Right to be Informed
Good on Ron Paterson for upholding a woman’s right to see her pre-abortion ultrasound prior to having a termination of pregnancy. All women have one as part of the medical work-up before an abortion and it should be their right to see it, if they wish. At least the offer should be made. The only time that the offer should not be made is if there is a specific request from a psychiatrist not to do this.
Women have a right to be properly informed about the exact nature of what they are proposing to do. I do not think the pro-choice lobby’s perpetuation of the “foetus is a piece of meat” myth (often implicitly contained in the “it’s my body” meme) is doing women any favours. Women deal with a termination in exactly the same way as they deal with a miscarriage – as a grieving process. Pretending that there is no loss of a life involved simply makes it harder for women to come to terms with the consequences of what they have done.
Having said that, I don’t agree with the attempt in the US to try and make all women look at their ultrasound and listen to their foetal heartbeat. That sort of coercive manipulation just makes women resentful and does not help them to come to terms with the abortion. It is true that many women who see their ultrasound, decide not to go through with the procedure. Unfortunately, we are not likely to see the same result if women are forced to look at the ultrasound. The psychology is quite different and the net result is more likely to be anger and resentment rather than a change of mind.
Seeing as the vast majority of the abortions undertaken in the country are under the mental health provision of the Act, it would seem that we have a duty to ensure that we approach this matter in a way conducive to a good mental outcome. Trying to fudge the true nature of the procedure by hiding the scan pictures seems to me the very antithesis of this.
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May 7 09 2:20 pm
On a recent debate over how well formed a fetus is at 17 weeks (the age of termination in this case), some pro-aborts were annoyed at my supposedly emotive term of “pre-born” to describe an unborn child.
Ironically, one of these people later referred to the 17 week old fetus as a “zygote”.
ZenTiger’s last blog post..A fine day at the Council
And the funny thing is that person won’t be able to see that the term “zygote” is equally as emotive (or de-emotive) and hopelessly inaccurate to boot.
May 7 09 2:24 pm
Seeing as the vast majority of the abortions undertaken in the country are under the mental health provision of the Act, it would seem that we have a duty to ensure that we approach this matter in a way conducive to a good mental outcome.
And yet, we don’t seem to have a duty to actually question if 18,000 abortions in NZ last year were actually about “mental health”, or more accurately diagnosed as “avoiding the inconvenience of a child as a result of giving a f*ck. Or is that not giving a f*ck?
Don’t get me started on the ethics of inappropriately referring a woman for abortion for mental health reasons while knowing full well the said termination will make her worse.
May 7 09 4:37 pm
“I don’t agree with the attempt in the US to try and make all women look at their ultrasound and listen to their foetal heartbeat. That sort of coercive manipulation just makes women resentful and does not help them to come to terms with the abortion.”
Funny how when it is a foetus being removed showing them what it looks like and talking through the intricacies of the procedure is “coercive manipulation” but when someone is having some other body part removed like a tumour or a tonsil medical professionals frequently use life-like models, diagrams and fairly graphic words as to what they will do.
Abortion is foeticide, foeticide is homicide and in the majority of cases it is unjustified. This is the real reason why this information is kept from women.
If a foetus is not a moral human being then killing it is on par with tumour or tonsil removal so why not treat it that way? If people can look at images of tonsils or tumours removed from the body why not foetuses?
Perhaps it is because no matter how people try to deceive themselves they cannot face the truth.
“Women deal with a termination in exactly the same way as they deal with a miscarriage – as a grieving process.”
I disagree with this statement. It is like comparing accidental death with homicide. When a woman has a miscarriage it is grief, when a woman has an abortion it is guilt and grief that they feel at their own culpability in their child’s death. The two are not the same and to suggest they are is offensive to women who have lost children through no fault of their own.
Madeleine’s last blog post..John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I
May 7 09 7:49 pm
To pick up on this comment: “Women deal with a termination in exactly the same way as they deal with a miscarriage – as a grieving process.”
I’ve come across studies saying that women are psychologically hit harder after an abortion rather than a miscarriage (in terms of the old statistics game)
ZenTiger’s last blog post..A fine day at the Council
True. The underlying guilt is thought to be much greater, making it harder to recover from.
May 7 09 11:13 pm
Madeleine: If people can look at images of tonsils or tumours removed from the body why not foetuses?
There is no legislation that requires me to look at pictures of tonsils or tumours being removed. If there was, this would also be coercive. I think I am correct in my assumption that such a move in the US would make little difference to their shocking abortion stats. I am, however, in favour of legislation that requires abortion clinics to provide all alternative avenues other than abortion so that women can make up their mind with all information available. I am also in favour of tightening up the regulation of the mental health provisions of the Act as they as currently being interpreted in a way I can only say is entirely unethical.
The two are not the same and to suggest they are is offensive to women who have lost children through no fault of their own.
My wife has been through an ectopic pregnancy , so I am not trying to be offensive here, Madeleine. All three (Abortion, Miscarriage and Ectopic pregnancy) undergo the normal grieving process. You are right in pointing out that there is an severe underlying guilt process in abortion that makes the outcome much worse. My point is that minimising the significance of the foetus makes it significantly harder for the woman to properly grieve. Or come to terms with her guilt, for that matter.
May 9 09 12:32 am
I had thought that the option of viewing scans was standard, ultimately if you are considering abortion the pregnancy is real and there isn’t a way of avoiding this even if the option is refused. While I wouldn’t have one myself, I still generally support having a full range of options available because while I am comfortable with making a choice for myself, imposing this choice wholesale upon others doesn’t sit comfortably – I’m not them and in the position of having to make that decision under whatever circumstances apply to them. I totally agree they should have all options presented as well so a fully informed choice is made. Not all abortions are done on mental health grounds though, I’ve heard of situations where one of the other available options was the reason and that’s one of the reasons why I’m not inclined to go the other way.
I have trouble with the concept of foeticide=homicide and describing a foetus as a human being though. It is life, human life – the egg is alive, sperm is alive but I don’t see that just because a egg is fertilised and starts to develop that would mean that the life there gains the rights of a already living person. It’s got a long way to go before generally you would ascribe those rights and even then that’s not always certain that the life will get there as it might not implant or an miscarriage might occur. Legally its 24 weeks (I think), medically it’s possible to go a few weeks earlier, because this is the stage where if born the baby can sustain it’s own heart function and breathing even if it’s often with support. I know when miscarriage happens it is grieved, but it’s also recognised that it was just way too early for the baby to be born and survive. I’m not denying that deliberate intervention might have some call for disputes as to the ethics, but that regarding a foetus at the earlier stages as fully having human rights creates a mess – like in situations where the foetus will not survive but would kill the mother if the situation is left untreated do we consider her a murderess for making that decision and the doctors that intervene to treat her the same? Sheer pragmatism says that you can’t consider it as murder because firstly, the mother as a already living person with rights can determine what to do with her body and what treatment course to take and the doctors in treating this can intervene on the principle of a greater good, because one hand the foetus is not going to survive and on the other while the action itself isn’t desirable, a greater good can come of it in that the mother is saved and can go on to have further pregnancies which certainly wouldn’t be the case otherwise. The Catholic Church certainly finds these situations allowable if all options exhausted to try and save both, but if the situation is generalised to all intervention being murder it’s murder no matter what even if the implications would not be logical in terms of doing what is best in a bad situation.
May 9 09 1:10 am
Michelle: A cynic once told me that he thought that foetuses weren’t considered to have legal rights because they didn’t have bank accounts that lawyers could plunder. Unfortunately, this might be true.
I would argue that it is the knowledge of a pregnancy that gives the foetus status beyond that of “a few cells”. Once a woman knows she is pregnant her choice is both emotionally and ethically very different from the woman who is taking contraception. For the woman, it is that knowledge of pregnancy that makes the difference. At that moment of knowledge the relationship between woman and foetus becomes that of mother and child on an emotional level, regardless of your rational reaction. This makes Abortion a very different choice to contraception, where you do not know the status of conception.
Because of the underlying emotional connection, I would argue that women need to be given the maximum amount of information and assistance to arrive at a decision that is right for their child and themselves. I submit that this would slash our abortion rate and ultimately be a better solution for foetuses (obviously) and mothers.
May 9 09 2:18 am
“Women have a right to be properly informed about the exact nature of what they are proposing to do.”
Surely there are circumstances where people have a duty to be as informed as possible about what they are about to do, and abortion is just such a circumstance.
When a hunter is about to take a shot, he has a duty to identify his target, to see exactly what it is he is about to kill. If he realised that the moving object was actually a human being, that knowledge would, we hope, coerce him to re-think his decision to fire.
Perhaps you don’t think that a tend week old fetus is a human being. I disagree and I think it is, but given that you’re opposed to destroying fetae (at least I think you are), why would you reject the duty (and not just the right) to be informed here?
Glenn’s last blog post..Ehrman: I’m not destroying Christianity, I’m only destroying the Bible!
May 9 09 9:14 am
Glenn: It is my obligation, as an doctor who practices ethically, to provide as much information on a subject as a patient requires. Many women do not want to know the alternatives to abortion, nor do they wish to see their ultrasound, having already made their minds up. It is not my place to force them to look at alternatives or their ultrasound, though I always recommend they do so before proceeding with an abortion.
I am very opposed to all except properly medically-indicated terminations. Terminating a pregnancy for selfish reasons is the exact opposite of motherhood and is a negation of the very nature of women. I abhor it both as a Christian and as a medical doctor who wants the best for his patients.