Okay, I 'get' that a lot of women have decided to applaud Sandra Fluke as some sort of champion for the female species, but I nearly choked to death in shock at one particular comment in her speech at the DNC last night. She spoke of women being forced to endure invasive ultrasounds even when their doctors say it's not necessary..... I'm sorry, but these women are going in for an ABORTION and some places require an ultrasound to determine for sure the gestation of pregnancy, so this is the invasive ultrasound Fluke is vehemently responding to ---- but last time I checked, an ABORTION was pretty darn invasive too. What is this woman on??? After the vaginal ultrasound, if the woman decides to go ahead with the termination, there are all sorts of ways this may be done. A tool may be pushed through the cervix to scrape away the fetus. A tiny vacuum may be inserted. In the case of my friend, who had a first trimester abortion, a pill was inserted through the opening of her cervix along with some seaweed stuff. All of that sounds pretty invasive to me!! So I dont understand the stomping and yelling about 'invasive ultrasounds'.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/09/05/fluke-fires-crowd-about-womens-rights-dnc (yes that is a fox news blog but don't wrinkle your panties over it, I heard the speech myself and immediately froze on those words last night)
Another thing I have heard a lot about also surrounds these 'invasive ultrasounds'. I have heard women ranting that they are not necessary - well, guess what? As someone very interested in medical issues, I have learned a lot about this over the years. I gave a speech about abortions when I was only 17 and that was 22 years ago, and I am a woman, I have had children and been through many ultrasounds (even a vaginal one with my first child), and I am interested in the topic and look into it.
It IS important to know for sure how far along a woman is before deciding on the method of termination. A lot of women lie, let's face it, they do. Lots of people lie in order to get what they want. How easy would it be for a woman who decides to have an abortion to lie about how far along she is? Perhaps her region only allows abortion up to a certain number of weeks, or perhaps a smaller facility does not have the equipment for doing one after the first trimester and the woman would have to travel, but is unable or unwilling to. Who knows, there are many reasons to lie. I'm NOT saying all of them lie, but the fact remains that some do lie about how far along they are, and many honestly have no idea how far along they are. this is important in chosing the method of termination. A woman could DIE if things are done wrong. If she is further along than thought, there could be more damage, more bleeding, more unforseen problems. This is a living being that is attached to the womb via clusters of blood vessels. The placenta gets larger as the pregnancy advances, hooking up more and more blood vessels. If the woman is further along than she states, and she is given simple pills to end her pregnancy (like the morning after pill in larger doses), she could die from blood loss on her bathroom floor when the placenta pulls away after passing the fetus. This CAN happen and it HAS happened. So if the clinic wants to make sure a woman is correct about her gestation, then why not?
I had a very mixed up cycle for many years and was never sure when I actually got pregnant, so I had early ultrasounds to determine the stage. If I had wanted a termination, would it not be important to establish how far along I was in order to make sure the safest most viable method was chosen? I had no idea if I was 1 2 3 or 4 months preg with my second. It turned out I was only 5 weeks but I could have been further. I did not know about my first until I was past 2 months (9 weeks). Sometimes you just don't know. A friend of mine was 5 months pregnant when she found out - that's pretty far along and she was barely showing (seriously), so what if a doc thought she was only a month along and then set about to do a D and C and she ended up with major medical issues? Who knows what could happen.
But in the end, an abortion itself is an invasive procedure, entering the body in many cases, so I'm not sure why Fluke and Friends would be spazzing about an invasive ultrasound! Seriously.
Oh crud :( I must have hit the wrong button. There were 2 comments and I swore I clicked 'publish', but they are not showing up so I will type them out here:
ReplyDeleteAnonymous wrote: "I am pro-choice, but I imagine these women don't want to see the ultrasound of the fetus they are aborting. Not sure if they have to look at it, or is it just the doctor. But for sure for safety reasons I would want the doctor to do an ultrasound"
Another Anonymous commented: " These are the rantings of women who don't want to deal in any way with what they're about to do. Dismiss the reality of the age of the fetus because they would prefer to believe that it's just a mass of cells.. not a real human fetus"
In response, it may very well be that some women do not want to chance seeing the fetus on screen, but it is very simple for the ultrasound tech to avoid. With my first child, I was experiencing bleeding shortly after I found out I was pregnant and I had an internal ultrasound because they could not see anything with the external one. The screen was turned away from me as the tech checked around. Once she saw that the fetus looked fine, she turned it to show me everything. I think that every time I've had an ultrasound, the screen was turned away until the tech could see all was well. But definitely that first time.
ReplyDeleteI am aware however that there are sometimes other issues - such as I have heard that some women may receive the abortion for next-to-free, but have to pay out of pocket for the ultrasound (if they dont have insurance or it's not covered). If they are poorer and want a termination but cannot afford the required ultrasound, I can see why that could be a big problem. But that is not what Fluke was talking about in the speech last night. She was talking about invasive medical procedures, not the cost, at that particular moment.
My friend was in a great deal of pain from cramping when she had one at 11-12 weeks. She had to stay at the hospital and walk the halls while waiting for the fetus and everything else to pass through. She could hardly stand at all during some cramping. She also had nurses checking her cervix and her sanitary pad regularly to see what had come out so far. I would rather have a vaginal ultrasound than go through that every day!!!
I also must state here that I recall a news story years back about a young girl who went to a clinic in her area somewhere in the US and said that she was newly pregnant and wanted an abortion. She told them her last cycle was only about a month earlier, and they gave her the concoction of pills similar to morning after. Her mother found her laying in her room, nearly dead from massive hemorraging, because she was actually almost 4 months pregnant. I will have to look around and see if that story or others can still be found online but the girl's mother was FURIOUS that no one bothered to check - just a urine test to confirm pregnancy, but not even a blood test to measure the amount of pregnancy hormone (which can also give an indication of how far along). Isn't a blood test invasive too? Having a needle stuck in your arm? Geez.
Whoa! That is more invasive than ultrasound! What are they thinking? Do they have different definition of the word invasive?
ReplyDeleteAbortionClinicDetroit.com
I could not decide whether the last comment was spam because of the link embedded, however after seeing the link with all of the happy smiling women on the abortion page, I decided to include it regardless.
ReplyDelete