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When we went through allergy diagnosis for our daughter, University of MD was very helpful. Apparently eczema, being an immune system condition, is a pre-disposer for food allergies. In her case, she grew out of the food allergies around 18 months (as they predicted), but the eczema remains. (Eczema runs through my husband's whole family.)

I learned more than I ever wanted to about food allergies during that time.

This is ridiculous. It is up to the person with allergies to ask if the foods contain allergens.

I have several food allergies. I don’t expect restaurants to be able to guess at them. I ask what is in the food before I order it. Any person with allergies does the same.

This is just another step towards a paternalistic world where no one is responsible for their own lives. Yes, allergies are a pain. No, the rest of the world has no obligation to watch out for your allergies.

I'm somewhere in-between on this. My daughter (now 3) had severe allergies to milk and soy. If we had walked into McDonald's and asked if the french fries contained dairy, everyone behind the counter would have told us "no"... but they use whey protein as a binder to stick the beef flavoring to the fries. If I trusted the employees, who clearly didn't know anything about the ingredients, she would have eaten the fries.

As a concerned parent, I checked the nutrition/ingredients list on the website of every place we took her to eat before she outgrew the allergies, or we took food with us that she could eat. As far as bringing food in, we only had trouble at one place -- but after we were able to show that the servers had no idea there was soy in the BBQ sauce (that they said contained no dairy or soy), they never bothered us again for bringing in food for her.

So, I don't think every employee in the place needs to know what's in every product, but there should be at least one person that you can ask and be able to trust the answer they give.

“It’s Maryland in general, at least on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay.”

Casting a pretty broad net, aren’t you?

Proud W.MDer.

I'm here with you, Salamander, in Western MD. The rest of the free world has given up hope but one day we will turn this ship around.

(I just hope I live to see that day.)

There are questions about these allegations that the baby has defornmities-But of course that doesn't matter to you and the rest of the death lobby.

If you knew me as a real person, then you would know that I'm no part of the death lobby and how much that comment hurts. I've had to weigh life and death situations and decisions that no one should ever have to face. But I'm never going to be able to convince you over the internet.

I've said my peace. I guess I'm done here.

Not to be disrespectful, but it's always that last word that does it, isn't it?

How do we know God might not work a miracle through that baby being born alive?

I appreciate the non-disrespect. To be honest, I've always been timid about wading into these conversations because they tend to become venomous.

We have no way of knowing what God will or will not do. He could work a miracle through that child. Or, the child could spend their life in unconsciousness or pain, never knowing God.

I think it's best to leave these sorts of decisions to the people who know the patient/victim the best (absent any potential criminal situations, ala Terri Schaivo). None of us are perfect except Christ himself. We are going to screw up, and thankfully He is prepared to forgive us.

I guess I sometimes feel like we hurt our cause by trying giving the appearance of forcing people into hopeless situations instead of giving grace and comfort. If this guy had some clear ulterior motive such that her own family were opposing him, then maybe I could see pushing this through the courts. But her own family wants to see this end, because to them she is gone and this is causing unnecessary suffering to a baby that may ever take a single breath. If they're wrong and this baby were supposed to be the next President, I believe God would probably forgive them because they made their choices out of 1) what she told them her wishes were, and 2) love (not wanting to see her or her baby suffer).

This isn't a zero-sum game. We screech against abortion, and then support laws that make make it more difficult for couples to adopt children who aren't wanted. (My husband and I were rejected by 3 countries and countless birth mothers because of the blood clotting disorder I mentioned earlier.) Because of that, we had people (even here on FR) tell us that God didn't want us to have kids. We scream about individual responsibility and then meddle in the decisions of people we don't know.

Since it's now almost 12am in my timezone I'm going to head off to bed now before I say something that gets me a ZOT. Good night everyone.

I thought a “blob of cells” couldn’t suffer.

Many abortion supporters love to regale me with the “fact” that the “fetus” feels no pain until the 24th week. I guess the fully-developed nervous system just magically turns on at 24 weeks.

If it can suffer, it is a human being and deserves every chance to live.

And this is where things get really tricky. This baby (note, I didn't say blob of cells, because I don't believe that he/she is a blob of cells) is probably suffering given the fact that he/she is at nearly 24 weeks, and his/her bottom portions are so malformed that they can't determine if he/she is a boy or a girl.

Granted, this child will never remember the pain inflicted right now -- but why should we feel smug about requiring (by edict) that this child bear what could be torturous pain for all we know, because we think we know better than his/her father, sibling, and maternal grandparents.

Because you can’t choose to kill your child.

Maybe I see this differently because I've had to see so much death in my life (murder, cancer, brain tumors, heart attacks) ... the only people left of my family are my sister and I.

There is a difference between "kill" and "murder". There is a difference between "justice" and "mercy". The "just" thing to do may be to provide this child an incubator and keep them alive no matter what pain they endure, or regardless of whether they will ever spend a moment conscious in their entire life because they have a beating heart. The "merciful" thing may have been to let this woman and her child go back to the lord 10 weeks ago before getting to this point, and to let the father and sibling grieve and move on. Sometimes God did what was just, and sometimes He did what was merciful. We can all speculate on what God would do and on what we want to impose on this man and this woman's family. But as a woman who has a relationship with Christ, I can tell you that this isn't what I would want for myself or my child.

Thank you for a wonderfully well reasoned and beautifully written explanation of a very difficult situation. You have said much more cogently than I what needs to be said.

My father resisted God for most of his life but came to know Christ just before he died (when I was 15). After watching the suffering he endured, I figured out that I didn't have it in me to make that decision for other people. If he had wanted to end his own physical suffering then I don't think I could have said "no" (he was battling cancer for the 4th time and was losing sorely). My mother had died 4 years prior. At the age of 15, I had to make the decision to remove him from a hospital that was keeping him doped up on morphine so he didn't complain, and move him to a hospice that allowed him some quality of life (building his model airplanes, taking daily walks), even though he would have to deal with some pain.

The hospital could have kept him alive longer with insane amounts of pain medications and drugs, but I knew on the first night he was in that hospital that he wanted to "go home". One of his friends gave me a ride to the hospital to go see him, and he didn't know who I was and he kept asking when he would see my mom.

As much as I loved him, and as much as I still miss him now at age 37 (and knowing his grand-daughter will only ever know him through what I tell her), I know that he died with dignity and on his terms, and he is with the Lord. One day I'll see him again, and I can't wait for that.

Any reports on what Marlise’s parents/siblings would like to see happen to mother and child? Just curious, as all I’ve read is her husbands wishes to see his flesh and blood - and his older child’s flesh and blood - killed.

Her parents have also been fighting in court to let her go. She and her husband both signed living wills never desiring to be in this position, and her parents have been traumatized (according to their lawyer) by the fact that they couldn't grant her clear wishes.

This isn't a case of a husband trying to bump off his wife, screwing up the job, and then removing life support to finish the job. She likely (according to reports) had a pregnancy complication (blood clots) that killed her. My mother-in-law has a disorder that causes blood clotting, and had several miscarriages as a result. My husband inherited the major form of that disorder, and almost died from blood clots in his lungs on his 30th birthday. Our daughter has the minor form of that disorder, and she will always be at risk of death from pregnancy (progesterone aggravates the disorder) without knowledge of the disorder and special treatment.

In the days of the Israelites, she would have died and her baby would have died -- both souls would have had some rest and "gone home". But the fact that we can keep a dead body warm enough to incubate another body somehow makes this murder? I'm pro-life, I'm anti-abortion. But I have told my husband, family, and friends publicly that if I were to ever end up in this state to please let me go and let my baby go. I have no doubt that the Lord would welcome myself and my child with open arms, without either of us having to suffer further.

What is so wrong about letting the Lord welcome this little one, who has already suffered so much, too? If we believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, then why can't we allow some compassion into the discussion? If her husband hadn't found her until she had already developed rigor mortis, we wouldn't even be discussing it right now.

So we're going to take a grieving husband, who already has the responsibility of raising a child on his own, and saddle him with millions of dollars of medical bills -- because a hospital said "we are going to ignore the patients wishes because we don't want to be sued"? When we put that decision in the hands of the hospital, then it's also in the hands of the government. Do you really think the government (in light of ObamaCare) won't abuse that to decide to pull the plug on people who actually are alive, because of cost concerns?

What happened to dignity, and individual rights / responsibility? Why can't I tell my family what I want and then fully expect that my wishes will be carried out?

I have been married for 24 years and I have never with the exception of 1 night ladies retreat desired to vacation away from my family. Its not like she home schools, very strange.

I love my pre-schooler dearly, but I do love the once a year that hubby sends me to a local weekend scrapbook retreat. It gives me a chance to relax and have plenty of adult company, catch up on my scrapbooks and such. But I can't imagine just staying in Hawaii for a week or more without them. I guess that's how "the other half" lives.

It may have launched from PAX River, but it’s operations have been based out of FDK. I can see it from here at work. It’s all white and says US NAVY — no other markings. Been watching it come and go for the last week.

If she’s got a genetic condition like Leiden, it could happen. My husband (who didn’t know he had it) developed a huge DVT in a 6-hour period in our truck.

"I have a question for everyone. Does anyone know of an adult who suffers from a peanut allergy?"

My prior supervisor is allergic to peanuts and shellfish.

When my daughter was 5 months old, we discovered that allergies to milk and soy were the cause of some severe health problems she had. The specialist who finally diagnosed it told us that eczema was one of the number one pre-disposers for childhood food allergies. Eczema runs rampant in my husband's family.

I couldn't believe the "stupidity" that we had to deal with, from family and friends who just didn't understand it. One person gave her buttered popcorn, and later gave her french fries without checking the ingredient label (they contained both milk and soy). At Thanksgiving last year, relatives didn't understand why she couldn't have most of what was on the table because they weren't making the "sour cream = milk", "butter = milk", "yogurt = milk", "whey = milk" connections. Once I had to start reading the labels on EVERYTHING, I was amazed at some of the products that had milk, that you wouldn't expect.

Luckily enough, she outgrew the soy allergy at 12 months and the milk allergy at about 17 months. Her daycare was great at handling it. Instead of asking other parents not to bring things in (for parties or whatever), they would put a permission slip on the door. All I had to do was read the ingredient list, say "NO", and then bring in something she could have instead. (Vegan cupcakes for birthdays, etc.)

My understanding is that the authors were specifically trying to point out that that abortion is murder, and murder is murder ala “A Modest Proposal” in which Jonathan Swift satirically proposed that the Irish eat their children. Unfortunately, everyone who has read it is assuming they really think people should have the right to a “post-birth abortion”, and are not getting the point they were intending to make which is: there is no distinction between abortion and murder, so if you allow one then ethically you must allow the other.

Definitely felt it here in Rockville. Started off pretty subtle, but we were diving under desks when we could actually hear cracking noises and watching dust fall from the ceiling.

“A dark day for lesbians everywhere.”

Mommies everywhere who hate mini-vans are offended. (But I know you were just quoting the article.)

So what they’re saying is that I shouldn’t have paid for the remote start option on my Outback, I should have just set up my own roving GSM network.

LOL.

The legislation authorizing the FAA’s budget expired while the whole debt crisis was happening, so the FAA had to stop all non-critical operations. Apparently they’ve left town without re-authorizing the new budget. (As far as why the FAA’s budget wasn’t authorized for the same amount of time as the rest of the gov through that continuing resolution back in March, I have no clue.)

My husband is a private pilot — that’s the only way I heard about it. This is the first story I’ve seen about it in the LSM.

Well, both I and my insurance company paid the bill. But what does it matter who paid the bill when someone is permenantly injured at the neglegent hands of another person? Go ahead and deport both of them back to Mexico, I have no issue with that — but this baby is a human being who will probably never develop cognitively beyond 6 months. The people involved do need to pay.

Illegal alien or not, that doctor and those nurses failed her baby. When my daughter (who is 4 months old) started showing signs of distress the very first thing they did was put me on oxygen and have me STOP pushing because they wanted to make sure she was ok. It turns out that the supplimental oxygen was enough to keep her happy, but if it wasn’t then a c-section was the next option on the table. Fetal distress is nothing to mess with.