Let’s begin with this. I am thankful for all the blessings that you are thankful for. I am especially thankful for scientific medicine that saved my life. I would have been dead 33 years ago from large cell lymphoma without it. I will spend Thanksgiving with my two sons and their families. I have seen them develop successful careers. I have taken my grandsons fishing. The truth, facts, and scientific medicine made that possible.
It is not the science that is the problem. The problem is the people who have no interest in the morality of their actions. They gaslight the public and plunder their wealth. Just recently, I encountered a mother and her three year old daughter, both survived preeclampsia. The daughter was born premature and suffers from severe “undetectable cardiac symptoms”, she turns blue with frequent onsets of pneumonia; and they were told that these cardiac conditions are permanent without treatment or cure; she will die young! Also, the desperate mother has weight gain and severe depression issues. It tuned out that their Multifunction Cardiogram (MCG) tests were nearly identical indicating metabolic heart dysfunctions except the difference in degrees of functional severity. To the mother’s extreme surprise, these dysfunctions are reversible and the three year-old will have her heart healed with simply but robust lifestyle adjustments. The same goes for the mother! The mother was in tears hearing my explanation of why they are suffering. Imagine that?
Pregnancy induced metabolic disorder is preventable starting in pre pregnancy, lifestyle optimization is the only way to go. Maternal fetal metabolic health can be improved dramatically during pregnancy, simple MCG testing can detect and monitor the effects of pregnancy and the lifestyle changes to ensure safe pregnancy and effective delivery without premature birth or deaths of both mothers and babies. These are preventable tragedies. Facts! We can really help!
I agree with everything that you say. The science comes in with onset of preeclampsia/eclampsia at 20 weeks and zero fetal survival then. A few kids can survive at 22 weeks with almost universal impairment. It is only at 27 weeks that the odds get much better.
Slippery slope though. Look at how all culture has changed and not for the better I might add. It’s hard to fight liberals who think everything is morally relative. I would argue that is why we are where we are right now! I think abortion is evil and I think a number of women now use it as a method of birth control. I would argue that if people were healthier in general we would see a lot fewer maternal and fetal problems. How about making things simpler and better? Use birth control!
For most Americans condemning a young woman to death at 20 weeks of pregnancy is not evil. Imposing your values on other Americans by force of law is not right in this case. Go to the links in the article and study the issue. Most abortions are occur in women who already have children. Some Americans think birth control is equally evil. Should they be able to impose their values on you? I would fight hard for your right to use birth control even though I might disagree with it. ( I don't, by the way!)
But it's okay to condemn an unborn child to death? I agree that this issue should be taken out of the political realm but it has advanced so far and our culture has fallen so deep that no one really knows how to deal with it anymore. All I know is that killing the unborn is WRONG.
So, you are saying KILL THE MOTHER! There is the world as you would have it and the world as it is. It is not black and white. I was an internist for decades and faced many choices with families that were extremely difficult. In medicine you sometimes have only bad choices. That is just the way it is.
A lot of us have faced extremely difficult decisions in life. Nothing is black and white. What I'm saying is I'd like to see people make better decisions. If the life of the mother is at stake that is one thing. I do not presume to be able to decide what someone should do in that case. It is up to their own conscience. Wanting to abort a baby because it's inconvenient is another. It's a complicated issue and one that government should not decide for anyone, but I am very anti abortion. Mainstream has decided it is a clump of cells and nothing more until after the baby is outside the birth canal. That is just plain stupid.
Not the least of the problems with the abortion debate is that many of the abortion opponents also oppose sex education, birth control and government-paid prenatal and well baby care. They don't give a damn about ruining the life of the mother or the welfare of the child. Their position that life begins at conception moreover has no scientific basis, and their hypocrisy is exposed by their not insisting on funerals for miscarriages.
As a labor RN for many years once again politicians weaponized abortion for votes. For some reason people think MDs are killing babies. Often women have no clue they are pregnant and with these restrictive new extreme laws force birth. I recently ran into a woman who used birth control was unmarried and became pregnant. Unfortunately she was misdiagnosed and was forced to give birth to a baby she never wanted in the first place. Birth is not without risk. As you know abortion is given via a pill. Most states passed laws long ago but it’s now become a political topic either pro choice or against. I have taken care of many deformed babies who have major medical problems. Due to the political extremism today we can lock up medical people or women who seek termination of pregnancy. I am good with how it was when decisions were made between patients and the MD because I have seen so much suffering. I have seen babies kept alive with no brain activity
That is a key point Janet. Moral rules exist to guide us to a better life. I am more comfortable in an environment where those around me don't lie, cheat, and steal. That makes life miserable.
Agreed. "Given these facts, these new anti-abortion laws represent a death sentence for young mothers in several states. Arkansas’ bans, Idaho’s total ban, Mississippi’s total ban, Oklahoma’s bans, South Dakota’s ban, and Wisconsin’s ban don’t contain a health exception for mothers. It is straightforward. More young mothers will die in these states. Arkansas and Mississippi have some of the highest maternal mortality rates already. These laws will only aggravate that problem."
It is the death of pregnant women, desperate not to continue their pregnancies, that were a huge impetus to allow early abortions.
We need to balance the rights of fully-developed humans (pregnant women, in this case) against whatever rights we give to a foetus - which as I see develop over time, as the foetus develops.
Thanks Elsa. Medicine is not black and white. I have been in many situations where I had to help a patient sort through a number of bad choices. Life doesn't fit in neat little boxes. It gets messy.
Absolutely. Like I knew an incest survivor who long did not know or acknowledge she was pregnant. What is the right answer? So many complexities. I am glad you recognize the complexities.
And I am a man. It is really hard for a man to understand what it means to be pregnant. Female opinions should carry more weight here but it is old white men making most of the decisions. Thanks for the compliment
Instead of catering to evil why aren't we educating women on morality as well as how to prevent pregnancy. Education on how to value oneself and why marriage is best before pregnancy? Why do we always go down the way of what's "easiest"? Doing the right thing is hard!! We've given up on children. Our culture is breathtakingly amoral and we are reaping what we sown.
Metabolic heart disease begins with environmental factors like abdominal fat and cigarette smoke that we understand very well now. Extra abdominal fat and smoking prior to becoming pregnant change genes to favor developing high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and chronic kidney disease. These gene changes can be passed on to at least two generations.
I am going to respectfully disagree with a few things you talked about.
The words “abortion” and “delivery” denote two completely different actions, but both ending a pregnancy. Pro-life people (yes, I am) have no issue with early delivery at whatever age for real maternal wellbeing. Delivery honors and treats the life and body of the child as a human with dignity. Abortion treats the body of the child like a disease - and is wholly devoid of honoring the life and body of the child. Abortion treats the body of the child as medical waste. If preeclampsia is a cause for maternal well-being at any gestational age of the baby (or other documented medical concern), then delivery is always an option. Even in tubal pregnancies. We need to use the terms and techniques that honor mother and baby lives and bodies.
Another of the points that I disagree with, is that it is “only” a small percentage of babies horrifically murdered at a late gestation. That’s like saying, “I only endorse sacrificing a few innocents” - the fact that any law anywhere in our great country allows for outright murder of an unwanted innocent should chill your blood. Maybe you or I will be unwanted next?
I dare anyone to see the images of destroyed baby bodies and tell me that was how that baby had to be treated. Many babies could have lived and were never given a chance and died exceedingly cruel deaths. Some would not have survived delivery, but at least they would have been treated as if they mattered. Most of these mother’s did not do this just because of pre-eclampsia (delivery is the answer) - most do it for lifestyle, financial, age, or it can be a form of abuse for women who are forced into sex work and are trafficked.
Not to mention; maternal mortality in abortion procedures, cover-ups by the abortion lobby of meaningful data and lawlessness, federal subsidies going to this atrocity, horrific facility conditions, more black babies being killed than born alive, the targeting low-income neighborhoods (ridding the world of “undesirables” as the racist Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger once said), no enforcement of current laws on the books within abortion clinic boundaries, protecting doctors who do late term abortions, the list goes on and on….
I respect you and your work on preventative care and much of your writing. You are a smart man who knows that medicine in our country can do better than the status quo. We can do so much better than abortion for fathers, mothers, and babies.
When a baby passes 27 weeks of development and it is delivered, it is likely to survive and be healthy. Before 22 weeks they almost never survive. The mother may develop a life threatening condition before the baby is likely to survive. No matter what you decide, someone is very likely to die. Is condemning the mother better than saving her by ending the pregnancy. Families and clinicians faced with these horrible choices deserve our understanding and support. Who are we to make that decision for a young couple? Making that hard decision certainly doesn't mean we value the child any less. It does not mean we view the child as a disease or medical waste. Those are emotional arguments that inflame the passions and make reason impossible. The mother and child are both at risk in many of these conditions. The family in consultation with their clinical team should decide.
Now we can identify babies with no skull, no brain, and fatal heart defects with ultrasound before halfway through the pregnancy. These babies can't survive a month once they are born. Are we to condemn the mother to carry the pregnancy to term? I will not support making that decision for her.
I worked on the other end of life. I cared for people who were in a coma after years of dementia. They had not known their family for years. I have seen families demand that we keep momma alive no matter what. We used to have sense enough to know there are some things that are worse than death. Pneumonia can be an old man's friend and I have a living will that makes it clear for my family. If I cannot decide about my own care, and my mind is gone, they know that I don't want anything done to prolong my life. I am consistent and Americans should be allowed to use reason to decide these awful things.
Agreed on the ability to ending pregnancies by delivery when the life of the mother is legitimately in question. There is no argument there. HOW we end it - delivery or abortion - respectful vs. violent - are very different things. Pro life side supports supportive care for both mom and baby as is reasonable. If the baby cannot survive early delivery due to gestational age, that is a matter of nature, and not a deliberate destruction and ending of that child. It is just the nature of their ability to survive or not. No parent or doctor gets to exercise a right to take that child’s life intentionally. That does not mean that extraordinary measures must be taken to save the child. That is the emotional argument from the pro-abortion side. In consultation with their doctor, a natural death not caused by the hands of doctor or parent is absolutely acceptable.
In response to you’re comments,
“Making that hard decision certainly doesn't mean we value the child any less. It does not mean we view the child as a disease or medical waste. Those are emotional arguments that inflame the passions and make reason impossible. The mother and child are both at risk in many of these conditions. The family in consultation with their clinical team should decide.”…
My thoughts…
The way baby’s lives and bodies are treated absolutely shows how we value that person (or not). If we do not take care with these tiny, vulnerable people, then it truly is not a leap that other vulnerable populations (elderly, homeless, chronically ill, institutionalized people) easily disposed of, mistreated, and euthanized. We see a huge push now for euthanasia that is not completely disconnected from this. We start to conflate terms with “life at all cost” vs. intentional starvation, costly medical interventions and invasive treatments. That is not a pro-life stance either.
Patti was right; this is a slippery slope. Once we open the door to giving the legal right to end a life to one subset, that ball does not stop rolling.
In many of these awful circumstances, we can and should walk with families through either early delivery but getting to hopefully meet their baby and comfort them (family and baby) as baby passes away naturally. We do not want to add to their grief by making the parents the instruments of their child demise. This is a real concern in the aftermath of all abortions and one that many men and women suffer PTSD and lifetimes of regret and guilt. One that is almost never addressed.
To say one side has the only emotional argument, is side-stepping these real issues. Both sides are passionate - I do not think you have any ill intent, and I hope you do not think that I do either. We both want compassionate care for families with difficult pregnancies, but we disagree on the laws governing the limits to what people are allowed to do to one another.
In maternal/fetal medicine, there are two patients. There is balance to be struck on the health and well-being of both. The Hippocratic Oath must mean something for both. Upholding the dignity of all involved serves everyone.
Nov 20, 2023·edited Nov 21, 2023Liked by William H Bestermann Jr MD
The disease part is with the mother's overall cellular health prior to the pregnancy, and the lifestyle the mother leads before the pregnancy. The baseline metabolic functions are compromised, unfortunately. The babe is NOT the problem until the functional deterioration makes the physiological demand of pregnancy too much to handle for both.
Both can die. These are preventable deaths using our technology to foresee the effects of bad metabolic dysfunctions. Why take the risks? That’s the point.
Thank you so much. I provided care for many years in maternal child nursing. I also am concerned that politics think they are at the bedside without having a full scope of all pertinent information At the same time we are experiencing hospital closures and shutdown of maternal care. Along with rhetoric designed for votes and no benefit of the people. I am always willing to examine all viewpoints. I don’t wish for medicine to go backwards and more harm because someone wants power. I don’t want to see patients harmed. Let’s move medicine forward and save lives. Let’s consider costs and how we can provide best options for patients, provide best care for babies and moms and of we start teaching and educating we can get out of this rut and improve our overall health and quality of life ❤️
Thanks so much for that detailed comment and your perspective as an obstetrical nurse. Medicine is about life or death, health or disability. It is more important than ever that reason, facts, science, and the truth drive medical policy. Individuals facing a complicated health crisis should have the latitude to decide what is best for their family with their clinician.
Totally agree and I recognize something has changed and truth will eventually prevail. I really appreciate your common sense. It’s real intelligence not artificial
It is not the science that is the problem. The problem is the people who have no interest in the morality of their actions. They gaslight the public and plunder their wealth. Just recently, I encountered a mother and her three year old daughter, both survived preeclampsia. The daughter was born premature and suffers from severe “undetectable cardiac symptoms”, she turns blue with frequent onsets of pneumonia; and they were told that these cardiac conditions are permanent without treatment or cure; she will die young! Also, the desperate mother has weight gain and severe depression issues. It tuned out that their Multifunction Cardiogram (MCG) tests were nearly identical indicating metabolic heart dysfunctions except the difference in degrees of functional severity. To the mother’s extreme surprise, these dysfunctions are reversible and the three year-old will have her heart healed with simply but robust lifestyle adjustments. The same goes for the mother! The mother was in tears hearing my explanation of why they are suffering. Imagine that?
Pregnancy induced metabolic disorder is preventable starting in pre pregnancy, lifestyle optimization is the only way to go. Maternal fetal metabolic health can be improved dramatically during pregnancy, simple MCG testing can detect and monitor the effects of pregnancy and the lifestyle changes to ensure safe pregnancy and effective delivery without premature birth or deaths of both mothers and babies. These are preventable tragedies. Facts! We can really help!
I agree with everything that you say. The science comes in with onset of preeclampsia/eclampsia at 20 weeks and zero fetal survival then. A few kids can survive at 22 weeks with almost universal impairment. It is only at 27 weeks that the odds get much better.
Thanks Bill! The three year old was a 22 week premie. Btw
It is great that she can be helped. Congratulations on working that out.
Thank God! 🙏🙏🙏
Slippery slope though. Look at how all culture has changed and not for the better I might add. It’s hard to fight liberals who think everything is morally relative. I would argue that is why we are where we are right now! I think abortion is evil and I think a number of women now use it as a method of birth control. I would argue that if people were healthier in general we would see a lot fewer maternal and fetal problems. How about making things simpler and better? Use birth control!
For most Americans condemning a young woman to death at 20 weeks of pregnancy is not evil. Imposing your values on other Americans by force of law is not right in this case. Go to the links in the article and study the issue. Most abortions are occur in women who already have children. Some Americans think birth control is equally evil. Should they be able to impose their values on you? I would fight hard for your right to use birth control even though I might disagree with it. ( I don't, by the way!)
But it's okay to condemn an unborn child to death? I agree that this issue should be taken out of the political realm but it has advanced so far and our culture has fallen so deep that no one really knows how to deal with it anymore. All I know is that killing the unborn is WRONG.
So, you are saying KILL THE MOTHER! There is the world as you would have it and the world as it is. It is not black and white. I was an internist for decades and faced many choices with families that were extremely difficult. In medicine you sometimes have only bad choices. That is just the way it is.
A lot of us have faced extremely difficult decisions in life. Nothing is black and white. What I'm saying is I'd like to see people make better decisions. If the life of the mother is at stake that is one thing. I do not presume to be able to decide what someone should do in that case. It is up to their own conscience. Wanting to abort a baby because it's inconvenient is another. It's a complicated issue and one that government should not decide for anyone, but I am very anti abortion. Mainstream has decided it is a clump of cells and nothing more until after the baby is outside the birth canal. That is just plain stupid.
And are you ok with eugenics of living?
Not the least of the problems with the abortion debate is that many of the abortion opponents also oppose sex education, birth control and government-paid prenatal and well baby care. They don't give a damn about ruining the life of the mother or the welfare of the child. Their position that life begins at conception moreover has no scientific basis, and their hypocrisy is exposed by their not insisting on funerals for miscarriages.
Oh for God's sake. That is ridiculous BS.
As a labor RN for many years once again politicians weaponized abortion for votes. For some reason people think MDs are killing babies. Often women have no clue they are pregnant and with these restrictive new extreme laws force birth. I recently ran into a woman who used birth control was unmarried and became pregnant. Unfortunately she was misdiagnosed and was forced to give birth to a baby she never wanted in the first place. Birth is not without risk. As you know abortion is given via a pill. Most states passed laws long ago but it’s now become a political topic either pro choice or against. I have taken care of many deformed babies who have major medical problems. Due to the political extremism today we can lock up medical people or women who seek termination of pregnancy. I am good with how it was when decisions were made between patients and the MD because I have seen so much suffering. I have seen babies kept alive with no brain activity
I remember we had sermons on moral relativism way back in the day. It taught the consequences of your actions, spiritually and materially.
That is a key point Janet. Moral rules exist to guide us to a better life. I am more comfortable in an environment where those around me don't lie, cheat, and steal. That makes life miserable.
Cultural Marxism is the root cause. Ruthless power grabbing Leftifascist regime and its cronies will end America if we don’t stop them.
Agreed. "Given these facts, these new anti-abortion laws represent a death sentence for young mothers in several states. Arkansas’ bans, Idaho’s total ban, Mississippi’s total ban, Oklahoma’s bans, South Dakota’s ban, and Wisconsin’s ban don’t contain a health exception for mothers. It is straightforward. More young mothers will die in these states. Arkansas and Mississippi have some of the highest maternal mortality rates already. These laws will only aggravate that problem."
It is the death of pregnant women, desperate not to continue their pregnancies, that were a huge impetus to allow early abortions.
We need to balance the rights of fully-developed humans (pregnant women, in this case) against whatever rights we give to a foetus - which as I see develop over time, as the foetus develops.
Thanks Elsa. Medicine is not black and white. I have been in many situations where I had to help a patient sort through a number of bad choices. Life doesn't fit in neat little boxes. It gets messy.
Absolutely. Like I knew an incest survivor who long did not know or acknowledge she was pregnant. What is the right answer? So many complexities. I am glad you recognize the complexities.
And I am a man. It is really hard for a man to understand what it means to be pregnant. Female opinions should carry more weight here but it is old white men making most of the decisions. Thanks for the compliment
Instead of catering to evil why aren't we educating women on morality as well as how to prevent pregnancy. Education on how to value oneself and why marriage is best before pregnancy? Why do we always go down the way of what's "easiest"? Doing the right thing is hard!! We've given up on children. Our culture is breathtakingly amoral and we are reaping what we sown.
Living a healthy lifestyle is essential pregnancy or not!
Metabolic heart disease begins with environmental factors like abdominal fat and cigarette smoke that we understand very well now. Extra abdominal fat and smoking prior to becoming pregnant change genes to favor developing high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and chronic kidney disease. These gene changes can be passed on to at least two generations.
Yes. I loathe abortion but considering the real dangers to some mothers is necessary I think.
Thanks Janet. Most people are like you. It is a terrible thing to face but sometimes it must be faced.
If people know that these are preventable tragedies, why would they risk their own lives to go through this ever?!?
As a Labor RN MDs and patients can be put in jail.
I am going to respectfully disagree with a few things you talked about.
The words “abortion” and “delivery” denote two completely different actions, but both ending a pregnancy. Pro-life people (yes, I am) have no issue with early delivery at whatever age for real maternal wellbeing. Delivery honors and treats the life and body of the child as a human with dignity. Abortion treats the body of the child like a disease - and is wholly devoid of honoring the life and body of the child. Abortion treats the body of the child as medical waste. If preeclampsia is a cause for maternal well-being at any gestational age of the baby (or other documented medical concern), then delivery is always an option. Even in tubal pregnancies. We need to use the terms and techniques that honor mother and baby lives and bodies.
Another of the points that I disagree with, is that it is “only” a small percentage of babies horrifically murdered at a late gestation. That’s like saying, “I only endorse sacrificing a few innocents” - the fact that any law anywhere in our great country allows for outright murder of an unwanted innocent should chill your blood. Maybe you or I will be unwanted next?
I dare anyone to see the images of destroyed baby bodies and tell me that was how that baby had to be treated. Many babies could have lived and were never given a chance and died exceedingly cruel deaths. Some would not have survived delivery, but at least they would have been treated as if they mattered. Most of these mother’s did not do this just because of pre-eclampsia (delivery is the answer) - most do it for lifestyle, financial, age, or it can be a form of abuse for women who are forced into sex work and are trafficked.
https://abortionworker.com/quitter-stories/
https://www.priestsforlife.org/images/abortion-images-galleries.aspx
Not to mention; maternal mortality in abortion procedures, cover-ups by the abortion lobby of meaningful data and lawlessness, federal subsidies going to this atrocity, horrific facility conditions, more black babies being killed than born alive, the targeting low-income neighborhoods (ridding the world of “undesirables” as the racist Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger once said), no enforcement of current laws on the books within abortion clinic boundaries, protecting doctors who do late term abortions, the list goes on and on….
I respect you and your work on preventative care and much of your writing. You are a smart man who knows that medicine in our country can do better than the status quo. We can do so much better than abortion for fathers, mothers, and babies.
When a baby passes 27 weeks of development and it is delivered, it is likely to survive and be healthy. Before 22 weeks they almost never survive. The mother may develop a life threatening condition before the baby is likely to survive. No matter what you decide, someone is very likely to die. Is condemning the mother better than saving her by ending the pregnancy. Families and clinicians faced with these horrible choices deserve our understanding and support. Who are we to make that decision for a young couple? Making that hard decision certainly doesn't mean we value the child any less. It does not mean we view the child as a disease or medical waste. Those are emotional arguments that inflame the passions and make reason impossible. The mother and child are both at risk in many of these conditions. The family in consultation with their clinical team should decide.
Now we can identify babies with no skull, no brain, and fatal heart defects with ultrasound before halfway through the pregnancy. These babies can't survive a month once they are born. Are we to condemn the mother to carry the pregnancy to term? I will not support making that decision for her.
I worked on the other end of life. I cared for people who were in a coma after years of dementia. They had not known their family for years. I have seen families demand that we keep momma alive no matter what. We used to have sense enough to know there are some things that are worse than death. Pneumonia can be an old man's friend and I have a living will that makes it clear for my family. If I cannot decide about my own care, and my mind is gone, they know that I don't want anything done to prolong my life. I am consistent and Americans should be allowed to use reason to decide these awful things.
Agreed on the ability to ending pregnancies by delivery when the life of the mother is legitimately in question. There is no argument there. HOW we end it - delivery or abortion - respectful vs. violent - are very different things. Pro life side supports supportive care for both mom and baby as is reasonable. If the baby cannot survive early delivery due to gestational age, that is a matter of nature, and not a deliberate destruction and ending of that child. It is just the nature of their ability to survive or not. No parent or doctor gets to exercise a right to take that child’s life intentionally. That does not mean that extraordinary measures must be taken to save the child. That is the emotional argument from the pro-abortion side. In consultation with their doctor, a natural death not caused by the hands of doctor or parent is absolutely acceptable.
In response to you’re comments,
“Making that hard decision certainly doesn't mean we value the child any less. It does not mean we view the child as a disease or medical waste. Those are emotional arguments that inflame the passions and make reason impossible. The mother and child are both at risk in many of these conditions. The family in consultation with their clinical team should decide.”…
My thoughts…
The way baby’s lives and bodies are treated absolutely shows how we value that person (or not). If we do not take care with these tiny, vulnerable people, then it truly is not a leap that other vulnerable populations (elderly, homeless, chronically ill, institutionalized people) easily disposed of, mistreated, and euthanized. We see a huge push now for euthanasia that is not completely disconnected from this. We start to conflate terms with “life at all cost” vs. intentional starvation, costly medical interventions and invasive treatments. That is not a pro-life stance either.
Patti was right; this is a slippery slope. Once we open the door to giving the legal right to end a life to one subset, that ball does not stop rolling.
In many of these awful circumstances, we can and should walk with families through either early delivery but getting to hopefully meet their baby and comfort them (family and baby) as baby passes away naturally. We do not want to add to their grief by making the parents the instruments of their child demise. This is a real concern in the aftermath of all abortions and one that many men and women suffer PTSD and lifetimes of regret and guilt. One that is almost never addressed.
To say one side has the only emotional argument, is side-stepping these real issues. Both sides are passionate - I do not think you have any ill intent, and I hope you do not think that I do either. We both want compassionate care for families with difficult pregnancies, but we disagree on the laws governing the limits to what people are allowed to do to one another.
In maternal/fetal medicine, there are two patients. There is balance to be struck on the health and well-being of both. The Hippocratic Oath must mean something for both. Upholding the dignity of all involved serves everyone.
The disease part is with the mother's overall cellular health prior to the pregnancy, and the lifestyle the mother leads before the pregnancy. The baseline metabolic functions are compromised, unfortunately. The babe is NOT the problem until the functional deterioration makes the physiological demand of pregnancy too much to handle for both.
That's it. Both are at risk and sometimes only one can survive.
Both can die. These are preventable deaths using our technology to foresee the effects of bad metabolic dysfunctions. Why take the risks? That’s the point.
Thank you so much. I provided care for many years in maternal child nursing. I also am concerned that politics think they are at the bedside without having a full scope of all pertinent information At the same time we are experiencing hospital closures and shutdown of maternal care. Along with rhetoric designed for votes and no benefit of the people. I am always willing to examine all viewpoints. I don’t wish for medicine to go backwards and more harm because someone wants power. I don’t want to see patients harmed. Let’s move medicine forward and save lives. Let’s consider costs and how we can provide best options for patients, provide best care for babies and moms and of we start teaching and educating we can get out of this rut and improve our overall health and quality of life ❤️
Thanks so much for that detailed comment and your perspective as an obstetrical nurse. Medicine is about life or death, health or disability. It is more important than ever that reason, facts, science, and the truth drive medical policy. Individuals facing a complicated health crisis should have the latitude to decide what is best for their family with their clinician.
Totally agree and I recognize something has changed and truth will eventually prevail. I really appreciate your common sense. It’s real intelligence not artificial
Thanks