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02/02/2007
Buttons, mine, predictable pushing of
Facts:
- At the beginning of January, Canada's first sextuplets were born at 25 weeks' gestation, weighing about 800 grams each. As predicted, their parents, Jehovah's Witnesses, declined blood transfusions for the babies in accordance with their faith, which prohibits the consumption, storage, and transfusion of blood.
- Many premature infants, especially micropreemies, require transfusions to combat anemia, which can be life-threatening.
- Two of the sextuplets have died.
- The provincial government seized three of the four remaining babies to allow them to be given transfusions over the continuing objections of the parents. The babies were returned to their parents' custody afterward, although the seizure order allows the province to intercede again if further transfusions are warranted.
The cause of death for the two babies has not been released. When there are so many potential hazards for babies born so early, there is no reason to conclude that they died expressly because transfusions were declined. It is, however, known that anemia can exacerbate cardiac, breathing, and feeding problems and slow a baby's growth, all matters of grave concern for micropreemies.
Normally when high-order multiples are born to religious families, it's reported that the couple underwent infertility treatment but, when faced with the option of selective reduction, declined because giving and taking life is the exclusive province of God. Those statements drive me quite predictably up a fucking tree: If you were sticking strictly to God's will, you wouldn't have five babies.
But despite how much that inconsistency makes me itch — almost as if these families didn't even care what I think! — the babies are born, four and five and six at a time. They generally come early and sick, and they need a great deal of care. Every possible step is taken to assure their survival. And thanks to the hard work of their medical teams, most of the babies do just fine.
Contrast with these sextuplets. This case hits me hard.
Now, it hasn't been confirmed that this couple sought fertility treatment, but given the odds of a natural sextuplet conception, it is the most likely scenario. Given that, I am finding this almost impossible to fathom. How can you want children badly enough to resort to medical intervention, and then refuse those children a treatment that could mean the difference between life and death?
This pushes my every button. It's incomprehensible to me. I don't understand it. I don't have to; I know matters of faith seldom have much to do with reason. But neither did my feelings when Charlie was born: I'd have sold my soul to the devil himself to help my baby live.
I know I'm not owed an explanation. It wouldn't make me any less heartsick, even if I got one. Anyway, I don't have the power beyond my own personal sphere to do what I think is right. In this case, that's between God, the parents, and — fortunately, in my opinion, for the surviving babies — the government of British Columbia.
SPECIAL BONUS BUTTON-PUSHING, INCLUDING SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: Everything about this story is really, really wrong, from the police ignoring the woman's pleas for help, to the woman's wrongful death suit against the Kansas City police department, to the grotesquely misleading lede. (Don't click the link unless you want your own buttons, whatever they may be, to be pushed like a goddamn Speak 'n' Spell.)
Comments (103)
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One of the buttons pushed for me in this case is that the state came in, took the couple's children, and can now interveine (sp?) at any time. Would the state have been so quick to step in had the couple been anything other than religeous and acting according to their beliefs? I don't happen to agree with their beliefs and in fact think they were very stupid, but I also abhor the nanny state thinking they can do whatever they want in matters that should be left to the private family.
As always, the ethical questions are left out. Did their RE discuss the risk of multiples? Did they discuss that despite transferring just 1 or 2 embryos that they can split? Did they discuss the eventual problems with preterm labor and delivery, and the impact on those children? Did they have any comprehension of the care and treatment their micropreemies would need? If any of it was discussed, I am sure this couple put it "in the hands of God"... even though they were putting their fertility in the hands of mortals.
Being Canadian, we hear alot on the news about this story. I thought the same thing - how do you reconcile the use of fertility treatments, yet not doing everything you can to keep those babies alive? Labor Nurse mentions transfering embryo's but in Canada it is very rare (unheard of from what I know) to have 6 embryo's transferred so I'm going to make an assumption that these babies are either the result of clomid or IUI, not IVF.
You know what? I'm going to start ranting here. Why don't I just say that I agree with you can leave it at that. It is a sad sad situation.
I used to work with a woman who had refused medical treatment for her premature baby based on religious beliefs. Like the case you refer to, the baby was given treatment against the will of the parents. While I worked with her, she was caught cheating on her husband, which is also a big no-no in her religion. I suppose it was easier for her to see her way clear to adultery than it was for her to try to save the life of her baby...
Why, God? WHY did I click that last link? So many buttons got pushed, I had to install a new button just labeled "explode" and then manually push it.
I don't even know what to think about it. THe woman sounds beyond sketchy, but then again, surely it's a civil right that if you are arrested WHILE bleeding, your medical needs are seen to at least at a very basic level.
I live in Vancouver, and gave birth at the same hospital where these babies are being cared for. The staff there are amazing. In cases such as this one, we actually do need a "nanny" state to protect babies from their deluded (and to my mind, hypocritical) parents. It's a matter of life or death. What a shame.
The bottom link - OH MY GOD!
state intervention in child medical cases is not new. you may remember the case of starchild abraham cherrix, a 16 year old who was seized from his parents custody when he and they declined standard medical treatment for his relapse of hodgkin's disease, preferring to go the herbal route. a very articulate person, he was very clear that he'd been down the chemo road before, didn't want to do it again, and understood what the likely consequences were (and of course, would likely be anyway because his form of hodgkin's has a very low survival rate even with the best of care).
so state child welfare people went and got a court order that let them give him chemo without either his or his parent's permission.
my wonder of the day: what would have happened if he'd physically fought the techs trying to administer the chemo? would they have slapped him with haldol and tied him down in a six-point restraint?
Sounds like poorly supervised Clomid use to me. What pushes my buttons are the doctors who use ART irresponsibly.
Just this past October an Ontario court awarded more than $12 million (Cdn) to a family whose twin girls were born prematurely and with cerebral palsy after their mother took clomid, which she says she never would have taken had she been told the full extent of the risk. The jury found that the doctor was not negligent in prescribing the drug, but rather in not accurately portraying the risks of multiples. The girls are 13 years old now, they were born at 30 weeks. The mom had a history of miscarriage and had delivered her other daughter prematurely, and said that had she known she had a 10% risk of having multiples she would not have used to clomid.
One of the girls can talk and go to school but she is paraplegic and uses a wheelchair, and the other is blind, quadriplegic, non-verbal, fed by a tube and can only leave the house for medical care. She has suffered life- threatening bowel obstructions and other painful conditions. They will need that money for life-long nursing care.
About the Canadian case? I feel the same as you, Julie.
And that other link? Yeah, um there's an eerily similar case, though the pregnancy was later in gestation, here in my home town. However, it is not getting media attention, and I only know about it through my job. I was equally incensed about that case. It doesn't matter if you are an accused criminal or not, you have the right to medical treatment, especially in the case of a threatened miscarriage.
I live in BC and have been hearing about this constantly. I have to say: being a witness is the parent's beleif, not the children's. What I am saying is, these children can not choose to refuse a tranfusion. If these kids were 16 and could argue, then so be it. The Province SHOULD speak for kids that can't do so for themselves.
Yes, most kids born into a religion generally maintain it throughout life... if they are lucky enough to have one.
I watched that last video yesterday. My heart goes out to her and my fists want to go out to the faces of those cops.
I can make peace with the parents and their beiliefs (If I try very hard and do alot of yoga). But what I can't stand is what watching those 2 babies die, and being able to do nothing to stop it, must have done to those poor doctors and nurses. These people bust their asses everyday to insure the health and well being of the babies in there care. Micropremie or not. These Doctors and nurses save lives everyday. To stand by and do nothing would kill them. So they allowed the state to step in and allow them to do their jobs. Had the state not stepped in, Had I been the Doctor, I'd have given them the treatment anyway, Lost my lisence, and may have gone to prison. I could not and would not stand by and watch a child die.
Yup - I gave birth in that hopital as well. And went to one of the only two fertility clinics in Greater Vancouver. There is no way our clinics would have transferred 5 or 6 embryos. I had to beg for three. What probably happened was a superov cycle that she over responded to (like I did) and they cancelled. I often wondered what would happen if I ignored my Dr's orders not to have sex.
And I do feel that denying your child medical care when they can't make that decision for themselves is abuse.
The other weird thing is that no one had prepared the hospital that this pregnancy existed. The administration or Drs in the neonatal unit had no idea this was coming down the pipes. Did her Dr or midwife not tell them? WTH?
Wow...if my buttons were in need of a pushing, you certainly filled the quota.
Definitely agree about both the putting it in god's hands contradiction (have often thought this about the McCaugheys) and the issue of religious beliefs allowing you to refuse life saving medical treatment and not being allowed to refuse it for your children. I'm not for a nanny state at all but this is one of the few issues where I think it is ok to step in.
My heart hurts for Sofia Salva. If I were forced to sit on a curb knowing I was having a miscarriage I'd lose it. How hard would it have been, really, for them to just take her to the emergency room. Even if she isn't telling the truth, thats just another charge to add to the list. Oh and I sincerly hope this had nothing to do with her nationality.
Buttons, Buttons, everywhere.
Well I'm not defending them and I agree with the gov't seizing them.
However just to say, having studied with some JWs, that they do believe in medical intervention of many kinds, but they believe that the "sharing of blood" specifically is prohibited.
So I don't think it's a question of God's will in terms of non-intervention, it's a question of the specific intervention. Which they believe is specifically prohibited.
But I am not really able to be emotionally abstract about how the parents could actually hold to that. I just don't think it's a contradictory thing in that particular way.
I am a libertarian who is not fond of the nanny state. However, I see the state saving children from abuse to be a savior state. Not allowing your premature children to receive blood transfusions is, IMHO, child abuse. I have no problems with the state's actions here.
RainbowW, on the Abraham Cherrix case: he apparently had something like a 50-50 chance of survival with conventional therapy, which makes what's happening to him really tragic. More info here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/06/two_young_victims.php
and here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/01/oh_no_not_again_another_relapse_on_alter_1.php
This is a heart breaking situation (the Canadian one, I mean, I didn't have the guts to check out the last link). What it sort of comes down to is a very difficult question - if you believe in God, who do you put first, God or your children?
My husband (a religious studies prof) and I had quite the conversation after hearing about this on national radio (we're Canadian, too). If you have a belief system as stringent as this particular B.C. couple, do you put your children at risk of eternal separation (I hesitate to use the word damnation, but I suspect it may be so) by allowing them to be exposed to blood product? Or, do you allow them to die in the certainty that they may enter into salvation with you? Are the remaining children, now exposed 'unwillingingly' to blood, are they now at risk of damnation (in the parent's eyes)? Do the parents feel that their or their children's eternal souls are endangered?
I have to state that I am not a Jehovah's witness; I am a Christian minister in a much more liberal tradition that would never deny blood product to a person. I personally do not believe that God would want any child to suffer. I agree that on the surface, the parents' choices just does not make sense, and I could never put my own children through this.
I just think that for these parents, there must be a whole host of problems and difficulties that we may never be aware of. It may be easy for us to judge their choices, but we are not privy to the ethical or spiritual battles they are facing.
Just sayin', is all.
On the first story - I agree...the medical intervention was FINE to make the babies, but you're right...we don't know if it's the lack of transfusion that caused them to die or not. I just know I never want to be in that situation.
On the second story - I'm torn. I think what the police did was HORRENDOUS - but at the same time, I feel like it's misleading to make people think she had the miscarriage becuase they didn't take her for medical help. She was already miscarrying and told them that initially. Whether they took her or not wouldn't have saved the baby - it just made a difference in her post-miscarriage care/mental health. So- I guess I feel the lawsuit should be for really barbaric treatment, (crule and inhumane?) not the miscarriage, as the article would lead you to believe.
Yeah, couldn't agree with you more, Julie. This kind of shit makes me feel sick to my stomach. I feel especially bad for that poor woman having a miscarriage and being refused medical treatment. She will always wonder whether her baby would have made it had she gotten proper care.
People can be such jackasses.
Thank you, Tracy — you identified one of my own personal buttons in your second paragraph.
Oh my god this is hard!!! In one way I can't beleive that they would refuse treatment for religious reasons...on the other, I know in my heart that if I ever have to give birth before 27 weeks I will refuse treatment and my baby will die in my loving arms without suffering, pocking and probing. I am scared of having to take this decision....but even more scared that doctors would take that choice away from me.
p.s. this is my opinion and it's only good for myself and my family.I would never say that those who persue medical interventions are wrong!!!!
Honey, they didn't refuse *all* medical treatment. Just (I know, "just!") the transfusions. And you know they agonized just as much as some well-meaning commenters have previously thought *you* should agonize over whether to attempt a second, dangerous pregnancy. (Which of course you did -- I'm not hinting here!)
I know, I don't get religion at all. Everything about it seems so inconsistent and dangerous. But -- well, I can't get behind raging at these parents any more than I could get behind people urging you away from attempting a second pregnancy. We care for our children the very best we can. And I'm so, so sorry you're feeling bad these days. (And not in the pitying way that sentence sounds -- I can't make the words come right.)
Oh, and in response to some of your comments, I can't imagine that this was the result of IVF, not only because of the reluctance to transfer more than two or three embryos, but because Jehovah's Witnesses seem to believe, based on my admittedly cursory research, that masturbation — required for IVF — is an unclean act.
Whoa, hey, I didn't say they did refuse all medical treatment! In fact, I very carefully did not say that, knowing it to be untrue. Nor am I "raging at these parents." I'm expressing sadness and bewilderment, which is, I think, a little different.
I don't get it. Don't get it, don't get it, don't get it. "I'd have sold my soul to the devil himself to help my baby live" - that says it all. I can't imagine how any parent could feel differently... yet clearly many do. This kind of - and excuse my heathenish predjudice here - misguided religious wing-nuttery is the BEST case scenario; out-and-out cruelty the worst. I'm far from a fantastic mother... the whole nurturing process was learned behavior for me. It didn't spring up as naturally as my G-cup lactation boobs. But from the second the kid was born, ensuring his safety became my top priority. "Mother is the name of god on the hearts and lips of all children" is the romantic way to put it. "I'd stab ANY of you motherfuckers in the back if such an act became neccessary to protect J.Q." is the Jul way to put it. How you could just NOT have that - or, worse yet, willfully disregard it... I can't understand.
I thought that the Canadian government uses this kind of temporary care order to remove the decision,an therefore the responsibility for, an action going against a person's deeply-held beliefs. My understanding is that many parents in this situation actually welcome the state's intervention. I understood it to be an humanitarian intervention with the parents' and child's interests at heart.
There are some countries where going against medical orthodoxy can have you certified (the UK for example, in the case of women refusing c-sections in labour- judge is requested to sign an emergency committal order, effectively declaring a woman insane) or have your children taken permanently into care.
I'm absolutely sure the parents are relieved that their babies are alive and being cared for. I also presume that they're tormented over the conflict with their spiritual beliefs. It's an impossible position.
What? No 67-year-old-giving-birth-to-twins story for our collective buttons?
About the Jehovah's Witnesses--is their problem with allowing the transfusions that the child would carry the burden of sin of having another's blood, and thus not go to heaven, or that the parents would carry that burden by allowing the transfusions to occur?
Because if it's the latter, that is very selfish of them, unconscionably so, and if it's the former, then that religion seems to have a very unkind god to allow the damnation of children for acts that could not possibly be their fault.
Either way, it certainly doesn't encourage my respect of the religion or the family. I just can't imagine not doing everything in my power to save my child(ren). I would hope nothing in my life is ever so important to me that my mind would change on that point.
OH MY GOD that second link. She would certainly have lost the pregnancy anyway, but what the frack?
I'm also surprised to see it called a "baby." I haven't seen journalists not call a 3-months-and-under anything but fetus before.
I had to click. I have nightmares about being separated overnight from my nursing infant for a traffic violation or something.
HO multiples confound me. Do the cycles get canceled and the couples go home and have sex, and poof there are six babies?
I sincerely doubt it's a case of IVF. Unfortunately abuses of IUI's and fertility drugs doesn't get the same kind of scrutiny. It's not uncommon for doctors (non RE's) to prescribe fertility drugs without taking enough precautions. A lot of women do have sex when advised not to, because they don't want to waste a cycle and because they don't think they'd get more than twins (or they're very dumb and think high order multiples will be easy.) I've even seen women trading medication over the internet on infertility boards - I'm not talking about extra needles, but doses of Clomid and Pergonal.
It really bothers me to see people so selectively devout. It's almost as galling to me as those who disregard most of the Bible's teachings, except for those passages that seem to justify racism, homophobia and spousal abuse.
"I'd have sold my soul to the devil himself to help my baby live."
YES, me too! As would ANY decent parent.
It really bothers me how much people 'pick and choose' what parts of their religion they want and don't want to believe in. Religion isn't like a pizza where you can just pick off the toppings you don't like.
God (ha!) knows I'm the last of the heathens, but it seems to me that Jehovah's (Jehovah! Jehovah!) Witnesses are almost the only religion that live to a man, woman and every last little child, according to their principles. They're always getting into hot water for not doing what everybody else does. I can only imagine that those parents must have felt very helpless and frightened when faced with their rapidly dying children and insurmountably strict beliefs.
As to how they ended up with six in the first place, well, that's another story...
i'm also not a rabid fan of the so-called "nanny state"...but i say yay to the BC government in this case. particularly since the nanny state is footing the bill for the birth and care of these babies - which, having had and lost a 26 week preemie myself on the opposite coast of Cananda, i can assure you is staggeringly high. the BC government has already laid out hundreds of thousands of dollars on the four living babies - to let three of them die for want of a mere blood transfusion is appalling governmental economics, if nothing else.
but i can't even say "if nothing else." like you, i would have sold my soul and given all i had to save my firstborn...but i did not get to make that choice. i know this family has some dark days (and hopefully some busy ones, with the remaining babies) ahead of them...but i cannot fathom choosing to allow some to die at this point and then being able to live with that afterward. and i cannot respect a faith that would encourage that choice, either. sigh.
I've been following the story of the sextuplets too and while my heart breaks for those babies, I can't scratch up much sympathy for hypocritical parents.
A couple of confirmations here, I've read some of the court papers that were online and asked a few govt. friends off the record what happened. Apparently, the couple did not do IVF, but instead a superovulatory cycle and had sex, against Drs. orders. (As an aside Julie, religious couples who do not believe in masturbation but want to do IVF can do it by having sex while using a condom that has a hole pricked in it, and then taking the condom and contents into a clinic packaged in a sterile container. This gets around the prohibition on birth control and masturbation.) I think they did it because of the cost of IVF. If fertility treatment was free, this would almost never happen. And the BC government would've saved way more money than they just spent on NICU services, nevermind the overwhelming immorality of it all.
If the couple is prepared to selectively reduce, it would be one thing, but they always knew they would refuse to do so on religious grounds, so yes, this is the part that pushes my buttons the most. This couple purposely created fetuses they knew would be guaranteed to die, either in utero or after birth in terrible circumstances.
They were asked about selective reduction twice at 12 & 18 weeks and encouraged to do so, they also were asked about whether the babies should be resuscitated knowing they had a 50% chance of dying soon after birth and they insisted on forcibly resuscitating all of them even though the Doctors knew it would be pointless, for at least some of them.
The two who died did not die because of not getting blood. The govt. had papers ready to go at a moments notice to intervene as soon as the knew the babies were being delivered. They had no qualms about going to court.
And thank God they did...this whole thing pushes my buttons even more because the regular media keeps telling everyone "it's because of that fertility treatment", lumping us all in together. I wish they would read blogs like this and know that the unethical people are rare, and most of us struggle with questions like this, and would certainly NEVER take this kind of stupid risk.
And to people above who wondered if it was only because of the religious angle, it is and it isn't. In Canada, children can refuse medical treatment if they are old enough to understand and consent, even if they are under 18. These babies cannot understand anything, so the Province appoints a lawyer to act on their behalf. Each case is decided based on individual circumstances, religious, or otherwise.
This couple knew the consequences of what they were doing, and did it anyway. And now their children are suffering...pushes my buttons doesn't even begin to describe it for me.
Another voice from Vancouver here. Medical ethics aside, our public health care system has finite resources. The sextuplet's birth consumed an entire NICU ward. Which is both costly and reduces the specialized care available for other premature babies.
I was pleased to see my RE on the news discussing the irresponsibility of their treatment. He advised that the government of British Columbia re-instate the funding IVF as part of our public health care system to avoid the high-order multiples common in less rigourous ART procedures.
Wow, this is a lot of private information and wild speculation. And a lot of judgemental statements being made.
From what I have read in the press, this family have requested privacy from day 1, and their health care providers have released very little information about the case, at the family's request.
The media storm in this case saddens me. I know a number of parents with Multiple Births Canada who responded to hundreds of media requests in the first week after these sextuplets were born. Several parents of higher order multiples did many interviews with radio, TV and print media, to provide balanced information on higher order multiples, and to help take some pressure off that family in their time of crisis.
I don't believe that any of us have the right to stand in judgement on another family's choices, especially when we have so little information about their circumstances or their particular religious beliefs. I have great sympathy for the parents of these micro-preemies, and wish that their requests for privacy could be respected.
Of course, nobody plans to conceive sextuplets, regardless of how they are trying to have a family. Nobody wants their babies to be born at 25 weeks. Nobody wants to have to bury 2 babies, and have 3 others taken into court custody, and to be the focus of a media feeding frenzy and the judgement of an international public.
Usually, on your blog and Tertia's and others, when somebody in the infertile community suffers a tragic loss, there is an outpouring of sympathy and support.
Let's join together in sending positive thoughts and prayers to the surviving sextuplets, and to their parents who must be under tremendous stress. I hope they have good support from family, friends and faith community, because they are not getting much from the public at large.
This ethics stuff is such a crazy maze. It's like, on one hand, we're outraged that babies are dead. On the other hand, we wish they would just have reduced the pregnancy in the first place. Which means we are actually advocating dead babies (albeit without approaching anywhere near the same level of suffering) while we rage against people for killing their babies. It hurts my head when I think about it too much, and I never have any idea what the right answer is.
But yes--it seems completely senseless that a simple and potentially life-saving procedure wasn't done. It's a stone's throw from negligence; I couldn't say feeding and bathing my kid was against my religion and get away with it.
As for sticking strictly to God's will ... well, nobody does that, which is why even the most hardcore Christians don't just let gangrene set in once they've broken their leg. So that's a tough one for me too.
Either way: I'm sad that babies died. And I do feel for the parents, even though I think they're completely misguided. They still lost their kids. Possibly as a result of their own idiotic actions, yes ... but I'm going to try to think the best of them and assume they at least thought it was the right thing. Not that I'm against the legal processes that have happened, because I'm not, and I'm glad the other babies are going to get the care they should get ... but. Still. Their babies died. How do you punish someone who is already enduring the worst?
The bottom story has me fuming, but not for the same reasons as all of you. The journalist writing the story clearly is aiming for sensationalism. The woman didn't lose a "baby" because of police mistreatment. She was miscarrying. There's virtually nothing a doctor will do if you call up, three months pregnant, and state that you are bleeding. They tell you to wait it out. I know from experience. And then, they ask you to come in to check that all the tissue has gone, after you miscarry.
Plus, I love this quote:
"Officers are then told Salva has outstanding city warrants for mistreatment of children"
This is someone who is simply looking to cash in. This is not the sad, sad story of a baby that almost made it, if not for the terrible police.
The bottom story has me fuming, but not for the same reasons as all of you. The journalist writing the story clearly is aiming for sensationalism. The woman didn't lose a "baby" because of police mistreatment. She was miscarrying. There's virtually nothing a doctor will do if you call up, three months pregnant, and state that you are bleeding. They tell you to wait it out. I know from experience. And then, they ask you to come in to check that all the tissue has gone, after you miscarry.
Plus, I love this quote:
"Officers are then told Salva has outstanding city warrants for mistreatment of children"
This is someone who is simply looking to cash in. This is not the sad, sad story of a baby that almost made it, if not for the terrible police.
Oops, sorry Julie--read a few more of the comments. My impression had been that you really did seem furious at these people and found their actions indefensible, but that doesn't seem to be the case. My apologies!
I also love the fact that, in the second article, it says that she gave birth to a child who lived for one minute. A three-months-gestated baby that lived for one full minute outside the womb. Id think the media would be all over this as the miracle of the century!! A first trimester foetus living for a full minute!!!!
Bull shit. Thanks again, sensationalistic media!!! :D ^_^b
I AM a Jehovahs Witness and I don't think anyone, including myself, has any business judging the parents based on such limited information in the press. I would like to advise anyone who has questions about our refusal to use blood products to request the "Blood" brochure or the latest video on non-blood alternatives from their local Kingdom Hall. Blood products are rarely actually necessary to save a life, since there are alternatives. In many cases, no amount of blood transfusions will save a patient. I have no idea about the facts in this case, but I acknowledge that it may be that a blood transfusion would make the difference in the short term between life and death for these babies. I guarantee though that no treatment by any doctor will enable a person to live forever in paradise conditions, which is exactly what obedience to Jehovah will get you.
deemer puts her finger on my button.
deemer makes a very good point about the second story...although the end of the article where it says she delivered a baby boy made me wonder if perhaps the mother misspoke or was misquoted? if she miscarried at 3 months, it is very very unlikely that the gender of the baby would be clear, let alone that the fetus would live for a minute. it's possible that this was a case of a 5 or 6 month pregnancy, and that the mistake the media's making isn't in sensationalizing a miscarriage, but reporting the gestation of the pregnancy. in which case, it is a rather different kettle of fish.
i have no idea. either way, buttons, yes.
Sheila, of course, no one consciously wants to have sextuplets at 25 weeks, or watch their children die. The women I've met who have had multiples or had to make the choice to have selective reduction have been in agony over it. But putting other multiple birth parents or women who have gone through pregnancy loss like myself in the same category as these people is just unfair to responsible couples.
These parents were well aware of the risks, and they went ahead anyway. I don't know what to call that, but it's not an accident, and their emotional suffering or the "risking of eternal salvation" must take a backseat at this point to those tiny babies in pain in a NICU.
If they were so pro-life, they could've made the choice not to have sex that month. They could've racked up a credit card paying for another cycle, or they could've asked their local congregation to help raise money for IVF, and transferred one embryo at a time.
I felt a lot more more compassion for them until I read the quotes in the court filings, (which are all completely public, NOT private and confirmed 95% of what I said in my comment above, http://www.thestar.com/News/article/177484 )Speaking of the medically necessary blood transfusion, the father said, "(My wife) and I could not bear to be at the hospital while they were violating our little girl."
Says it all, doesn't it?