Posted on 07/18/2004 11:39:14 AM PDT by dennisw
July 18, 2004 LIVES When One Is Enough By AMY RICHARDS as told to AMY BARRETT
I grew up in a working-class family in Pennsylvania not knowing my father. I have never missed not having him. I firmly believe that, but for much of my life I felt that what I probably would have gained was economic security and with that societal security. Growing up with a single mother, I was always buying into the myth that I was going to be seduced in the back of a pickup truck and become pregnant when I was 16. I had friends when I was in school who were helping to rear nieces and nephews, because their siblings, who were not much older, were having babies. I had friends from all over the class spectrum: I saw the nieces and nephews on the one hand and country-club memberships and station wagons on the other. I felt I was in the middle. I had this fear: What would it take for me to just slip?
Now I'm 34. My boyfriend, Peter, and I have been together three years. I'm old enough to presume that I wasn't going to have an easy time becoming pregnant. I was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody. Before I went off it, Peter and I talked about what would happen if I became pregnant, and we both agreed that we would have the child.
I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ''Are you sure you didn't take fertility drugs?'' I said, ''I'm positive.'' Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ''You know, this changes everything,'' she said. ''You'll have to see a specialist.''
My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?
I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.
Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.
The specialist called me back at 10 p.m. I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall. As everybody burst into applause, I watched my cellphone vibrating, grabbed it and ran into the lobby. He told me that he does a detailed sonogram before doing a selective reduction to see if one fetus appears to be struggling. The procedure involves a shot of potassium chloride to the heart of the fetus. There are a lot more complications when a woman carries multiples. And so, from the doctor's perspective, it's a matter of trying to save the woman this trauma. After I talked to the specialist, I told Peter, ''That's what I'm going to do.'' He replied, ''What we're going to do.'' He respected what I was going through, but at a certain point, he felt that this was a decision we were making. I agreed.
When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.
Two days after the procedure, smells no longer set me off and I no longer wanted to eat nothing but sour-apple gum. I went on to have a pretty seamless pregnancy. But I had a recurring feeling that this was going to come back and haunt me. Was I going to have a stillbirth or miscarry late in my pregnancy?
I had a boy, and everything is fine. But thinking about becoming pregnant again is terrifying. Am I going to have quintuplets? I would do the same thing if I had triplets again, but if I had twins, I would probably have twins. Then again, I don't know.
To answer your question, "If it doesn't look human to you is abortion and stem cell research okay as long as you get it done before it looks somewhat human?", I would say no, I personally draw the line before that. I'm a bit confused by your question, though, since you seem to suggest that your answer is that it is not OK, but you wrote in your original post that "Once the fetus attains all human being characteristics it qualifies as a human being to me."
What I don't get is the "boyfriend" of this check must be the most emasculated metrosexual on earth. How she ever coaxed three sperm out of any man is news to me.
I have e-mailed her. You just didn't get far enough into the posts yet!
I want to say I don't believe this, but I know it's true. What we see here is what we are seeing over and over again. People killing babies, divorcing, etc. because of their selfish desires. Of course it would not be easy. There are many people with a special needs child that will never be able to support itself or live alone and they don't kill it. Of course, Peter Singer would advocate killing it since he's fine with killing kids up to two years of age.
I'm still reeling from this.
Geez, you aren't kidding when you say the enemy of all that is good. How can a soul be so deceived or worse yet, so evil, to suggest such a thing. The problem is enough young women don't hear that vitriol--I know even as a very rebellious young woman, hearing that would have troubled me in to reality or close to it.
That leaves me with no doubt that this woman has probably been asked for her hand in marriage, probably even by the man who fathered her THREE children, but she has flatly refused him. What's sad is deep down she may not even believe it anymore, but keeps up appearances for MONEY and PRESTIGE. That is evident enough from the reasons she easily talked her consience into doing away with two of her children recently.
Okay what I meant was that a fetus that is viable has all the traits that make it qualify. In my opinion viability is the correct line. Viability is the ability to live outside the womb. Technology that attempts to cheat to act as an artifical womb doesn't change the fact that it isn't viable. Either way 90 something percent of all abortions and stem cell research use embryos. There is no way they come close to qualifying.
So what stage do you, personally, define viability at?
And yet she supports the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I wonder if that was just to give a public show of support to her husband, or if she's come around.
Rush read this article today, so it'll be preserved in his transcript archives.
LMAO. I hope she responds.
Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
Thanks for the ping. I saw the article earlier and it just made me ill. She cheerfully killed her twins and thinks the rest of us will be just as happy about that as she.
Wow-didn't get a chance to listen. Will check out.
ProLife Ping!
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I define viability as the ability to live outside the womb without breathing tubes and extensive medical equipment to act as artificial womb. I'm not sure exactly how many weeks that is. The ability to keep it's own body alive proves it graduated from fetus to human being.
My wife, daughter of the NARAL-supporting in-laws I mentioned, was repelled by this article. That says something significant about the impact that this article may have on the abortion debate in favor of the unborn.
Even the illustration at the top of the article was evocotive.
Yeah, since according to Andrea Dworkin, all sex with men is "rape," right?
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