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Ill woman with dying fetus denied abortion
This is what pro-life looks like, folks! This is what right-wing conservatives want for the United States.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22712756
The Supreme Court of El Salvador has refused to allow a seriously ill pregnant woman to have an abortion, even though her foetus has almost no chance of survival.
Lawyers for the young woman - who suffers from lupus and kidney failure - had argued that continuing the pregnancy would place her life at risk.
The foetus itself is missing part or all of its brain.
All abortions are prohibited in El Salvador under any circumstances.
The constitution in the majority Roman Catholic country protects the right to life "from the moment of conception".
The 22-year-old woman - referred to as "Beatriz", not her real name - is said to be in fragile health, suffering from the chronic immune disorder lupus as well as kidney failure.
Tests suggest her 26-week-old foetus is developing without a complete brain, a condition called anencephaly. Almost all babies born with this condition die before or shortly after birth.
A medical committee at her maternity hospital, the Ministry of Health and rights groups had all supported Beatriz's request to terminate her pregnancy, but judges at the Supreme Court voted four-to-one to reject the woman's appeal.
In their ruling, the judges said: "This court determines that the rights of the mother cannot take precedence over those of the unborn child or vice versa, and that there is an absolute bar to authorising an abortion as contrary to the constitutional protection accorded to human persons 'from the moment of conception'."
The judges said that Beatriz's health was "stable", although they recognised this could change, ordering doctors to continue to monitor her health and provide all necessary treatment.
Judge Rodolfo Gonzalez, one of the four judges to rule against allowing Beatriz to have an abortion, said the constitutional court could not be turned into a "tribunal to allow the interruption of pregnancies".
Judge Gonzalez said he had not been convinced Beatriz was at risk of dying if the pregnancy was allowed to continue.
He said the case, and the great number of groups and people who had wanted to offer their opinion on it, had shown there was a need to discuss abortion more widely in El Salvador.
Florentin Melendez was the only one of the five judges to rule in favour of Beatriz, but said this did not mean he backed abortions.
He said he believed the court should have ruled in her favour to "guarantee that the medical personnel would not omit [any treatments] and would act diligently at all times, without having to recur to legal authorisation to protect the life of the mother and the human being she is carrying in her womb".
There was no immediate response from Beatriz's lawyers to the ruling.
Campaigners for the legalisation of abortion in cases where the mother's or foetus's life are at risk have condemned the ruling.
Morena Herrera, director of a campaign group which has supported Beatriz's case, said it was "irresponsible".
She argued that the judges had failed to consider the delicate state of health of the foetus, which she said would have no chance of surviving after birth.
"The only life we can save here is that of Beatriz," she said.
Ms Herrera said the group would look into ways of moving Beatriz out of El Salvador so she could receive the treatment they said she needed.
Doctors who support a termination have argued that the risk to Beatriz's health will grow as her pregnancy advances, and that if she suffers a health crisis it will be more difficult to treat the further into her pregnancy she is.
Doctors who perform an abortion in El Salvador and the mothers who undergo it face arrest and criminal charges.
Re: Ill woman with dying fetus denied abortion
A few things...
First, I think this might be the first time I've read you making a wide swath blanket statement like the one that began your post.
And no, this isn't what right-wing pro-life looks like. THAT is what sad looks like. I have yet to come across a pro-life person, at least in this nation, who would want or expect a women to carry a baby (if she chose not to) if her own health were at risk.
Also, as a point of interest, I read about this story from another source (the AP via Fox News and also from Reuters).
I read from the AP that "physical and psychological exams done on the woman by the government-run Institute of Legal Medicine found that her diseases are under control and she can continue the pregnancy."
Also, El Salvador is a republic, so the people voted things this way. This is the people's choice. I understand how that could seem foreign to us from the U.S. in a pretty much secular culture now.
Lastly, which I found from another international source, she has opted to have a premature c-section delivery, which El Salvador is not considering an abortion. She is going to deliver a "live" baby - her health will be fine.
Seriously?
I want to state upfront that I am actually pro-choice. Hell, I will be open and honest and say that I have had an abortion in my past - at the ripe old age of 33 (not a stupid kid, but old enough to make an informed decision).
And I also want to say that I do believe that the political arms of the various churches and the mysoginistic old men are trying very hard to overturn Roe v Wade.
But blanket statements like your preamble are nothing more than inflammatory - just like the inflammatory statements by the right that you are so opposed to.
You cannot compare this case to what is happening in our country BECAUSE it is happening in a different county, with different laws, culture and in this case NOT a cut and dried situation.
I find it very interesting that in none of the reports, even the conservative news reports, have mentioned when Beatriz was diagnosed with her Lupus.
If she had this disease before she got pregnant, then at one time she was perfectly willing to risk her life for a child.
And yes, I DO believe that if her life is at risk AND that because this baby will not live, I believe that she should be allowed to abort, but do not think that this point was not lost on the judges.
Do not forget that these laws were voted on by the populous. JUST LIKE the laws here in the US. You make it sound like our government and the laws created are being done by a proletariate. All it will take is an election and a set of new laws.
Or is should anyway. I find it very interesting that you are only concerned with the erosion of liberties that YOU find important, but not with ones you deem unimportant to you.
Because a liberty or freedom is a liberty of freedom. We should be up in arms over any/all reductions because if you can lose one, it is easy enough to take away another (one that you actually like) later on.
I disagree with you - there are plenty of pro-life people who think that there is NO reason that a woman should ever be allowed to have an abortion. But even so - who decides whether the mother's health is at risk? And how much of a risk? If a woman has, say a 50 percent chance of dying, is that enough to allow an abortion? How about a 25% chance? How about a 5% chance of death? How about a 10% chance of dying, but a 70% chance of being permanently disabled? How about a 30% chance of being permanently disabled?
In which of those situations would you allow an abortion? And who gets to make that decision? Who gets to decide which woman is allowed to have an abortion and which woman is not? How do you ensure consistency?
This is the problem with "abortions are only ok if...." laws.
Does that make it okay? I don't understand this point. It's okay for some people to suffer and die as long as the majority votes for those laws?
For example....???
Oh right. Because I don't believe that every person in the country should be allowed to purchase unlimited amounts of military-grade weaponry. That's an erosion of freedom.
meaning you can't compare this to the US.
Why not? What is the major difference?
I don't understand the argument that this is no big deal because in that country, people's religion tells them that it's OK to force others to suffer and die.
ETA we had a man who was very nearly the Vice President of the United States who said that he doesn't believe abortion should be allowed even to save a woman's life! So it's hardly true that this couldn't possibly happen in the US. There are indeed plenty of people who believe this right here in this country.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-s-extreme-abortion-views.html
C-sections, especially in circumstances like this, are hardly risk-free procedures where you can say "no biggie, her health will be fine."
aside from the blanket statement about prolifers
which makes about as much sense as saying that pro-choicers want to kill everyone's babies, the thing that is mostly bothering me about this is the focus on the health status of the baby. It's almost saying "this baby is making her sick and well it's messed up and it's probably not worth saving anyway so let's bag it". There was a time when people felt this way about down's syndrome and other defects that we've found have their own blessings on families. Like your own question of percentages regarding the health of the mother, what percentage disabled makes a baby a throwaway baby?
If the argument about a pregnancy making a woman sick is just about that then there is really no need to even bring the health of her baby into it. If we could make arguments about who and who isn't valuable then it seems like we should be able to just take out pedophiles and rapists at will since their life has no real value or meaning and they are hurting someone else.
What are you even talking about? Your comparison is so invalid that it makes it seem like you are just regurgitating talking points. Where did you come up with the idea that having an abortion upon finding out that your fetus is terminally ill, or in order to save your own life, or even just because you don't want to have a baby, is in any way equatable with killing pedophiles and rapists sans trial?
The baby isn't "disabled", it's terminally ill. It WILL die, most likely within hours of birth if it hasn't died before birth. It doesn't have brain damage or a brain disorder - it doesn't have a brain at all.
All of this is irrelevant to me, though, because it should be a woman's choice whether to a continue a pregnancy inside her own body. It's not for me or you to decide what "percentage disabled" merits continuing a pregnancy or not - it's for the woman whose pregnancy it is.
That's really what pro-choice is about. Choice. If a woman wants to bring an anencephalic baby to term and give birth, that's her choice. If she wants to have an abortion as soon as she finds out her baby is anencephalic, that's her choice as well. Her choice. Not mine, not yours, not the government's. That is what pro-choice means.
This is what bothers me the most about this case. Anencephaly has a 100% mortality rate. The longest living child with it was 2 or 3 and that's only because she was kept alive with machines against doctor's recommendations. She never gained consciousness. The baby with near certainty will either be stillborn or die within a few hours of its' birth. Its not like Down syndrome or spina bifida or any condition that can be treated or where the baby will have some quality of life.
It is terminally ill but the law is the law. Sometimes bad things happen to people. I feel terrible for her that she is not only dealing with health issues of her own but with the death of a child.
My prior point is that the issue seems to be whether or not she should terminate a pregnancy due to it creating health complications for her. If that is the case, then the health of the baby should not really be a factor. It's an emotional issue not a legal one and not a good argument for exception to the law. Treatability of the baby's issues are a separate thing and shouldn't be brought into it unless we want to start deciding what is and isn't treatable in a child. There was a time when many issues were untreatable and children died. Now we have in-utero surgeries and will probably have gene therapies in the future for things we couldn't have hoped to have cured. If you start deciding that the health of the baby itself is a factor you open up a huge can of worms that you may not want to deal with in the future.
And this is precisely why it should be NOBODY's decision except the woman whose pregnancy is in question.
I don't understand your argument "the law is the law." This is a perfect example of where a bad law has terrible consequences.
You realize that not all birth control is 100% effective, right? No sex for people with lupus?
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
I am aghast that you are using inflammatory language like "throwaway baby" to describe the child/fetus involved in this case, who clearly has a condition that is incompatible with life. Not just a condition that is special needs such as DS, but incompatibility with basic survival.
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
Yes, this is what pro choice means HERE in the U.S. But this article isn't about the U.S. it's about El Salvador.
Please stop pinning U.S. ways of doing things onto the rest of the world's population; every nation is different and made up of people who have different priorities and voting tendencies.
It's fine to disagree with a position a nation takes, but don't act like you as an American citizen have the "best" answer.
Gosh. I sound like you speaking to me on previous discussion threads on other topics...it's amazing.
You honestly don't think there are any pro-choice people in El Salvador? You honestly think that because something is the law, it must be because the majority of people have voted it into law?
All of that aside, you're missing the point, which is that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BAN ABORTION. And yes, that is what many mainstream Americans want, including the person who was very nearly the Vice President. It's not some tiny, fringe group that believes this.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/20136494818222545.html
The woman at the centre of an abortion controversy in El Salvador had her baby delivered by caesarean section to avoid an illegal abortion and to save her life, although the child did not survive.El Salvador's Health Ministry said doctors performed the procedure on the 22-year-old woman, who uses the name "Beatriz" to protect her identity, on Monday.Authorities banned all abortions in 1999, but Beatriz's baby had a serious condition known as anencephaly, which results in only partial brain development and severly limits the chances of survival after birth.Beatriz, who was 27 weeks pregnant, was in stable condition but the child died five hours after the procedure.Health Minister Maria Isabel Rodriguez said Beatriz was in good hands and being looked after well. She suffers from lupus and kidney problems, which posed a serious threat to her own health if the pregnancy had gone full term.'Breaching constitution'The operation followed a non-binding resolution on Thursday by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that called on El Salvador to take action to save Beatriz's life after the country's courts had denied her an abortion.El Salvador's Supreme Court rejected Beatriz's request for an abortion on the grounds it breached the constitution, which it said protected life from the moment of conception.The caesarean delivery provided El Salvador with a way out of the legal wrangle.Morena Herrera, a spokeswoman for the abortion rights group Colectivo Feminista, said that although Beatriz could have been spared unnecessary suffering, her life had been saved.The case has drawn attention to abortion in El Salvador and attitudes towards the procedure in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America. Some countries such as Colombia are relaxing their rules in order to permit abortions in cases of rape.
Huh. A pro-choice group based in El Salvador.
http://www.colectivafeminista.com/nuestroorigen.php
I agree with this. Wasn't it rick santorium that wanted no pre natal testings saying it would only increase abortions.
we need to keep the government and perfect strangers our of the decisions of the mothers, their families and their Drs