Extreme measures
The Times on Trump’s lie about “executing babies”:
WHAT TRUMP SAID
“The baby is born. The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”
President Trump revived on Saturday night what is fast becoming a standard, and inaccurate, refrain about doctors “executing babies.” During a more than hourlong speech at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., Mr. Trump admonished the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, for vetoing a Republican bill that could send doctors to prison for life if they fail to give medical care to children born alive after a failed abortion attempt.
“Children”? That’s forced-pregnancy vocabulary. It’s an embryo or an infant; it’s not a child.
The comments are the latest in a long string of incendiary statements from the president on abortion.
He wrote in January on Twitter that Democrats had become the “Party of late term abortion” when efforts to expand abortion rights in Virginia and New York gained national attention. About a week later, in his State of the Union address, he falsely said New York’s law would allow “a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” And in February he responded to the blocking of a federal measure similar to the Wisconsin bill by tweeting that Democrats “don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth.”
It’s because he’s so vibrant.
The Times has fact-checked before and pointed out that late-term abortions are very rare.
In another fact check, The Times found that infants are rarely born alive after abortion procedures:
It hardly ever happens, according to Dr. Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He performs abortions and is a spokesman for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, where he leads a committee on health care for underserved women. Infants are hardly ever born alive after attempted abortions, though there are rare cases where an infant survives a premature birth but cannot survive without extreme attempts at resuscitation.
Moreover, The Times reported, doctors do not kill the infants who survive, although families may choose not to take extreme measures to resuscitate them:
Dr. Grossman said there were painful situations in which the fetus might be at the edge of viability and labor must be induced to save the mother’s life. For instance, a condition called pre-eclampsia, involving high blood pressure and other problems, can kill both mother and fetus, and in most cases the only treatment is to deliver the baby. If it seems unlikely that the baby will survive, the family may choose to provide just comfort care — wrapping and cuddling the baby — and allow the child to die naturally without extreme attempts at resuscitation.
Bills like the one in Wisconsin and the one that Democrats blocked in Congress in February would force doctors to resuscitate the infant, even against the family’s wishes.
Why is it that the family may decide to provide just comfort care — wrapping and cuddling the infant — and allow the infant to die naturally without extreme attempts at resuscitation? I’m guessing it’s because the odds of success are abysmal and the extreme attempts at resuscitation are a nightmare so they prefer not to put the infant through torture. Bills to take that out of the hands of families look like sheer spite.
Speaking from experience, I can attest that one of the worst experiences a parent can have is hearing their infant screaming bloody murder at some medical intervention. And in our case there was little chance that he wouldn’t come through ok. I can’t fathom putting an infant who has no chance of survival through such torture.
But then I’m not a Christian.
Sorry you had that experience. And yes.
Not only the torture of resuscitation but a baby born right on the cusp of viability faces many more challenges, and has a very low chance of survival. And assuming the baby overcomes those odds, they likely face a lifetime of disability and medical interventions.
If it were possible, I’d want every Republican to spend time in a NICU. Watch those babies struggling to breathe, struggling to survive. Watch them die, every single. day. Listen to them scream because Mom was addicted to drugs and now they are going cold turkey. And then visit the mortuary to see all the women who died because of their pregnancies.
Republicans make me sick.
Claire, I sometimes wish there were an anti-Republican vaccination we could give the country. Keep them from infecting everything.
I just hope the infection doesn’t spread to my side of the border.
I can sort of almost understand the rabid, die-hard, Republican voter who has been spoonfed on Fox News and never looks outside of their own little information bubble. They’re what, 25% of the electorate? (We’ve probably got the equivalent here in Canada, too, but they seem to be a smaller piece of the pie and aren’t quite so rabid, or as heavily armed.) The people I don’t understand are the ones who blithely say “Well let’s just give the other party a try this time,” as if they’re not about to take a bite from a shit sandwich. The only way I would ever vote for the Conservative Party at any level in Canada (or the Republicans if I were American) would be if all the other parties were farther to the right than they were. In Canada, with a number of parties that are more leftish than the Tories, (Liberals, NDP and Greens), we can get vote splitting that lets the Tories form governments. Disappointed as I am with Trudeau’s Liberals, if they’re the best bet to keep a Conservative from winning my riding, I’ll vote for his party. I’m just thankful that our politics have not (yet) descended to the level of evil demagoguery that America’s has. This is just vile.
I was born premature, about two months early. I was on the healthy end of the premature spectrum, and they still had to work quite hard to keep me going. I couldn’t regulate my temperature properly, but at least I could breath and all of my organs had developed fully. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for children born earlier to survive-forcing healthcare on premies with bad prognoses would be so twisted for the mothers to endure.
Punish the woman: it’s a feature, not a bug. It’s the name of the game.
And unfortunately, at this time it looks like it always will be.
Good profits for the healthcare providers, too. So many potential lifetimes – whether short or long – reliant on expensive treatments and expensive drugs being allowed to just go to waste. Won’t somebody think of the shareholders?