Baby blues
As though to illustrate why religion should be kept out of public life, here's the abortion debate.Americans probably aren't familiar with the battle lines in the UK, but they are basically over viability, not over permissibility of abortions, because the forced-pregnancy brigade in the UK have given up hope of making the rest of us live by their religious convictions (nearly all antichoice campaigners in the UK are motivated by religion).
So a study--you know, real science, with facts--has found no improvement in viability of premature babies below 24 weeks. It did that by noting every baby in a health region (probably about three or four counties in size) that was born prematurely and recording its outcome. It found that no baby at 22 weeks survived.
The argument for lowering the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks is that modern medicine has increased viability of premature babies to the point at which we must now consider babies viable much earlier. Viability has always been the issue in the UK because, foolishly, it's where the prochoice majority decided to hold the line. I guess we knew that we couldn't defeat religiously motivated people with "it's a woman's choice and none of your fucking business", however true that is.
So this study pretty much puts the cap on that debate, right? Erm no.
Nadine Dorries, the dogmatist in the forefront of the antichoice push for 20 weeks, has this to say:
I think this report insults the intelligence of the public and MPs alike. No improvement in neonatal care in 12 years? Really? So where has all the money that has been pumped into neonatal services gone then?
Erm. The study does not say that neonatal services have not improved. It says that they have not improved to the point that they make the impossible possible.
And where has all the money gone? Well, Nadine, it has mostly been wasted pursuing your agenda. Most of us would probably be quite content to say, well, if your baby is born at 22 weeks, you are SOL and must accept your fate--rather as you do when you are unfortunate enough to suffer a miscarriage. I am not belittling the experience. I am saying that we are all aware that some things in life cannot be undone.
But I do agree that someone is insulting the intelligence of the public. Mind you, how intelligent can the people of mid-Beds be if they voted for this moron?
She called the study "the most desperate piece of tosh produced by the pro-choice lobby".
There's no debating it with people like this. If the science disagrees with their dogma, it's "tosh". If it had found that 22-week-old babies are viable, it would be endlessly cited by Dorries and her like.
See, this is why I think the public space should be secular. Science won't always win debates for me (although because my beliefs are largely rational and mostly based on my understanding of what science has revealed about the world, it will win them a lot more often than it does for the likes of Dorries or the Catholic cardinals), but it is neutral. The people who did this study were not pursuing a prochoice agenda. The facts support that agenda in this instance.
Like all religious types, and this is why us atheists hate you, Cardinal, and why we think your religion should be as far as possible made irrelevant, Mr Blair, Dorries hates facts. She hates the way the world really is, because it refuses to align with how she wants it to be. Yeah, we all do that a bit, but how it is doesn't actually change just because you don't like it.
posted by Dr Zen @ 11:17 am
8 Comments:
Out of interest what limit would you set in weeks?
How many weeks do they need to 'get' Pythagoras's Theorem?
I've never thought about it. In principle I wouldn't set a limit at all.
You have to have a limit because foetuses can become viable with very limited medical intervention as early as 26-28 weeks. Are you suggesting aborting viable or even term foetuses.
I am suggesting that it is not something for me to choose.
Surly you must agree that just below/at viability is the point at which abortions are acceptable. Remember late abortions are delivery s and not just a quick vac job. Its odd how you are so pro choice about a woman right to abort but you are so anti prostitution, some thing many women choose to do.
There's no surely about it. I do not have a view on what is right, and I don't think I'm necessarily entitled to one.
Also, quite few women choose to be prostitutes. They are mostly forced by circumstances or men into doing it.
I have recently read a piece in a credible source urging women not to undergo elective C-section at 37 weeks because of potential lasting health problems. 26-28 weeks with little medical intervention? What tree did you fall out of?
The thing about late-term abortions is that they are not taken lightly by the people involved. There seems to be a certain image of a woman who is to undergo an abortion: some promiscuous, young, and careless girl who needs to get rid of the evidence of her sin (after all, this is what it boils down to. You have sinned and childbirth is your punishment). In reality, such a person isn't going to wait 22 weeks. Late-term abortion is a result of specific issues with the fetus and the woman who is already suffering greatly.
The argument about viability is bogus. One or two managed to survive at virtually half-term, after months and thousands of dollars worth of neonatal care, and voila! the second and third trimester are no longer necessary. Fantastic! Free pizza for everyone! I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Yes, when you say that survival rate for babies born at 25 weeks is 50 percent, it sounds great! Were you to say that half the babies born at 25 weeks dies, well, all of a sudden that doesn't sound all that cheerful. "Viability" is a weak weapon because it's trying to impose a general rule on something that cannot be generalized. Google articles on premature births, and you will find that one of the first things they say is something like: "Everyone is different. You cannot say how - or if- any one will survive based on what happened to the others."
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