Lightning and Vultures

The Vulture Culture that feasts on the suffering of abortions gone wrong will be sooo disappointed. The cause of death of the woman trumpeted as 'killed' by Dr Carhart is natural causes.

A 29-year-old woman died of natural causes after visiting an abortion clinic in Montgomery County and suffering a rare complication related to childbirth, according to an initial finding by the Maryland medical examiner’s office.

The complication, which occurred when amniotic fluid was pushed into the woman’s bloodstream, can occur during or after abortions, natural deliveries or Caesarean sections.

An expert, who obviously could not comment on this specific case, said:

Amniotic fluid embolisms are rare, and the medical profession doesn’t have a good handle on how they affect a patient’s body, Eisinger said. “It’s kind of the obstetric equivalent of getting hit by lightning,” he said. “It is usually unexpected, sudden and often fatal.”

And since the risk of death from abortion in the developed world is about 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, it may well be less common than death by lightning strike.

Worldwide, it is a very different story, with an estimated 70,000 women a year dying from unsafe, usually illegal abortions.

Funny, we never hear a peep about those from the fetus fetishists. They do get reported regularly. One doesn't have to look very hard. Here's one from today in Ghana.

An attempt by a 17-year-old Junior High School (JHS) student at Atwedie in the Asante-Akim South District, to abort a four-month pregnancy went tragic as it led to her untimely death.
. . .
An autopsy showed that she died from an illegal abortion.

Will the finding in the recent case shut the fetus fetishists up about this poor woman?

Nope. They just pivot, now filing a 'formal complaint' about Dr Carhart with the medical board.

So the violation of this woman and her family's privacy and the exploitation of their grief continues.

Jonathan Kay Still Ignoring Women

As promised, Jonathan Kay responds (sorta) to Carolyn Bennett and his other (ahem) pro-choice critics.

In other words, Ms. Bennett concedes the literal truth of my statement that abortion is “legal” at any point in gestation. But she also argues that I’m “misrepresenting” the situation, because some people will infer from what I’ve written that third-trimester abortion is professionally sanctioned and common, even in cases where there is no medical necessity.

It is completely true that third-trimester abortions are rare in Canada. It’s also true that a pregnant woman who is deep into her third trimester of pregnancy can’t simply walk into a Canadian clinic and immediately receive abortion services without providing some evidence of medical need or fetal abnormality. But it is not true that there is any universal gestational cut-off. . .

He then says that the limit varies from province to province and that the rules 'generally permit wiggle room for doctors'.

Of course they do. Though I'm sure the professionals assessing individual cases wouldn't call it 'wiggle room'. They'd call it, um, 'assessing individual cases'.

Which is precisely why hard rules are a bad idea, or as legal scholars put it: 'hard cases make bad law'.

Almost by definition, a woman in a later stage of pregnancy wanting or needing an abortion is a 'hard case'. And all of them would be different: different health situations, different geographic situations, different economic situations.

Different. Or as the Canadian Medical Association puts it: in 'exceptional circumstances'. (Kay quotes that, by the way.)

He then provides some vague evidence of 'non-medical' abortions citing -- hilariously -- our fave obsessed fetus fetishist, a repeat of his tweet yesterday which I captured in case he realizes what he'd done. (He obviously hasn't heard of the phrase 'reliable source'.)

Even more hilariously, SUZYALLCAPLOCKS's post cites homophobe and professional pearl-clutcher, Margaret Somerville. Kay refers to her as 'a McGill bioethicist', not by name, when a quick search reveals that Frau Doktor S. has recently written at least three columns for the Natty Po. Why so coy about another of your in-house fetus fetishists, Jonathan?

So then he says, in effect, if the medical profession already imposes a limit, why not have a law, as they do in 'civilized' places like Europe? (Doncha love how the Right loves Europe on abortion policy, but hates it on just about every other human rights/workers' rights/women's rights/20th or 21st century policy?)

Here is his actual question.

And so I ask: If some Canadian decision-making body is going to determine when a women is allowed to have an abortion on demand, why is it better that such a body be composed of unelected doctors, rather than elected politicians?

And here we are again, back at the beginning of this particular circle of hell.

Because, Jonathan, barring 'exceptional circumstances', women who 'demand' abortions do NOT want to be pregnant and, again barring 'exceptional circumstances', act promptly to get themselves de-pregnantized.

It is a woman's decision. Not anyone else's, whether elected or unelected.

In those 'exceptional circumstances' where things have gone horribly wrong, it is STILL not the business of anyone but the woman and the professionals she chooses to help her.

To sum up: he concedes that women aren't strolling into abortion clinics in later stages of pregnancy demanding to be set free but continues to insist (from decidedly dodgy evidence) that it does too happen.

What he continues to ignore is that these 'hard cases' are wanted pregnancies gone wrong. And that the system we have to deal with them -- as evolved over the past 25 years -- works just fine.

ADDED: Antonia Zerbisias's debunking of SUZY's 'revelations' from 2009.

More Mansplaining on Superb Owl Day

After yesterday's Twitter brouhaha, Carolyn Bennett commented at the NatPo and reproduced it on her blog.

Today on Twitter Mr. Kay asked :"if you can find an incorrect sentence in my article, identify it. The misleading sentence is "It is perfectly legal in Canada to have or perform an abortion — for any reason, or no reason at all — at 20, 25, 30 or 35 weeks gestation". I am totally fed up with 'lawyered' assertions that totally misrepresent the facts. While in Canada, we do not have a law, we do have very strict professional guidelines. No physician in Canada can terminate a pregnancy over 24 weeks without serious indications: the life of the mother at risk, or the fetus has very serious malformations. I have sat with these women as they received the terrible news and sat with them throughout the terrible long, tear drenched process. Mr. Kay's assertion that late trimester abortions can be performed 'for any reason, or no reason at all' is just not true. I challenge him to find ONE late trimester abortion perfomed in Canada to a healthy mother with a healthy fetus. I am one of many politicians 'willing to tackle' this subject. He needs to be one of many journalists who are prepared to admit when their fine prose may have misled Canadians ...in this case admit that late-trimester abortions are NOT happening in Canada without 'reason'.

Kay takes note and intends to reply.

@carolyn_bennett I appreciate your blog post on the abortion issue, and will respond tonight on @fullcomment.

— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) February 3, 2013

Oh boy, more mansplaining. On Superb Owl Day to boot.

I will update later or at least link.

Demonizing Late-Term Abortion Must Stop

Because Canadians are ignorant on the facts of abortion in Canada*, the Fetus Lobby® is able to get away with repeated -- and unrefuted -- lies and distortions.

Like this from Jonathan Kay today. Writing about Vellacott et al.'s ridiculous grandstanding, he says:

The fact is that Canada is the only nation in the Western world without any abortion law. It is perfectly legal in Canada to have or perform an abortion — for any reason, or no reason at all — at 20, 25, 30 or 35 weeks gestation. This is a disturbing state of affairs.

While this is true in the strictly legal sense, it is outrageously misleading.

There are no legal restrictions, but there are medical restrictions and regulations, worked out over the past 25 years by women and healthcare providers.

The facts are available.

• Fewer than 1% of abortions are carried out after 20 weeks' gestation.

• NO abortions are done after 24 weeks in Canada.

• There are very few doctors who will perform abortions past 20 weeks.

• The vast majority of these so-called late-term abortions are medically necessary because of catastrophic fetal anomaly or serious threat to the woman's life or health.

In other words, they are tragic endings of wanted pregnancies.

Yet these tragedies are routinely trotted out by heartless anti-choicers to be demonized as frivolous or irresponsible or convenient.

They have no compunction about trivializing a family's grief and loss as some silly woman's decision that she needs to fit into a bikini six months into her pregnancy.

You want to talk 'disturbing', Jonathan? Think of a woman going through the harrowing discovery of some horrible condition, the gut-wrenching decision on what to do about it, the painful and protracted process of a later-term abortion, and the ensuing grief and self-recrimination. (What did I do wrong?)

Now think of her reading your breezy brain-farts and reliving her experience.

That's disturbing.

Every fucking time this no-restrictions-at-all-for-all-nine-months canard gets an airing in the media, professional healthcare organizations should DEMAND that the outlet retract or clarify.

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists should assign someone to full-time Bullshit Watch. (Bloggers like me will help.)

They owe it to their patients.


*Actually, that so few people are aware of the facts might be seen as a good thing. Canadians believe that abortion is a private matter and assume that it is available if necessary.