We are forgetting in this age of entitlement and rights that life is not a toy. A thing. We have come a long way from the miracle of Baby Louise born July 25, 1978, in Oldham, England, best known as the world’s first “test-tube baby” when doctors were first able to offer women, young enough to conceive but not able, the miracle of birth, to something now referred to as a right.
A forty-five year old woman decided to get pregnant. In-vitro was available to her. I don’t know if she paid herself or if the government assisted, but she became pregnant. I’m guessing as she was 45 years old that she would be thrilled. No. Two embryos took. Two new lives were in her womb. She only wanted one. Because she became pregnant through in-vitro, the obstetrician informed her that she was eight times more likely to lose the entire pregnancy than if she carried one. What does eight times more likely turn out to be? According to the UK BabyCentre site, “If you’re carrying more than one baby, your risk of having a miscarriage is higher than with a single pregnancy. But it’s difficult to say by how much.” According to BabyCentre, Canada ,”The majority of twin pregnancies result in healthy babies. However, there are some complications that are slightly more common in twin pregnancies.”
So what is eight times more?
It appears that her AGE and other HEALTH factors led to the recommendation that one fetus be aborted. It is called a “selective abortion.”
She was sent from Ottawa to the doctors at Mount Sinai in Toronto. The doctors refused her request. They will perform selective abortions on triplets or if there is a major anomaly in the fetus but are against aborting a twin without a medical reason. She got her abortion at Sunnybrook Hospital after she obtained a lawyer to file a complaint against Mt. Sinai at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, alleging discrimination on the basis of sex and family status. Ultimately, the tribunal upheld the hospital decision that their refusal was based on medical judgment, and did not constitute discrimination under the province’s human-rights code. But this woman, having obtained her selective abortion and “anxious that no other woman have a similar experience — is requesting a formal reconsideration of the tribunal decision, and then may apply to court for a judicial review.”
They call selective abortion a “service.” This story triggered memories of a similar situation in which I was involved many years ago, when I represented the chaplaincy department of my hospital on the obstetrics/gynecology ethics committee. We were presented with the case of a woman who had received assistance to become pregnant. An ultrasound revealed that two fetuses had implanted. She decided that she only wanted one child. And the bioethicist, the secular one, said it was her right. Nothing has really changed. Bioethicists questioned Mount Sinai’s policy to deny this service. Why? Because it is all about the woman’s rights.It’s elective like choosing to have an elective caesarian section-not medically needed but she wants it. I see a big difference between electing to have a C-section and electing to kill a potential life. Not exactly a moral equivalent.
Mount Sinai seems to have walked back on their ethical stance. Or perhaps this was their position all along but one doctor said no. Either way Mount Sinai has in its policy that elective fetal reduction (sounds like making a sauce) is “ethically complex and divides many” but that patients’ autonomy be given priority in the area.
Udo Shuklenk, who holds the Ontario research chair in bioethics at Queen’s University said “There seems no justification for refusing twin reduction other than ‘disapproving of the (woman’s) decision.’” After all fetal reduction (there’s that sauce-making, again) is morally equivalent to abortion and abortion is legal. And this poor woman said “I was shocked, I was honestly disgusted and I felt judged. It was very much a judgmental and ill-thought and essentially disrespectful reaction … I was literally in disbelief.”
So am I.
Where is personal responsibility in all of this? Why did the doctor implant more than one embryo? Was it cost effective? Was the woman unable to pay for more than one attempt so why take chances? It’s only an embryo. Who cares? Why did the doctor agree to impregnate a woman who was 45 years old-well past her ability to conceive naturally? And apparently she had other health concerns. So what? After all it is all about her rights. And if the pregnancy had been difficult and she required extra health care, bed rest in the hospital, because of the decision she made who would pay for that? We would. The tax payer.
We helped pay for a 45 year old woman, not terribly healthy, become pregnant with two embryos who then demanded to have a selective abortion because she only wanted one (or perhaps had only financially planned for one) and used her health as a reason to promote her agenda. And we paid for all of it.
We have turned family and children into accouterments. Ornaments. Things. “I only wanted one!” Like one cushion. One chair. One pair of jeans. Somewhere along the way to “my right” we turned potential life into a thing. A toy.
We are forgetting in this age of entitlement and rights that life is not a toy. A thing. We have come a long way from the miracle of Baby Louise born July 25, 1978, in Oldham, England, best known as the world’s first “test-tube baby” when doctors were first able to offer women, young enough to conceive but not able, the miracle of birth, to something now referred to as a right.
We are losing our sense of the sacred. Life is sacred. When we forget that then we harden our heart to death. To abuse. To the sick, the weak, and the elderly. We forget one of the most important touchstones in the ethic that underpins democracy, that makes the right to have rights possible. You shall care for the weak, the sick, the poor, the widow, and the orphan.
Why bother. We can get rid of the weak, the sick, and the extra fetus
