From: nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM (Nadja Adolf)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Abortion, Caves, Galen (WAS Vegetarianism and abortion)
Date: 5 Jan 93 22:14:52 GMT
Organization: WEITEK Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1993Jan4.155502.16848@hemlock.cray.com> mon@cray.com (Muriel Nelson) writes:
>[warning: long, not terribly relevant]
>In article <1993Jan4.195041.10322@cbfsb.cb.att.com> motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec30.115614.1641@hemlock.cray.com> mon@cray.com (Muriel Nelson) writes:
>>>In article <1992Dec30.011604.3456@cbfsb.cb.att.com> motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto) writes:
>>>>In article <1992Dec20.063535.19448@cdf.toronto.edu> g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:
>>>>>In article <1992Dec20.043628.3553@bmerh85.bnr.ca> nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>>>>>>Not far from my home town (we're talking small town, here!), a pregnant
>>>>>>woman, in the final stages of pregnancy, was diagnosed as carrying a
>>>>>>hypercephalic child - literally, big-headed.  The child could not
>>>>>>survive, and the birth would have killed the mother.  (Caesarians, in
>>>>>>those days, were much more drastic procedures than now.)  The doctors
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>>And cutting up a full term baby ISN'T a drastic procedure?
>>>>This has the ring of folklore about it rather than truth.
>>>>>>chose to abort - to cut up the child within the womb and extract it
>>>>>>piece by piece.
>>>>>Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics
>>>Mary,

>>>Such things were not all that uncommon only a couple
>>>of generations ago.  There are still rural areas where
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>a C-section could not be obtained in time to save either
>>>mother or fetus if such a woman went into labor before
>>>the problem was detected.  There are also women who have

And not as rare as one would hope in some rural areas today.

>>Rural areas where pre-natal care is not available?  Name
>>one.  And describe the mental impairment which would
>>cause a woman to remain in one during the last trimester
>>of pregnancy.  

You are assuming that all the conditions that could cause a C-section
in advance are easily detectable. It is not uncommon for twins to
be diagnosed on the delivery table, even today. And locking twins is
still an indication for decapitation in the obstetrics texts.


Lack of biosciences education speaks:

>>You are grasping at straws if you have to justify your
>>case on what happened before 1920.  You are grasping
>>at straws if you have to justify your case on what
>>happened before 1980.

>>You have no case here, only hysterical, emotional folktales
>>designed to stir up the emotions, and devoid of fact and
>>relevance.

I'm sorry, but you just don't have a clue on the subject.

>>In the 1910's, far more women died of tuberculosis and polio
>>and diptheria and other diseases then ever faced a scenario
>>like the one you paint.  The risks for those diseases are
>>gone -- likewise, medical technology has greatly eliminated
>>the risk for C-sections.  Let's keep the discussion on
>>realities.

I'm sorry, but C-sections for some conditions are still deadly. Try
placenta previa for starters. The threat of TB is far from gone.
If you had even the slightest awareness of medical issues, you would
know that drug resistant TB has become a major public health concern.

>>If the chances for them surviving the surgery are small,
>>then there is no benefit in chopping up a baby that is
>>still attached to the woman via the placenta.  The same
>>risks of bleeding and infection apply, and the risk of
>>cutting the uterus and surrounding veins and arteries
>>would equally apply, since it is not as if under the
>>primitive conditions you suggest that the "surgeon"
>>would have a clear view of what they were cutting.

Better women should die. Craniotomy and decapitation are not risk free,
but are safer than doing nothing for the woman. In the case of locking
twins, it is just TOO LATE to do a C-section.
 
>>No, the C-section would always be tried before the mother
>>died, on the chance that she would survive it.  Your scenario
>>makes no sense.

In a small rural hospital with only one doctor and one nurse on duty?
When a woman is brought in by a midwife from some sophisticated place like
Moro, New Mexico with one of a pair of twins hanging by its head inside
of her? Even today the C-section isn't likely to be done in these 
circumstances. In the 1920s and 1930s the C-section was essentially a 
death sentence for the woman.

>I've been looking through my archives for an old
>posting of Nadja's in which she describes her
>reaction to an artifact called a 'baptismal syringe'.
>I don't have it.  Nadja, would you mind repeating?

Yes. In a southwestern museum, there was a collection of Spanish colonial
artifacts, among them the 'baptismal syringe', a device filled with holy
water and injected in the uterus to baptize the unborn. Then the woman
was left to die. This was because it would be wrong to 'kill' to keep
the woman alive. This contempt for my sex filled me with a horror that is
as clear today to me as it was gazing on this object. I am grateful that
most Protestants are more sensible, and that I was raised by such.