I know it seems weird to some people, especially if you’ve never experienced it, but there is a grieving process involved with any stillborn infant or miscarriage, no matter what trimester. The hospital I work for has a wonderful perinatal loss team, and they go above and beyond to give the families a chance to say goodbye to the babies that never made it. One nurse sews and knits beautiful tiny clothing and hats, since even newborn clothes are too big for most of them, and from what the team tells me, most families choose to have photos taken so they can have something to hold on to.
I thought the exact same thing till it happened to us. ‘Morbid as hell’, I wrote elsewhere when I learned about a photographer that specialized in such photos. I didn’t understand then and I can’t explain it so you empathize. I’m cool w/ that.
That’s a very kind service for them to provide.
Santorum’s totally wrong here, IMHO, his wife had a choice he’d take away from others, plain and simple.
Just to be clear, it isn’t the grieving or the photographs that I find shocking—more the idea of taking a dead fetus home in a blanket, showing it to small children, and “spending hours kissing and cuddling” it that’s hard for me to comprehend. My mother miscarried when I was young and I’d have been seriously traumatized if my parents did something like that. But you’re right, I don’t understand and don’t claim to.
it appears that the santorums followed the catholic churches teachings, rules, guidelines for the pregnancy that unfortunately had a disastrous outcome. i don’t know if the church has guidelines on operations pre birth.
they decided to do what they could to give gabriel the chance to be born and possibly have a life. prenatal operations are very, very, dicey. the fact that infection occured is not unusual, it is a common thing in surgeries.
the most one could say is that the antibiotics may, repeat, may have helped mrs santorum’s body reject/fight off the source of the infection which unfortunately resulted in what in medical terms is called a spontaneous abortion. as far as i know the catholic church does not speak out against spontaneous abortions; in fact, it may even call them “god’s will”.
afterwards they did what they could to come to terms with what happened. once again, unlike years ago they were given a choice on how to deal with gabriel’s short life and death. not that long ago, gabriel may have been whisked away, not to be seen. just forget this happened and go on with your life.
the problem that i have with mr santorum’s stand on reproductive rights and marriage, is that he seems to believe that we should all follow “catholic law”. doesn’t matter that you are not catholic, that should be the law of the land.
i reckon the constitution has as much of a problem with that as i do.
the fact is that the santorums had the right to choose what to do in this case. they chose to follow their churches path. another couple facing this horrible situation may choose a different path. that right should not be taken away from anyone.
Would Karen Santorum and her doctors have been investigated for murder in a hypothetical situation where states passed draconion anti-abortion laws (assuming Roe vs Wade overturned) and/or the Constitution included zygotes-are-people-type personhood amendments?
I don’t believe anyone with a lick of medical knowledge would say that, no. That’s not how antibiotics work. Antibiotics don’t “help a body reject/fight off” an infected fetus, they damage and/or kill bacteria. Her uterus was contracting because of the irritation and inflammation which accompanies infection. It didn’t begin contracting because of antibiotics or anything else her doctors gave her. Antibiotics are not uterine stimulants. They can cause birth defects, like stained teeth or deformed bones, but they do not cause miscarriage or fetal death past the first week of pregnancy (and their toxicity then is simply unknown).
Nothing to see here, folks. I’m as pro-choice as they come (seriously…I’m not even sure I’m opposed to infanticide in the first few months), and this doesn’t come close to being an abortion, if what’s in the liked article is accurate.
I can hate Santorum plenty without this. Calling this an abortion is stooping as low as the protesters outside abortion clinics yelling lies and carrying around mislabeled pictures of “aborted babies”.
ETA: In the interest of bringing some facts into this “debate”: Antibiotics and Pregnancy / Use of Antibiotics during Pregnancy
It proves Senator Santorum is perfectly unhypocritical.
Practically all pro-lifers support an exception if the mother’s life is threatened.
Why not just look at actual pro-life countries like Ireland or Chile and see how they deal with abortion? I’m pretty sure they don’t have jackboot wearing Abortionpolizei looking into miscarriage.
Practically all is not all. And, as luck would have it, Santorum is one pro-lifer who does NOT support an exception if the mother’s life is threatened.
ETA: darn you, runner pat! 
That is so sad.
This is not:
“The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.”
For whom? Obviously not Karen Santorum, as described later in the article. And phrasing does not suggest K.S. would be making the decision. That man very nearly came right out and said he could be trusted to make those decisions, but not pregnant women.
Pig.
I am sorry for their loss.
Sorry, but how does what I posted prove that, exactly?
I stand corrected there, although it is partial-birth abortions he’s talking about which means he’s technically not contradictory.
rocking chair – I think this pregnancy was a different one from Gabriel’s.
I don’t have a problem with that either. I don’t believe kids should be shielded from death – it’s a natural part of life, and that was their little brother. They probably didn’t shove his body in their face, but simply came home and grieved together as a family.
(But then I lived above a funeral home for the first four years of my life, so I’m used to that kind of thing)
As far as THIS instance, do I believe he’s a hypocrite? I don’t know. I do think he’s a weasel, and if he would deny such a procedure to other women, then yes, I think he is. However, I don’t blame them for the choice they made.
(It doesn’t SOUND like an actual abortion, as the fetus wasn’t going to survive either way – and I haven’t heard how he’s ruled on those types of cases, such as eptopic pregnancies)
Huh? It seems to me to be equivalent to an abortion to save the life of the mother.
Yes. Most do. Not all. (I know this is an echo.)
I don’t blame them for the choice they made either. They gave good reasons. Taking antibiotics was equivalent to aborting the fetus and it’s entirely possible that the Mother may have survived regardless. But as you said, the fact that he wouldn’t be more sensitive to such concerns is appalling – as Qin noted, most pro-lifers believe in exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the Mother. If you don’t believe in such exceptions (as Santorum and apparently Perry maintain) on moral grounds, then you have to conclude that Santorum and his wife made a highly immoral error. Which by my way of thinking is absurd.
This absolutist nonsense has to stop.
No, most likely they would not have been investigated for murder if those laws had been in existence.
This is because the Santorums are wealthy and well connected. Also, they don’t look like the “wrong sort of people”. So in a personhood-ammendment state, they would have been just fine. The other folks in the same situation, not so much. This is much the way it was in the past (pre Roe vs Wade) when bad things happened to wealthy, connected, right-looking people.
Why not just look at actual pro-life countries like Ireland or Chile and see how they deal with abortion? I’m pretty sure they don’t have jackboot wearing Abortionpolizei looking into miscarriage.
[/QUOTE]
Irish and Chilean laws are unrelated. I was thinking about the Personhood USA Presidential Pledge (signed by Santorum), comments by other social conservative politicians supporting a hypothetical personhood-begins-at-conception amendment to the Constitution of the USA, and also actual state level votes, i.e. the Initiative 26 proposed amendment to the Mississippi Constitution (2011) and the Colorado Fetal Personhood Amendment 62 proposal (2010). Both of those state elections failed, but still had wide support among social conservatives. The implications of such amendments suggest that murder investigations could potentially result from any dead fetus depending on the future discretions of local law enforcement and district attorneys and other factors. Other unintended consequences would involve illegalizing some forms of birth control, some fertility treatments, and treatments for ectopic pregnancy.
I agree with you in the most likely spheres of hypothetical scenerios. The fact that someone here on a message board asks “Santorum’s wife had an abortion?” made me wonder what an unsympthetic DA might think. I suppose that I should ask “How would Sen Santorum feel if another family in the same situation and the mother-to-be was investigated for murder or accessory?” I know that this is the ‘elections’ forum, so I’m not intending to interrupt with a ‘great debate’ type veer in the topic.
She. She. She. She. She.
Sorry. It was her choice, and it looks like she still didn’t have much of a choice. God, how horrible that must’ve been.
From your own quote, he didn’t want a health exception for partial birth abortion. Not abortion in general. And for good reason: unless my understanding of what partial birth abortion is is incorrect, you’ve already achieved any health benefits before the actual abortion is performed.
The DA would have to be more than unsympathetic to believe that.
I knew Santorum was a sorry excuse for a human being.
The fact that he’s apparently OK with women dying for want of a medically necessary abortion unless it’s a member of his own family…
I have no words (that I can use outside of the Pit.)