ProWomanProLife

In Canadian health care, hospital funding is front-loaded and each patient chips away at the pile. Many have suggested a model whereby hospitals are paid per patient “served.” This way, each patient becomes a source of revenue as opposed to a drain on resources. Makes sense? Well this idea has been met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. Too complicated they say. Well, apparently it works for the education system. Can you imagine local hospitals engaging in PR battles over patients? Could we send a couple of education bureaucrats to hospitals please?

I am sure many of you were following the story of Baby Isaiah May. I’m sorry to say he died today, shortly after being taken off life support.

Rest in peace, little one.

In our abortion-friendly culture, “pro-life” information tends to be suppressed. A great column in the Post today about how abortion harms maternal and infant health:

Why has Poland made such strides in improving both maternal and infant health? Certainly not by spending a lot of money on “reproductive health services,” to use the preferred euphemism. Poland is a poor country, much poorer than either Canada or its immediate European neighbours. The money simply isn’t there for any lavish program to improve maternal and infant health. The only change that could have produced such a dramatic improvement is the documented decline in the induced abortion rate.

This is one of those difficult situations where telling the truth strikes people as lies, because we’ve all believed a lie for so long. That lie being that abortion helps and protects women.

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Just noticed this: Another thoughtful letter on women’s health as it pertains to abortion abroad, this time, looking at El Salvador.

Or so it seems, from this research:

Patients left in a “vegetative” state after suffering devastating brain damage are able to understand and communicate, groundbreaking research suggests.

Experts using brain scans have discovered for the first time that the victims, who show no outward signs of awareness, can not only comprehend what people are saying to them but also answer simple questions.

They were able to give yes or no responses to simple biographical questions.

No, the technique those researchers use doesn’t work with every PVS patient. But they claim it did work with some. As the article also notes:

It will raise questions about when doctors should switch off life support machines. It is likely to add to the debate on assisted suicide as the patient could potentially decide and communicate if they wish to carry on living.

I’ll bet. And a good thing, too.

I find this surprising, to say the least:

The mortality rate of Californian women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, reports California Watch. The investigative reporting website interviewed the authors of a not-yet-public Department of Public Health study identifying the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the total number of deaths remains relatively small, the report affirms that it’s now more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia. Possible reasons behind the spike include an uptick in morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from the growing numbers of C-sections. And the trend could be nationwide. An alert issued last week to hospitals by the Joint Commission, the leading health care accreditation and standards group in the country, warned: “Unfortunately, current trends and evidence suggest that maternal mortality rates may be increasing in the U.S.”

Whatever you do, don’t ask Michael Ignatieff to comment.

Lorne Gunter has a column about the abortion/breast cancer thing Andrea mentioned earlier. Personally, I’m not all that excited. I find that being afraid of getting breast cancer is not exactly a stellar reason to choose not to abort a pregnancy, and besides, it’s not right to scare people with risks that appear to be (if I understood correctly) fairly small. But there is a but. Two, actually.

One: If there is a reasonably good reason to believe that a procedure might increase certain risks (cancer, depression, etc.) and/or have undesirable side effects, it simply is wrong not to mention those risks and side effects and make sure the patient understands them before performing the procedure. If relevant information is suppressed, the choice can’t be free.

Two: If we decide that low risks of getting cancer are not worth mentioning, then maybe we could lay off the double standard and give smokers a break. As Lorne says:

There is plenty of hypocrisy in this, too. Second-hand smoke increases non-smokers’ risk of lung cancer by less then 20%, even with prolonged, heavy exposure. That’s about half the apparent increased risk of developing breast cancer from having an abortion. Yet governments have passed all sorts of laws shielding the public from secondhand smoke at work, the arena, the mall and the stadium.

I don’t want laws banning abortion. I just want people to stop treating abortion as though it were as simple and consequence-free as brushing your teeth in the morning.

And that’s probably because, all else being equal, it’s a better way to deliver your children – that’s sort of what women’s bodies are designed for. Certainly better for everyone, mom and baby, than a medically unnecessary C-section. Yet the rates of births by C-section around the world are so high they’re called “epidemic”. Why?

Reasons for elective C-sections vary globally, but increasing rates in many developing countries coincide with a rise in patients’ wealth and improved medical facilities.

In Asia, some women opt for the surgery to choose their delivery day after consulting fortune tellers for “lucky” birthdays or times. Others fear painful natural births or worry their vaginas may be stretched or damaged by a normal delivery. Some women also prefer the operation because they mistakenly believe it is less risky.

Others want to make sure the birth of their baby fits into their schedule. In other cases it appears doctors and hospitals push for them (pardon the pun), either because they make more money that way or to avoid malpractice suits. I’m trying to decide which reason is craziest: Worrying about what a baby (roughly the size of a small elephant, at least if you ask women in their ninth month of pregnancy) will do to a woman’s inner plumbing, or making sure the child’s birth won’t interfere with a busy work and social schedule, or ensure a happy future for the child based on a fortune teller’s say-so?

I gather that when you need one in a hurry, a C-section is like a gift from heaven. And it’s great that we live in a world where such life-saving surgeries are readily available. I feel the same way about open-heart surgery or radiation therapy, yet I wouldn’t want to have any of those procedures performed on me unless it was absolutely necessary.

Pigs are flying, all around me, even as I type this. Sweet vindication, for Maurice Vellacott and any and all of us concerned about the link between abortion and breast cancer (and the link between the Pill and breast cancer, too). Gloria Galloway is right:

…[T]rying to prevent abortions by scaring women with breast cancer would truly be wrong. But so too would be suppressing the risks of abortion or any medical procedure.

Incidentally, I agree with the first part of the statement. The reason freedom of information is important is simply because it’s important. Done. There will someday be an outcry that information was not released and/or publicized on this topic. I’m not saying it’s going to the headline in tomorrow’s paper, but I believe I will live to see that day.

Anti-depressant drugs may not do anything for moderate depression, says new study.

Some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients, according to a new analysis released Tuesday.

Recently, I have had cause to think there are too many doctors willing to put 100 per cent healthy women on anti-depressants. The ups and downs of life are not meant to be entirely eradicated on a steady stream of medication.

A study indicates there is a link between abortion and breast cancer, and the Pill and breast cancer:

…Dr. Brinton’s participation in the study was significant because the NCI has “firmly maintained” a position denying an abortion-breast cancer link since 2003.

The study, titled “Risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer in women under the age of 45 years,” was published in the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) medical journal “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.”

If you could stop just one person from getting cancer, wouldn’t you get the word out on these links?

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Brigitte disagrees: Oh dear me, no. You don’t mention it AT ALL. Instead, what you do is share intimate but meaningless information with strangers in the hopes of “raising awareness” about breast cancer, even though it’s getting hard nowadays to find someone somewhere who isn’t aware of it.