Maybe when a woman miscarries it needs to be determined if she might have caused it. Maybe she had a drink or a cup of coffee or walked down the stairs or fell on an icy sidewalk or had “bad thoughts” about the pregnancy.
If it can be determined that the woman might have had done anything whatsoever to “cause” the death of the fetus, book her for murder.
And heaven forbid a couple should deliberately throw away frozen embryos.
Um… huh? I’ve stared at that paragraph for a few minutes now, and it’s not making any more sense. How exactly is a woman to “choose” to not exercise her “right” to miscarry? Shall we all check ourselves into the hospital the moment we discover we’re pregnant, and stay there for nine months, just in case? You understand how a miscarriage typically works, right? Especially a first trimester one? As a rule, you have some pain, start to bleed, go to the hospital, and they say “Sorry, here’s some advil, wait it out.”
Dude, feel free to light a candle for every one of them if you like. But there’s no reason to impose the stress and expense of a funeral for every abortion/miscarriage on anyone else.
The first link briefly mentions miscarriages, but it’s mostly about stillbirths and infants who died too soon after birth to be baptized. All it says about rites after a miscarriage is:
That’s not a funeral, and it’s clearly a lesser rite. It isn’t even the deceased fetus that’s being blessed; it’s the parents.
The second link is basically about a support group for parents who have had miscarriages. Once a year, there’s a mass memorial service. That’s not a funeral either. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not anywhere near an equivalence.
Been there too. It ain’t fun.
With all of the emotional stress infertility, miscarriage and sudden infant death causes millions of families, this issue is a priority for medical science, political views notwithstanding. As a result, it is pretty well understood what causes the great majority of those embryo deaths.
The vast majority of them are due to gross chromosomal abnormality, infection, hormonal imbalance, or conditions such as diabetes or blood pressure problems.
This is generally and properly thought to be a medical issue, and politics doesn’t intrude into it much, unless someone is trying to draw a rather misplaced analogy, IMHO.
I think it is more morel than political. Is the miscarried fetus a human being? If so, why is it treated differently from other human beings? Why isn’t every instance of death investigated, to determine the cause? Why is every death not recorded? Why are extraordinary efforts not used to recover the corpses?
Well, once they’re flushed, they’re considered lost at sea.
Oh, come on. I’m pretty pro-life, and I’m against this death-certificate nonsense. It muddies the issue significantly. Furthermore, it defies common sense where I believe that that generally resides on a moderate pro-life position.
Only a zealot would argue that a fetus should possess fully equivalent rights to an infant already born. But an equally unpleasant zealot would similarly insist that that unborn baby isn’t really a life at all, even when we all know in our heads that it is.
I asked Diogenes once how he behaved when his wife was pregnant. Did they refer to the baby as a “fetus” as he does on the boards? He admitted that he did not, they called it a baby. As we all do, when it is a child we plan to have and love.
I don’t think this will be solved by legislation solely, except maybe by pinning down some areas where there can be some agreement. The legislation stepping up penalties for causing fetal death seemed like a good example of this. But the real battle will be won by convincing more and more people that this is a choice they could never make.
Bah. I’m sure some clever right-to-life plumber could design a FetusTrapTM that could be installed between the toilet and the main waste line. Then it’s simply a matter of checking it every day. Or providing evidence of all women of menstruating age taking a pregnancy test every day.
That is true…I linked you to an article that doesn’t explain this very well.
Basically, the Church doesn’t require funerals & burials for miscarried children, but will provide the funeral if the parents wish it. As far as I understand it, the reason these funerals are not SOP for the Church is twofold:
Early-term miscarriages usually don’t have a body to bury
Unbaptized people are generally not allowed a Catholic funeral. In a case of a child (born or unborn) who the parents intended to be baptized, but did not have an opportunity to, special dispensation is often given to allow the funeral.
No, I’m not saying it’s the same thing as a funeral, but the part of the story about the cemetary section for the miscarried babies I thought would illustrate that many people do feel that these children deserve to be treated the same way those who were born do, that’s all.
Nope, it ain’t.
Actually, there’s a move afoot to issue such a certificate in the event of a stillbirth.
Apparently, some parents just can’t accept the fact that they didn’t have a baby, so they want a piece of paper to look at or something. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it’s obviously an emotional issue, not a rational one. In any event, while it might seem noncontroversial to give the grieving parents something symbolic to help them get over the loss, there’s a huge argument about whether issuing a birth certificate for a fetus that has died in the womb amounts to tacit endorsement of the fetus as a “pre-birth child” in the eyes of the government. And if they can get that, then they could try to push for a birth certificate in the case of so-called “partial-birth” abortions. All of this, of course, would be intended to serve as a stepping stone toward making abortion equivalent to murder.
(It occurs to me that this would also make identity theft easier, by increasing the number of infant birth certificates available for someone to steal and adopt as their own, but there’s nothing in the NPR story about that.)
Regardless, that debate doesn’t strike me as being any more or less senseless or pointless as the suggestion to issue death certificates for abortions. Really, like everything else on the subject, it strikes me as a pile of illogical after-the-fact rationalizing to justify strongly-held but ill-considered beliefs.
There are not enough :rolleyes: in the world for this. First of all, a substantial number of miscarriages occur before a woman is even aware that’s she’s pregnant. And most miscarriages occur for a reason; something is going wonky with fetal development, and the resulting fetus will probably be nonviable. Prior to 23 weeks of gestation there is no way to keep a fetus alive outside the womb. Even after that, the cost of attempting to care for the resultant fetus through complete fetal maturity are enormous, and the likelyhood of chronic illness, retardation, and congenital defects is dramatically higher than for a full-term fetus.
With pregnancies under regular observation of a obstetrician, everything that can be done by current medical science within practical cost and effort to prevent miscarriages of an otherwise healthy and correctly devleoping fetus are done. If you were serious about minimizing fetal defects and infant mortality it would be far better to place your efforts into greater education on prenatal health and medical services for the poor.
Well, it makes a public record of any woman who has an abortion, so that anti-abortion protesters can harrass and malign her. Isn’t that a good purpose?
Stranger
Tsk, tsk. You’re being reasonable. Let’s look at this like true right to lifers, who believe the right of a fetus to survive trumps the right of the mother, assuming the mother is assured of survival also.
While it is true that we can’t do anything about nonviable fetuses, some will have major defects, that would cause a miscarriage. These must be protected - you wouldn’t kill a deformed baby, would you? Yes, we can’t care for a fetus outside the womb now, but we must immediately institute a crash program to develop this technology. It no doubt could be done for a fraction of the cost of Iraq.
No problems with maternal education.
What if the mother doesn’t want the fetus removed? Tough. if she doesn’t have the right to let a doctor remove a fetus, she certainly doesn’t have the right to prevent a doctor from removing a fetus to protect it. Would she be allowed to remove a baby from an incubator, if that would kill the child? Of course not. Fetal rights come first.
As for cost - who cares? They’re alive, right?
oops - just remembered something. These babies would probably go on welfare, and require healthcare, and that might require a tax increase! Never mind.
(We can just call this a Modest Right to Life Proposal.)
Will women have to ensure a death certificate is filed if they use Plan B?
And how does all this affect IRS status re dependents?
We’d probably need to increase the length of the Social Security Number by another 10-20 digits. Depending on the breaks, of course.
Stranger
I’m pro-choice, but if effective artificial wombs were to become widespread and the risk of the transfer procedure to the woman wasn’t higher than the risks of an abortion then I might be willing to support increasing restrictions on abortion.
You should read that 
Plan B prevents an egg from being released. It won’t expel a fertilized egg.
I had written about the experiences my wife and I had with fertility problems and miscarriages before.
Three of the pregnancies were far enough along that we were able to hold our babies and kiss them goodbye. All three of them were baptized and we had funerals for them, including burial and headstones. We still visit their graves on their birthdays, the day that they left the womb and entered this world. Only the last baby actually breathed air, even if it was only for 30 minutes. That was enough to get him a birth certificate in addition to his death certificate. Hell, the government even gave him a Social Security number so we could claim him as a dependent that year. How generous. Because the other two we were able to hold died in the womb there was no official notice other than a medical form with a statement of “spontaneous abortion” and autopsy and genetic reports calling our babies “products of conception”.
That’s right, I said babies not fetus, embryo, parasite or product of conception. Those were our babies. We desperately wanted each and every one from the moment we know my wife was pregnant until today. It didn’t matter if the pregnancy lasted 8 weeks or 22, these were our children. Even the ones we were never able to hold had names. We could look at ultrasounds and see them sucking their thumbs or fluttering their legs. When we looked at the faces of the babies we could hold we could see mine or my wife’s features.
I refuse to say pro-choice versus pro-life. That would mean the opposite member is either anti choice which is not always the case or pro-death which is not what the people are talking about.
I think what many people forget when they talk about pro-abortion versus anti-abortion people is the mother’s view towards her pregnancy. The woman who will have an abortion is doing so because she does not what to carry to term. Whether it is because she is poor, in ill health, was raped (I include incest with rape because I don’t think it would be voluntary) or simply doesn’t want to be inconvenienced she has decided that her well-being is at stake here. The pregnancy is a problem and needs to be eliminated.
Anti-abortion people tend to view a pregnancy as a miracle. How can two simple cells combine, with proper care and time, to become a new person? How can anyone think that a baby isn’t worth the effort to keep alive? The babies aren’t the problem and should be protected.
Having been through so many losses of the children we wanted, it is difficult for my wife and I to see people treat babies so callously. Whether it is through pre-natal alcohol or drug use (including smoking), poor nutrition or abuse in any form after the child is born we are troubled by it. We can understand and accept abortion in the cases of rape/incest or when the mother’s health is at risk, but don’t think it is proper for a woman to suddenly take responsibility for her actionsafter she has gotten pregnant through voluntary unprotected sex. Where was her concern when she got into bed?
Condoms are dirt cheap and are frequently given away by schools or even cities (as NYC recently did). Even though my wife and I decided to wait until we were engaged before having sex, I knew that if we ever changed our minds that I could make a run to Osco, Walgreens or even a gas station to pick up a pack of condoms. For the first year of our marriage we still used them because we knew it would be irresponsible for us to get pregnant when we were not financially settled.
I realize that my words will come across as pompous and preachy. Some will pit me and say, ”How dare you judge these women?” I feel sorry for any women who feels that abortion is the only choice she has available to her. I’ve known several women who have had abortions because events that were going on in their lives meant that a baby would have been a hardship for them. Each of them talk about the regret and pain, wondering what their child would be like today. I also know many people who have struggled with infertility and losses and would love to have a baby of their own but, through no fault of their own, it is not meant to be. They deal with thousands of dollars and years of heartache in attempts to adopt in the US, finally having to leave the country to find the child they always dreamed of. US adoption laws are so stringent and labyrinthine that the policymakers should be ashamed.
To those board members who have had abortions, I do not hate you or despise you. I’m sure your decision was not an easy one to make and I’m sure it ripped you apart. You have my sympathies and I hope you have either f
Respect for human life!
It used to be considered “just part of nature” for a high percentage of infants to die shortly after birth, too. Medical technology is constantly changing our ideas of what is inevitably “natural” and what is preventable. Would you refuse to be “distraught” if the infant and child mortality rate were still in the 20–30% range, because such things are “just part of nature”? If not, then why do you accept that the current huge mortality rates for zygotes are inevitable and not worth worrying about—except for the comparatively tiny fraction that’s due to deliberate abortion?
Yes, but my point was that understanding the causes of individual embryo deaths is not considered a matter of concern to society. Medically speaking, it’s pretty well understood what causes the great majority of deaths of born people too. But we don’t ignore them individually the way we do with the overwhelming majority of embryo deaths.
So? As I noted above, our society wouldn’t accept equally massive infant/child mortality rates just because the causes of death were medically recognized disorders. Nor would we consider it reasonable, under such circumstances, for people concerned about infant/child well-being to ignore the massive mortality rates from “natural” causes and instead focus solely on enacting tougher laws against infant/child homicide.
So why do almost all opponents of abortion seem to think it’s reasonable to dismiss the much, much larger numbers of spontaneous zygote deaths as a non-problem? ISTM that people who care about saving lives should focus on major causes of death, not minor ones. After all, it’s universally considered worthwhile for activist groups to raise funds and awareness to fight against all kinds of “natural” fatal disorders, from heart disease to AIDS to cancer. Why do so-called “pro-life” groups consider it unnecessary to devote any of their activism to fighting against the “natural” disorders that cause the overwhelming majority of zygote/fetus deaths?
When I see a “pro-life” group acknowledging that more needs to be done to bring down the sky-high zygote mortality rate in general, instead of just airily accepting the vast majority of zygote deaths on the grounds that they’re “natural”, then I’ll start to believe that saving the lives of the unborn is really their top priority.
What’s the non-zealot position on the extent of embryonic/fetal rights, then? If embryos are considered to have a right to life, then why does it “defy common sense” for society to document or investigate their deaths, the way we do with the deaths of people in general?
Nobody that I know of disputes that an embryo or fetus is indeed “a life” of some sort. What abortion-rights supporters do not agree with, either in public discourse or privately “in our heads”, is that embryos or early-term fetuses count as fully human persons or possess an inalienable right to life.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that parents-to-be can’t choose to think of their embryos/fetuses as “babies” if they want to. You haven’t unearthed any logical inconsistency by pointing out that even abortion-rights supporters such as Diogenes often do choose to think of their own unborn offspring that way. In fact, a crucial part of a woman’s right to choose is the ability to make her own decision in early pregnancy about whether she considers the embryo a beloved person whose life she wants to nourish and protect, or a non-person whose life she is not willing to harbor in her body. A fetus’s claim to independent personhood with full individual rights grows along with its development during gestation, rather than suddenly emerging full-blown at the moment of fertilization.
You may not find that position pleasant, but that doesn’t necessarily make it zealotry.
Given the hostility towards women that is at the core of the “pro life” movement, that would probably encourage anti abortion laws. I have no problem seeing “pro life” lawmakers gloating ( in private ) about how “That’ll put those bitches in their place ! That’ll teach them to defy God’s Will !”.
No, we “know” no such thing; at least, not a “life” as morally significant as that of a dog or cat. It’s alive, but so is an insect.
No, it shows contempt for human life, by equating mindless tissue with a person.