Mother Ought to Have Aborted Conjoined Twins Says Columnist Dr. W. Gifford-Jones

LifeSiteNews.com ^ | May 18, 2007 | Hilary White

[monomaniac]

VERNON, British Columbia, May 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Canadian physician and writer, Dr. Ken Walker, has upset a BC family after he wrote in a column that their two conjoined baby girls ought to have been aborted to avoid being seen as “freaks of nature.”

Walker, a syndicated columnist under the pen name Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, called the twins’ mother, Felicia Simms, “irrational” and suggested she should have had an abortion.

Walker wrote, “Physically they are destined for ill health, lying on their backs forever. They will become obese and develop the myriad of diseases that accompany this problem. Their lives will be a living hell.”

Louise McKay, the twins' grandmother, responded with outrage at the comments.

“We figured that doctors take oaths to preserve lives,” she told CanWest News. “He obviously hasn't been keeping track of their progress. They've been sitting up, eating and playing like any seven-month-old child does.”

The girls, Tatiana and Kristina Hogan, were born last year joined at the head but are healthy and developing normally, eating solid food and playing. The twins are joined at the top of the skull and have fused brain stems, a condition that accounts for only 2 per cent of conjoined twins. No decision has yet been made as to whether they could be surgically separated.

[Coldwater Creek]

Abortion is murder anyway that you look at it!

Technology hasn’t got a thing to do with God’s plan.

[Fawn]

OMG...those poor kids. What a life ahead of them.

[wagglebee]

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The culture of death marches on.

[wagglebee]

Pro-Life Ping

[redgolum]

Heard this, and figured many would agree.

Life is life. They did nothing to warrant execution.

[socialismisinsidious]

Who gets to draw the line of exactly what constitutes a "freak of nature"? 40 years ago a 34 weeker was a "freak of nature" and many of those preemies died; we just didn't have the technology to save them. Some would say that a baby with a cleft palette or a downs baby is a "freak of nature" Very dangerous slippery slope this playing God is.

I declare that Dr. Ken Walker is a freak of nature!

[wagglebee]

There is absolutely no question that this is a horrible situation. And as difficult as it is for me to accept that God has a reason to do this, I know that He does.

[socialismisinsidious]

I would think not. Conjoined twins are the result of identical twins not separating (one egg fertilized, splitting into two identical people). With fertility drugs there is an increase of fraternal twin b/c of an increase in the number of eggs released and fertilized (fraternal twins can’t be conjoined b/c two separate eggs are fertilized.)

[Scotswife]

so....better off dead?

right now they are growing, playing, and experiencing the love of family.

They haven’t decided yet if the separation can happen.
Perhaps it can happen.

If it cannot happen now, who knows what medical advances to arrive down the road to make it happen later.

Where did this expectation come from that human beings have to be perfect - live perfect lives, to be worthy of life?

[cpforlife.org]

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[AliVeritas]

No need to be in a quandry.

This is one of my daughter's neurosurgeons btw: http://www.montefiore.org/newsreleases/2007/04/formerly_conjoined_twins_celebrate_a_miracle_fifth_birthday_1/

Now mom has her hands full, lol. They could see each others faces, run around now... there is no price on the joy not just the parents, but everyone had. See, it's not just about what would be to hard or inconvenient... it's about you becoming a better person and making the world better by witness of your love... of those deemed useless, unnecessary, a waste of cash and time, or too much trouble. Because you can put Jews away, Cambodians away, non-believers away, starve a woman to death in Florida, kill the unborn, rape, abuse and kill the young, kill grandma and grandpa off, children killing their parents... because there is no respect for life. Does that mean you have to raise these children should you be blessed with them... no. But believe it or not, someone else would who couldn't have children or lost a child for medical reasons... and I would be in line to adopt them as well. I know it sounds crazy, but it's worth it. As I said, that surgeon above is one of nine doctors my youngest has... my oldest two are graduating from UVA Law and NYU. My daughter has had 13 operations; They said she wouldn't live 24 hours, would be brain damaged, on dialysis, would never walk (she has Spina Bifida, 30% kidney function, paralyzed from the knees down). Guess what? She's reading on a ninth grade level in sixth, she's been walking since three, not on dialysis, is now going on twelve. She acts, paints, and has a dynamic personality and a zillion friends... the world is richer for her.

[AliVeritas]

Yes... you’re right.

[FRForever]

> If you wouldn’t kill them after being born I don’t know why you would before.

> No human life, no matter the physical disability, is disposable.

Hear! Hear!

[mbraynard]

Let me clearify for you: outside of a temporary extreme conditions, how many people do you know who regret being born? I really don't know anyone who does, and I've only known one person among thousands who actually committed suicide and she was a perfectly healthy female. I'm unaware of handicap people being more inclined to commit suicide and am pretty sure they are nowhere near the most likely demographic to commit suicide - older, relatively healthy white males.

I sometimes see people with disabilities and consider that I may not want to live that way, but those people just keep on going and aren't offing themselves left and right.

Let these kids have the chance at life - don't fall into the culture of death mindset of defining some lives as being not worth living.

[mbraynard]

The entire House Democrat Caucus is populated entirely by freaks of nature.

[HungarianGypsy]

Weren’t there other conjoined twins that lived pretty normal lives? I remember two who were well known and are adults.

[HungarianGypsy]

Never mind my last post. I was referring to the Iranian twins. I did not know they had died.

[TightyRighty]

There are a couple:

[MEGoody]

Isn’t it funny how they are ‘pro-choice’ except when your choice disagrees with what they think you should do?

[GovernmentShrinker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3056424.stm

Yes, Laleh and Ladan Bijani did seem to be doing well. I was reminded in the above article that they had both earned law degrees (according to Wikipedia it was just one who actually wanted to go to law school). I’d forgotten that they’d been adopted in infancy by a doctor, and his comments here are so sad, that he knew the operation was going to kill them. Certainly these young ladies knew that death was a very likely outcome, even though they obviously hoped to beat the odds. They looked happy in all the published photos of them, but clearly had an inner misery that they were willing to risk their lives to end. They had a will to live, but only if it could be separately.

Their outward physical condition appears very similar to these Canadian twins, however, I don’t believe the Bijani twins ever had any significant circulatory problems, such as the Canadian twins are experiencing, and that makes a huge difference.