Althouse: "There is a negative image associated with abortion … and it’s going to carry with it a stigma that will be associated with your facility."

February 5, 2009

"There is a negative image associated with abortion … and it’s going to carry with it a stigma that will be associated with your facility."

Or:

"Women in Madison and southern Wisconsin need options when faced with a terribly difficult pregnancy decision. Women need choices about what kind of caring is best for them and what they feel comfortable with."

47 comments:

vet66 said...: Killing a fetus is a negative image. There are laws on the books now regarding the health of the mother when the fetus threatens her life. A blood clot could be an example if blood thinners were precluded.

If second trimester abortions become a form of birth control, if for instance, the unmarried couple break-up, there might be a problem staffing the operation.

Interesting culture where one unmarried, unemployed woman has 14 children while the conversation rages over aborting a viable fetus during the second trimester.

The negative image for an abortion clinic is a murder factory. Deal with it.; 2/5/09, 7:40 AM
MadisonMan said...: I don't know how frequent abortions are after the 1st trimester, but I can certainly see how a medical issue can arise within a 9-month window that might necessitate an abortion. It seems that protesters who want to ban all abortions regardless aren't considering all possibilities.

The UW is a teaching hospital. Why not teach its doctors medical procedures they may need to save a patient's life some day. And teach them about protest too.; 2/5/09, 7:44 AM
Heather said...: It called a choice, your choice was to have sex mostlikey without protection.

I might belive abortion should be legal, but it is not right.

When so many parents want to adopt, abortion is a terrible option.; 2/5/09, 7:48 AM
Simon said...: I don't see why it shouldn't carry a stigma, even in the minds of those people who think one should have the "choice." Even when it's necessary, we shouldn't try to weasel out of the moral impact of what's been done.; 2/5/09, 7:55 AM
vet66 said...: Madison Man;

The Hippocratic Oath begs to differ.

Sarah Palin came under snide attack for not aborting her Down's Syndrome baby. Crass accusations and insinuations such as that reveal the true nature of the pro-abortionists. They base their logic on the statisically small incidence of rape/incest/maternal health to keep the doors open for the business of surgical birth control.

Birth control will be hard sell considering most abortions are cosmetic or expedient.; 2/5/09, 7:58 AM
bearing said...: I don't know how frequent abortions are after the 1st trimester, but I can certainly see how a medical issue can arise within a 9-month window that might necessitate an abortion. It seems that protesters who want to ban all abortions regardless aren't considering all possibilities.

Of course a medical issue can arise within a 9-month issue that can endanger the mother's life. What do you suppose people do when it's the third trimester and they already love and have bonded with the baby and hope the baby as well as the mother can survive?

Answer: They deliver the child prematurely, knowing it's a risk and that the child may die outside the womb. They care for the child as best they can -- perhaps in some sad cases the best care is to keep the child warm and comfortable for a very short time until an expected death.

The same answer can stretch back into the second trimester. The early delivery of the child, even though it puts the child in danger, may, in some cases, save the mother's life or health. The destruction of the child on purpose never serves any good.

That's my answer. We sometimes need to deliver a child early at great risk to his life. We don't need abortion.; 2/5/09, 8:01 AM
kjbe said...: I, too, don’t know about the demand, but what struck me, watching this on the news last night, was that for these different boards to all support this (in the face of, yes, some very real and justified stigma), there must be a need, albeit and hopefully, a small one. I’m willing to believe that individual medical issues don’t always fit into our, too often, black and white world and that there should be options for these women, as well.; 2/5/09, 8:02 AM
traditionalguy said...: What about the young women who don't want to have a baby? They feel trapped by this new person who has legal rights over them once he/she is born alive. These worried women's Freedom To Kill is their basic human right, because the Supreme Court has found it right there in the American Constitution hidden out among all those Black Letter provisions. And also the deaths of these new people person stops global warming caused by their energy use, not to mention their breathing out CO2 thousands of times a day.; 2/5/09, 8:17 AM
Freder Frederson said...: That's my answer. We sometimes need to deliver a child early at great risk to his life. We don't need abortion.

Are you a doctor? What do you know about the extremely difficult decisions that some pregnancies present?

I have a friend who had a second trimester abortion. She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for a very long time. However, it was discovered in an ultrasound that the baby's brain was developing outside the skull. The chance of survival of the fetus was zero. It was the hardest decision of her life, but it saved her and her baby absolutely unnecessary suffering.

Don't be so heartless.; 2/5/09, 8:18 AM
MadisonMan said...: bearing: The clinic that may open is not for 3rd trimester abortions. A 4-month fetus will not survive outside the womb.; 2/5/09, 8:31 AM
Bissage said...: Plastic surgeons are self-sustaining.; 2/5/09, 8:33 AM
KCFleming said...: Perhaps the University of Wisconsin Health and Clinics Authority Board smells fear, the anxiety produced by the economic collapse.

The Great Depression resulted in delayed marriage, the divorce rate dropped sharply, and birth rates dropped below the replacement level for the first time in American history.

Russia’s population has been in decline since 1992. In 2004, there were 1.6 million registered abortions in Russia and 1.5 million births. The Russian population of 143 million is on track to decline to 77 million by 2050, due to abortions, alcoholism, and poor health care. Russia will not have enough workers to drive its economy by around 2020.

Suicide, abortion, and gericide (i.e. very late term abortion) are simply more "choices" for avoiding the pain of a cataclysm. I expect much much more of this to come.

The U is just doing its part.; 2/5/09, 8:50 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: I've always had an issue with being able to legally terminating a human fetus yet I can be arrested and go to jail for stepping on a nest of Canadian geese eggs.

I'm aware there are instances where abortion is a necessary evil but terminating a pregancy because one or both partners were too careless to use contraception and don't want to be 'punished' with a child is a bit much.; 2/5/09, 8:53 AM
TMink said...: "She said morale at the surgery center is “at an all-time low” because of the proposal, and questioned whether there would be adequate staff to safely perform the procedure."

I had never thought about the people performing the abortions before this, I could never make it past the horror of the murders.

But the people who perform the abortions have their faces pressed against the glass. Do they see the little people they kill? Do they do everything possible to keep from seeing them? What are their PTSD rates? How many of them suicide?

It must be soul killing work.

God forgive and heal them.

Trey; 2/5/09, 8:54 AM
KCFleming said...: What's the pro-choice justification for stopping at the second semester anyway?

Does something magic happen at 6 months that makes limb dismemberment or brain suction a technical problem?; 2/5/09, 8:58 AM
Joan said...: Judy said she decided to have an abortion when she was 16-weeks pregnant due to a life-threatening blood clot.

First time I've ever heard of that happening. That's some fine editing, there.

What the article doesn't say is how the tension will be resolved when the stipulation that all staffing be voluntary conflicts with the mandate to provide the service: the board added an amendment to the proposal calling for the quality of care to be maintained . Who wins?; 2/5/09, 8:59 AM
dbp said...: Or

"Dr. Nancy Fredericks, an anesthesiologist at the surgery center, said many of her coworkers opposed the procedure for religious and moral reasons. She said morale at the surgery center is “at an all-time low” because of the proposal..."

I can see why this would be. How would you like it if you went into medicine to preserve life and then your hospital got into the business of elective abortions?; 2/5/09, 9:05 AM
bearing said...: MadisonMan:

Whether the baby can survive outside the womb is not relevant to whether it's necessary or a good idea to dismember him within it. I rather think it must do something to the person whose job it is to take these kids apart, or to the person whose job it is to count the bits.

All I'm saying is to treat babies of less than 9 months -- or 6 months -- gestational age like the people they are. It doesn't mean that a dangerous pregnancy has to go on and become more dangerous. It does mean that children deserve respect and care even if they must be delivered early, even if their death is imminent.

I claim no special expertise other than "mother." I've held a life within my body time and time again. Heartless? No, but perhaps audacious. I'll come out and say it: People would heal faster from the pain of tragic pregnancies if they wouldn't resort to fetal destruction. It's strengthening and a comfort to know you've given all that you could, and even that you have suffered willingly for another human being.; 2/5/09, 9:14 AM
MadisonMan said...: I'll come out and say it: People would heal faster from the pain of tragic pregnancies if they wouldn't resort to fetal destruction.

Perhaps you would. Perhaps many people would. I think your statement is too sweeping.

I'll say as a parent that if my daughter is in this wretched dilemma of deciding between her health and a child: I hope she has all available choices and risks laid out before her. I will help her evaluate her options and support any choice she makes. And if there are vocal protesters outside the hospital when we go in -- if that is her choice in this hypothetical situation that likely will never happen, I promise not to go all James Kopp on them.; 2/5/09, 9:29 AM
vet66 said...: Some ~43 million abortions have been performed since Roe V Wade was enacted. Approximately ~1 million abortions are performed each year in the U.S.

Those numbers are probably conservative since reporting numbers from many states are unreliable because they are in the business of abortions and depend upon them for federal money to sustain them.

The liberals always trot out the one-in-million exception as if that makes the rule. The exceptions were covered before R v W.

Connecting the dots, the libs praise single-motherhood and a crass culture that objectifies women then provides an industry to kill off the predictable 'oopsies' by deciding that life doesn't begin at conception. Convenient that they then line up at San Quentin protesting capital punishment on the spawn of children raised by single mothers who invariably end up in prison.

I am accused of being racist because I disagree with "THE ONE". I am also, apparently, a misoGYNist because I believe that most successful families are populated by a Father, not a "father figure."

Maureen Dowd said in November, 2005 "Who needs men"! Hey Maureen, how did that work out for ya?; 2/5/09, 9:38 AM
pdug said...: "Women in Madison and southern Wisconsin need options when faced with a terribly difficult pregnancy decision"

If there wasn't a clinic, the option of late term abortion wouldn't be possible.

So the decision to not abort would be EASIER, wouldn't it?

Or is this another false dilemma of legal vs Back alley?; 2/5/09, 9:51 AM
former law student said...: The conservatives think that second trimester abortions are wanted only by slatterns who wake up from their drug-addled stupors one morning and say, "Hey, I forgot to get my abortion. Come on, doc, let's go."

The liberals think that second trimester abortions are needed only by women with ancephalic fetuses, or women whose pregnancies threaten their lives.; 2/5/09, 10:09 AM
KCFleming said...: And what do the really smart people think?; 2/5/09, 10:23 AM
Anonymous said...: TMink,
I will tell you about a friend of mine who dropped out of a nurse anesthetist program because at her big medical group the nurse anesthetists were given all the abortion cases by the docs, who understandably didn't want to do them. She didn't want to either.

It's a brave new day for reproductive rights! We are funding abortions all over the world once more and setting up brave little clinics like this one. Why do I feel dirty?; 2/5/09, 10:38 AM
Anonymous said...: When does life begin? Debate over abortion can only begin after this question is definitively answered or a standard is recognized and accepted. All ethical issues hinge on this crucial point.

If we cannot agree on a standard, the benefit of the doubt must go to the innocent, even more so than the benefit we afford those accused in a court of law. This isn't ideological rhetoric, this is life and death. To trivialize the issue and turn it into reproductive rights or contraceptive choice arguments further decays the value our society places on the essence of life.; 2/5/09, 11:03 AM
MadisonMan said...: I agree that the innocent mother should have a procedure that she, in consulation with her doctor, deem medically necessary.; 2/5/09, 11:08 AM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: The Guttmacher Institute has some statistics.

Trends in the Characteristics of Women Obtaining
Abortions, 1974 to 2004

Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries

In the second doc, scroll down to table 2. In the US, in 1987-88, 2.8 percent of abortions were due to concerns for maternal health.

The stats of women having abortions b/c they don't want a baby, and NOT USING BIRTH CONTROL, are astounding. If nothing else, condoms are a heck of a lot cheaper and there's much less risk to the woman's health. May I point out that abortions do zip about STD prevention, including AIDS.; 2/5/09, 11:18 AM
Jason said...: Freder:

I have a friend who had a second trimester abortion. She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for a very long time. However, it was discovered in an ultrasound that the baby's brain was developing outside the skull. The chance of survival of the fetus was zero. It was the hardest decision of her life, but it saved her and her baby absolutely unnecessary suffering.

Don't be so heartless.

Do you therefore support the euthanizing of children who later develop incurable and painful, lethal medical conditions?

Let's assume it's what the parent wants. Let's further assume that the child cannot speak for himself or herself.

If not, why not?

How can you be so heartless?; 2/5/09, 11:26 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Ignoring the basic abortion/choice fight, I was stuck by this bureaucratic CYA BS statement:

In response, the board added an amendment to the proposal calling for the quality of care to be maintained

As if anyone ever went on record voting for quality to be reduced :); 2/5/09, 11:52 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: How would you like it if you went into medicine to preserve life and then your hospital got into the business of elective abortions?

"I read about the decision of the board. In fact, I printed it out. Here. Now let me tell you where you can shove it... By the way, I quit."; 2/5/09, 12:07 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Do you therefore support the euthanizing of children who later develop incurable and painful, lethal medical conditions?

There is a wide gulf between euthanasia and withholding treatment that merely prolongs pain and suffering. That is a dilemma that many parents with terminally ill children face--when do you let go.

I feel for anyone who has to go through that agony. It is not for me, or the government to decide.

No purpose, other than an incredible amount of pain and suffering and expense, is served by delivering non-viable fetuses and letting them die after they breathe a few breaths or even live a day or two. Where is the morality in that? Just because medical technology theoretically allows us to keep alive or surgically remove a fetus that would have spontaneously aborted or been stillborn thirty or forty years ago, you're saying we are now bound to save every life (actually every life with good insurance coverage) possible?; 2/5/09, 12:09 PM
TitusSendsSpecialHugs said...: My first abortion was difficult but after my 10th it got easier. My 20th abortion was a piece of cake.; 2/5/09, 12:14 PM
Jason said...: There may be a wide gulf between euthenizing and withholding treatment. However, an abortion is definitely NOT "withholding treatment." Don't even try to pretend it is. An abortion is a concrete act to terminate a baby, a fetus. (Take your pick of terms, the syntax only matters politically. It really doesn't matter morally.)

An abortionist makes a conscious and overt act to conduct an abortion, when an alternative course of treatment may be to do nothing... withhold treatment, if you will, and wait.

Why is it you cannot support euthenasia outside the womb, but you have no problem supporting it in it?

Indeed, why do you feel the need to justify the act in the case of a lethal and hopeless medical condition, when we both know that many abortions are conducted, legally, even without such a medical externality, but simply because the mother wishes to, and the abortionist goes along with it for money.; 2/5/09, 1:17 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Indeed, why do you feel the need to justify the act in the case of a lethal and hopeless medical condition, when we both know that many abortions are conducted, legally, even without such a medical externality, but simply because the mother wishes to, and the abortionist goes along with it for money.

Because we are discussing 2nd trimester abortions, and I would guess that a large percentage of 2nd trimester abortions are because of medical issues, not simply for convenience.

If you are so ready to define the beginning of human life, do you believe it begins at conception. If not at conception, then what other arbitrary point (because conception itself is an arbitrary point--how can you say the "life" of identical twins begins at conception?) do you believe it begins at? Of course if you believe life begins at conception you must object just as harshly when a hospital opens an in-vitro fertilization clinic as when it provides facilities for abortions. Do you?; 2/5/09, 1:54 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: One thing you never hear addressed in abortion debates is what penalty those who favor criminalization would like to exact.

Should the woman be sentenced to prison time? How long?

Should the doctor(s) be sentenced to prison time? How long?

Should the nurses be sentenced to prison time as accessories? How long?

If abortion really is murder should the sentences then be of the same length as murder sentences?; 2/5/09, 1:56 PM
Jason said...: Freder,

Then you do believe that abortion in the absence of a terminal and painful medical condition is problematic?

Your grounds of argument keep shifting.

Euthenasia at one point is no problem at all. But at another point it's wrong. And yet all points in between are "arbitrary?"

Even calling the moment of conception the point at which life begins is arbitrary? (I don't think it is, but that's your argument).

Holy crap, Freder... talk about moral nihilism run amok. Is there ANYTHING you actually believe?; 2/5/09, 2:40 PM
Joe said...: How would it take a woman more than 3 months to decide that a pregnancy was undesirable?

(I am for unrestricted abortion in the first trimester and believe it should only be allowed in extraordinary cases afterward. Not because of some squishy definition of when life begins, but because I think that a society that is so cavalier about abortion is in real trouble.); 2/5/09, 2:46 PM
Jason said...: AL,

You can make anything legal. In some places, forcible female circumcision is legal. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the act is moral.

In other words, carping over sentencing guidelines at this point is a red herring. Kind of a silly tactic, if you ask me.

If abortion is deemed illegal, then we would have to address the question of punishment. But that's purely a hypothetical. The "IF" in the hypothetical is large and distant.

However, the morality of abortion itself is no hypothetical at all, but something that is addressed and wrestled with a thousand times a day.; 2/5/09, 2:46 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Holy crap, Freder... talk about moral nihilism run amok. Is there ANYTHING you actually believe?

There are lots of things I believe. There are also many things I don't know (although I bet a lot of regulars on this site are surprised to see me write that). But what constitutes "human life" is a profoundly moral, theological, philosophical, and scientific question. Because there is no definitive answer, short of an unambiguous message from God, these questions should be left up to individual conscience.

Some people and religions (e.g., the Catholic Church) have a bright line, like the point of conception. I would bet that most abortion opponents who claim that they believe that "life begins at conception" suddenly aren't too sure about it when you point out to them that means that in-vitro fertilization methods, some birth control methods (especially IUDs) by that measure routinely involve "euthanasia", if that is how you want to phrase it. (btw, at least the Catholic Church is consistent on their stance on these issues).; 2/5/09, 2:54 PM
TMink said...: I think Alphaliberal brings up a good point. If we would outlaw it, having an idea of the penalities is only logical as far as I am concerned.

I have given this NO previous though, but here is what pops out.

Docs, I would take away their license for a year for the first infraction, they would lose it forever with the second.

Nurses, 6 months then forever.

As for the mother, that is a toughie. At first I thought about 6 months incarceration if she has no kids in the home, but then I wondered why I was not throwing the doc in the pokey. I could NEVER support sterilization under any circumstances that I could think of, so that is of course out.

Is community service enough? Is jail time right? Honestly, I find answering this question quite difficult.

Thanks for asking it AL.

Trey; 2/5/09, 3:05 PM
Freder Frederson said...: Docs, I would take away their license for a year for the first infraction, they would lose it forever with the second.

So you are admitting that killing a fetus is not as serious as killing a person?; 2/5/09, 3:39 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: Thanks, Trey. I agree it's a question that logically follows from efforts to make the practice illegal. And it's part of the question of illegality.

I'm conflicted overall after about 4? months and have decided not to be a party to an abortion and to leave it up to others to make their decisions.

I do think reproductive education and accessible birth control are the best ways to reduce the number of abortions. Wish more abortion opponents could support these approaches.

(Now, female circumcision, ugh. Hate it. Hell, same thing for male circumcision [I think...not having both experiences]. We never get a choice about that! Maybe Althouse should add circumcision topics to her notorious breast posts).; 2/5/09, 4:08 PM
Jason said...: Coming up next! Titus on uncut hog!

(Give that man an inch, he'll take a moyle.); 2/5/09, 4:21 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: Here is an article about an abortion clinic that now has a negative image.

The Department of Health account continues as follows: Just before noon she began to feel ill. The clinic contacted Renelique. Two hours later, he still hadn't shown up. Williams went into labor and delivered the baby.

"She came face to face with a human being," Pennekamp said. "And that changed everything."

Imagine that.

The complaint says one of the clinic owners, Belkis Gonzalez came in and cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then placed the baby in a plastic bag, and the bag in a trash can.

............

At 23 weeks, an otherwise healthy fetus would have a slim but legitimate chance of survival. Quadruplets born at 23 weeks last year at The Nebraska Medical Center survived.

An autopsy determined Williams' baby - she named her Shanice - had filled her lungs with air, meaning she had been born alive, according to the Department of Health. The cause of death was listed as extreme prematurity.

So why did Williams decide to have an abortion at 23 weeks?

She concluded she didn't have the resources or maturity to raise a child....

Do we really want this to be legal? If we don't we'll have to overturn Roe v Wade. I'm up for it.; 2/5/09, 4:33 PM
bearing said...: In the event of abortion becoming illegal, why *not* punish abortionists but not mothers?

Prostitution's illegal, and a lot of folks think it's entirely reasonable to go after johns and pimps more harshly than the prostitutes themselves. Not everyone who takes part in a crime is equally culpable. Leave some discretion to the judge and jury.; 2/5/09, 9:07 PM
Synova said...: Judy said she decided to have an abortion when she was 16-weeks pregnant due to a life-threatening blood clot.

And giving testimony to support the clinic in such a way as *assumes* that the pro-life side of it does not want women to have abortions to save their lives. And it works!

It seems that protesters who want to ban all abortions regardless aren't considering all possibilities.; 2/6/09, 10:19 AM
Synova said...: I do think reproductive education and accessible birth control are the best ways to reduce the number of abortions. Wish more abortion opponents could support these approaches.

People are more educated about reproduction and have more access to birth control than ever before, particularly young people... you'd think that this would have resulted in fewer abortions. And then we could say, hey, this works! And then do it some more to reduce *more* abortions.

I have no argument with education or birth control. There is no evidence, however, that either has any relationship to abortion whatsoever.; 2/6/09, 10:30 AM