(no subject)

[krazykitkat]

A disturbing article from The New England Journal of Medicine:

Roe versus Reality — Abortion and Women's Health

In the United States, nearly 20 percent of hospital beds are in facilities with religious affiliations, most of which prohibit physicians from providing abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, although nationwide about 1 in 14 abortions is sought for health reasons, only two hospitals in Nebraska offer pregnancy terminations, and they do so only under rare circumstances, such as intrauterine fetal death; each of these hospitals performs fewer than 10 pregnancy terminations per year. Nevertheless, in 2004, women from many other states traveled to Nebraska for abortions — at Carhart's clinic. Occasionally, when a hospital refuses, Carhart is asked to terminate a pregnancy that threatens a woman's health. In a recent case, a woman with severe pregnancy-associated renal failure traveled 200 miles by ambulance for an abortion. She arrived with her hospital identification bracelet and an intravenous line in place, underwent the procedure, and was shipped back to her hospital bed.

Similar events have occurred in many other states. In 1998, the Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport refused to provide an abortion for Michelle Lee, a woman with cardiomyopathy who was on the waiting list for a heart transplant, despite her cardiologist's warning that the pregnancy might kill her. Hospital policy dictated that to qualify for an abortion, a woman's risk of dying had to be greater than 50 percent if her pregnancy was carried to term; a committee of physicians ruled that Lee did not meet this criterion. Since her cardiomyopathy made an outpatient abortion too dangerous, she traveled 100 miles to Texas by ambulance to have her pregnancy terminated.


and they do so only under rare circumstances, such as intrauterine fetal death - why is that even classed as a termination? The fetus is already dead. Do they class D&Cs after a miscarriage as a termination?

Comments

[sternel.livejournal.com]

...It's worse than that, really. Because many states -- or, to be fair, batshit crazy legislators in those states, mostly men -- wish to restrict access to birth control.

So you can't prevent a pregnancy, and you can't end a pregnancy, and often if you're married, you can't even say no to sex.

Enough to make a woman reconsider Lysistrata.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

I've been reading quite a few articles about the contraception issue. Apparently the far whacky groups are also against child care. They literally want women barefoot and pregnant chained to the kitchen sink.