Politics: A new beginning - Page 177

Atticus Grinch · 12-09-2003, 08:39 PM

Two weblog entries.

One. 4:14pm 12/03/03

Quote:

Overnight our lives have turned into some sort of science fiction/horror show. Last night I psyched myself up to expect the worst, but that didn't make it any easier when the bad news came. Though it took a while. No one wanted to take the responsibility to confirm our worst fears. Everyone we encountered did their best to dodge the bullet. It was terrible when it finally happened, but a relief that someone was being straight with us. It turns out that our baby, with the odds at about one or two in a thousand, has a neural tube disorder called anencephaly. It's fatal. As a former Catholic I can't help but feel I'm being punished for something...perhaps for my arrogance. I mistakenly assumed this pregnancy would be a piece of cake, as my first went off without a hitch. . . . For some reason I expected the same ease this time around. Instead I now find myself faced with two gruesome options, as outlined by the genetic counselor we met with (that job title sounds like it's straight out of Gattaca). One, I could have labor induced...to deliver a baby who will die shortly afterward. Or two, I could undergo a two day dilation and evacuation procedure, where the fetus will not come out intact. I feel numb.

Two. 8:58am 12/05/03

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These are indeed strange times for us. Right about now I'm wishing we lived in Norway...or Canada...or Iceland, or any number of more civilized countries. For some time now I've been disgusted with the way Minnesota, and the U.S. as a whole, have been speeding down the slippery slope. Our civil rights have steadily been chipped away at, with this country becoming a place I can hardly recognize...and one I'm not sure I want to live in anymore. But now it's hitting even closer to home. It's bad enough that we now have a conceal-and-carry law in Minnesota, and that Pawlenty wants to bring back the death penalty. But in April the Minnesota Senate passed a bill, and our lousy Governor quickly signed it into law. I recall being disgusted at the time, but now it's become impossibly painful. The husband and I very much wanted to have this baby together. But, due to circumstances beyond our control, the baby has no chance of living after birth. So next week I need to go to the hospital to terminate our much-wanted pregnancy. But only after I sit out an imposed 24 hour waiting period. And only after I have not one, but two very apologetic medical professionals read to me from a script. A script that was designed to coerce young women into keeping unwanted pregnancies, and to me feels like a slap in the face. You'd think there would be some sort of exclusion for our situation. Even more disturbing...I discovered that if I were just a few weeks further along, medical providers in Minnesota would be unable to assist me. In fact, the closest medical providers who could are in, get this, Wichita, Kansas. This nightmare gets more surreal all the time.

Here's the lowdown for people too lazy to read the links. This woman's baby is developing in her womb without a brain. Minnesota will let her have an abortion, but it required her to listen, two days after learning this news, to a statutory script about the evils of abortion. Anyone who's ever known a woman with an anencephalic pregnancy should be vomiting onto their keyboards with rage and disgust.

Fuck the red states. I'll live with billions in deficit for a few years to avoid having to deal with neighbors who think they've done any kind of right by this woman and her family.

sgtclub · 12-09-2003, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Two weblog entries.
Fuck the red states. I'll live with billions in deficit for a few years to avoid having to deal with neighbors who think they've done any kind of right by this woman and her family.

Don't blame the red states for a poorly written law.

Say_hello_for_me · 12-09-2003, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
blah blah blah Fuck the red states. I'll live with billions in deficit for a few years to avoid having to deal with neighbors who think they've done any kind of right by this woman and her family.

As some of you may have been able to tell, I've been a lifelong pro lifer. This particular story isn't what has me shifting my position a little bit. Rather, the 36 year old female associate in my office who had a miscarriage and then one of the pregnancies of the type described in these blogs has me at least hedging my beliefs. She was a religious college student long before I knew her and she has more sense than, well, whatever has a lotta sense. She is not irresponsible but she is getting older. She wants a baby and time is of the essence. She had an abortion.

While I still maintain that the issue belongs to the states, I would gladly support the right of women like this to have abortions. Not government supported or provided abortions blah blah blah. Not necessarily abortion_on_demand or nothing. But if it came to an election, me and, I suspect my entire Catholic family, will be right there for the right to abort babies with significant birth defects (or worse).

I'll take my chances explaining it later to God.

As an aside, how in the world did this happen in Minnesota? I thought that was an insanely liberal state?

Hello

Not Me · 12-09-2003, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Minnesota will let her have an abortion, but it required her to listen, two days after learning this news, to a statutory script about the evils of abortion. Anyone who's ever known a woman with an anencephalic pregnancy should be vomiting onto their keyboards with rage and disgust.

There should definitely be an exception for those whose children have severe birth defects. Write to your legislators.

Regarding the lack of providers for 3rd trimester abortions in Minnesota. This has NOTHING to do with Minnesota law. This is due to doctors not wanting to provide 3rd trimester abortions, which are gruesome procedures to perform. Many docs simply want nothing to do with that.

A D & E (dilation and extraction) is a horrifying procedure to witness. You cannot force a doctor to perform a procedure that he or she doesn't want to do. It has nothing to do with the law.

edited to fix tags -- T.S.

Atticus Grinch · 12-09-2003, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sgtclub
Don't blame the red states for a poorly written law.

I don't know who else to blame for a law that:

requires that women receive information on estimates of the pain a fetus might feel;
changes the definition of an unborn child to include the moment of fertilization; and
says that women have a higher risk of breast cancer if they have an abortion, when medical groups say there's no cause-and-effect relationship between the abortion and breast cancer.

Perhaps you'd like to blame Hillary somehow, but those aren't her fingerprints.

How did this happen in Minnesota? How did this happen to a party that pays so much lip service to libertarian principles?

Hank Chinaski · 12-09-2003, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Public health is a government responsibility. The drug companies probably acted rationally, but there are massive externalities here not reflected in their pricing. After 9/11 and the anthrax episodes (remember that?), there was some attention paid to our lousy public health system, but I suspect it led to little real change. I'm not saying that any one government official made a bad decision -- I'm saying that government, collectively, has failed us in one of its basic missions.

guys can we all agree the us has fucked with Canada about enough for a few years? If we take our health care system to be "single payer" we'll be fucked, but I'll live with that for your on going social experiments.
But the canadians who flood state side ER/Docter's to get procedures you can't get under socialized MD, are we being fair to them if we move away from the market based health care that is clearly the best for the biggest percentage of people?

Atticus Grinch · 12-09-2003, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Not Me
Regarding the lack of providers for 3rd trimester abortions in Minnesota. This has NOTHING to do with Minnesota law. This is due to doctors not wanting to provide 3rd trimester abortions, which are gruesome procedures to perform. Many docs simply want nothing to do with that.

You're getting slightly funnier. I'm howling at the thought that all Minnesota doctors who end pregnancies in trimesters one and two are somehow squicked out by D&E. I guess MN medical schools produce graduates who are extremely sensitive and can't stand gruesome medical procedures.

Another possible explanation is that your side can't control its radicals, and no one wants a bullet in the brain for such a remote principle. I think we should even the score by making all anti-abortion radicals who are willing to kill for the cause take out Yellow Pages ads, so my side's radicals can even the score a little bit. Fair fighting is a midwestern value, after all.

Tyrone Slothrop · 12-09-2003, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
guys can we all agree the us has fucked with Canada about enough for a few years? If we take our health care system to be "single payer" we'll be fucked, but I'll live with that for your on going social experiments.
But the canadians who flood state side ER/Docter's to get procedures you can't get under socialized MD, are we being fair to them if we move away from the market based health care that is clearly the best for the biggest percentage of people?

I'm talking about public health, not health care. So, whatever.

Say_hello_for_me · 12-09-2003, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
guys can we all agree the us has fucked with Canada about enough for a few years? If we take our health care system to be "single payer" we'll be fucked, but I'll live with that for your on going social experiments.
But the canadians who flood state side ER/Docter's to get procedures you can't get under socialized MD, are we being fair to them if we move away from the market based health care that is clearly the best for the biggest percentage of people?

Speaking of on-going social experiments, I read somewhere today that Israel's kibbutz movement is so dead that it collectively owes 2 billion dollars. Yes, the less-than-400 communal farms that won't coerce work owe lotso money to the government. No, I'm not going to figure out where I read it today at work. Just in case anyone had some residual doubt that the idea of paying people something for nothing still might work. Indeed. That is all. Carry on.

Hello

Not Me · 12-09-2003, 09:41 PM

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Originally posted by Atticus Grinch [*]says that women have a higher risk of breast cancer if they have an abortion, when medical groups say there's no cause-and-effect relationship between the abortion and breast cancer.[/list]

You are overstating things. The data is mixed and no one can say for sure at this point. Some studies did in fact show a correlation between induced abortions and breast cancer risk. The data from the more recent studies seem to argue against a causal relationship. However, that is a far cry from saying that "medical groups say there's no cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer."

The verdict isn't in yet.

Int J Gynaecol Obstet. 2003 Nov;83(2):233-5. Related Articles, Links

ACOG committee opinion. Induced abortion and breast cancer risk. Number 285, August 2003.

Committee on Gynecologic Practice, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The purpose of this Committee Opinion is to provide a review of recent studies regarding the potential relationship between induced abortion and subsequent breast cancer and to discuss methodologic challenges in this field of study. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' Committee on Gynecologic Practice concludes that early studies of the relationship between prior induced abortion and breast cancer risk have been inconsistent and are difficult to interpret because of methodologic considerations. More rigorous recent studies argue against a causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.

PMID: 14631935 [PubMed - in process]

Hank Chinaski · 12-09-2003, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
You're getting slightly funnier. I'm howling at the thought that all Minnesota doctors who end pregnancies in trimesters one and two are somehow squicked out by D&E. I guess MN medical schools produce graduates who are extremely sensitive and can't stand gruesome medical procedures.

Another possible explanation is that your side can't control its radicals, and no one wants a bullet in the brain for such a remote principle. I think we should even the score by making all anti-abortion radicals who are willing to kill for the cause take out Yellow Pages ads, so my side's radicals can even the score a little bit. Fair fighting is a midwestern value, after all.

Well, you can't expect the targets to own up in public. old west, you sit with your back to the wall. sure, sure it'd be sissy to shoot a guy in the back but y'all got the sissies on your side.

Hank Chinaski · 12-09-2003, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I'm talking about public health, not health care. So, whatever.

well, what is it you feel the government has a duty to provide? I honestly thing almost anything would screw stuff up. socialized med. countries can provide cut rate drugs because one country allows drug companies to make gross pofits to justify inventing new drugs. I'd just as soon we don't screw that up, for personal reasons, not partisan.

Tyrone Slothrop · 12-09-2003, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
well, what is it you feel the government has a duty to provide? I honestly thing almost anything would screw stuff up. socialized med. countries can provide cut rate drugs because one country allows drug companies to make gross pofits to justify inventing new drugs. I'd just as soon we don't screw that up, for personal reasons, not partisan.

Webster's:

public health n. The art and science of protecting and improving community health by means of preventative medicine, health education, communicable disease control, and the application of the social sanitary sciences.

I'm not talking about duties. I'm talking about basic public policy.

sgtclub · 12-09-2003, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I don't know who else to blame for a law that:

requires that women receive information on estimates of the pain a fetus might feel;
changes the definition of an unborn child to include the moment of fertilization; and
says that women have a higher risk of breast cancer if they have an abortion, when medical groups say there's no cause-and-effect relationship between the abortion and breast cancer.

Perhaps you'd like to blame Hillary somehow, but those aren't her fingerprints.

How did this happen in Minnesota? How did this happen to a party that pays so much lip service to libertarian principles?

I'd rather not get baited into another version of the abortion debate, but I wil say that being pro life is completely consistent with being libertarian, assuming you believe that life begins at conception.

Hank Chinaski · 12-09-2003, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Webster's:

public health n. The art and science of protecting and improving community health by means of preventative medicine, health education, communicable disease control, and the application of the social sanitary sciences.

I'm not talking about duties. I'm talking about basic public policy.

Webster was a dem, or a whig maybe, but anyway......
you specifically seemed to say the government should have insisted/bought/regulated the production of more flu vacine. how the f does that come under this?

and the social sanity sciences shit...... are you saying I don't wipe correctly?