Prolife extremists: watchful waiting for ectopic pregnancy

[Fallgirl30]

My bestie almost died from an ectopic.  The ONLY thing that made her go to the hospital was being alone on a business trip in a hotel room in NYC.  She said otherwise would’ve toughed it out and home at bled out.  Happy fundies?

[kittenesque]

Fuck these assholes. My mom has an ectopic pregnancy before I was born. My older sister was 3 at the time. By their calculus my mom should have died and left my sister motherless.

This is hatred towards women.

[Sicily]

20 hours ago, Jana814 said:

I’ve always noticed this & it never made any sense to me. 

It's because this is about keeping women in a subordinate position. If it was otherwise, they'd be protesting the destruction of embryos by fertility clinics. They aren't.

19 hours ago, meee said:

Yup, it's true. I'm actually fairly "conservative" but I won't ever vote Republican in American elections and that is one reason why not. 

It's actually more complicated than that: a fetus is some precursor to life and a man has to pay damages, for example, if he hits a pregnant woman and causes her to miscarry. (That's in the Talmud somewhere but I don't remember a page number so please don't ask me to quote it.) He does not, however, get tried and punished for murder, because a fetus isn't the same as a person. But also, a fetus who is endangering its mother is considered a "rodef," someone who is "pursuing" the mother, and the same as you have the right to self-defense if you get mugged, you have the right to save your life at the cost of the fetus. 

I REALLY don't know where Christians get their super pro-fetus stance. It's not anything in their "Old Testament" anyway.

It's not in the New Testament either. It was brought in in later times. There's a wiki page about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_abortion

[Howl]

Are y'all following the facebook kerfuffle where two videos by Lila Rose (forced birth extremist who claims that abortion is NEVER medically necessary) were fact checked as false?  The fact-check rebuttal by two doctors was removed after a complaint from four conservative senators, but Lila Rose's video stayed up.  Lots of nuance and details missing in my synopsis, but details in the linked articles below. 

Four Republican Senators Write to Facebook over ‘Censorship’ of Pro-Life Content

Another article on this from The Verge notes 

Quote

The Review story omits some key context. Facebook didn’t fact-check Live Action itself; the fact-check was conducted by Science Feedback, a partner with domain-area expertise. You can read the fact-check here. The reviewers’ rationale for labeling the post in question false is straightforward. In the video under review, Rose says “abortion is never medically necessary.” In fact, it sometimes is.

The Verge:  Facebook spiked a legitimate fact check about abortion after Republicans complained

Edited September 14, 2019 by Howl

[Ozlsn]

On 9/13/2019 at 2:29 AM, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

That's the part that's been pissing me off lately. The same forced-birthers who harass women trying to access healthcare don't give a crap about children who have been born. A 7 month old little girl was shot in the face in that mass shooting in Texas, but since she wasn't "pre-born", they couldn't care less. 

A very pro-2nd Amendment guy I know (and keep muting on FB, sigh, can't block for various reasons) keeps posting memes and it is amazing how much crossover - with apparently no sense of irony - there is between the pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment groups. And both seem to think universal healthcare is Satan's work, which bemuses me no end.

[Irishy]

But it’s not about preserving life is it? It’s about controlling women.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/22/a-new-poll-shows-what-really-interests-pro-lifers-controlling-women

[AmazonGrace]

Seems to me it's very hard to be a bigot in just one way. Once you get started you tend to go for the whole whole nine yards.

[Gobsmacked]

On 12 September 2019 at 4:29 PM, Howl said:

First how does he know about sanitary supplies in women's bathrooms?  

I think the only place I've seen free tampons are in the bathroom in the REI store.  Increasingly rarely, there are dispensers for tampons and weird condoms, can't remember the costs. 

I seem to remember he was a British student a couple of years ago. A total ignoramous. He earned himself a lot of teasing in the media. His girlfriend chucked him too. 

[kittenesque]

On 9/12/2019 at 7:25 PM, kittenesque said:

My mom has an ectopic pregnancy before I was born.

My mom HAD an ectopic pregnancy. My type A personality is out of control to the point that this typo has legit been bothering me.?

Let’s carry on with the topic at hand -

A lot of you have pointed out the hypocrisy and decisively non-life giving aspects of the pro-life movement, and can I just say, I hate the term “pro-life”?

What this cohort of people advocate for by and large is so counter to life* I find it upsetting to use this term. I’ve heard “forced-birth” used, which is what encapsulates many of these people so much better, but this isn’t even forced birth. It’s a death sentence for being a woman.

*In my experience, many of these same “pro-life” folks have sanctimonious, cruel thoughts about refugees and asylum seekers, support legislation that hurts poor women that choose to have babies, are pro trashing the earth we all need to survive, etc. I think I’m ranting here now, BUT THIS IS SO COUNTER TO RESPECT FOR LIFE.

 

[polecat]

 

 

 

 

2

On 9/12/2019 at 6:41 AM, Howl said:

Vox has a post out about anti-abortion extremists who believe that watchful waiting is OK for ectopic pregnancy because something, something, something. 

It's not a "very small chance of death." Ruptured ectopic pregnancy is the highest cause of death in the first trimester and is an extremely dangerous condition.  Even the professional organization for pro-life ob-gyns 

Anyway, read the Vox article here: 

This life-threatening pregnancy complication is the next frontier in the abortion debate     Ectopic pregnancies can be deadly if left untreated. But abortion opponents are telling another story.

and more to the point

This is some deeply, profoundly scary shit and will cost women's lives.   

Watchful waiting is not completely unheard of in the OB world with ectopic pregnancies that are diagnosed before they become symptomatic and cause problems because they are sometimes resorbed. 

I know this because I had one. My last pregnancy had a uterine pregnancy and an ectopic pregnancy. It wasn't a great situation, and there were literally no good solutions. The injection -- which was most commonly used at that time and possibly still now -- would have terminated both pregnancies. Surgery would have cost me my tube and could have risked the healthy pregnancy as well. Since my only symptom at that point was light spotting, my OB suggested watchful waiting -- I went in daily for HCG tests and had ultrasounds every other day (iirc -- it might have even been daily). 

And as it turned out, that was the right choice. The ectopic pregnancy ended up being resorbed. It didn't cause a ruptured tube, and it didn't kill me. I didn't need surgery or a shot, and my uterine embryo survived. He's almost 14, in fact. 

I'll forever be grateful that watchful waiting was an option rather than something I was forced into. If I hadn't had a choice -- if I'd been forced to go through days of uncertainty especially if I hadn't had a viable pregnancy at the same time -- it would have been utterly terrifying (even more than it already was). I'm also glad that, had things gone south, my doctor was on the ball and prepared to do whatever it took to save my life, even if that meant I'd be losing my viable pregnancy, too. That wasn't something I wanted -- I'd had multiple miscarriages and desperately wanted that baby. But at the same time, I had two babies who needed me more.

Politicians need to stay out of doctors' offices and women's uteruses. They don't know what they're talking about. Period. And they have ZERO empathy for any of the women who are in these life-altering and often life-threatening situations. 

 

[CelticGoddess]

On 9/12/2019 at 8:20 AM, AmazonGrace said:

It's funny how pro life never extends to a pregnant female. Their life isn't worth shit

I've been calling them anti-woman/pro-fetus or forced birthers for some time now.   For this exact reason, they only care about the fetus, not the mother, not the baby.

I have some forced birthers in my family.  It's funny how quickly they change their minds (for themselves) when it's their teen who is pregnant or when it's their life that is in danger.  I know some of my family members have this particular skeleton in their closet.  But they are still unwilling to bend.

13 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

A very pro-2nd Amendment guy I know (and keep muting on FB, sigh, can't block for various reasons) keeps posting memes and it is amazing how much crossover - with apparently no sense of irony - there is between the pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment groups. And both seem to think universal healthcare is Satan's work, which bemuses me no end.

You have just described about half my family.  Add racism to the mix and that one side of my family.  Fortunately, I do not have to deal with them because I have pretty much been disowned by most of them.  I keep in touch with only a couple of them.   See my previous post.  THey have a LOT of skeletons in their closets/

 

[AuntCloud]

@polecat joke’s on the anti-women/forced birthers: I was in a similar situation as yours but had to say goodbye to my tube and a litre of blood. If I didn’t, I would have perished along with my intrauterine embryo (who started university a couple of weeks ago).