El Salvador woman pleads for life-saving abortion

[2xx1xy1JD]

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/el-salva ... 2013-04-17

Tell me again how this is compatible with a "culture of life"?

I know we've ranted on stuff like this before, but it keeps happening.

I've specifically mentioned lupus as a concern, because my husband has had to recommend abortion and figure out how to get access for a medically fragile patient before. In a nutshell, this is what you need to tell those opposed to abortion "in all circumstances" or those who think that it's possible to say that this won't happen if there is a narrow exception for "life of the mother" (ie. the people behind bullshit like this http://www.prolifephysicians.org/rarecases.htm:

Lupus is a chronic disease. It doesn't get cured. Sometimes it flares up, and then medication is needed to get it under control. It is an auto-immune disease, which means that the body is basically attacking itself. If the disease causes the body to attack internal organs such as the kidneys, you get lupus nephritis, which can cause total kidney failure. It's a life-threatening condition.

Now, if someone with unstable lupus gets pregnant, they are at risk. Many of the meds used (such as methotrexate) cannot be given to a pregnant woman, and there are increased risks of pre-eclampsia. Now, when the pregnancy is first diagnosed, the woman may not be a death's door. If the exception for "life of the mother" is too stringent, she doesn't get an abortion prior to 12 weeks, when it is more easily performed, and when the disease hasn't yet had a chance to do as much damage. Now, the so-called "pro-life" position is to wait until the disease flares, at which point vital organs can be under attack and irreversible damage may be done. Doing emergency surgery once a woman is already in kidney failure won't do that much good - she may be beyond the point of saving. Their other suggestion, based on the "double effect" doctrine, is to treat the disease and be somewhat indifferent to the fact that the treatment will harm or kill the fetus. The problem is that a doctor can't give these meds, which are KNOWN to cause serious defects and/or fetal demise, if the patient intends to continue the pregnancy. If you give methotrexate, you doom the fetus, whether or not to want to call it intentional or not.

Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs - but not their own facts. If you want to belief that life begins at conception, go ahead. Don't, however, pretend that following through with your beliefs don't put the lives of women at risk. It does. Don't pretend that following the "double effect" doctrine is good and ethical medical practice. It's not. It subjects women to increased risks, with no real improvement to fetal outcomes.

[Mela99]

Don't the Bible, Torah and Koran ALL exhort to preserve life if possible?

I don't get it. Two people can die. One can be saved.

[alba]

Don't the Bible, Torah and Koran ALL exhort to preserve life if possible?

I don't get it. Two people can die. One can be saved.

This is when pro-life really becomes anti-woman, IMO. If you *really* believe that a fetus is just as much a person as the woman carrying it, and you *really* believe that the right to life is so paramount it transcends the right to bodily autonomy, then it follows that abortion is unacceptable for healthy pregnancies but the only answer in this case. I don't agree with this, because I don't see any evidence for a fetus being a fully-fledged human being and even if it is, that doesn't give it the right to commandeer someone else's body, but I can acknowledge that if people disagree with me on those two points then the only logical conclusion is to be against abortion in most circumstances.

Denying or condemning life-saving abortion, on the other hand, is nothing short of anti-woman, because it's no longer about the preservation of life, it's about punishing a woman for having sex (or simply for being female. Who knows?). At the very least, it's about treating the woman as less than human where her reproductive system is concerned; in any other situation, if a person's life is in danger then they receive the necessary medical treatment.