Does the Dobbs Abortion Decision Endanger Lives? Obstetricians Facing Moral and Legal Dilemmas

BruceStrom1 20 views 53 slides Oct 02, 2024
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About This Presentation

Regarding Abortion, was Kamala Harris correct when she claimed in the Presidential debate that women were bleeding out and dying in hospital parking lots?

But surely this is fake news, surely the abortion bans do not endanger women’s lives, because obviously, aren’t the abortion doctors the mur...


Slide Content

Regarding Abortion, was Kamala Harris correct when she claimed in the Presidential
debate that women were bleeding out and dying in hospital parking lots?
But surely this is fake news, surely the abortion bans do not endanger women’s
lives, because obviously, aren’t the abortion doctors the murderers?
Women have been bleeding out in parking lots in hospitals when doctors have
refused to care for them, fearing lawsuits, though this is rare. Women usually die at
home after being turned away from the hospital, or on operating tables, after their
care has been delayed for far too long, until they are on death’s doorstep.
Recently, two science reporters for the Atlantic Magazine have interviewed doctors
in several states that document when women’s lives have been lost to draconian
anti-abortion laws, and more cases where they either nearly died, or were rendered
sterile, or both. They remind us of a woman who died in Catholic Ireland due to
draconian abortion legislation:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/09/women-killed-dobbs-decision-abortion/679921/

The Atlantic Magazine: “In the very worst case,
neither mother nor baby survives. In 2012, a 31-
year-old woman in Ireland named Savita
Halappanavar died after her water broke at
seventeen weeks. Doctors had refused to end her
pregnancy, waiting for the fetus’s heartbeat to
stop on its own. When it did, she went into labor,
but by then, she had become infected. She died
from sepsis three days later. Her death galvanized
the abortion-rights movement in Ireland, and the
country legalized the procedure in 2018.”

Other recent examples are from the past few
months in Deep South red states:
“In Texas, a woman whose water broke at eighteen
weeks—far too early for her baby to survive
outside the womb—was unable to get an abortion
until she became septic. She spent three days in
the ICU, and one of her fallopian tubes
permanently closed from scarring. In Tennessee, a
woman lost four pints of blood delivering her dead
fetus in a hospital’s holding area. In Oklahoma, a
bleeding woman with a nonviable pregnancy was
turned away from three separate hospitals. One
said she could wait in the parking lot until her
condition became life-threatening.”

Another reporter describes how
Amber Nicole Thurman died on
August 19, 2022, leaving behind her
six-year-old son. “In Georgia, where
Thurman lived, abortions became
illegal from the time when a
‘detectable human heartbeat’ was
present—around six weeks into
pregnancy. The law came into effect
in late July of that year, at the same
time that Thurman, a 28-year-old
medical assistant, discovered that she
was six weeks pregnant with twins.”

“She scheduled a surgical
abortion in North Carolina,
took a day off work,” “and
got up at 4 a.m. to drive four
hours with a friend to the
clinic. But they hit traffic, and
Thurman missed her
appointment. The clinic could
not give her another time
slot, because so many
women came from out of
state, also facing tough new
laws.”

“So, Thurman was offered abortion
pills instead,” which are usually safe.
But “in less than 5 percent of cases,
though, women need another dose,
or a procedure called a dilation and
curettage (D&C), to empty the
uterus completely. In countries and
states where abortion is legal, this is
a simple and routine procedure that
carries little risk.”

“But not in Georgia. Back
home, Thurman’s bleeding
would not stop. She went
to the hospital at 6:51
p.m. on August 18, and
medical examinations
showed all the classic signs
that her abortion was
incomplete, and that the
tissue remaining inside her
was poisoning her blood.
But doctors did not give
her a D&C.”

“Nor did they do so the next
morning, as her condition
continued to worsen. When
she was finally taken to the
operating theater, at 2 p.m.,
her condition was so bad that
doctors started to remove her
bowel and uterus.”
“But it was too late.
Thurman’s heart stopped on
the operating table.”

A Catholic woman also died “in Poland, where
abortion is illegal in almost all circumstances.
The 33-year-old pharmacist Dorota Lalik died
in 2023 after a Catholic hospital refused to
offer her a D&C when her water broke at five
months. Instead, she was advised to lie down
with her legs up. She died of sepsis three days
later—the same condition that killed Amber
Thurman, and the same condition that killed
31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, the woman
whose death from sepsis galvanized the
campaign to legalize abortion in Ireland. For
every death, there are dozens of near misses.”

The ABC debate moderator was correct when she
fact-checked Trump, that there is no state, blue or
red, where it is legal to execute babies after they are
born. Only about five percent of abortions are
performed during the last trimester, when abortion
is necessary to protect the life of the mother and
where the fetus is not viable outside the womb.

Miscarriages occur in about ten to twenty percent of
cases where the woman knows she is pregnant.
Typically, the body self-aborts a fetus that it senses it
would be malformed or it would be non-viable if it
developed further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage

Much of this hastily written anti-abortion legislation also bans
abortions of ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo attaches
itself outside the uterus, often in the fallopian tubes, which
occurs in less than two percent of pregnancies. It is impossible
for the embryo to develop into a fetus, let alone be viable, and
always endangers the life of the mother. While many ectopic
pregnancies self-abort without physician intervention, some do
not. Why can’t doctors perform ectopic pregnancies without
worrying about whether they will be sued or lose their medical
license?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectopic_pregnancy

These draconian laws against abortion do threaten women’s lives. But politicians
not only do not have the medical knowledge to draft compassionate anti-abortion
legislation, they fear the political repercussions of being soft on abortion if they
offer reasonable amendments to correct shortcomings in the law. They refuse to
listen, they refuse to believe that anti-abortion legislation is imperfect.
Often these draconian laws have no exceptions for rape or incest, not even for
little girls who are far too young to safely carry a baby to term. Even those laws
that carve out an exception that abortions are permitted to save the mother’s life
are not enough, because in actual practice doctors cannot say with a hundred
percent certainty that the mother’s life is in danger, and when they wait until
death is imminent, often when death is inevitable. The abortion laws should
instead permit the doctors to act to preserve the mother’s health, rather than
her life, as the doctors interviewed suggest.

Pro-Compassion and Pro-Doctor Narratives

In prior videos, we have questioned whether it is fair to
characterize the two sides of the abortion debate as Pro-Life and
Pro-Choice.
Is the opposite of pro-life, pro-death? Does everyone who is pro-
choice ENJOY KILLING BABIES?
Another related question is, Will those who do not support a
radical pro-life, no abortion under any circumstances, BURN IN
HELL? This is a meme that totally ignores compassion, that
refuses to believe that those considering abortion have real life-
changing problems they are facing.

Should Christians be compassionate towards
a neighbor facing a life crisis event, even
when we judge their choice to be immoral?
Is the opposite of pro-life, pro-death?
Does everyone who is pro-choice
ENJOY KILLING BABIES?

What liberals often do not realize is that the phrase “pro-choice” strikes at the core
of religious beliefs, the term “pro-compassion” is a better narrative, a better
message. The phrase “pro-choice” implies to a devout believer that there is no
absolute truth, that there is no God who represents absolute morality, but that
every man can formulate what is right and wrong in their own eyes, that moral
truth is relative.
Today Christianity’s reputation is smeared with the suspicion that Christians are
not compassionate, that they are instead cruel, that indeed CRUELTY IS THE POINT.
In the matter of abortion, we need to be Pro-Compassion and Pro-Doctor.
Whatever the law of the land is, abortion will always be an individual decision,
often decided under the advisement of a physician. Let Jesus be the judge, that is
His job, not ours.

https://youtu.be/Jb_vUFnAf3g
https://youtu.be/C4rH6qhhw70 https://youtu.be/ll9wOR0t2yQ
We have numerous reflections on
Abortion from a Pro-Compassion,
Pro-Doctor, and a Christian
perspective. We quote from and
agree with the teachings in the
Catholic Catechism regarding
abortion.
often when death is inevitable

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/

Medical Dilemmas Surrounding Abortion

The dissenting Supreme Court Justices in the Dobbs decision warned that the hastily
written decision would likely endanger the care women receive for miscarriages.
One problem is that abortifacients, the medications that induce abortions, are often
used to treat miscarriages so dead fetus tissue is expelled from the body.
Dobbs enables legislatures that seek to impose draconian penalties on doctors and
hospitals who perform abortions. Doctors incur hundreds of thousands of dollars
and up to a decade in medical school, and hospitals invest tens of millions of dollars
in their facilities, so they are very reluctant to challenge draconian anti-abortion
laws that are decided by far right-wing judges who do not care whether they
destroy careers and institutions in their decisions. They have no choice but to
endanger women’s lives so they can prove that their lives are in danger. The best
proof is to wait until women are close to death, so then there is no doubt that their
life is in danger!

Sarah Zang interviews Kylie Cooper, an obstetrician specializing in high-
risk pregnancies in Idaho, a state that has passed draconian anti-abortion
laws. Soon after the law became effective, she had a young mother with
a troubled pregnancy. The problem was that not only did her ultrasound
indicate the baby likely had Down’s syndrome, he also had a barely
formed heart. There was no hope that the baby would survive. Carrying
the pregnancy to term would also endanger the mother’s life. However,
in Idaho, performing an abortion for any reason whatsoever is a felony.
Cooper had to tell the mother she had to get closer to death for her to
abort. “Idaho’s abortion ban has no exception for lethal fetal anomalies.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/abortion-ban-idaho-ob-gyn-maternity-care/679567/

Subsequent intense lobbying by physicians in Idaho resulted in
legislation that did not go far enough in shielding doctors
sufficiently so they could make the hard decisions needed to save
the lives of mothers with problem pregnancies. Many
obstetricians have left Idaho and other states with draconian
anti-abortion legislation, and often hospitals in deep red states
will airlift problem pregnancies to states where life-affirming care
is not illegal. Many hospitals in these problem states have simply
closed down their labor and delivery units altogether.

Trump[ at 2020 March For Life Rally

Our reporter Sarah Zhang
interviewed an obstetrician
on problem pregnancies.
“The cases that most
distressed her were”
“where the umbilical cord
had prolapsed into the
vagina, compressing the
cord and exposing the
baby and mother to
infection. When this
happens, ‘The loss of the
baby is sadly inevitable.’”

Previously at her Catholic hospital, she would
suggest terminating a problem “pregnancy
before the mother became infected, so she
could go home to recover. Now she told
patients that they had no choice but to wait
until they went into labor or became infected,
or until the fetus’ heart stopped beating, slowly
deprived of oxygen from its compressed
umbilical cord,” lingering for “several days.
Thomson did not know that a fetus could take
so long to die this way—she was used to
intervening much sooner. She found forcing her
patients to wait like this ‘morally disgusting.’”

The doctor explained: “Every time I take care of a
patient in this scenario, it makes me question why
I’m staying here.” “It ate at her to put her own
legal interests before her patients’ health. She
knew that if a zealous prosecutor decided she had
acted too hastily, she could lose years of her career
and her life defending herself, even if she were
ultimately vindicated. But if she made a ‘self-
protective’ decision to delay care and a patient
died, she wasn’t sure how she could go on.”
Our obstetrician explains: “From a moral
perspective, that’s something that you cannot
recover from as a doctor.”

Our author Helen Lewis
concludes: “The story of Amber
Nicole Thurman’s death” fills me
with “cold rage. This did not
need to happen. Without Dobbs,
it would not have happened. And
it will keep happening.
Something has gone terribly
wrong in America when people
who define themselves as pro-
life have sentenced a small boy
to go to bed tonight, and every
night, without his mother.”

Discussing the Sources

Our primary source, The Atlantic Magazine, was founded in 1857 as a literary and
abolitionist magazine, and many influential writers over the decades have been
featured in its pages. The Atlantic Magazine is my favored news source. Over the
past forty years, I have found their articles both balanced and provoking. These
articles have more horrifying tragedies caused by the Dobbs decision.
How can Americans become aware of these horrifying tragedies, when they go
unreported in the right-wingnut media outlets like Fox News and Newsmax? Will
these Americans simply declare that these eyewitness accounts are fake news, since
they are not discussed by conservative media? Do we need to wait another decade
until every American knows some young mother who has died because hospitals
refuse them life-saving care?

The Atlantic Magazine endorsed Abraham Lincoln for President but declined to
become directly involved in politics for over a hundred years after the Civil War.
They broke this tradition, endorsing Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society reforms,
and after that opposing Donald Trump every time he ran for President. By endorsing
Lincoln and LBJ, and opposing Trump, the Atlantic Magazine seeks to preserve
democracy and civil rights.
Other important sources are the Roe v Wade and Dobbs decisions themselves. They
are not intimidating, they are written in plain English, the obscure legal language is
easily passed over. In our prior reflections on abortion, we quote both these
opinions in depth. We also quote from, and agree with, the sections in the Catholic
Catechism that discuss abortion. These and other sources are discussed in these
other reflections.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/

REVIEWING THE ACTUAL ROE V. WADE SUPREME COURT OPINION
Harry Blackmun first reviewed the history of abortion in his opinion, which is not difficult to read:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun

https://youtu.be/Jb_vUFnAf3g
https://youtu.be/C4rH6qhhw70 https://youtu.be/ll9wOR0t2yQ
We have numerous reflections on
Abortion from a Pro-Compassion,
Pro-Doctor, and a Christian
perspective. We quote from and
agree with the teachings in the
Catholic Catechism regarding
abortion.

Also, the current Pope Francis has encouraged
balance on the issue of abortion, though vitally
important, should not define Catholicism and
Christianity.

https://youtu.be/jF-fsMvYsak

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quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
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