I was thinking about abortion, choice, life, all that today - I got drawn into a debate on this major anti-choice website. I usually try to avoid it - trying to reason with many of the commenters on sites like that is like banging your head against a wall. Mainly cause they twist what I'm saying and are really talented at doing so. Anyway...one of the things that came up was laws about mandatory counseling before an abortion. Personally, making sure a woman knows everything isn't a problem - what's a problem is the wait-period...and assuming that women don't ALREADY know these things or WON'T ASK or something....but still. I was thinking of that and then thought that perhaps, before a woman gets pregnant - or starts trying- there should be mandatory counseling about the risks of pregnancy. So I looked them up. Some I already knew, some are really rare, etc. But anyway - I thought I'd post a list. I think women should know everything they need before they decide to try for a pregnancy. (By the way, I've been thinking about the whole pregnancy thing for awhile now and even with all these risks, I STILL want to try eventually...I wonder what that says about the whole mandatory counseling thing, other than that's it's an inconvenience? Just a spare thought)....
Sorry for the wall of text:
Normal, frequent, or expectable side effects of pregnancy:
exhaustion, altered appetite and senses of taste and smell, nausea and vomiting, heartburn and indigestion, weight gain, dizziness and light-headedness, bloating, swelling, fluid retention, hemmorhoids, cramps, yeast infections, congestion, bloody nose, acne and mild skin disorders, skin discolorations, mild to severe backache and strain, increased headaches, difficulty sleeping and discomfort while sleeping, increased urination and incontinence, bleeding gums, pica, breast pain and discharge, swelling of joint and join pain, leg cramps, difficulty sitting, inability to take regular medications, shortness of breath, higher blood pressure, hair loss, tendency to anemia, curtailment of ability to participate in some sports and activities, infection including from serious and potentially fatal disease (immune suppression during pregnancy) extreme pain on delivery! hormonal mood changes, including normal post-partum depression, continued post-partum exhaustion and recovery period (especially for c-sections)
Normal, expectable or frequent PERMANENT side effects of pregnancy:
stretch marks, loose skin, permanent weight gain or redistribution, abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness, pelvic floor disorder, changes to breasts, varicose veins, scarring from episiotomy or c-section, other pemanent aesthetic changes to the body, increased proclivity for hemmorhoids, loss of dental and bone calcium (cavities and osteoporosis)
Occasional complication and side effects:
spousal/partner abuse, hyperemesis gravidarum, temporary and permanent back injury, severe scarring requiring later surgery (especially after multiple pregnancies), dropped uterus (especially after multiple pregnancies) pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, gestational diabetes, placenta previa, anemia, thrombocytopenic purpura, severe cramping, embolism, medical disability requiring full bed-rest, diastasis recti and torn abdominal muscles, mitral valve stenosis, serious infection and disease, ectopic pregnancy (risk of death) broken bones, hemorrhage, delivery complication, refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease, aggravation of pre-pregnancy diseases and conditions, severe post-partum depression and psychosis, ovarian cancer( from fertility treatments) coronary and cardiovascular disease (6 plus pregnancies)
Less common complications:
peripartum cardiomyopathy, cardiopulmonary arrest, magnesium toxicity, severe hypoxemia/acidosis, massive embolism, increased intracranial pressure, brainstem infarction, molar pregnancy, gestational trophoblastic disease, malignant arrhythmia, circulatory collapse, placental abruption, obstetric fistula
More permanent side effects:
future infertility, permanent disability, death.
16 comments:
and the side effect of abortion: dead baby
Acorn doesn't equal oak tree.
mandatory counseling before pregnancy would be really hard to monitor because it could only happen with couples trying to get pregnant. What about the Oops?
I've never heard of an "oops" abortion. Abortion is always a choice, pregnancy is only indirectly a choice (by choosing to have sex) but could be completely not a choice (rape, etc)
Although in theory I agree with you. Maybe there'd be less child abuse, etc if people had to have some sort of an evaluation to determine their abiity to adequately parent. But then that gets into very difficult ethical questions like when they tried to sterilize people with low IQ's years ago...
For me, abortion is and always will be a moral issue as opposed to a legal one. I know it's legal and many many see its utility but to me, it's just wrong and always will be. You know I'm pretty liberal (even though I work hard to come across as conservative) and I'm all about choices and people's ability to be in control of their lives. But this is just one of those issues that I can't budge on. Some things should not be personal choice. And the decision to take another's life is one of them...Kay
Kay,
I'm not asking you to budge; just to know that others think differently. Of course, I'm being partly facetious here - having counseling before pregnancy would be impossible for the oops - unless you do it in order for the woman to more fully decide if she wants to stay pregnant or get an abortion. But that's only if you aren't anti-abortion. My point was more that if we're going to mandate counseling to women about as big a choice as abortion, why not mandate it for something even bigger - pregnancy?
I think it just says something about our society and what people think of women and their morality and judgment, I guess, that in states with mandatory waiting periods and counseling for abortions they don't also have it for early pregnancy and/or trying to get pregnant...they want women to have all the facts in one case, but not in the other. If that makes sense.
I'm pretty sure that there is mandatory counseling for women and couples when it is a fertility issue, so in that sense, there is counseling for special circumstances involving pregnancy, which is what I would consider abortion to be. Kay
Makes sense
I'm all for counselling, but considering the amount of birth control out there, there's really no reason to get pregnant without meaning to, except obviously in the case of rape. And in many cases, those women see the abortion as another form of rape, especially younger girls who were molested, as in most cases the abortion is only helpful to the attacker.
also, I'm unsure about your acorn doesnt equal oak tree. are there cases of abortion that dont equal dead baby? or do some of them end in dead oak trees?
I agree that abortion is a moral issue, but not everyone has the same morals. While I don't really like the idea of choosing to have an abortion, a woman shouldn't be forced to sacrifice her health and well being for someone else if she doesn't want to.
Also, while in theory mandatory counseling before getting pregnant sounds like a good idea, it has some very big brother-ish implications. People right now are going crazy just over healthcare, can you imagine what they'd do if they thought the government was trying to tell them if or many children they could have?
Plenty of women get pregnant by accident while using birth control: they miss a pill, or get nauseous and throw up, or have to take antibiotics, or the condom breaks, or they get drunk and forget that it's their fertile time. I'm all for contraception, I think it definitely brings the number of abortions down...but nothing except abstinence or sterilization is perfect. Women are human, mistakes happen.
As for abortion seen as another rape - I guess that would kinda of depend on the person. But just because it's seen as another kind of rape for one woman or girl, doesn't mean it's not a major relief and solution to another. That's what choice means. And in the cases of very young girls, pregnancy and labor is usually MUCH more dangerous than an abortion.
And my point about oak trees and acorns is simply: a zygote isn't a fetus isn't a baby....a baby is a born infant. Just like an acorn will become an oak tree.
And yes, mandatory counseling DOES sound big-brotherish doesn't it -but that's the POINT....
There are also plenty of places where women CAN'T readily get the birth control they want. Especially in rural areas where there is only one pharmacist and he/she won't give out birth control or morning after pills because of personal beliefs.
an acorn wont necessarily become an oak tree, you have to plant it, just like an egg wont necessarily become a baby, you have to fertilize it. A fetus will always become a baby, and the definition of fetus is, in fact, unborn baby, which is a baby whether it's been born or not.
An acorn and a fertilized egg (or zygote, or blastocyst, or fetus) if nurtured do indeed, become oak tree and child respectively. Become being the operative word...ahh..semantics...isn't it fun? :-)
It's nice to see that you value humanity at the same level that you value plant-life.
Save the Rainforest!! Huzzah!!
Without the rainforests, human life wouldn't have much of a life considering how much they affect our climate. I'm far more interested in quality of life than just "life"
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