If you can read this GetReligion post without being repulsed and at least a little sick, then you deserve my admiration or pity. The Washington Post article it's mostly about discusses the murder of selected fetuses when the mother is carrying more than one at a time. Pregnant with 3, but only have room at home for 2 more? There are doctors who can help you with that.Evans prepared two syringes, swabbed Emma with antiseptic, put the square-holed napkin on her stomach. Then he plunged one of the needles into Emma’s belly and began to work his way into position. He injected the potassium chloride, and B, the first fetus to go, went still.
“There’s no activity there,” he said, scrutinizing the screen. B was lying lengthwise in its little honeycomb chamber, no longer there and yet still there. It was impossible not to find the sight affecting. Here was a life that one minute was going to happen and now, because of its location, wasn’t. One minute, B was a fetus with a future stretching out before it: childhood, college, children, grandchildren, maybe. The next minute, that future had been deleted.
Evans plunged the second needle into Emma’s belly. “See the tip?” he said, showing the women where the tip of the needle was visible on the ultrasound screen. Even I could see it: a white spot hovering near the heart. D was moving. Evans started injecting. He went very slowly. “If you inject too fast, you blow the kid off your needle,” he explained.
"...blow the kid off your needle"
ReplyDeleteAnd I suppose that the parents didn't have an emotional reaction (like wailing and screaming)to such a horrifying procedure done to their own flesh and blood?
I had a friend who, even as a believer, decided to abort her baby. She accompanied me to a large women's retreat and decided to seek healing prayer but she didn't know what exactly she needed healing from.
The woman who prayed with her was so effective that it changed my friend's life forever with a deeper love for Jesus and a commitment to follow Him at all costs. She told me later that she did not believe that abortion was wrong, but during the prayer at the retreat she realized that God was telling her that it was sin.
May God be as merciful to this couple as well.
I've been through IVF. I've had the strange experience of having nine genetically distinct offspring, knowing that it would be a major problem for us if they all actually survived, and yet I was greatly troubled at the thought of any of them dying. We prayed for each of them to survive, and we were very clear to the doctor that we would not be doing selective reduction (which did affect how many of the nine he was willing to implant at a time). Our first cycle was terrible, as neither of the two made it. The next two cycles were both successful, as we got one son out of one and two daughters out of the other. But these joys were mixed. Even as I happily watched our new babies on the ultrasound, I couldn't help but to grieve for our children who didn't make it.
ReplyDeleteIt is very common for very young embryos to miscarry. We usually don't even call this miscarriage because one wouldn't even know about the pregnancy in the first place. With IVF, you do know, and so you end of grieving for something that ordinarily you wouldn't be aware of. This is sad but natural. Having been through the process, it is difficult for me to imagine deliberately terminating a child. Reading this article definitely makes me cringe.