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Effect of Nebraska's stricter abortion laws (warning: sad!)
Nebraska Couple Watches Their Baby Die Because of New Law
Nebraska mother Danielle Deaver, held her brand new, premature baby daughter last December. She watched her struggle to breathe for 15 short minutes, and then die in her arms.
Deaver's water broke late in November, just past 20 weeks' gestation. When she went to the hospital, doctors told her that it was unlikely that her baby would survive, no matter what they did. There was no therapy that would help a baby that young. The doctors explained that the lack of fluid would cause muscle tissues to shorten, affecting the baby's developing lungs. They would likely never develop beyond the 22-week point, and the baby would not be able to breathe.
After a long talk, the Deavers decided that they would like to terminate the pregnancy, rather than waiting for their daughter to be born naturally and suffer. However, in October, Nebraska recently enacted a new, stricter law that prevents abortions after the 20th week of gestation except in very specific situations where the mother's life is immediately in danger. Deaver's situation was outside the law, and there was nothing doctors could do to help her.
The Deavers were sent home to wait. Eight days later, contractions started, and Deaver delivered a beautiful, 1 lb. 10 oz. little girl named Elizabeth. She was physically perfect, but born too early to survive, even with medical help. And so they held her and waited.
Today the Deavers are speaking out. Although the law can protect babies, it also can hurt women who are in unique situations like Deaver's. She believes that no family should have to go through what they went through. The new law is based on research that shows that babies past 20 weeks' gestation can feel pain because their nerves are developed enough. But Deaver thinks that it doesn't take into account unusual and heart-wrenching situations like her own.
Re: Effect of Nebraska's stricter abortion laws (warning: sad!)
I believe in abortions with no restrictions. There just aren't hoards of women going in for an abortion at 36 weeks gestation because they've decided they don't want to be pregnant. No matter what the nutters would have you believe.
The mother wanted an abortion at 20 weeks so that the baby wouldn't suffer when it was born at 22 weeks?
I am not sure how this works. How do you perform the abortion and not have the baby suffer? Is the method for the abortion at 20 weeks less suffering then dying shortly after birth at 22 weeks?
This is a real question.
How incredibly sad. And yet the pro-life contingent would have us believe that this extremely premature baby suffered LESS while suffocating to death for 15 agonizing minutes, than if the pregnancy had been terminated.
The NYT magazine did a story a few years ago about what life is like in a truly "pro-life" country: El Salvador, where abortion is illegal. Women who miscarry are treated like potential criminals who may have found some way to self-abort. They can actually be sent to jail if it's believed they've caused the miscarriage. Women who are diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy must wait until the fallopian tube ruptures because it's not considered "life-threatening" for the pregnant woman until the tube bursts. Only then can doctors legally do anything for the woman. That mindset is what the anti-abortion lobby wants for us here, and it's something that should scare every woman.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
The uterus would begin to shrink because of a lack of amniotic fluid, so the fetus wouldn't develop any further. IDK if the fetus would feel pain while being compressed like that or not. Once born, the baby suffocated to death over the course of 15 minutes, which sounds pretty miserable to me. We know that extremely premature infants that are treated in NICU's are very stressed by being outside of the womb before they're ready.
IDK what procedure they would have done to end the pregnancy, but if the parents were concerned about fetal suffering, the doctor could have injected the fetus via amnio with a drug to stop the heart, and it would have been a quick in utero death.
Honestly, if the woman's water had already broken and there was nothing that could be done, I don't understand why they didn't admit her to L&D and get labor going and get it over with. Why send them home and make her wait until she went into labor on her own? That was just cruel.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
I'm not not sure any other method, though, short of hysterostomy (basically, c/s) is legal now after 20 weeks. D&X has been banned, and I think it's too late for D&E.
I posted first, I'm pretty sure that means you were in MY head.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
My Chart My Nest Bio
That 24 hour rule generally doesn't apply with babies that early. They essentially weigh the risk of a baby being born that early with the risk of infection. I know someone whose water broke at 26 weeks, she stayed on bedrest in the hospital until 32 weeks when she delivered. They gave her lots of fluids and antibiotics.
At least I wasn't all up in your ute! Ba-dum-ching.
I can't decide how I feel about this. In general my gut is against an abortion that late term for any reason other than putting the mom's life at risk. I think that this situation would have been absolutely horrible for the parents whether the baby was aborted or the baby was born and then died. Either way they lost a baby. I don't know that I would feel better about killing my baby than I would about watching it die in my arms. I think a part of me would feel better hoping that the baby knew for a few minutes of its brief life that it was loved.
And that should absolutely be your choice to make, but it should NOT be mandated for mothers who do not feel the same.
Whatthemotherfuuk? Either way they are losing a baby and that is agonizing for them, but to force a person to suffer unspeakably for all of its very short life - that is cruelty. Sorry, but the last time I was struggling to breathe I was not thinking about how loved I was, I was contemplating how to get my next breath without terrible pain.
Yes. And it's selfish because it's all about what YOU want. Not about what's best and most merciful for the baby.
Dirty lurker here... Sorry for typos I'm on my phone.
In regards to the Q about how they would do an abortion in this situation it reminds me of a poster on the bump a few years back. I don't know which state she was in, but at the a/s they found a heart defect and decided to terminate. It was done with a shot to stop the babies heart and then induced labor. They held the baby and said their goodbyes and what not and I imagine be at peace with the fact that the baby didn't suffer.
I know that's not for everyone, but in situations like this, where it was a wanted child, it irritates me to no end that they didn't have that choice. (actually it irritates to me no end that you can't terminate at anytime for whatever reason you want, but that's another bag of worms..)
But the article talks about hurting "women" like the person who gave birth. My interpretation of the article was that this woman was upset because of what she had to go through and I think that this would have been horrible to go through either way. If we're concerned about the mother, as the article suggests, I don't think she was worse off for having the baby die a natural death than for aborting it. Either way, it really sucks and I feel awful for the parents.
I also am unclear if a baby that age will die instantly with no pain in an abortion. If so, I would agree that that would be the more merciful option. The baby was alive 15 minutes which is not a long time of suffering. Unless the abortion would have stopped any suffering whatsoever, I don't see a big difference between suffering for, say, 5 minutes vs 15. I also find it doubtful that the baby was cognizant of what was going on, period, despite my earlier "warm fuzzy" statement. I do think it would be comforting for the survivor to imagine that the baby died feeling loved, but realistically I have a feeling the baby never knew or felt much of anything at all, at least not in the way we typically think about feeling.
I don't feel like I'm making my point very clearly so perhaps I shouldn't have even started, lol.
Wow.
What really concerns me is the emotional pain of a woman and her partner of being forced to carry a nonviable fetus until an unknown future date when her body decides to labor.
I am curious why you think they don't feel pain at 22 weeks? I am not saying you are wrong, but I would like to know why.
and wtf to buckybell's last comment! She had to WATCH her baby die slowly in front of her. You do not think that is even an iota worse than NOT having to witness it? yikes. Moreover, If someone held you under water for even a few minutes, don't you think you would suffer as you tried to breathe? 15 minutes of trying to breathe doesn't seem at all physically awful to you?
is this another example of pro-life compassion? ::shudder::
eta: stuck in April Fools costume AE. Not intentional for the sake of the subjecy.
and a known anti-choice poster posted something assholio about abortion on purpose during the board's "moment of post silence."
So if a preemie born at less than 29 weeks has to have surgery, they don't have to sedate him/her?
The explanation I read is that, while the neural tissue exists, it doesn't yet terminate in the brain. I saw some analogy, and I won't do it justice b/c I'm tired, but they said it was like trying to make a phonecall before the telephone poles have been installed. The wire exists, but it's not connected yet.
This. They didn't want to watch their baby suffer and die, they were forced into that. The fetus was not viable. We trust the parent to make decisions for the child after birth, why can't they make decisions before and during birth?
According to this, not before 26 weeks. It states that the cortex is not functional, and that it develops somewhere between 26-34 weeks, but not before that.