This week, many people said goodbye to a woman who they did not know personally, but someone who became an inspiration for many of us. Carrie DeKlyen was given a horrific choice recently: take chemotherapy to prolong her life or accept her own death to allow her unborn daughter to live. She chose the life . . . of her daughter. She died two days after giving birth. With so many people who seem to live on hate and anger these days, there remain those who offer the ultimate proof of the grace and sacrifice that truly defines humanity. Carrie was one of those rare individuals.
The baby’s name will be Life Lynn DeKlyen.
Carrie gave birth at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. Her final words two days later to the family gathered around her was “I’ll see you in Heaven.”
Doctors told Carrie that she could used chemotherapy to treat her brain cancer but she would have to terminate her baby. Carrie had five other kids aged from 2 to 18 but she refused to terminate her daughter, who was born 24 weeks in the pregnancy.
Life is doing well in neonatal intensive care.
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
It is very selfish to have that many babies when then world is already populated with billions more, and the resources getting limited.
There are many manifestations of selfishness. Having six children isn’t one.
Society has to put up with that crap x 6. Pollution, resources, etc. From that perspective, pure selfishness.
The amount of energy it took to turn you into such a total ass could light up half of Washington, DC.
Only half??
Don’t you know God doesn’t care about limited natural resources? Earth is just a way station between birth and heaven, trash it all you want.
Yeap, that is it.
No, ‘pure selfishness’ only if you fancy Paul Ehrlich was a prophet and not what he actually was – a biologist out of his depth when speaking of human society and, in any case, not adverse to the games people play when they’re trying to make a point. As for Garret Hardin, he was a major creep.
There was a great deal of public discourse when I was a child about population, resource exhaustion, and environmental pollution. You’re pretty retro recycling the crying-Indian bilge, considering what poor forecasters Ehrlich, Harding, the Club of Rome et al proved to be. In the affluent countries blessed with a baseline of technological sophistication, we live in a world cleaner than the world of 1970 (and cleaner than the urban world of 1935). All over the globe, nutrition has improved and life expectancy has improved. There’s a reason for that..
People are the ultimate resource.
“People are the ultimate resource.”
People are the ultimate resource to consume and make money for producers. Corporations love that.
Living beings perform metabolic process so consume. They also enjoy (‘consume’) the fruits of technology. Businesses provide income for their owners and people who work in publicly-traded corporations are pleased when those enterprises are a going concern. You fancy this is sinister just why?
You fancy this isn’t sinister–just why? Entitlement.
You fancy you just made a non-incoherent statement.
All the evidence we have suggests that the more people we have on Earth the higher the average standard of living.
For example, global population was in the neighborhood of 1.6 billion people in the year 1900 and around 1.3 billion or so of them lived a subsistence existence in extreme poverty.
Today there are probably more than 7.5 billion people on Earth and only 700 million live in extreme poverty.
Especially after the Reagan/Thatcher revolution in the 1980s, the world took a turn away from top down collectivist ideology. More countries adopted an economic system based on free enterprise. The standard of living of people around the world has soared.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute
Malthus was wrong primarily because he viewed the world as static and zero sum. Corn yields were maybe 25 bushel per acre then. Looking backward, he did not have any reason to anticipate they’d rise much. Today, the USDA puts the national average yield at around 175 bushel. A man named David Hula set a new world record when he produced over 500 bushel of corn per acre a couple of years ago. Not in the “corn belt” of Iowa or Nebraska. But in Virginia. The difference between the 175 national average and what Hula proved can be achieved shows how much potential there is to continue to increase yields.
The world will be absolutely flooded with low cost food in the coming years as his techniques are aped.
Malthus made his observations in good faith. He was wrong because he did not understand how private property rights, free trade, and the profit motive provide powerful incentives to innovate and create new technologies to improve all of our lives. The Neo-Malthusians of today (Ehrlich, Holdren, most of the environmental zealots) don’t have that excuse. They’ve live it. That have access to the same data I have. I can only conclude they are operating in bad faith. Why is a mystery.
And don’t pretend there’s been environmental degradation. At least not in the U.S. According to the EPA, six major pollutants in the U.S. have declined 73% since 1970. That’s despite GDP having increased by 253% and U.S. population having increased by 190% since 1970. We have more people, who are more affluent, better educated, more tolerant, more diverse, have better health, live longer and have lower infant mortality rates than anytime in human history. And probabilities are, the last breath the average American took is likely the cleanest air he’s ever breathed in his life.
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-07/2016_baby_graphic_1970-2016.png
Your worldview is wrong. It’s not based on empirical experience or objective reality.
And Americans moved en masse out of destroyed California with its overcrowding, crime, welfare ghettos and 14-lane freeways. I wonder why.
At least $3.1 million in grants have been awarded by Trump to religiously affiliated organizations or crisis pregnancy centers, also known as fake clinics.
https://rewire.news/article/2017/09/07/trump-gives-away-millions-anti-choice-fake-clinics/
also known as fake clinics.
By Planned Parenthood press agents, not by decent human beings.
How pathetic are the mental gymnastics one must go through to explain the choice of death for a baby. To prove that point further, read the comments here trying to rationalize this mother choosing life for her baby.
This mother already had brain surgery and was entered in a clinical trial before she learned she was pregnant. The doctors told her she would need to terminate the pregnancy to participate. Her sister-in-law said a few days prior to her dying: “We are now just trying to keep Carrie comfortable and keeping it in God’s hands,” Nelson said. “We are so proud of Carrie. She laid down her life for her child while refusing treatment for (herself). Her rewards are going to be great.”
That’s all that matters. Her life in this world is just a speck in the timeline of eternity. This is a great story. May God bring peace to this family.
“With so many people who seem to live on hate and anger these days, there remain those who offer the ultimate proof of the grace and sacrifice that truly defines humanity.”
Well ya tried Turley. Although after the details surface it appears that this was a ‘no brainer’ on the mother’s part. She was dammed if she tried to save her life and 86 the baby and may leave her family dammed if the baby comes out a vegetable. However, the story did express the rational, logical, humanity that is woefully in short supply.
In other news: Well there is no other news other than Irma and Jose. The news media is a joke.
A message on Cloud 9 says that the midget is about to nuke Guam.
I don’t have children. This frees up critical resources in the local school district and allows other people’s children to utilize those funds. And there’s one less person driving a car in this world.
Where’s my appreciation.
I appreciate the fact that you didn’t reproduce.
More to the story…. the cancer was a very aggressive form of brain cancer and the only form of treatment available to her was experimental.. Her odds even with the experimental treatment did not appear to be high. She chose not to have the experimental treatment and save the pregnancy. The choice appears to be a rational one and not an overly religious one.
Frankly, it’s an awesome choice either way.
http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/mom-refuses-cancer-treatment-save-unborn-baby/story?id=49206412 ” She was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive brain tumor. According to the American Brain Tumor Association, the “highly malignant” tumor spread quickly.
Deklyen had brain surgery to try to remove the tumor. A few weeks later, her sister-in-law Sonya Nelson said that she found out she was pregnant.
Though Deklyen had been planning to participate in a clinical trial at the University of Michigan, her family said, she was told she would need to terminate the pregnancy in order to do so.
“I asked her what she wanted to do. She said, ‘We are keeping it,'” Carrie’s husband Nick Deklyen told ABC News. “That always was my choice too, but I wanted her to decide because it was her life we were talking about.”
Deklyen then had three additional brain surgeries at Michigan Medicine, part of the University Michigan, the family said. Though the tumor was removed twice, it grew back.
On July 27, Nelson drove Carrie Deklyen to the emergency room because she was having severe headaches.
“We thought she would have some fluid removed from her brain and we would head home, but instead she suffered a stroke,” Sonya Nelson told ABC News.” This was not just a simple case of refusing chemo. She treated the cancer with multiple surgeries but it keep growing back. The only treatment that was offered was highly experimental. She chose not to terminate the pregnancy and not to receive the experimental treatment.
“This was not just a simple case of refusing chemo.” -from the article posted by “frankly”
(“On July 27, Nelson drove Carrie Deklyen to the emergency room because she was having severe headaches.
““We thought she would have some fluid removed from her brain and we would head home, but instead she suffered a stroke,” Sonya Nelson told ABC News.” This was not just a simple case of refusing chemo. She treated the cancer with multiple surgeries but it keep growing back.”)
http://woodtv.com/2017/08/09/w-mi-community-unites-around-terminally-ill-pregnant-mom/
After the stroke, she was in a semi-conscious state.
Again: “This was not just a simple case of refusing chemo.”
So she didn’t sacrifice her life for the baby, after all. She knew she was going to die no matter what she did. I feel sorry for this mother and the whole family but she did nothing heroic. She added greatly to the burden her family is forced to accept. I suspect if given a choice they would have chosen to have their mother, wife and daughter for a few more weeks or months instead of another motherless child.
Fine Louise. I will retract the words “heroic self-sacrifice,” if you retract the sentence, “She added greatly to the burden her family is forced to accept.” Otherwise, choosing more time with one’s mother before she dies implies that Carrie DeKlyen made a heroic self-sacrifice to save the life of her child.
I suspect if given a choice they would have chosen to have their mother, wife and daughter for a few more weeks or months instead of another motherless child.
And I will give thanks you’re not my sister.
Good comment by Frankly. Save the kid, you’re gonna croak anyway.
I come from a family of 6 and there would have been more if my father had not died when I was 11. i remember having a discussion with my mother about whether to save the child or save her during one of her pregnancies, (she was pregnant when my father died) and her response was, You always save the baby. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was 11 or 12.
This is a harsh story. And none of us can say why she made that choice. Given that she already had 5 (!) children and this little one is gonna cost a ton of money in neo natal care did she make the right decision? Who knows?
The cost of neo-natal care is generally socialized.
Regarding this “pro choice” people topic which raised up here on the blog. I use a condom. The girl at the cathouse calls it a rubber. In old days I tied a sock around the… and babies were prevented. Barry Goldwater raised this issue back in 1964. We have a choice not an echo.
Regarding this human’s right to life choice to die in order to give birth. The kid was not fully vested? Meaning not in the womb long enough? Then mom gave birth too early. The kid can end up a retard.
We have lots of choices. I am not a woman and am not knocked up. But I would not go to some doctor for cancer treatment. I would rather croak than go through all that crap.
Carrie DeKlyen made a heroic self-sacrifice.
Having a baby at 24 weeks it is highly likely this child will have mental or physical disabilities. Still it was her choice to make. Not sure how much more time she would have had with chemo but hope she isn’t leaving a severely disabled child behind for her sacrifice.
Having a baby at 24 weeks it is highly likely this child will have mental or physical disabilities.
About a 50-50 shot.
https://www.bpas.org/get-inv
And people do learn to live with cerebral palsy.
One of the saddest documentaries I have ever seen, and still stays with me after 20 years, involved a young, pregnant homeless girl in San Francisco. She sought an abortion because she had no husband, no home, and no means of support. The Catholic organization counseled her against abortion and offered free medical care at St. Mary’s Hospital. Two days after the baby was born, mother and infant were discharged with no where to live. It was winter and the baby girl died of exposure one night a few weeks later while sleeping with her mother in a doorway. It was a white baby girl and certainly could have been adopted, but the mother was never provided information about that. It seemed that all the “pro-life” people cared about was making sure the baby was born, then they washed their hands of her.
It seemed that all the “pro-life” people cared about was making sure the baby was born, then they washed their hands of her.
Who else was taking care of her?
TIN: A good friend of mine Catholic bwt was faced between saving the child or his wife. He chose his wife – and the subsequent kids they had were not had in a Catholic hospital. Those people are nuts!!
Autumn, was the wife able to consent to her husband’s choice to save her instead of her child?
Died of exposure in San Francisco in winter? Hardly. And why not go to shelter of which there are so many. Smells a little of an anti-life propaganda film.
That’s what media do. They cherry-pick and conceal salient details.
Unfortunately this is often the attitude of pro-forced childbirth types. They care only about forcing women to give birth and once the child is born their interest drops. Most “pro-life” facilities are eager enough to place a baby before they wash their hands of it. It’s hard to know what happened in this case. It is highly unusual for an agency to send the baby with the mother, especially knowing she was homeless. There might have been something wrong with the child that the agency thought would make her hard to place. They have to think of their bottom line, of course. It’s no use wasting time and money on a baby that’s already been born,when there are so many more women to be forced or coerced into giving birth.
I, too, wonder about the wisdom of the mother who refused chemotherapy ro “save” her child, when it meant the child would be motherless, as would her other children. She may have sacrificed her life for lives of misery for all of her children, her husband and her parents. In many ways her insistance on giving birth can be seen as a selfish act, leaving a whole family bereft when she could have lived if she hadn’t been indoctrinated into believing the baby’s life was worth more than her own and her family’s. It wasn’t only the mother who sacrificed her life, but she forced sacrifice on the whole family and the newborn child. Is martyrdom worth such terrible disruption and grief to a family?
Louise, I doubt that martyrdom is very often a genuine choice. It seems reasonably clear that Carrie DeKlyen made a genuine choice. Frankly’s post above strongly argues that it was the best choice.
Louise – at best, the chemo was going to extend her life 6 months, 3 months of which would have been the misery of chemo. She was not going to survive the brain tumor regardless. Now the question is, does she keep the baby or not, as well. She lived long enough to deliver her child and know it would be well taken care of. Neo-natals are state of the art these days. When I grew up that baby did not have a snowball’s chance in hell. Now, it will be nurtured and raised in a loving family.
When my mother had her last bout with cancer, she dealt with the same issue. 3 months w/o chemo or 6 months w/ chemo, 3 of which she would be debilitated by the chemo. She choose the 3 months w/o and then lived 9 months.
Chemotherapy can be grueling, particularly the cisplatin chemotherapeutics, but glioblastoma is most commonly treated with a combination of radiation and temozolomide. The side effects of this chemo are relatively mild by comparison–it was reportedly the potential damage to the fetus that drove the mother’s decision. JT does not report whether or not the mother was given steroid treatment to aid in the child’s survival post-delivery. Terrible choice to make, particularly now that the father will have to raise the children by himself. Hopefully there are relatives nearby to assist. The oldest child is 18; perhaps (s)he will be pressed into surrogate motherhood for the younger siblings. Bioethics has lagged far behind advancements in neonatology.
Cape Cod Skeptic – as the oldest in a family of 6, the oldest is always in charge. If one of the younger ones gets in trouble, it is the oldest’s fault. And you are always a baby-sitter. At age 18, she has changed more than her fair share of diapers. 😉
I totally agree! I have several local friends and also some from HS/grad school who are members of big Catholic families, we’re talking 12+. The youngest could have been sired and raised by the oldest of the brood. In fact, my friends did not even know their oldest siblings because there was 18+ years between them. Seemed a bit “19th Century” to me, but they all thought it was normal.
And documentaries never slant a story to further an agenda. Never.
Documentaries can and do slant in either direction,
It’s ofcourse the mother’s choice to save her child and end hers…but she had so many other choices aswell to live ..
Since some of of you seem fixated on religious/non religious & “R” vs “D” , I thought that the following from Philanthropy Roundtable might be of interest: “Statistics on U.S. Generosity”
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics/
Question? How many pro life at any stage after gestation routinely contribute by adopting or helping fund orpahanages etc? How many pro-choice assist in that effort?
Plenty. I and many pro choice women–and men–have worked with adoption agencies and foster care agencies. What I have learned is that not all babies get adopted because they are not the “right” color or have a physical or mental problem or are born to drug addicted mothers who are incapable of caring for any child. Many babies wind up being passed around the foster care system, never having a family to bond to. This is no criticism of the good people,who provide foster care. There just isn’t enough of them to handle the countless babies who need families and never get one. If you had worked for an adoption facility as you suggest pro-choice people do, you would be aware of this situation. Not all babies wind up in a soft-focus Hallmark moment. The reality is much harsher than that. The point is there are too many babies being born needing care than social services can handle. Then we have politicians who like nothing more than cutting funds because they insist that people will become dependent on them–including helpless babies, apparently. It’s a shame that they don’t go out and get jobs to support themselves and instead prefer to be dependent on the welfare system. What cheek!
What I have learned is that not all babies get adopted because they are not the “right” color or have a physical or mental problem or are born to drug addicted mothers who are incapable of caring for any child. Many babies wind up being passed around the foster care system, never having a family to bond to.
The stock of youngsters enrolled in the foster care system for any reason in New York is currently about 25,000, or less than 1% of the juvenile population in the state. Currently, about 12% of all pregnancies end in a surgical abortion.
25,000 children should not be reduced to a percentage of the juvenike populatiin of the state. They are individuals in desperate need of care. What rational, compassionate person cares what percentage they make up? Only people who are more interested in forcing women to give birth than they are in providing care for the ones who need it and aren’t getting it. Leave it to a person in favor of forced childbirth to dismiss the children in desperate straits. Apparentky 25,000 of them is not enough to elicit any compassion from pro-forced pregnancy people. It is not the least bit surprising. It’s what should be expected.
Louise, I am not your therapist and I am not your husband. It is not my vocation to listen to your stupid outbursts.
The import of my remarks is not that difficult to understand. We have foster care systems because an irreducible share of the population of women of child-bearing age cannot be trusted with a Chia Pet. Some of them are disabled in various ways, but most just drew a bad social lottery ticket. The population of disabled youth parked in foster care is contextually quite small and cannot be used as an argument contra promoting adoption as a replacement for abortion.
Only people who are more interested in forcing women to give birth
Moral imperatives and physical necessity compel people to obey the law, work, put up with obstreperous juveniles, &c. In a well-ordered society, they also compel people to not hire gruesome characters in the gynocology trade to perform abortions. That the law sanctions people for doing bad things injurious to other parties bothers the pathologically willful.
I am anti-abortion except when medically necessary and I would have decided to terminate the pregnancy in favor of my living children.
I agree; she had five other children who need a mother. The trauma of losing their mother will be with them the rest of their lives. I would have chosen to stay with them rather than bring a sixth motherless child into the world.
TIN, Prof. Turley didn’t provide us enough information to guess at Carrie DeKlyen’s chances of surviving cancer.
Wait a second . . . Carrie DeKlyen’s chances of surviving cancer are none of our business, anyway.
Nor is it anyone’s business if a woman chooses to abort in general.
It’s the law’s business to prevent perverted gynocologists from practicing their craft.
DSS – one of our more popular abortionists was sent down river for molesting his patients.
The ratio of annual deaths to annual diagnoses for brain tumors is currently 0.70. That they offered her chemotherapy suggests the tumor was inoperable and that the tumor could only be contained for a time.
Thanks DSS.
I would have chosen to stay with them rather than bring a sixth motherless child into the world.
Brain tumors are usually a death sentence and not aborting the child is a categorical imperative.
The laws of nature abort children everyday now; and no sheer force of the human will can counteract nature.
A heroic self-sacrifice, nonetheless. Kant would be awed by Carrie DeKlyen.
The laws of nature abort children everyday now;
People die every day as well. Doesn’t mean I should be indifferent to criminal mayhem in Baltimore.
Agreed. Appealing to the laws of nature is a poor basis for human moral philosophy. The best that nature can do is to provide the grounds for the moral predicament: human uncertainty, human fallibility and human care or concern for the differences between right versus wrong, good versus bad and true versus false. The rest is up to education and reason.
The father has stated that he intends to tell the child of her mother’s sacrifice in order to save the child. I hope that child is strong enough to handle that burden – not to mention the odds that she will have some disabilities. And I wonder if some of her siblings will have any problem with their youngest sister’s role in “killing their mother”. Lotsa problems left for this family. But as DSS so kindly points out – at least the medical costs for this child will be socialized. Do we have any hope that DSS actually APPROVES of socializing medical costs?
Forgot to mention another kindness pointed out by DSS. Children with cerebral palsy eventually grow accustomed to the disability. How very comforting…
Strange as it may seem to you, disabled people commonly value the life they have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_McBryde_Johnson
Some do, some don’t. I imagine it comes down to how hard the life is, and how much pain is involved.
What I find amazing though is that you’re quoting the life of a self-described liberal, atheistic Democrat to make your argument for commonality of love of life. Wonders apparently never cease.
And I wonder if some of her siblings will have any problem with their youngest sister’s role in “killing their mother”
It’s likely the children are not given to extraordinarily inane and vicious thoughts. Combox mouthpieces for the abortion industry, not so much.
Anyone who has medical insurance approves of socializing medical costs.
That’s because you have common sense and apparently you were not indoctrinated to within an inch of your life to martyr yourself, your other children, your parents, other relatives and your husband. This is what happens with absolutist attitudes such as this mother was burdened with. It’s one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. I would have made the same choice as you would have.
The woman’s right to choose is missing a key component. Where is the husband’s right to choose? You can negate tht if yo went artificial insemination from a sperm bank or if the ‘donor’ was the result of rape or incest…but not the result of being drunk or getting paid to perform the act and worse not using a control method.
At one point? The current standard is end of second trimester or the point where viability enters the picture which automatically excludes late term or during delivery abortions. When viable – a medical decision – that is a citizen awaiting it’s chance to breathe yet unable to defend itself. Prior to viability no.But it gives the birth mother a window of opportunity 180 days or so long and the child a 90 day opportunity for life. The decision is then based on competent medical opinion which does not include psychiatrists or social workers etc but medical doctors.
I can’t get more fair than that except with 100% perfect birth control from Day After to various forms of condoms to abstinence to a 180 day window there is no grounds for murdering a viable citizen without a legal defense, a judge and jury involved.
I am sure you are contributing as much money, time and energy in combatting this problem as you can possibly spare and not just spouting off about something you know nothing about. Women don’t sell their bodies unless they’re in dire straits themselves–perhaps products of the foster care system and lack of abortion services. If you think women deliberately miss the first trimester mark because they are lazy or want to remain dependent on the welfare system you are sadly mistaken, in addition there are many states and jurisdictions that have NO abortion clinics because they have been effectively run out of town by people who woukd force women to give birth, no matter tge consequences. You sound like a typical anti-choice, pro-forced childbirth type who doesn’t know the first think about social ills and the vicious circles they create. You know nothing of the lives of women who find themselves desperate and pregnant, knowing they can’t provide for a child. You have a very Pollyannaish attitude toward real problems with no quick fixes. You are living in Neverland. If you weren’t you would know what’s really going on right under your nose, but you have shown that you don’t have a clue.
I am sure you are contributing as much money, time and energy in combatting this problem as you can possibly spare
Have you considered applying this principle to yourself?
Yourself?
Michael Aarethun, like any other human, Carrie DeKlyen owned her own life as her property to do with as she saw fit. Hers was not anyone else’s life to sacrifice. Because hers was not anyone else’s life to own as anyone else’s property. Carrie DeKlyen’s choice was in no way whatsoever inconsistent with a woman’s right to reproductive freedom.
Carrie DeKlyen’s choice was in no way whatsoever inconsistent with a woman’s right to reproductive freedom.
Her choice was almost certainly informed by an understanding that ‘a woman’s right to reproductive freedom’ is political humbug.
DSS, is a woman’s right to own her own life as her own property also political humbug?
No one is denying her the right to decide whether to continue her pregnancy. The only criticism of pro-choice people is the fact that she felt the need to shorten her life and deprive her family. Of course, it was her right to choose as it should be for all women, no matter the opinions and force by other people. But we pro-choice people are entitled to our opinion. We certainly hear enough opinions from the purblind pro-life side. It’s time pro-choice people had a chance to express some common sense. None of us would have tried to force her to make another decision as the pro-life crowd forces their opinions on countless women every day. Pro-choice people are not in the business of forcing or coercing women to make the choice we think is best–something pro-life people do at every opportunity.
But we pro-choice people are entitled to our opinion.
Law properly composed manifests a consistent ethic. It can be a satisfactory one (mine) or a silly one (yours). Unless its a very confused ordinance, it’s not going to incorporate both. You’re ‘entitled to your opinion’, and, if the law be just, that opinion will not inform the law.
Louise, it looks like you’re replying to me. If not, then I don’t see to whom else you might be replying. FTR, I am not pro-life. I am pro-choice.
Diane – if you are pro-choice you are pro-death.
Paul, actually I oppose capital punishment. Surprise! Surprise!
Diane – if you support abortion, you support the death of defenseless babies. You are Pro-Death.
I don’t want to get Darren any more upset than he already is. So I won’t argue the point on this thread, anymore.
Louise – have you ever been on a cancer chemo support team? I have been on three. Chemo is poison, it does terrible things to the body. The cancer victim is in misery while they are going through chemo. They also get chemo brain, forget things, make bad decisions, etc. and this may go on for years after the chemo.
Now, let’s talk about experimental treatments. 1. They are not covered by your insurance. 2. They are called experimental because no one is sure they actually will work. 3. Basically, they are rolling the dice when the odds are not in your favor.
They have symptomatic treatments nowadays which can contain the side effects of chemo. It’s not like it was 40 years ago.
DSS – those drugs work for some people and don’t for others. And your are playing Russian roulette with the cocktails of drugs they give you. But you still have chemo brain, you still have a low appetite, etc.
And your are playing Russian roulette with the cocktails of drugs they give you.
I don’t thing you’re going to find an epidemiological study that says that 1/6th of chemotherapy recipients will be killed by the treatments.
DSS – it was a metaphor, not statistical accuracy. Come on, you are brighter than that. 🙂
No one was trying to kill her or steal from her, so I’m not seeing the relevance of this question.
DSS, the right to property is the surety for the right to life and the right to liberty. As such, each of us has a right to own his or her life as his or her property even when “no one is trying to kill us or steal from us.” Meanwhile, a woman’s reproductive system belongs to that woman as her property–not anyone else’s property. Likewise, a woman’s freedom to use her reproductive system as she sees fit thereby also belongs to that woman as her property–not anyone else’s property.
Meanwhile, a woman’s reproductive system belongs to that woman as her property–not anyone else’s property.
The point of metaphors is to illuminate, not to confound. You’re unclear on the concept.
Someone’s life (including that of a child in gestation) is not your property. Even in societies ordered around hereditary subjection, it is generally not your property (at least in black letters).
DSS, women have a right to enter into contracts to have embryos implanted in their uterus, gestate those embryos, carry the pregnancy to term and deliver the live child into the world. Those contracts both presuppose and entail the surrogate mother’s right to own her own body as her own property.
The developing fetus does not acquire a property right of its own until it is viable outside the mother’s uterus. Then their is a potential conflict between the property rights of the fetus versus the mother. So long as the fetus does not threaten the mother’s life or health, the State can ban abortion once the fetus is viable.
If the State bans abortion altogether, then the State must pay fees for surrogate motherhood at market rates for every woman who is thereby deprived of her right to own her own body as her own property. Because neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall prevail in any of the States without due process of law, including just compensation for confiscated property.
That will cost the State a great deal of money. Taxes will have to be raised. The State could go bankrupt. All of the citizens would suffer considerable hardship in a bankrupt State. Ergo, States out not to ban abortion altogether; but only in the third trimester and only while providing exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
DSS, women have a right to enter into contracts to have embryos implanted in their uterus, gestate those embryos, carry the pregnancy to term and deliver the live child into the world. Those contracts both presuppose and entail the surrogate mother’s right to own her own body as her own property.
All of which post-dates Roe v. Wade. (It’s also a fairly gruesome practice).
The developing fetus does not acquire a property right of its own until it is viable outside the mother’s uterus. Then their is a potential conflict between the property rights of the fetus versus the mother. So long as the fetus does not threaten the mother’s life or health, the State can ban abortion once the fetus is viable.
No, the foetus has every right. It’s simply a right you’ve arbitrarily elected to discard.
If the State bans abortion altogether, then the State must pay fees for surrogate motherhood at market rates for every woman who is thereby deprived of her right to own her own body as her own property. Because neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall prevail in any of the States without due process of law, including just compensation for confiscated property.
I think the state should include a proviso in the statutory law banning abortion that elderly women posting witless non sequiturs be pilloried.
That will cost the State a great deal of money. Taxes will have to be raised. The State could go bankrupt. All of the citizens would suffer considerable hardship in a bankrupt State. Ergo, States out not to ban abortion altogether; but only in the third trimester and only while providing exceptions for the life and health of the mother.
I’m not interested in your social fantasies.
DSS, the surety for the property right is labor. A pregnant women performs said labor throughout her pregnancy. The mother breathes, sweats, eats, drinks, metabolizes, sleeps etcetera. The mother shares nutrients, blood and antibodies with the growing and developing fetus; without which necessary sustenance the fetus will die and further growth and development of the fetus will cease. All of the mother’s labors, too, are proof for the mother’s right to own her own body as her own property to the exclusion of all others– including even the fetus–until such time as the fetus acquires a property right of its own through its own labor and by dint of its viability outside the mother’s uterus.
Abortion is, ever was, and ever will be a property dispute.
You’re an old woman complaining about all you do for others and complaining that no one appreciates you. It’s tiresome.
I needed a laugh this morning. Thanks.
Nice ro see you have such a great sense of humor over desperate people, Dave. Do,you also laugh at people killed, injured and made homeless by Hurricane Harvey and now Hurrricane Irma? Your life must be a barrel of laughs every day. There is no end to people’s misery to laugh at.
A case of real ‘choice.’
It’s always a real choice. Believe me, you would not want to be in the position of making such a choice, no matter what the circumstances are.
I was in that position on two occasions and in each supported the birth mother’s choice. And the circumstances DID matter. So did the inherent responsibilities in one case.Had the decision been made without me I would have filed for immediate divorce. It’s a true partnership or it is not one or the other. If you did not enjoy a relationship which such an individual maybe you should have been more choosy
I was choosy and I never had to make that decision. You assume every woman who wants an abortion has a partner she can depend on. In most cases the woman sho chooses abortion has no partner and she knows he would not support a child even if directed to by a court. Many women seeking abortions already have children they are struggling to support without a husband. You have a very limited understanding of the lot of most women seeking abortions, most likely because it supports your skewed ideas about the lot of women. As if they all had responsible husbands wanting to support and raise a child, but being deprived of that desire by a woman who wants an abortion for no reason. You are living in a fantasy world. The vast majority of women serking abortions would love to have a responsible man to help support and raise her child. It’s the very fact that she doesn’t have one that makes her decide on abortion.
In most cases the woman sho chooses abortion has no partner
Sez who?
Sez statistics.
Whose statistics? Someone sired that child.
You have a very limited understanding of the lot of most women seeking abortions, most likely because it supports your skewed ideas about the lot of women. A
Nearly all abortions are contraceptive abortions. The modal problem of the women seeking them is impetuosity.
True. And what is so horrifying is that liberals like HRC believe that contraceptive practice can continue at any time for any reason as it is the woman’s RIGHT to choose. And the choice is death or life of a fully formed, viable unborn baby who, as it is being ripped out its mother’s womb, will suffer greatly. Do HRC and those who agree with her on no limitations at all believe there is some magical “pain switch” that is turned on as the baby passes through the birth canal such that it doesn’t suffer when its body is burned in saline solution? That’s something that no matter how I try can I understand. And where does it end? If people can support that practice, it is a very short step to supporting the sort of “murdering-a-live-born-aborted fetus” practices of Gosnell. Oh wait. Many do. How can people who will go to the mat for PETA, could advocate such a horrific practice. What does that say about our society?
Notice to liberals, I said nothing about Christian beliefs or my personal belief that life begins at conception. This is just a straight-up issue of humanity. I don’t understand how people don’t see that a society that can support a practice that obviously tortures a creature — in this case a human being — is no better than the eugenicists of Nazi Germany. It’s a society doomed.
DSS says “The modal problem of women seeking [contraceptive abortions] is impetuosity.”
The failure of women to use contraception admittedly explains your position on reproductive freedom being political humbug; provided that you’re not opposed to women using contraception.
Yes, and women who are raped should know better than to use no protection. They don’t deserve any pity for deliberately getting pregnant.
Yes. I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me, Louise. I suspect that DSS will soon put numbers on that issue.
Yes, and women who are raped should know better than to use no protection.
There are about 90.000 forcible rapes in the United States in a typical year. About 12% are inflicted on women too young or too old to be fertile. Shy of 40% of the population of women of fertile age are sterilized, using oral contraceptives, using IUDs, &c. The probability of an uncontracepted sex act on a woman of fertile age producing a pregnancy varies over the menstrual cycle but averages 2.5%. The number of pregnancies derived from forcible rape in a typical year would number about 1,200 absent the use of D & C or post-coital contraception in such cases. And, of course, some women miscarry. A 3-digit population of pregnancies derived from forcible rape is not why you have 700,000 surgical and chemical abortions in this country in a typical year.
McCorvey was the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit.
frankly – if Roe were the lead plaintiff, it would be Roe, et. al v. Wade, not Roe v Wade. Besides Doe v Bolton there were no other cases on the docket. Read the lead opposing opinion to see what a mess the majority made of the Constitution.
It’s only “a mess” to people who want women to be forced to gove birth, like you–someone who will never be pregnant but who thinks he knows all the answers.
Louise – if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
It’s only “a mess” to people who want women to be forced to gove birth, like you–someone who will never be pregnant but who thinks he knows all the answers.
The jurisprudential farrago which attended the inJustices arbitrary insistence that they could appropriate the general police power of state governments is a mess. I gather your ‘thinking’ consists of giving everyone reports on your feelz but you really should not run a government that way.
The failure of women to use contraception admittedly explains your position on reproductive freedom being political humbug; provided that you’re not opposed to women using contraception.
The very term ‘reproductive freedom’ is humbug.
That aside, the salient problem is not and never has been a deficit of contraception. Abortion, b**tardy, and the use of oral contraceptives are phenomena which advanced in tandem with each other over a generation. The salient problem is allowing human sexuality to spill over the banks and to be something other than a component of domestic life. You have what you have. About 1/4 of the youth population are decadent to a degree my mother’s contemporaries could hardly imagine and people my age are poleaxed by what they hear out of the mouths of the young.
Now we are beginning to get at the root of DSS’s problem. It’s the DECADENT youth and all their perversions – along with all those perverted Ob-Gyns.
“Now we are beginning to get at the root of DSS’s problem. It’s the DECADENT youth and all their perversions – along with all those perverted Ob-Gyns.”
Yep. S/he’s somethin’…
And like some others on the blog, she’s never wrong — until she is:
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/09/04/exoneration-first-investigation-later-comey-under-fire-over-draft-clearing-clinton-written-before-interviewing-key-witnesses/comment-page-1/#comment-1653094
But s/he’s got it all figured out.
DSS, I will gladly agree that loose, promiscuous sexual mores contribute to abortions that could have been prevented either by diligent use of contraception or by abstinence.
However, The Comstock Laws (circa 1870) were also preceded by an epidemic of venereal diseases, arrests for prostitution and out-of-wedlock births that strongly suggest that The Victorians were nowhere near so chaste and prudish as they publically professed to be. Moreover, The Comstock Laws were hardly an immediate remedy for the social ills at issue. And, of course, abortions continued to be practiced in an underground market that was extremely hazardous to the lives and health of women.
So much for the supposed humbuggery of the term reproductive freedom.
What we think of Victorian mores didn’t trickle down to the poorer classes any more than trickle down economics trickles down to the poorer classes today. The poorer classes lived in a completely different world than the classes above them. You can hardly imagine the conditions they were forced to lived with. Read Dickens or a good history of the poorer classes at the time. You might change your holier than thou attitude once you understand how they had to struggle just to survive, especially women. On the other hand, maybe you wouldn’t.
Or, listen to this very beautiful and smart girl explain it to you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLyCOFYBONY&t=194s
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Louise, are you defending Victorian sexual mores? Victorian class stratification? Or reproductive freedom for women?
I swear, Louise, you have no idea to whom you’ve posted your latest sanctimonious reply.
I know vey well to whom I’ve posted my reply. I can only wonder if you know to whom you have posted your vitriole. We are all equal here and our opinions are equal. You don’t get to claim your opinions are superior to anyone else’s. You sound exactly like Darren Smith. You seem to think that if you have an opinion that differs from others’ that your opinion is automatically right and moral and everyone else’s is wrong and immoral. With an attitude like that you shouldn’t ne expressing your opinion anywhere on any subject. This blog is open to anyone who wishes to participate. You apparently would like to restrict it to people who agree with you. You have absolutely no appreciation of free speech rights. Nothing anyone has said here is an insult to the woman who made the choice to give birth. . But you insult the people who think differently. She made a choice, but you would deny the same choice for women As long as they are making a choice different from what you would make. In fact it isn’t even about their choices but their expressed opinion that you denigrate. Apparently you see nothing wrong with that attitude. I respect women’s choices. I respect her choice. It’s the likes of you who denigrate choice and even the expression of opinion if it’s different from yours. Your attitide is that anyone can shoose but if they choose wrong, according to your opinion, they are to be slammed. You would make an excellent totalitarian dictator. Heil Diane.
Diane – when the Comstock Laws were passed, child birth was major killer of women. It wasn’t until after 1945 that women started having babies in the hospital and doctors took control of the birthing system.
My parents and their siblings were all born in hospitals (1925-36).
Apparently you have had abortions yourself, so know exactly why all women have abortions. I don’t see how you could possibly know this if you weren’t one of them, unless you are suggesting that you can get into women’s heads and read their minds. This is exactly what I would expect from a person in favor of forcing women to give birth. Complete and utter ignorance but absolutely sure she knows what other women are thinking. You are a disgrace to women everywhere.
Louise – although Roe in Roe v Wade claimed she had gotten pregnant when she was raped, in reality, her boyfriend got her pregnant. However, her lawyer thought it would make a better case if she claimed to be raped. Now, think how Roe v. Wade would have been decided if she admitted she was impregnated by her boyfriend.
Now, think how Roe v. Wade would have been decided if she admitted she was impregnated by her boyfriend.
Likely about the same way. Blackmun and the five other justices (Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, and Powell – get their criminal names down) were bound and determined to impose their policy preferences. (The Chief Justice it’s a wager cast a vote in favor so that he and not Wm. Brennan would assign the opinion).
DSS – during the time the decision came down, you did the ‘right thing’ and married the woman. That is what my brother did. Or the woman went and stayed with relatives, had the baby and put it up for adoption.
So the mind reader knows exactly what Roe was thinking, who impregnated her and what the lawyer was thinking. You have a very high opinion of yourself and your psychic powers. You should go far. You would deny women control of their own bodies and would force every woman who ever got pregnant by any means to give birth, no matter what she thinks. Join Diane in her desire to create a totalitarian dictatorship, you can plat Goebbles to her Hitler. You are both well-suited to the positions.
Louise – Roe has “outted” herself and joined the Pro-Life forces. I take her at her word. If a woman says her boyfriend got her pregnant, shouldn’t we believe her? Hillary would stand with me.
You can believe anything you want about Roe. She has proven that she’s an idiot who doesn’t know how she got pregnant–or changed her mind when it became convenient. But it doesn’t matter. The issue was a woman’s right to opt for a legal abortion. It was a class action lawsuit, even if it carried her alias. It didn’t matter who brought the case or that “Roe” turned out to be stupid.. There was a whole class of litigants involved in the case by the time it reached the Supreme Court, despite its name. The case was decided on its merits. By the time it reached the Supreme Court it had al ost nothing to do with Roe. It was, at that point, a matter of principle–whether women had the right to control their own reproductive systems. The court should have looked for a sane person to originally bring the case–there were certainly many sane people available–but they chose to stick with the original idiot. But the principle the Court decided had nothing to do with the lack of intelligence of the person who was named for the case. By then it was a principle at stake and the Court ruled on that–correctly, for once. It’s no different than if Oliver Brown of Brown vs the Topeka Board of Education changed his mind and no longer wanted schools to be integrated and that he was happy to send his children to inferior black schools instead of integrated ones. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had changed his mind, the case was in the pipeline, it was also a class action lawsuit, and the Court decided it on principl not on Brown’s position. A change of heart of the named litigant had no bearing on that case any more than did Roe’s descent into stupidity.. The case proceeded on its merits no matter how ignoramt the plaintiff showed herself to be. The Court can’t decide a case depending on the state of mind of the named litigant. The case was a class action suit so there were multiple litigants. The principle was not affected by one lone litigant. Roe did not “own” the case, any more than Brown owned his. For thr record, Brown never changed his position.
Louise – I am not sure where you got your info, probably PP, but it was never a class action. Originally, Texas would only allow an abortion to save the life of the mother. This case was heard with one other by the SC, Doe v Bolton, but Roe is the lead case. However, under normal procedures, Roe would be moot, since she had the child. The case could not even be referred to. Still, the SC carved out an exception for Roe v Wade just like they found a right to privacy out of nowhere.
“A pregnant single woman (Roe) brought a CLASS ACTION challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother’s life. A licensed physician (Hallford), who had two state abortion prosecutions pending against him, was permitted to intervene. A childless married couple (the Does), the wife not being pregnant, separately attacked the laws, basing alleged injury on the future possibilities of contraceptive failure, pregnancy, unpreparedness for parenthood, and impairment of the wife’s health. A three-judge District Court, which consolidated the actions, HELD THAT ROE AND HALFORD AND MEMBERS OF THEIR CLASSES had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies. Ruling that declaratory, though not injunctive, relief was warranted, the court declared the abortion statutes void as vague and overbroadly infringing those plaintiffs’ Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court ruled the Does’ complaint not justiciable. Appellants directly appealed to this Court on the injunctive rulings, and appellee cross-appealed from the District Court’s grant of declaratory relief to Roe and Hallford. . . .
“Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by an abortion “performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions”; that she was unable to get a “legal” abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened by the continuation of her pregnancy; and that she could not afford to travel to another jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions. She claimed that the Texas statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. By an amendment to her complaint Roe purported to sue “ON BEHALF OF HERSELF AND ALL OTHER WOMEN SIMILARLY SITUATED.”
Emphasis added for your benefit.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/113.html
Louise – two people in separate cases does not make a class action.
Then why is it called a class action in the transcriot of the case, quoted by FindLaw? Were they just being ornery?
Louise – FindLaw are just being idiots.
Roe’s change of mind as to who got her pregnant has no bearing on the case. It had become a class action lawsuit. The other litigants did not change their minds about what they were suing for. One litigant out of a whole class had no bearing on the lawsuit. Her change of mind means absolutely nothing. You might as well stop mentioning it. By the time it reached the Supreme Cort the case belonged to Roe in name only. Her change of opinion carried no more weight than the opinions of the other litigants.
Louise – your ignorance of this case is stunning;
Educate me, then. Who else in the case turned tail and ran besides Roe?
Louise – I sent you a comment on the case, however, the internet is your friend.
Of course it is, and it’s yours, too, if you only knew how to use it properly instead of just making wild statements that have no connection to the truth.
Louise – here is Rehnquist’s side of the argument. Kind of makes mince meat out of the liberals.
http://landmarkcases.c-span.org/pdf/Roe_Rehnquist_Dissent.pdf
The issue was a woman’s right to opt for a legal abortion. It was a class action lawsuit,
AFAIK, Norma McCorvey was a single straw plaintiff. There was another plaintiff in Doe v. Bolton. Mespo may correct us here, but I do not either case was a class action.
And, of course, both were wrongly decided (for obvious reasons).
Apparently you have had abortions yourself, so know exactly why all women have abortions. I don’t see how you could possibly know this if you weren’t one of them,
It’s not that difficult to understand abortion as a social phenomenon, Louise, even if understanding defeats Louise. We do not live in a society (and have not lived in one for a generation) wherein it is severely status-lowering for a woman to have a b**tard child. As for the usual triad of ‘rape, incest, save-the-life-of-the-mother’, these are sociological ivory-billed woodpeckers, accounting for a tiny minority of the abortions performed in this country. People have abortions because a child is inconvenient to them (and, perhaps, inconvenient to their immediate relatives). That it is inconvenient is almost invariably indicative of a disordered domestic and amatory life. That’s not something that just happens to people (though people are sometimes blind-sided by events); you get from here to there by the ethic you follow in integrating human sexuality into daily life and through the conduit of what you value (and what you do not value) about men.
This is not a further comment. I am writing here because my email address is coming up incorrectly and I can see no way to change it. This is probably why I have not been receiving email notices of responses to my posts. I am changing it now, hoping the system uses the correct email address. I can see no way to make such a correction on the website.
I am pro choice. I believe in pregnant women having the choice of continuing a pregnancy or not. This means I support the choice of a woman to give up chemotherapy for the sake of her child. It was her choice. But I don’t see her as any more heroic than the woman who has an abortion to protect her family from increasing poverty, and to avoid bringing a child into the world who would be deprived of the necessities of life.
But I don’t see her as any more heroic than the woman who has an abortion to protect her family from increasing poverty, and to avoid bringing a child into the world who would be deprived of the necessities of life.
This is nuts. One makes a personal sacrifice, the other does not. That aside, only a tiny minority in this country are malnourished vagrants, so being ‘deprived of the necessities of life’ is not a likely outcome in any circumstance. The receipt of medical care is more hit-and-miss, but programs for the indigent are pervasive.
My parents adopted my older brother as a baby. His mother was a teenager, I believe. She could so easily have ended one of the best people in the entire world. My brother and my mom are very close, and he is so protective of her, and all of us. He’s clever, and very successful. He has a wonderful life, a great wife, and two wonderful kids, all because his birth mom gave him his best chance. I will always hold nothing but love for his birth mom for having him, and giving him to us.
“But I don’t see her as any more heroic than the woman who has an abortion to protect her family from increasing poverty, and to avoid bringing a child into the world who would be deprived of the necessities of life.”
Well, one choice means actually dying to save the life of another, while the other choice means killing another to maintain your own quality of life. You don’t see personal sacrifice so another could survive as more heroic than forcing that sacrifice on another to avoid any changes to your life?
Personally, I think actually dying to save someone’s life is pretty heroic. There are medals given for that.
Karen S.”Well, one choice means actually dying to save the life of another, while the other choice means killing another to maintain your own quality of life. You don’t see personal sacrifice so another could survive as more heroic than forcing that sacrifice on another to avoid any changes to your life?
“Personally, I think actually dying to save someone’s life is pretty heroic. There are medals given for that.”
She didn’t die to save anyone’s life. She knew all along that her own chances of survival were next to zero even if she had had the chemotherapy. All she did was bring another motherless child into the world. I don’t fault her for her decision. I fault the maudlin opinions expressed here about her heroism. There are two sides to every coin.
Louise, you seem suddenly to have forgotten your previous claim that Carrie DeKlyen ought to have chosen to spend as much time as could with her family.
BTW, how is it that you don’t fault Carrie DeKlyen for her decision whilst exclaiming that all she did was bring another motherless child into the world?
I do think it was an unwise decision, but I defend her right to make it. It’s you who would deny women the right to choose as long as they choose what you disagree with. It isn’t a choice if a woman is forced to give birth, but that’s exactly what you are suggesting–that every woman who becomes pregnant by any means be forced to give birth or be publicly shamed becaise you demand it. I favor choice, even this woman’s choice. You are the one who wants to deny women choice and would force every pregnant woman to give birth. If we lived in the world you prefer, this woman who was going to die would not have had a choice of giving birth. She would automatically be forced to do so. No one would be complimenting her sacrifice because she would have been prevented from making a sacrifice.. She would have been forced to give birth no matter what she thought. That is not a sacrifice. It would be doing what she is being forced to do. That isn’t choice and it isn’t sacrifice.
Louise, stop accusing me of being prop-life. I am pro-choice. Your accusations to the contrary will not change that Louise. Stop lumping people together.
I can’t helpt if you sound like a rabid anti abortionist when you practically kissed the feet of the woman who decided to give birth rather than take chemotherapy, leaving six chidren motherless. It may be your serious lack of writing skills that confused me. Don’t worry, though, I wouldn’t lump you in with anyone with at least half a functioning brain. It would be so unfair to the other person. I’m glad to hear you’re pro-choice though and would not force any woman to give birth against her will. That gives me a great deal of hope.
Louise/Inga – let’s call a spade a spade. Pro-choice is really pro-death, so you are on the pro-death side. I am Pro-Life and I wear that badge with honor. Do you wear your Pro-Death badge with honor?