abortion rights poll

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i read that yesterday, and was appalled. today, not a different response. to deny health care, when a miscarriage was going to occur regardless, is an unconscionable outrage. this is what happens when religion is allowed to have the loudest voice, not common sense. absolutely unbelievable.

and there are some in this country who no doubt agree with what happened. and that's scary.

And it's not just happening overseas; it's happening here, in our Catholic hospitals. Here's a link to an nih piece about it, and one of the most horrible examples below:

Some doctors have decided to take matters into their own hands. In the following case, the refusal of the hospital ethics committee to approve uterine evacuation not only caused significant harm to the patient but compelled a perinatologist, Dr S, now practicing in a nonsectarian academic medical center, to violate protocol and resign from his position in an urban northeastern Catholic-owned hospital.
_
I'll never forget this; it was awful—I had one of my partners accept this patient at 19 weeks. The pregnancy was in the vagina. It was over… . And so he takes this patient and transferred her to [our] tertiary medical center, which I was just livid about, and, you know, “we're going to save the pregnancy.” So of course, I'm on call when she gets septic, and she's septic to the point that I'm pushing pressors on labor and delivery trying to keep her blood pressure up, and I have her on a cooling blanket because she's 106 degrees. And I needed to get everything out. And so I put the ultrasound machine on and there was still a heartbeat, and [the ethics committee] wouldn't let me because there was still a heartbeat. This woman is dying before our eyes. I went in to examine her, and I was able to find the umbilical cord through the membranes and just snapped the umbilical cord and so that I could put the ultrasound—“Oh look. No heartbeat. Let's go.” She was so sick she was in the [intensive care unit] for about 10 days and very nearly died… . She was in DIC [disseminated intravascular coagulopathy]… . Her bleeding was so bad that the sclera, the white of her eyes, were red, filled with blood… . And I said, “I just can't do this. I can't put myself behind this. This is not worth it to me.” That's why I left.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636458/

Basically, as long as there's a fetal heartbeat, Catholic hospitals won't terminate the pregnancy, even if there is no chance the fetus will survive and the woman is in danger of going into septic shock. They don't give a sh*t about the woman's health, because Baby Jesus and shut up, that's why.

I think it is total bullish*t that hospitals that refuse to perform certain LEGAL procedures (like abortion and vasectomies) on religious grounds are allowed to collect government money (Medicare). Total bullish*t. They want to limit health care, fine; they can fund themselves privately.