Archives for February 2009

Oh, I know. She’s busy counting the days until her sixth baby is born… But what can I do? She’s the one who knows stuff about ethics. I’m just, you know, a know-nothing reactionary right-winger who doesn’t like too many medical interventions in what should be normal life stuff. (Don’t get me wrong: modern medicine is great when you need it; but we don’t need it nearly as often as some people would have us believe.)

Anyhoo.

Long piece in the Globe and Mail about yet another “simple test” that could, they claim, detect genetic problems with your baby earlier in a pregnancy. It’s too early in the morning (plus Véronique is, last I heard, still pregnant…) to start a “spot-the-euphemism” drinking game, but gosh, what a piece. A few choice samples:

Current methods to collect fetal DNA, such as amniocentesis, involve an intrusion into the uterus that can trigger a miscarriage – a risk that makes many couples refuse the procedure.

(Written as though most normal people – and not, say, reactionary kooks like me – would, of course, never refuse such a procedure… I mean, really, what’s the big deal?)

Yet as with most advances in reproductive medicine, the new technology is raising tricky social questions.

While some see it as a better way to prepare parents and hospitals to care for newborns with special needs, others fear it smacks of eugenics as science makes it ever easier to reject a less-than-perfect baby.

(“tricky social questions”?)

This is a powerful technology,” said Doug Wilson, head of the genetics committee of the Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada.

“If it can be proven to be as accurate [as current diagnostic methods] it will become the new diagnostic gold standard.

“If it can be done at 10 weeks, instead of 16 weeks, it will relieve the stresses of pregnancy early.”

(“relieve the stresses of pregnancy”?)

Dr. Wilson of the obstetrics society noted that even the best current screening methods result in a number of women being told they are carrying a baby with Down syndrome when they are not.

“You could have 10 to 15 women who screen positive, but only one of them will be a true positive,” said Dr. Wilson, also head of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Calgary and Foothills Hospital.

(Right. And that would have nothing to do with a pregnant woman’s decision not to have a giant needle stuck into her uterus? or with – what did they call it? – the stresses of pregnancy?)

U.S. statistics suggest that 80 to 95 per cent of women who receive an early prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to end their pregnancies, she noted. In Canada, the number cannot be tracked due to privacy regulations.

Had enough for one morning? Me, too.

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Tanya’s mind is reeling: So instead of insisting on more accurate screening methods, science is looking for screening methods which can be performed earlier. And this even though it’s likely about 8 out of 10 abortions performed in the name of “fetal abnormality” end the life of a perfectly healthy child.

Now, I’m opposed to eugenics across the board. But even if you aren’t, isn’t that disgusting?

Do they tell the woman, when she screens positive, that there’s less than a 10% chance her child has Down Syndrome? Where are the “reproductive rights” activists now?

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Rebecca adds: Well, two cheers for Canadian medicare, because at US$700 a pop, I can’t see this test being offered, and thus in practice available, here anytime soon.

What’s that about a slippery slope? “But CEO Harry Stylli said the company plans to develop screening tests for a range of other disorders, such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia and Tay-Sachs disease.” Tay-Sachs causes deterioration from late infancy on, leading to death by age 4 or 5. I can imagine how abortion might seem to be a better choice than bringing a child into the world doomed to a short and painful life. But cystic fibrosis patients often live into their late 20s and 30s, and sickle cell anemia reduces the average life expectancy to the late 40s. Implicit in this testing is that at least some parents will choose abortion over bearing a child with the disease being screened for. What sane argument can be made for aborting a baby who will have a medical condition that can largely be managed, and who with today’s medicine could potentially live half a century, and see his or her grandchildren? Heart disease and hypertension also shave a decade or two off life expectancy; if we could pinpoint the genes for those and screen for them in the womb, would that be a good reason to abort? Where do we stop?

The mother of those octuplets talks to the media.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLtm_DW2jMQ]

[h/t Maclean’s]

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Rebecca adds: It’s surreal. Where to start?

One tiny detail of the story: there is a daycare at the university that she hopes to use while finishing her Masters in counselling. There is a very well regarded daycare that a lot of my friends have used at a nearby community centre: for the four infant spaces (infant being between 12 week and 18 months) they have a waiting list of 150 babies. And she’s under the impression that she’ll be able to find, never mind pay for, fourteen spaces?

“I wanted to be a mother” – yes, of course, what could be more natural than to want to be a mother, and since (it’s implied) her fertility problems are linked to an injury, how much worse to feel that your ability to become a mother has been violently taken away from you? But at what point do we have to move beyond the wants of individual adults, and think about the babies?

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Patricia says: The throwaway question “you knew you weren’t going to selectively reduce?” was a nice touch, I thought. It provides a chilling insight into the world of assisted reproduction. As the mother goes through her story, the interviewer just wants to make sure she’s got the process right: the mother had implanted multiple embryos and she didn’t plan on killing even a few of them. Without batting an eye, the mother acknowledges that the “selective reduction”/killing step was not part of her plan and continues on with her story. Implicit in the whole exchange is a complete acceptance that that step would be a completely normal response to the possibility of such a multiple birth, but it just didn’t work for this mother.

I wonder how they decide which babies to “selectively reduce”? Does the doctor review that decision with the parents?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr-cJZrBlzE]

More often than we’d like to think. Often enough for there to be an organization dedicated to the cause.

Our undercover investigation obtained over 800 taped conversations with Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation clinics all across America, which prove that Planned Parenthood and NAF fail to comply with the law. They ignore the law even in cases of child sex abuse where child rape is disclosed and acknowledged – not just suspected.

Now, does Planned Parenthood ignore the law because they so strongly believe that every girl deserves unfettered access to abortion? Maybe every counselor we see in these undercover tapes is a gung-ho feminist willing to risk legal repercussions for the cause. Maybe they’re just that devoted to what they consider “women’s rights.” But would a real feminist, one who cares about more than just abortion, not shudder in the face of statutory rape on an epic scale? It’s been suggested that when girls 15 or under get pregnant, over 60% of the time it’s by an adult.

We have also uncovered data showing that as the age of the victim goes down, the age of the perpetrator goes up.

But maybe Planned Parenthood isn’t just a billion dollar oxymoron. Maybe they’re only in it for the money.

Ezra Levant has the latest… from the free speech point of view.

From my own anti-casual-abortion point of view: I’ll say again (sorry if you’ve read this before; but I am going to say it every chance I get), I object to subjecting unsuspecting bystanders to graphic GAP images without giving them a chance to brace themselves. I challenge everyone to see those graphic and disturbing images [you have been warned], along with Silent Scream – especially pro-choicers, for they should know what it is that they’re defending. But I don’t want to force them to. This said, and given what else goes unchallenged on campus, I consider the treatment of those pro-life students more objectionable than the images in question so I find myself, reluctantly, defending them.

A news story about a 60-year-old Calgary woman who gave birth to twins includes this gem:

She is believed to be among the oldest Canadian women to give birth.

Golly, I rather hope so.

Pro-life club granted status:

GUELPH — A pro-life group at the University of Guelph has been granted full club status by the student union.

The decision about accreditation for Life Choice was announced at last night’s Central Student Association board meeting.

Club status was denied to the group last year in response to a number of complaints the CSA received about a life fair the club held in the University Centre last March.

“As we moved farther and farther from the Life Fair, we found the evidence was weaker because of the time gap,” said CSA finance and human resources commissioner Joel Harnest.

After months of controversy, several contentious public meetings and national media attention, the announcement was made quietly.

Life Choice president Cara Benninger was present when the CSA executive gave out a list of campus clubs that would receive status for the coming semester. Life Choice was on that list.

A club with official status can apply for funding from the CSA and is eligible to book meeting spaces and audio-visual equipment.

“A lot of us are relieved it’s over,” Benninger said. “We’re pleased to have club status again without going through what we went through last semester.”

Harnest said a tribunal that was to be struck to deal with the Life Choice matter has now been cancelled. The terms of reference drafted for that tribunal could now be used for any future issues that arise with campus clubs.

“The Life Choice saga was the spark that drew our attention to the holes in our policies, but we’ve taken the necessary steps to repair those,” Harnest said.

I see my previous post is turning into a fun little discussion of what some feminists think I might have meant by asking where the feminists are when we hear about stories of atrocious mistreatment of women in parts of the world that aren’t North America. This is great – I am thoroughly thrilled to get some traction on that important question. See, I have long been of the view that modern North American feminists (not all of them, but a great many) are in fact mostly concerned with promoting abortion as a ‘reproductive right’ issue and not much else. Perhaps I’m wrong. But here’s what I’d like to see: I would like to see famous and committed feminists in North America be at least half as strident denouncing so-called ‘honour killings’ and all manner of abuse women around the world suffer each and every day as they are decrying “a war on women” being waged from the White House to the nation’s statehouses.

So here’s my challenge: If you find examples of feminists (the more prominent the better, but I’ll take anybody) publicly denouncing anything closely related to “a war on women” that’s being waged by anyone that’s not the White House or the Conservative Party of Canada, please send them along. I will gladly help them spread the word.

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Received Feb. 6 from one reader: link one, link two, link three, link four, link five.

Why, oh why, did they call her “mother” of the believers? What’s motherly about her actions?

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’ll say it until I go blue in the face: Any religion and/or culture that prefers a woman should die rather than live with the “shame” of rape is sick and twisted and worth denouncing at every opportunity. Where, pray tell, are the feminists?

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Rebecca adds: And yet according to “official” Islam, all suffering and problems with the Muslim world are caused by the USA and/or Israel.

Until Muslims writ large are more appalled by this sort of thing, and spend more energy stopping it, than they are by the possibility that the town their uncle’s second cousin may have lived in is now peopled by Jews, or by the fact that American female soldiers are allowed to gasp drive in Saudi Arabia, I have a bit of trouble taking any of their complaints about issues geopolitical or local at all seriously.  Look to the beam of wood in your collective eye, please.

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Tanya says: What this woman has done is atrocious. I do believe, though, that by denouncing the whole culture based on acts such as these, we can’t gain the trust and respect of the very women whom we hope to see liberated.

I don’t doubt for a moment that Muslims everywhere are horrified and appalled by this woman’s actions.

Big news in the world of post-partum depression. Apparently, they’ve discovered that a “simple” blood test might be able to predict whether or not a woman is likely to experience it. This is apparently good:

If we know early on that a woman is at high risk to develop postpartum depression, then we can implement interventions before symptoms actually occur,” said lead researcher Ilona S. Yim, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine.

I read the article with a skeptical eye. As a rule, I think letting Mother Nature dictate things is better than too much scientific intervention. I gather being depressed (or suffering from wild mood swings) after a baby is a mostly normal, if annoying, part of the deal. I also understand that in some cases, severe post-partum depression requires professional intervention. But what I don’t like about a test like that is that it carries the risk of making women identified as likely PPD sufferers stress out unduly during their pregnancy, which isn’t great, especially for first-time moms. And what if you’re tagged but are in fact a false positive? Does the test result become some weird form of self-fulfilling prophecy? “The test,” the article explains, “misclassified about 25 percent of the women.”

Yikes!

But that’s not the worst:

If the findings can be replicated, then testing the level of this hormone might become standard care, Yim said.

“Postpartum depression affects so many women that it would be great to have something that would help to identify being at risk early on, and perhaps develop strategies to prevent it,” she said.

Women who know they are at risk for postpartum depression can take steps to reduce stress that might ward off the condition, Yim said. “They could take yoga classes and avoid severe stressors,” she said.

So after all this you’re meant to take yoga? Why not forget the blood test and advise every pregnant woman to avoid “severe stressors” and do something nice and relaxing (as long as it’s not getting a hot stone pedicure…) instead?