Posted on 12/13/2010 7:49:43 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s — and their first son just over a year old — when this spring the woman became pregnant a second time. Seven weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ont., resident was carrying twins. “It came as a complete shock,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “We’re both career people. If we were going to have three children two years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids. ... All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen.”
She soon discovered another option: Doctors could “reduce” the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses — and has become increasingly common in the past two decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies.
Selective reductions are typically carried out for women pregnant with triplets or greater, where the risk of harm or death climbs sharply with each additional fetus. The Ontario couple is part of what some experts say is a growing demand for reducing twins to one, fuelled more by socio-economic imperatives than medical need, and raising vexing new ethical questions.
Experts question whether parents should choose to terminate a fetus just because of the impact the child would have on their lives, and note that even more medically necessary reductions can trigger lifelong angst and even threaten marriages.
The mother said the Toronto doctor who eventually did her reduction performs several a month.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
“but when I went to emergency they found I had another still there! Joy!”
That is a great story! Of course sad that you lost a child, but amazing that you still had a child.
When we went in for my wife’s first ultrasound the gal doing it paused, and then said something like “So, um. Has your doctor commented about how your pregnancy is going?” My wife told her the generic things.
“Well. Um - congratulations - you’re having twins!” Dad (me) promptly found the chair as he was fainting!
Several months later getting mom checked out 10 weeks before the due date as she had been having contractions (and had also been on bed rest for 12 weeks already).
Everything was good until I reminded the doctor “Weren’t you going to check her cervic?”
After she got her gloves back on and got my wife back in the chair “Oh. She’s at a 7.” Dad proceeded to faint again!
Funny what some folks will go through to give their unborn children the best chance at life that they can. (Oh - two girls at 3 lbs 2 oz. Doing great now at age 13!)
Thanks dude... or dudette... whichever applies :)
“Why not just wait until the kids are 3 or 4 years old, and eliminate the one twin who is not as smart or as pretty?”
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There is a doctor or some philosophy guy or something that was/is out of Princeton that believes in this. I think it is up to the age of 18 months or 2 years.
[A “reduction”?]
Dear God, I’m speechless.
I had twin girls when my older daughter was several years old. My twins together weighed 8lbs and one had to stay in the hospital for a month.
It was hard, they were on a 4 hour feeding schedule and by the time you were finished with both, it was almost time to start over.
What would I have told one of them later in life if I HAD KILLED HER TWIN SISTER?
Children are always a gift. Sometimes we just don't see or understand the gift. But even if one wants to be cold and practical about the utility of having children - remember this when you are 80 years old, and you will thank God you have two strong, responsible 40 year old sons, to help you and to care for you in your dotage.
Treating the news that she is carrying another son or daughter as though she was just given news that she was diagnosed with malignant, incurable cancer. What is the matter with people?
Oh. The guy’s name is Peter Singer, an “ethicist”. He was/is on an Obama heathcare board.:
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In a 1995 article in the London Spectator entitled “Killing Babies Isn’t Always Wrong,” Singer said “That day had to come,” states Singer, “when Copernicus proved that the earth is not at the center of the universe. It is ridiculous to pretend that the old ethics make sense when plainly they do not. The notion that human life is sacred just because it’s human is medieval.”
Peter Singer was appointed by Obama as part of his Health Care Team...
God bless you!!
I just didn’t feel I would be able to care for (twins) in a way that I wanted to.
Apparently she doesn't care for them at all if she was fine with killing them without blinking an eye. How did she decide which of the twins was deserving of keeping his/her life and which one should die for her "career"?
I cannot relate to such a lack of basic decency.
These selfish pigs should just kill all three. They’re not fit to be raising children. What they need is a puppy.
I did find the comments following the article interesting. Almost entirely negative.
Wonderful... you were twice blessed! My darlin’ darlin’ (as my hubbie calls her) is 25 and still a JOY to me and her Dad.
Let me go check
If three children were too many, how did they decide to have a second pregnancy when they already had a toddler at home? By their logic, can someone dispose of a colicky baby because its even less sleep than they expected?
But never in my wildest of wild thoughts would it ever have occurred to me that any paltry life "plan" would supercede what God had in store for me. And while I couldn't imagine what I was going to do, 16 years later I can't imagine what I would have done without them.
.
You are not adhering to the Obamanese philosophy potlatch!
.
And to think I used to wince when a vet did this to horses...
I can understand waiting to have kids until you have the financial resources to raise them, but then when you are finally blessed with twins..to abort one..is just murder.
My wife worked placing unwanted babies with adoptive parents...we now know many of those unwanted babies as adults and cannot imagine that the mother would have aborted them in todays world. God have mercy on our country..and our souls.
When I found out I laughed!! One might say hysterically. The reason for the sonogram was that we’d thought I had a miscarriage .. then when tests came back, a tubal (THAT was scary) .. going for blood tests every other day ...it was just an emotional roller coaster. So I said to my long-practicing OB, why can’t I have a sonogram? He’d been practicing so long, it hadn’t occurred to him ... so off we went. And life has never been the same!
By the time my twins were 1.5 years old, we went to their oldest cousin’s wedding. A poignant reminder of how quickly they grow. So I did the at-home mom thing, soccer team mom, Brownie mom, (Dad did Cub and Boy Scouts)PTA prez .. you name it! Never missed a field trip .. and now that they are grown, I am so very grateful for every minute of it. So, we couldn’t go to Pizza Hut every Friday like all their friends, big deal. I walked them to the bus, and picked them up every day. Stuff like that you just can’t get back.
When our daughter got married a few months ago, a MAJOR honor came my way .. she wanted BOTH parents to walk her down the aisle. The bridal party was her 2 brothers. She has plenty of girlfriends, but when it came down to it, her closest friends are those 2 brothers. Someone tell me what that’s worth!
Somehow that is more palatable than if they had selectively decided to kill their one year old.
So, they make a decision based on emotional attachment rather than moral responsibility. Watch out lady... Your husband might someday be feeling less than emotionally attached to you.
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