conuly | I could just scream.....

Current Mood: pissed off

Letters to the Times. The important section is the one about last week's Lives article - a woman carrying triplets decided to abort two of them.

I sat in stunned silence after reading the Lives column about Amy Richards (as told to Amy Barrett, July 18).

The casualness of Richards's decision to decide which fetus to keep was heartbreaking beyond words. The surviving child is the doomed one.

How the fuck do you know if it was a casual choice? Maybe she agonized over it (pity I don't have the actual text to referenced) but didn't feel it was all worth putting in here. Even if it WAS a casual choice, what, does that mean her childrearing will be "casual"?

Of all the reasons for having an abortion, I never thought that the prospect of living in Staten Island and shopping at Costco would be among them.

Well, yeah, I like Staten Island myself, but who cares? What difference does it make WHY she had an abortion? I think the implied "a lot less money for us and the kid(s)" is a valid reason to not have as many children as possible.

I would suggest that "one is too many" for a woman who risks unwanted pregnancies by not taking the pill because it makes her moody, who is not married and who is willing to eliminate innocent offspring out of inconvenience.

My compassion goes to those infertile readers of this horrible and horribly cavalier story.

Of course. She should take a medication that SHE HAS A BAD REACTION TO so that she doesn't have kids. And she should get married - why? Is there a law now? As for infertile readers, well, seriously, another person's problems have nothing to do with you.

I am speechless. As the mother of multiples (identical twin daughters), I was hoping there would be a different ending. I used to think I was pro-choice. Not anymore. Not after reading that Richards wanted to "get rid of one of them. Or two of them."

So now you think that no woman should be having abortions. Riiiiight. Do you not realize that having multiples greatly increases the risk of birth defects? Up until partway through the last century, triplets routinely died. All of them, not just one or two of the set. And while triplets are likely to survive nowadays, they still are prone to serious birth defects. Aside from that, even if nothing goes wrong in the pregnancy and birth, let's look at raising the kids. It's hard enough raising one baby, let alone two or three. Can you imagine? It's more than three times as hard, and just about more than three times as expensive. Not everybody has that sort of time, energy, or money.

Though I respect Richards's right to choose — and she obviously has a keen awareness of that right — I find it surprising that she seems to have neglected adoption as one of her possible choices. There are people who would have been thrilled to raise her twins. I suspect that the joy of helping someone start a family might ease the burden of a difficult pregnancy.

Like I said before, it's not just a difficult pregancy, it's also risks for the kids. And, honestly, those people who want to adopt already have options. There's no deficit in children who need families. If she'd had the twins, and put them up for adoption, that just means another two babies would go unadopted. Aside from all that, I can only imagine the choice between "which baby" would get harder once the kids were born. A fetus is a blob, but an infant is something you can see, and will eventually be somebody who can come back and ask why you gave him up.

The issue of having children, how many and the choice of when and even if one bears them once conceived is among the toughest an individual will ever make. There will always be those who say the rules in life are simple and inflexible, but life really isn't that way.

Thank you.

Edit: The original article is here

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

neurotica0.livejournal.com

I say thank you to the last response as well.

I was unaware that there was an abortion procedure that could single out one or more z/e/fs in a pregnancy that contained multiples. I was under the impression that the procedures of both a medical and a surgical abortion would terminate the entire pregnancy--not that it could be used to eliminate one or more z/e/fs in particular, while leaving other(s). Do you, by chance, have any information on how such an abortion is preformed? Perhaps I am just wrong about the procedures.

From:

conuly

I do not know how they perform such an abortion, but selective reduction is an option, one that's usually reccommended to people who are carrying more than three children, I think. From what I remember of the description in the Lives article last week, it's kinda squickish.

The only link I have offhand on the subject is very biased, so I'm only offering it as a curioisity

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] </a>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

I do not know how they perform such an abortion, but selective reduction <i>is</i> an option, one that's usually reccommended to people who are carrying more than three children, I think. From what I remember of the description in the Lives article last week, it's kinda squickish.

The only link I have offhand on the subject is <i>very biased</i>, so I'm only offering it as a curioisity <a href="here"</a>.

From:

conuly

Hey! My link didn't work! Try this.

From:

j3ss.livejournal.com

Yeah, I read those too. Sometimes I wonder about people. Especially since I would think NYT readers would be most apt to share my values.

From:

conuly

Seriously. *sighs*

From:

georgiapeachy.livejournal.com

The article makes her seem rather selfish, but she has a right to be that way. I understand how people would be offended by the article, even those who consider themselves pro-choide, because it focuses on the inconvience of having childen/taking the pill etc., not health issues. It would have been helpful to discuss the health issues of reduction more, namely that it can reduce all the children and not just the ones you don't want.
I am also surprised by the unusual nature of her pregnancy, given a set of twins and an older "stand-alone." Pregnancies like that are highly unusual and normally not natural, I believe Discovery did an article on them recently and almost all of them are a result of fertility drugs.

From:

conuly

If the pill affects her physically, that is a health issue. And it mentions that she'd be on bed rest for two months - at her busiest time of year. She's supposed to give up a good portion of her income right before she has three children (with the costs that come with so many)? Okay, sorry, got righteously indignant again :)

Besides, it's an op-ed type piece. It's not supposed to discuss every facet of the procedure.

I am also surprised by the unusual nature of her pregnancy, given a set of twins and an older "stand-alone." Pregnancies like that are highly unusual and normally not natural, I believe Discovery did an article on them recently and almost all of them are a result of fertility drugs.

Huh. Interesting. *files this fact away for future reference*

From:

atdelphi.livejournal.com

Somebody should remember that when it comes to children, quality trumps quanitity any day. Would this letter-writer prefer three children in the world living with a mother too poor and too stressed to give them the best upbringing, or one healthy child upon whom a mother can focus all the time, money, and attention she feels she's capable of?

Child-rearing != Costco.

From:

ladytalon.livejournal.com

I respect Richards's right to choose — and she obviously has a keen awareness of that right.

Why does that seem snarky? What, exactly, is wrong with knowing your rights? I don't get that. *puzzles*

I think the article put the mother in a horrible light. Saying that she's taking it casually.. as you pointed out, how do we know she's not agonizing over it? If she was really, truly casual about getting rid of two of the babies, why doesn't she get rid of all three?