NYT article about reducing from twins to a singleton

[Anonymous]

PP 18:46: Thanks so much for answering. Somehow, I don't find you particularly scary. I think we all have more in common sometimes than we know.

Your point about micromanaging and PP's post reiterating the same does resonate with me. Forgive me for sounding kind of confusing here, because I"m still trying to pin down my own thoughts. I guess what I'm thinking is that for some people, once they give up the idea that pregnancy will happen "naturally," they believe they can control every aspect of the whole process. And maybe doctors feed into this a little bit -- after all, if we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to control these inner workings of our body, right?...

But obviously life doesn't work that way. I think, of all the women mentioned on this particular article, the one I can least identify with was the woman who was making a distinction between naturally-conceived twins vs. IVF twins. That naturally conceived twins were better in some way than IVF twins, more deserving of life. I just can't follow that particular line of thinking. Either twins are an problem for you, or they are not.

I was the one who posted earlier about how sometimes technology can outstrip our ethics. I really can't pretend to know all the answers here. I don't feel like I can advocate a policy that would make these kinds of decisions for other women, but I'm not blithe about it.

Anyway, thank you again.

[Anonymous]

I've actually found this thread surprisingly thoughtful, honest, and insightful, on both sides. Obviously, pro-life PPs find any reduction and any abortion to be unsettling and unacceptable. But the pro-choice PPs have almost universally acknowledged this particular kind of abortion to be unsettling--only one of two said reductions are no problem at all. This is a perfect illustration of our national approach to abortion: our personal freedom is so dear, we are willing to let some people do things we find abhorrent for the sake of keeping our own freedom. The essential problem with any free country.

The question is, does an unborn human being have a right to life that must be protected and respected? If so, then our personal feelings about that life are beside the point. As a PP said, we cannot walk up to someone randomly and shoot them, even if we think that would be fun, BUT an unborn child is located in the "incubator" of another human. So does location grant that right?

In the future, if science creates "incubators" for embryos and fetuses, will the tiniest human beings get a right to life they do not have now? Or will it go the other way: any human being who needs scientific "assistance" to live can be terminated if those responsible for their life so choose?

I think the latter is more likely. We have already decided that some human lives are contingent upon our desires. I think we will continue along that path. We will experiment on discarded embryos, and on deliberately cloned embryos. We will begin to "put down" elderly people with no one to care for them, because our population is aging rapidly and there are not enough babies being born to support the elderly population. And if science figures out a way to replicate a womb, I highly doubt there would be cries of "every embryo is sacred" and deserves to be grown to birth from an incubator. Because we would say, but we have created too many embryos to do that! We cannot take care of all of them! Their parents don't want all of them! Etc.

No. It is too late. We hold our freedom to live as we wish too dear to give the smallest human beings the right to life. Many forms of contraception destroy embryos after conception. But no one wants to live without contraception, either.

So while it might be disturbing to see this trade-off at its most gruesome (executing a tiny, but perfectly formed unborn child by injecting her beating heart with potassium chloride), we have set up our system to allow no room for real outrage. It is legal, we need it to be legal to fashion our own lives as we see fit, so there it stands.

As an aside, the % of abortions that are performed on black women, 30%, means 30% of abortions are performed on 12% of the total population, since blacks are about 12% of the US population. In other words, the abortion rate for black women is much higher than it is for white women. That is why many pro-life African American groups refer to their abortion rate as "genocide."

[Anonymous]

I don't want to yank this conversation too far off track, but "genocide" is a particularly inflammatory term in this context. Considering that most women (61 percent) who get abortions already have children, it's also somewhat inaccurate. And it presumes a lack of agency on the part of black women, who are just as capable of making choices for their lives as any other group of people.

Considering that we live in a world where single black mothers with multiple kids are looked upon with great derision and scorn (I think we'd only have to visit other parts of this board to see this thought process in action, and this derision is certainly in the black community as well), it is a bit galling for some pro-life groups to bemoan black abortions while railing about "welfare moms" on the other hand and trying to cut off or greatly restrict public assistance programs.

I'm not suggesting that all anti-abortion groups are that hypocritical. There's good and bad in all groups. But there is definitely some hypocrisy between what some espouse and what they actually think about black mothers with more than one child, or children by multiple fathers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to yank this conversation too far off track, but "genocide" is a particularly inflammatory term in this context. Considering that most women (61 percent) who get abortions already have children, it's also somewhat inaccurate. And it presumes a lack of agency on the part of black women, who are just as capable of making choices for their lives as any other group of people.

Considering that we live in a world where single black mothers with multiple kids are looked upon with great derision and scorn (I think we'd only have to visit other parts of this board to see this thought process in action, and this derision is certainly in the black community as well), it is a bit galling for some pro-life groups to bemoan black abortions while railing about "welfare moms" on the other hand and trying to cut off or greatly restrict public assistance programs.

I'm not suggesting that all anti-abortion groups are that hypocritical. There's good and bad in all groups. But there is definitely some hypocrisy between what some espouse and what they actually think about black mothers with more than one child, or children by multiple fathers.

.

I don't want to veer off on this track either, but "genocide" comes from African-American pro-life groups, not me. I saw a very passionate black woman speak at Harvard about this, and she made a deep impression. She talked about Planned Parenthood's roots as a eugenics organization, the prevalence of abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods (80% of PPFA's clinics), and the callousness of society to single black mothers. Her group is running a controversial billboard campaign right now, with pictures of black children next to "endangered species?". Since Roe, black women's share of abortions has consistently been twice their share of live births. In other words, more black babies are aborted than born.

But this is a separate issue from selective reduction.

[Anonymous]

I don't want to veer off on this track either, but "genocide" comes from African-American pro-life groups, not me.

I know. I know about the billboard campaign and the black religious groups that are behind it. (which is why I noted that the derision towards black single mothers is part of the black community as well, even as 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers.)

I still have the same feelings about the use of the term genocide in this context, and I still feel that if one would want to address abortion in the black community (or any community,) then it would be a better line of attack to ask black women (or women in general) why they are getting abortions, and to see if there are policies could address those issues. I just don't believe that women wake up one day and say "abortion day! Yippee!" There are circumstances that lead one to that decision. If abortion is indeed a problem, it is a symptom of something larger. (imo)

And there's a whole other thought that I have about referring to fetuses as "babies." (as in, "more black babies are aborted than born.") They aren't babies, yet. But I understand why it's easy to use that language; it's because of who we are -- women who want very much to have children. However, I'm not sure that "embryo=fetus=baby" is a generalizable line of thinking.

Anyway! I'm going all over the place this morning, and not sticking to the point at hand; forgive me.

[Anonymous]

I am pro-life, but I can understand how a woman might make the decision to abort very early in a pregnancy, or before having seen an ultrasound (not getting into abortions for defects). But I remember my daughter's 12 week ultrasound - she looked like a baby, she was flipping around, her limbs were moving, could clearly see heartbeat. It was to me, extraordinary, and at that point I quite literally would have killed to protect her if necessary. And she was an unplanned pregnancy. I cannot comprehend going to that ultrasound, having worked hard for the pregnancy, and instructing a doctor to stick a needle in her heart to kill her, and then looking at my surviving baby at
the exact same stage of development. I think many of you who are pro-choice are reacting to that image in the same emotional way I am. There is just something so cold about it. If you are pro-choice I don't think you will find an ethical reason why it bothers you, because really, who cares? If it's not a baby, abort as many times and for whatever reason you want. But I think most pro-choice women could not watch a healthy 12 week ultra-sound and then abort the baby. I think regardless of our ethical stance, most of us just are not capable of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again - the "ew, that seems crrpy" response is exactly why I posted this. I find my (and other's) responses to this to be interesting because they really aren't rational and expose all the complexities in the medical technologies that have also brought us so much good (and brought me my wonderful kids).

That said - I still think it should be difficult for RE's to transfer two donor eggs embryos unless there are issues with a woman's uterus.

Ahhhh.....but I believe they ARE rational. The truly irrational part is that we think it is okay to terminate any fetus at all, yet we have become so brainwashed by our culture, that we must cling tightly to the belief that it is okay lest the whole fabric begins to unravel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP 18:46: Thanks so much for answering. Somehow, I don't find you particularly scary. I think we all have more in common sometimes than we know.

Your point about micromanaging and PP's post reiterating the same does resonate with me. Forgive me for sounding kind of confusing here, because I"m still trying to pin down my own thoughts. I guess what I'm thinking is that for some people, once they give up the idea that pregnancy will happen "naturally," they believe they can control every aspect of the whole process. And maybe doctors feed into this a little bit -- after all, if we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to control these inner workings of our body, right?...

But obviously life doesn't work that way. I think, of all the women mentioned on this particular article, the one I can least identify with was the woman who was making a distinction between naturally-conceived twins vs. IVF twins. That naturally conceived twins were better in some way than IVF twins, more deserving of life. I just can't follow that particular line of thinking. Either twins are an problem for you, or they are not.

I was the one who posted earlier about how sometimes technology can outstrip our ethics. I really can't pretend to know all the answers here. I don't feel like I can advocate a policy that would make these kinds of decisions for other women, but I'm not blithe about it.

Anyway, thank you again.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. While off-topic, a friend had twins via IVF, then conceived naturally with a third. She routinely complained about the doctors not being able to pinpoint anything like they could with her IVF. I'm certainly pro-choice and pro-ART, but sometimes I wonder if medical science has tricked people into thinking they are able to control pretty much everything when it comes to reproduction. There are still a lot of unknowns and you need to be prepared for them. Choosing voluntary embryo reduction does not protect you from any curve balls life can throw at you going forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am pro-life, but I can understand how a woman might make the decision to abort very early in a pregnancy, or before having seen an ultrasound (not getting into abortions for defects). But I remember my daughter's 12 week ultrasound - she looked like a baby, she was flipping around, her limbs were moving, could clearly see heartbeat. It was to me, extraordinary, and at that point I quite literally would have killed to protect her if necessary. And she was an unplanned pregnancy. I cannot comprehend going to that ultrasound, having worked hard for the pregnancy, and instructing a doctor to stick a needle in her heart to kill her, and then looking at my surviving baby at
the exact same stage of development. I think many of you who are pro-choice are reacting to that image in the same emotional way I am. There is just something so cold about it. If you are pro-choice I don't think you will find an ethical reason why it bothers you, because really, who cares? If it's not a baby, abort as many times and for whatever reason you want. But I think most pro-choice women could not watch a healthy 12 week ultra-sound and then abort the baby. I think regardless of our ethical stance, most of us just are not capable of it.

I am pro-choice, and I agree with parts of your post and disagree with other parts. I agree that I could not watch a 12-week ultrasound and abort the baby (I don't think I would be able to have an abortion at all, personally--although I can understand how others might).

But I do NOT think "who cares, abort as many times as you want, for whatever reason you want." I think abortions should be available to people in dire circumstances with few resources, who would not be as fortunate as me if I had an unplanned pregnancy. This means making them available to everyone, even though I don't like the idea of someone having an abortion for what I consider an ethically unacceptable reason. This is the distinction, for me--the women in this article have paid and engineered their way to their multiple pregnancies and then decide to kill one of them. They are not the people in dire straits.

I don't have an answer for what I would do if I could legislate this issue, but these are my thoughts on the ethics. The idea of sticking a needle into the heart of a fetus I purposely created is horrifying, the same way that the idea of abortion is generally horrifying to me personally.

[Anonymous]

apparently that NY Times article sparked a number of other follow up articles all over the web from all types of sources. here's an example: http://www.slate.com/id/2301322/

[Anonymous]

I found this question from the article odd. As in, why is it even a question: What is it about terminating half a twin pregnancy that seems more controversial than reducing triplets to twins or aborting a single fetus?

To me it's about choosing the abort one fetus for the children(s) sake/health and safety vs. for your own convenience. I am a mother of twins. In the pregnancy I dealt with IUGR, my newborns int the NICU, 2 months of hospital bedrest for me, and my own severe pre-eclampsia. I feel like I won the freaking jackpot because at the end of the day I ended up with two (now) healthy amazing kids and my own health. I also feel like it could have gone a different direction. I also feel pretty sure that in this particular pregnancy (and not too uncommonly) things may not have turned out with a happy ended if got pregnant with and tried to carry three.

Im not saying I think it is or is not ok to abort one of two babies, becuase I DON'T think it's that black and white, but I think there are so many factors that need to be considered that may not be on the radar of people who have not carried mulitples.

[Anonymous]

"In other words, more black babies are aborted than born."

This is a lie; plain and simple. Please review the CDC data on abortion rates and compare that to the birth rate for the same year.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_w.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"In other words, more black babies are aborted than born."

This is a lie; plain and simple. Please review the CDC data on abortion rates and compare that to the birth rate for the same year.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_w.

.


Nationwide, you are correct. Only 45% of black babies are aborted. But in several urban centers, 60% of black babies are aborted.

More numbers are available at toomanyaborted.com.

[Anonymous]

that is still a lie.