM
Joe M. said...: I think you mean "kids," Pogo. And they are cute.

Now everybody should go watch Twin Falls Idaho. Perfectly captures what it's like to be a twin.; 11/3/07, 9:25 PM
reader_iam said...: Grun-tu-molani.; 11/4/07, 12:16 AM
Daryl said...: I'm deeply suspicious of what doctors say when they want to encourage an abortion. They must feel some psychological pressure to tell the woman that it's her only option so as to reduce her guilt and reduce their own emotional difficulty in dealing with the situation.

It must be much easier to tell a woman that she must abort than to tell her that there is a 10% chance that failure to abort one baby would result in a bad situation for the other one.; 11/4/07, 1:23 AM
Revenant said...: Ieuan kind of has a Michael J. Fox look going on there.; 11/4/07, 1:58 AM
Anonymous said...: But apparently the journalist here tries only to tug heartstrings, not inform.

You found nothing informative here?; 11/4/07, 1:15 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The article is really puzzling. Why did the woman think it was so much better for the baby to die inside her, next to his brother, than to be born and then die? I understand wanting to save at least one child, but part of the reasoning seems to have to do with what is the most comforting way to die. The born, dying child would have been "alone"? How so? The parents would have held him and loved him.

And what about the imposition on the healthy twin of making is his responsibility to keep his dying brother such intimate company... and then to go on with the corpse right there with him? What a bizarre trauma to subject that child to! And the operation too is a scary trauma. Some force is entering your space and cutting into things. How do you think that through and believe you're doing the kinder thing? Does what happens out of your sight seem less real?; 11/4/07, 7:24 AM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: "And what about the imposition on the healthy twin of making is his responsibility to keep his dying brother such intimate company... and then to go on with the corpse right there with him?"

It happened to Elvis!; 11/4/07, 7:35 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Do you think if Elvis's twin had survived, Elvis wouldn't have had the Elvis in him?; 11/4/07, 9:11 AM
former law student said...: Twin brother? Do you mean Enos the P....?; 11/4/07, 1:04 PM
Melissa Clouthier said...: "Does what happens out of your sight seem less real?"

Yes. That's how everyone justifies abortion.; 11/4/07, 1:38 PM
Kathy said...: "Does what happens out of your sight seem less real?"

Melissa beat me to my comment. Because I was over 35 at the time, my last two pregnancies came with lots of warnings from my doctor, along with recommendations for lots of extra tests. These were presented to me as though they were just normal and expected, something I needed to undergo due to the risks inherent with my age. However, as it turns out, the tests would have been unnecessary for me since any *correctable* problem they would have uncovered would be found in the routine ultrasound(s) I would have anyway (according to my doctor after I pressed him on this point). But see, he had to push me to get the tests so I couldn't sue him later if there was a problem.

I do think doctors feel the need to present the worst case scenario, and to present the option of aborting as desirable, to avoid lawsuits. Rarely would anyone sue because they had an abortion, but they will sue if they don't have one and then have to deal with consequences later.

And honestly, how many people in this day and age are comfortable with the idea of their infant dying in their arms? Somehow getting rid of it out of sight seems easier, I think. (I don't know if that was what prompted this mom's decision; I just suspect that plays into other decisions.); 11/4/07, 2:30 PM
bearing said...: I once encountered a woman who had been taking a particular medication when she learned she was pregnant.

Her doctor advised her that, even if she stopped the medication, the fetus had a "very high" chance of abnormalities. She followed his advice and underwent an abortion.

She learned later that the medical consensus about said medication was that the chance of abnormalities was between two and ten percent. Much higher than normal, yes, but... with a ninety to ninety-eight percent chance of a good outcome, was that worth it?

Sad, sad story. All of them are, of course, but this one has always stuck with me.; 11/5/07, 12:06 PM