Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Abortion

I'm not a big fan of political discussions...I am ashamed to admit that I am not following all the debate going on about the issues and the election. I will however, vote. I will vote for Obama.

I was on Navelgazing Midwife's blog reading an interesting post and her excellent recourse on the topic of late abortion. Check it out if you are so inclined.

Here's my response on her site...


I am a pro-choice midwife...your argument is absolutely excellent as were the words of many others. You are far more eloquent then I can ever be.

I echo the sentiments that we need to get beyond whether abortion is legal or not...and focus on how can we reduce the numbers of abortions. But I do not believe the two factions can ever settle their differences to meet in the middle. I don't like abortion, probably would never have one myself....however, I firmly believe that the government should have no say so in our bodies. I believe there are times when an abortion is ok. Each woman must make the decision and must live with that decision...not the government.

As far as the video - what propaganda! I worked as a L&D nurse for four years and no baby was ever left in a utility room to die. And certainly not a term one such as the one shown at the end...jeez!

1 comment:

AtYourCervix said...

I agree - never have we left a baby in a dirty utility room to die. Where I work, we do terminations (elective preterm inductions) up to 23-ish weeks. Half of the nurses won't care for these women, while the other half of the nurses will care for these women. Do we do many terminations? No. They are actually very rare. I would have to say that 99% of them, in my facility are done because of fetal abnormalities like trisomies, or other conditions that are incompatible with life. Sometimes, they will inject the fetal heart with potassium chloride, before they admit the woman to L&D, so that the fetus is technically an IUFD.

When the fetus is delivered, most of the mothers hold the baby, look at the baby, etc. Very few don't want to see the baby at all, so the baby is held by a nurse until he/she is declared deceased. It's part of our standard of care to check vital signs on a dying baby, until we call time of death. That means, the baby/fetus is NOT locked in a room to die alone. A nurse is right there with him/her. We also treat all neonatal deaths (terminations and IUFD's) as losses: pictures are taken, footprints are done, feet casts are made, babies are dressed and wrapped in infant blankets, etc.