Friday 5 October 2012

Truthiness

Last night I responded to Chris Selley's tweet promoting his opinion piece in the NatPo.

No acknowledgement. So I'll post what I cited in my tweets to him.

This jumped out and seemed scientifically incorrect to me; I found stats to challenge it.

“It’s a fraught issue, which stirs emotions on each side,” Ms. Newman wrote, in the Telegraph piece that touched off this controversy. “Is it right that we terminate pregnancies, which might, with the medical care now available, result in healthy babies?

That "healthy babies" claim sounded suspiciously like the glurging over that pro-liars do when they have no cogent argument to present, when they're presented with scientific facts, data and stats.

So I went looking and I found evidence about extreme neonates that refutes Newman's pretense.

In the UK, nine out of a hundred neonates born at 23 weeks of gestation will survive; only one of them will live a fully able-bodied life. 
What this means is that 91 of every hundred fetuses born at 23 weeks of gestation in the UK will die in the neonatal intensive care unit, eight others will be afflicted for the rest of their lives with grave handicaps or severe medical conditions while only one will be able to live a normal life. 
Only one percent.

Like Stephen Woodworth and his many fake claims that it's all about the science, it's not. It's about morality and punishing women by forcing them to remain pregnant, even when a fetus has stopped developing and is putrefying inside her uterus.

It's actually about the government interfering with the provision of a legal medical procedure that is available to pregnant women.

It's about criminalizing women, physicians and abortion.

It is christian Sharia.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fantastic post DBO!

I often find myself arguing with anti-choicers who loudly proclaim that the preeemiest of preemies can all live to lead wonderful, fulfilling lives and how DARE we deny them of that.

So WHAT if some of these preemies end up living lives of pain and disability, SOME will be happy and that is all that matters, right?

They seem to think that the right to life should trump all other rights - especially the right to not live in pain.

I think they are projecting their own fears onto fetuses - what if I had been denied existence - so they fight that fear anyway they can, which includes causing suffering to infants who did not ask to be born.

If you want to watch a good documentary on the subject, check out "Medicine Under the Influence". It repeats on the Documentary Channel every few months. The lives of the children and parents featured in this film are nothing but hell.

-Amanda

Beijing York said...

Whenever this subject comes up, I am reminded of this family:

http://stanseljourney.blogspot.ca/

Four of the six sextuplets died shortly after C-section. The two surviving girls have enormous problems and have endured countless surgeries. One is deaf and the other blind. At three years old, they still can't talk.

Anonymous said...

I have never understood what is so laudable about bringing a life into the world that you know will be a lonely life of pain and suffering. Yet women who do this are often portrayed as loving and courageous. The pope even beatifies women who do this. I think it is an extremely difficult decision to make when faced with a fetal diagnosis that is incompatible or almost incompatible with life. Yet the choice to continue is often to satisfy religious beliefs and lacks serious consideration of the life sentence about to be bestowed on the baby if the pregnancy is continued. Religious people and others like the Kays, Selley and Sommerville view abortion in these instances as a selfish act, denying life because it is less than perfect, for the convenience of air-headed women with hardened hearts who want a designer baby. This is quite twisted thinking when you are faced with a diagnosis that will ensure your child will never be able to play with other children, endure multiple surgeries, may remain in a vegetative state, will die a slow, painful death or all of the above. These are the pregnancies that are terminated in Canada after 24 weeks and the one's some people would like to interfere with because they think they know better than women and their doctors. How ignorant is that?

e.a.f. said...

Its incredibly ignorant. Not one of these people will do anything to help a parent who brings & delivers a baby with these health issues. The government provides minimal support. To receive medical treatment for these children, when they are born with these afflictions the parents have to actually fund raise & fund raise & fund raise. Do we see these compulsory pregnancy people coming to the rescue? Not so much.

This is about control of women. I have yet to see any problems with a man getting a vasectomy but at one time it was very diffiuclt for women to obtain a tubal ligation.

These compulsory pregnancy people, anit abortionists are the western version of the taliban. The want to control women's bodies & will even kill to do so.

Anonymous said...

Excellent article!! My comments will only be repeating myself... yet can't believe in this day, age, century & in Canada Women forced to fight for their rights-again! Canada made a huge mistake in Election 41 2011; lets make sure it doesn't happen in 2015!

Kayvee1000

Post a Comment