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Archives for February 2009

Women who do in-vitro really want kids

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Or not.

TOKYO – Health officials in Japan say a woman was likely impregnated with the fertilized egg of another woman by accident during an in vitro procedure last year.

The woman, who is in her 20s, aborted the pregnancy when she was told of the potential mix-up at the government-run hospital in Kagawa prefecture, about 530 kilometres southwest of Tokyo. She is now suing the local government for the equivalent of US$222,000, according to news reports.

She can use the money she wins in a settlement to try again. (The phrases “viciously calculating” and “in control of her reproductive rights” spring to mind.)

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Patricia wonders: Andrea, where do you find these stories?

I’m puzzled at to why she feels she is entitled to $220,000. The “mistake” has been “erased”. Is she entitled to $220,000 as compensation for pain and suffering experienced as a result of having an abortion? That would make an interesting legal precedent, wouldn’t it?

Or is she entitled to $220,000 because she wasn’t in fact carrying the baby she thought she was and that has resulted in shattered hopes, grief and loss. But if that’s the case, then she has to admit that she was definitely carrying a baby and it wasn’t just a “mistake” she aborted.

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Rebecca adds: Am I the only one wondering about the parents of the aborted baby? Did the clinic know who the biological parents were? Were they notified? One can only assume that, having gone through the process of IVF to the point that they have a fertilized egg ready for implantation, they dearly wanted a baby. What must it be like to be them – presumably struggling with infertility, with a baby that is genetically theirs having been successfully transplanted and then aborted?

I can’t condemn people who try anything possible to have a child. But the more invasive and artificial the technologies involved become, the more opportunities there seem to be for things to go horribly wrong.

Reporting live from Ottawa

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Eleven police cars, stopped traffic, well over twenty black limousines, at least four emergency vehicles, some more police cars, and two helicopters, one flying lower, the other higher.

It is highly likely I just witnessed President Obama’s arrival on Parliament Hill.

The snow stopped falling, however, it remains overcast. Disappointing.

For a few precious moments

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Ottawa woman pleads guilty in newborn’s death. She allegedly tied a plastic bag around her infant son’s head, and pleaded guilty to infanticide. Also known as murder. But she could have aborted the fetus moments before his birth and suffered no legal consequences.

The baby would still be dead. It would still be a dead baby. His body would probably have been thrown out with the garbage. But society would not seek to punish the mother for wanting her son dead. That is what this ad campaign is trying to make Canadians understand. Yes, indeed, we have gone too far. And the worst thing about it is that we didn’t even mean to go this far.

These little babies are human beings one and all. Why are we treating them differently?

This is the moment I’m worried about

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Bristol Palin talks about how hard it was to tell her parents she was pregnant:

In the interview, Bristol admitted that confessing the pregnancy to her family was more difficult than the birth of her baby — saying it was “harder than labor.”

Since labour is not universally acknowledged as being super easy, we can imagine what it felt like for her to tell her parents. That’s when our abortion-friendly culture kicks in for so many. For how many kids do you bet it’s easier to go “fix the problem” than have to tell anyone?

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Rebecca adds: The pro-life charity Efrat in Israel works to stop abortion by trying to provide whatever an individual woman would need to make her choose to give birth to the baby. Very often, what teenagers living at home need is someone to come with them when they tell their parents, who can de-escalate and moderate the inevitable anger and betrayal and disappointment and fear most parents face when they learn their underage daughter is going to be a mother.  They also need to know that there are people and an organization who will find a home for them if their worst fears are realized and their parents throw them out. My understanding is that the vast majority of the time, this doesn’t happen – but an awful lot of pregnant teenagers are scared that it might. If telling your parents seems scarier than labour, it probably seems a lot scarier than an abortion, especially when abortion is presented as a minor procedure, about as painful and less time-consuming than getting a cavity filled (which, from a purely technical perspective, is probably accurate).

Hey, I’m not the only one to notice…

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James Taranto, over at the Wall Street Journal, isn’t impressed with big-league feminists. Noting how NOW is making a big deal out of the Chris Brown/Rihanna business and domestic violence in general, he wondered what they had to say about two atrocious cases of same, including the awfully under-reported case of wife beheading outside of Buffalo. (About which, incidentally, Mark Steyn had the best headline EVER.)

Do you know what NOW had to say about a man who has reportedly confessed to having beheaded his wife? That’s right. Nothing.

Now I am opposed to domestic violence in every case (including female-on-male; and same-sex violence). I also understand that one can’t comment on every single case of abuse. But give me a break. Beheadings aren’t so common in the United States as to go unnoticed. Seems like a big one to miss, especially for a feminist organization.

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UPDATE, Wednesday: It appears the New York State chapter of NOW is quite upset by the murder and has denounced it forcefully. Good for them.

Playing by the rules

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The rules of dating and sex as taught today appear to go something like this–you can have sex if you are in love. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) Those rules further say that since kids are going to have sex anyway, we should protect them. Through things like birth control and condoms. (Again, correct me if I’m wrong.)

So when we see this story from the UK of kids (literally) having kids are they not following the lessons of our culture? Just at a younger-than-expected age? With the one major mistake of not having an abortion to conceal the problem, so that adults can’t delude themselves into thinking there is no problem, anymore.

I’m not saying this isn’t crazy and a tragedy and a symptom of social decline.

But I’m losing track of what I’m supposed to be shocked by, these days. I can’t help but think these kids are playing by the rules we give them.

(Anyone recall the discussion in the Ottawa Citizen not too long ago about co-ed sleepovers?)

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Brigitte can’t help noticing: One paragraph in that story stands out:

Britain has the highest underage pregnancy rate in western Europe, despite channelling substantial resources into sex education for children as young as five. According to the Office for National Statistics, over the past decade 385 girls under the age of 14 have become pregnant, and more than 40 boys under 14 have fathered children; four boys aged 11 have had children in recent years.

So, do you think that means modern sex-ed isn’t working? Nah. Surely the problem is we’re not spending nearly enough showing 3-year-olds how to put on condoms.

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Rebecca says: I try not to disagree with Andrea in public, since she wields the blogging whip without mercy, but I don’t think this is accurate:

The rules of dating and sex as taught today appear to go something like this–you can have sex if you are in love.”

I think this is largely true for people over thirty or so, although this is the demographic that loved Sex and the City, a show which revered the zipless encounter. If we’re talking about teens and university students, though, a fair chunk of that population operates by different mores, more along the lines of “you can have sex if you want to.” There are some generally accepted rules: it should be consensual, it’s not cool for guys to drug girls to get them in bed, it’s not cool for girls to lie about being on the pill, and most of all, thou shalt not judge those who have recreational sex, for who are you to judge?

I think this has serious consequences for unplanned pregnancies and how we cope with them. People have always had premarital sex, and teen pregnancies have always been with us (albeit in much smaller numbers.) But in earlier generations, one generally had sex with someone one knew well, cared for, and could imagine being married to, so an unplanned pregnancy followed by a quick and discreet wedding was the logical outcome. In an era in which anonymous sex is commonplace, this traditional solution doesn’t work nearly so well.

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Andrea to Rebecca: Please come and see me in my office at the end of class. Thank you.

I stand corrected. I thought there still was some small correlation between love and sex. But now I see I’m wrong. Ah, progress.

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