There are two ways to sin. One is through action, the other through mission of inaction.

If you are dying, and I cannot save your life, this is a tragedy. If you are dying, and I could have saved your life had I not refused to do so, then this is a murder.

The Catholic Church murdered a woman in Ireland today. For her family, this was the last day of her life. But for Benedict, this was just another day.

If you think a fetus is equivalent to a person with 31 years of life experiences, friends, love, education and all the rest, you are not qualified to make medical decisions for others.

Reminds me of an activist sticker project from the 90s "Pro life your names a lie you don't care when women die"

I'm hoping her family sues the living shit out of the people involved so they think twice about risking anymore women's lives.

Where is your gift from God now?

The more I think about the phrase "right to life," the more I wonder what it means.

No fetus has a right to life. Nature is fickle and it's all a crapshoot, anyway. Some large number of fetuses are defective -- these are the majority of first-trimester miscarriages. Lots can go wrong later, too, before birth. A fetus isn't alive in any independent sense. It lives in a womb as an incubant (or whatever the noun form of something being incubated is) of its mother, living on her blood and flesh. And that woman should have the right to un-volunteer for that arrangement.

This woman had 31 years in the world. An education, a personality, love & hopes, a profession, a family, friends and patients who depended on her. Thirty-one years of invested life, a life that could have been easily saved by a fairly uncomplicated surgical procedure.

Fuck the damned Catholics and their war on sex, women and abortion.

Good job, everyone, for ignoring the anonymous comments - so far. Their volume can only mean that the troll is back. DO NOT ENGAGE.

@9: If God intended for both the fetus and the mother to die for some unfathomable reason, I'm pretty sure I could do a better job?

PS: God doesn't exist.

@1,2,3: No one thinks you are three people, you may as well just post all that tripe in one comment.

As for your last question, statistics are not really available for the last year or so, but according to the CDC, it is about nine deaths per year since 2007. More people are killed by vending machines. 640 women die in the US every year in childbirth, and roughly 800 women die every day globally during childbirth.

You should ask your god why he aborts so many children every year. Only about 1 in 5 pregnancies get carried to term, so that means that god is aborting about 20 million babies a year in the United States (the vast majority of which happens before the woman even knows she is pregnant).

Christ, what an asshole, right?

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml…

@14: Sorry Denver Matt, but the troll is not going anywhere (SLOG is his life), and he is my circus style entertainment on slow work days.

Besides, who else is going to be on the "let women die" side of the debate to argue with?

@ 20, he would if everyone ignored him.

Here's a suggestion for our resident troll-feeders: How about logging off and engaging with these twerps anonymously yourselves? Put "2.0" or something after your real screen name. Or come up with a clever line for your "posted by" - that can be part of the challenge.

Just so people know, I do find it amusing to see responses to comments that I have hidden. I've compared it to "Garfield without Garfield" before. So it's not like I'm pissed that everyone keeps the troll going when he could have disappeared years ago. But I do wonder why you feel the need to answer.

This is the problem with the so-called "life of the mother" exception. It means that somebody other than the woman is given the power and authority to make a decision that should only be made by the woman herself, in consultation with whomever she chooses.

I didn't know that Ireland was still caught up with that Catholic nonsense. Wonder how many women die each year in similar situations.

@22:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blastula

≠

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby

In 2007 the same country used a new regime of education, law enforcement, and engineering to reduce auto deaths; like preventable deaths are preventable or something.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/week…

@23: I understand the ignore the trolls thing, but I also don't believe in hiding comments. Everyone has a voice, even if they use theirs to be a moron.

@14: It's posts like this one that make me glad that our more vitriolic resident trolls haven't registered, and that Slog provides the option to hide unregistered comments by default. Given the content of this post, I don't need to read the unregistered comments to know I'd wish something horrible on the know-nothing coward who is trying so very hard to disgust the rest of us.

It seems that stories like this are the reason that there is an Ireland and a Northern Ireland. Some people would prefer to not have their neighbor's beliefs in a vengeful sky-fairy dictate their lives, or determine their death. As others have said, "For good people to do evil, that takes religion."

@23: Oh Matty, he is just part of the wallpaper. The little feral child in our society here. Usually ignored, but fun to watch once in a while for the morbid, guilty thrill. To be fair, he typically does stay on topic, more than I can say for Sgt. Doom and Bailo.

Furthermore, if we keep talking about the troll, then the conversation will get derailed and then you will be the troll. Sweet irony, right?

Fuck religion.

If god existed as religionists portray it, I'd rather go to hell than spend one second with a sadistic monster like that.

@ 28, then everyone can register. As the troll commonly referred to as alleged has in the past, on several occasions, and always ends up being banned for violating the posting policies of The Stranger. (@ 29, I want to bring your attention to that, too.)

Keep in mind that forums like this are private, despite the ability of anyone on the web to access it. We are all allowed to comment here at The Stranger's pleasure, and they can revoke that whenever they want to. It wouldn't deny us a voice; it would only deny us an audience.

37

Fixed?

Matt has thoroughly derailed this topic. Again.

The story is horrible - they can only use foetal heartbeat to make the decision to terminate or remove? That's seriously fucked up.

@36, and EVERYONE

Close html tages by adding a / after the <

We will use italics as an example (take out the spaces):
< / i >

If you can open the tag you can close it.

That is all.

If someone fails at this as above, typically typing three or four close tags will fix it, as it appears Delishuss has done.

@ 37, thanks! What did you do?

@ 38, bitch, please. Even if it were true that I have a history of doing that, you're a big fat hypocrite once you went along with me. (Perhaps you're made that I'm right?)

@36 - What's the "classic, original" definition of a troll? Seattleblues didn't post just to make us mad? Ecce homo did that on a regular basis - and back then we were all unregistered.

I understand where you're going with this though, and I don't entirely disagree, but I think that completely ignoring unregistereds doesn't mean they'll go away. I also don't think that Alleged is just one person, even if they share commonalities. At least they're spending time here where they can't do any active harm.

@40 - okay, I chuckled at the "bitch please." I meant just this thread for the record, first by calling attention to the troll by saying to ignore it and then by breaking slog. Full disclosure: I've done the same, but not the same thread. At least I don't think I have, lol.

Bonus - perhaps our witty banter will push this topic into the top threads list so more people can get outraged and informed.

@ 41/42: If you won't flame me, I won't flame you. Deal?

As to your question about SB, et al... No. I believe they were all motivated by a desire to make us see things the way they do. LC in particular, Ecce to almost the same extent. SB was closest to a troll because he was trying to give us a big fuck you, but he wanted us to know why. He had reasons, and insisted it wasn't just hate.

As for the topic at hand, yes, it's an outrage. I already tweeted and FB'd it out, though, which is the best way to get the word spread. Dan's done that, too, and he has way, WAY more followers than me :)

@1: I was unaware abortions killed babies. This whole time I thought it was the fetus I was ending.

@9: You can apply for positions that don't exist?

It's not just Ireland. El Salvador has a total ban on abortion, even when the mother's life is in danger. Also, see this current Urgent Action from Amnesty International:

UA: 316/12 Index: AMR 29/007/2012 El Salvador Date: 25 October 2012

URGENT ACTION

salvadoran woman SUFFERING ill-treatment

Salvadoran woman “Mery” is being denied access to her legal counsel and the medical treatment she urgently needs. She is suffering cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment.

Abortion is criminalised in all circumstances in El Salvador. In February 2012, “Mery” (27) sought a clandestine induced abortion using medication at her eighth week of pregnancy. She also sought medical assistance after taking the medication, as she was worried some of the symptoms she was experiencing were out of the ordinary. Various medical staff at the hospital where she sought medical assistance reported “Mery” to the police and she was arrested immediately. She was in a state of high distress and panic. Despite her physical and mental condition, she was handcuffed to the stretcher and kept under police guard.

“Mery’s” mental health was very delicate and deteriorating. On 28 August “Mery” was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for an induced abortion. The judge insisted she serve her sentence in prison, which prevented “Mery” from receiving the psychological treatment and support she required.

Whilst in the Centre for the Rehabilitation of Women in the City of Ilopango, Department of San Salvador (Centro de Readaptación para Mujeres de la Ciudad de Ilopango, Departamento de San Salvador) on 3 September, “Mery” attempted suicide by using a rusty nail to cut her wrists. She was transferred to the Psychiatric Department of the Arce Policlinic-Hospital (Servicio de Psiquiatría del Hospital Policlínico Arce), where she currently remains handcuffed and under 24-hour guard. Some of the guards have insulted her, calling her a “murderer”. They, and other state officials, have prevented her from gaining access to legal counsel and psychological support. The permanent use of handcuffs is also having a negative impact on “Mery’s” mental health and her mental and physical condition is deteriorating.

“Mery’s” case and real name are known to the authorities.

Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:

Urging the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release “Mery”

Calling on the authorities to prevent any further ill-treatment and order the immediate unfettered access by “Mery” to legal counsel, psychological and medical treatment, as well as the immediate removal of the handcuffs;

Urging the authorities to decriminalise abortion in all circumstances.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 6 DECEMBER 2012 TO:

�

Minister of Justice and Public Security

Gen. David Munguía Payés

Ministerio de Justicia y Seguridad Pública, Alameda Juan Pablo II y 17 Av. Norte

San Salvador, El Salvador

Fax: +503 2281 5959

Salutation: Dear Minister/Sr Ministro

Director of Social Security

Dr. Leonel Flores

Director General del Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social

Alameda Juan Pablo II y 39 Avenida Norte, Edificio El Salvador, San Salvador, El Salvador

Fax: +503 22 61 14 36 (say "tono de fax")

Email: comunicaciones@isss.gob.sv

Salutation: Dear Dr/Estimado Dr

And copies to:

The Citizens Group for the Decriminalisation of Therapeutic, Ethical and Eugenic Abortion

Agrupación Ciudadana por la Despenalización del aborto terapéutico, ético y eugenésico

Fax: +503 2226 0356 (say “tono de fax”)

Email: agrupacionporladespenalizacion@gmail.com�

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.

Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

URGENT ACTION

el salvadoran woman SUFFERING ill-treatment

ADditional Information
Sexual and reproductive rights are grounded in human rights that are recognized in international human rights treaties, regional standards, national constitutions and other relevant human rights standards. The realization of sexual and reproductive rights requires respect for rights relating to physical and mental integrity, including the rights to life, to liberty and security of person; to freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and to privacy and respect for family life, as well as rights related to freedom of conscience and expression and freedom from discrimination. These rights correspond directly to the principles underpinning sexual and reproductive rights – the physical and mental integrity of the individual, his or her autonomy, and the principle of non-discrimination on grounds such as gender, race, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or socioeconomic status.

Sexual and reproductive rights are central to the realization of every individual’s human rights. Respect for these rights is essential to human dignity and to the enjoyment of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being. Their fulfilment enhances life and personal relationships and helps to achieve gender equality and empowerment. All people must be allowed to enjoy their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion, discrimination and violence.

In June 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women expressed grave concern at the situation of violence against women in El Salvador, and warned that government inaction on the investigation, prosecution and reparation for such crimes had lead to a situation of impunity for gender based violence.

In her report the UN Special Rapporteur also urged the government to review the laws which ban abortion in all circumstances, even where the life or health of the woman or girl is at stake or she is a victim of rape.

Name: “Mery” (real name known to authorities)

Gender m/f: f

UA: 316/12 Index: AMR 29/007/2012 Issue Date: 25 October 2012

Several online journals are covering this story, and I particularly liked what Mary Elizabeth Williams over at Salon had to say: "This is what happens when a nation drags its concept of God into medical decisions. This is what happens when doctors are cruelly thwarted in doing the job of saving people. And that’s why if you ignore the health and safety of women and you call yourself “pro-life” you are nothing but a sad, sick joke."

@11 (Brooklyn Reader) Do I recall that you have noted before that you are a Quaker? If true, your comment above shows your faith and your tolerance in a wonderful way. Thank you.

Oh no, I responded to the troll. I hope this doesn't make Matt from Denver's panties bunch up any further.

If what Richard Mourdock said is true, "I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.", then this must also be true, "I think even when a pregnancy ends in that horrible situation of abortion, that it is something that God intended to happen."

Matt, there's a firefox extension floating around someplace that collapses the comments of people you choose. Somebody made it a couple of years back so they could tune out the Will & Fnarf circus. You could download it, install it, and just add people who feed trolls so you don't have to sit through one side of a conversation with a mental deficient. Just a thought I've entertained on occasion (but haven't yet acted on - I usually just stop reading the comments after the second instance).

Religion is poison for the brain... and obviously a death sentence for some women. Horrible.

@ 49, LOL. You're the one who doesn't like seeing photos of pregnant women. Bunched panties are a 24/7 thing with you.

@ 52, I have that, but save it only for the handful of people who never, ever write anything worth reading. Nobody feeding the troll today fits that bill. I have eight people blocked, and I think half of them have been banned.

Re-read @ 23. I'm not sitting here being mad about this. All my comments since my first are answers to people who addressed me. (Other than where I broke Slog.) But I'm glad to discuss this and get people to think about feeding alleged, even if it means going off topic. (You want to talk about things that will never change? Threads going off topic will never change.)

Such a sad story. Regardless of one's opinion on abortion, this is a horrible story. It would seem that some who troll might see this as a slippery slope scenario: If we let this mother live then it may cause other abortions. I don't get that logic. Her death neither implies that all abortions are good decisions. But her situation is a clear example that the health of the mother has to matter. She has a right to life too.

@43 - That explanation makes sense, especially the part about them making sure we understood why.

@52 - I've been so tempted too, but also have never done it.

Holy crap, the phone mangled that sentence.

I have been tempted too, but have never installed it.

I heart you Matt.
Personally I love it when I see a long string of unregistered comments. It brings me joy to know that Alleged is banging, banging, banging on the glass that separates him from the party, desperate for some one to turn and glance his way. It's mean I know, but his suffering when ignored is just so tasty.

@39
< / unregistered troll >

it sounds like there was failure to follow even basic standards of care. this woman should have been on antibiotics as soon as her water broke in this situation, to leave her for three days without prophylaxis was criminal.
to leave her with her dying fetus causing her pain and endangering her life was inhuman.

@58, something "unusual" has not happened. Humans are a species that spontaneously ovulate. Sperm lives on average 3 days in the human body. These two events occur during the same time period. But "Will of God" works if you're ignorant to the science, purposely or otherwise.

This is so so sad. My heart goes out to this poor woman's family.

I can only hope that incidents like this help people realize that the words "pro-life" are bullshit marketing fluff because the more accurate "anti-women" just doesn't sound very good.

Also, I hope her family sues the shit out of the hospital, the government, and the Catholic Church. (If that's even possible. I don't know squat about the Irish legal system)

This is how we can tell people who are truly pro-life from the hypocrites who are just anti-abortion. Real pro-lifers will be arm in arm with us on this, just like real pro-choicers defend a woman's right to continue her pregnancy when she wants to. Everyone who thinks that modern medical science can always save mother and child should pay attention. This woman died in a modern hospital in a first-world country.

If they didn't want the fetus to necessarily die, then they should have removed it and put it on life support. Seventeen weeks is far below the time of external viability, but it's better to have a few hours of life in an incubator than spend a few days killing its mother..

And yes, @65, this is one time when suing the crud out of things might help.

This had nothing to do with God. It was caused by a human institution, the Church, and one particular human, the dictator who controls the Church. Benedict could have prevented this and all other such tragedies but chooses not to.

@58,

Rape results in more pregnancies than consensual sex even when the victims use birth control.

Matt - the problem occurred when you tried to close a bold with a close-italic html tag:

< b >alleged< / i >

Easy mistake. You can see it when you preview the comment before you make the final post, but now I can't remember if you get the preview if you comment when you're already signed in. (I almost never stay signed in.)

As for why a close bold tag in a later comment sometimes fixes it and sometimes doesn't... Slog gnomes? TSARY prank?

@68 Actually, Irish law says nothing, which is one of the issues involved here. The Supreme court ruled that in cases where the mother's life was in danger, abortion should be legal, but no legislation has been written to account for this, leaving doctors in legal limbo. At a minimum, that should be pushed through now

@29 - Actually, Northern Ireland has very similar laws regarding abortion, only permitting it in the cases where there is a risk to the mother's health.

It really is a ridiculous state of affairs as many women seeking terminations in Ireland will just travel across to the UK and have it done in private clinics. It is the most vulnerable women - the young, the poor, the disenfranchised - who have no ability to travel to the UK that are most badly affected by an unwanted pregnancy and are therefore most in need of access to termination.

I'd be interested to see what the EU's court on human rights has to say about this. It recently spanked Poland for trying to deny a teenage rape victim an abortion, which is permitted under Polish law, but that didn't keep doctors, law enforcement officers, and other assorted freaks from harassing the girl and her mother before she finally got her abortion.

@25 the Catholic Church still has a strong hold on the Republic. Years ago when I lived in Derry (London Derry to unionists) I met a young Protestant who really opened my eyes to the whole conflict. He explained that as a Protestant in the north, he was viewed by the Irish (both in the Republic and those Catholics living the north) as being English but when went to England he was viewed as Irish.
He said he liked the idea of joining the republic but only when they became as secular as the UK. Being gay and Protestant would be quite difficult in a self-described Catholic nation.
And troll, this was a medical screw up, but it was aided by a fanatical sense of pro-lifeiness. But your world view doesn't seem to allow a deeper understanding of cultural context and how it interacts with the law.

To the obnoxious troll.
You've ranted quite a bit about how important fetus's are and how we shouldn't allow women to get abortions. Please tell me exactly how preventing this woman from getting an abortion helped her fetus. The fetus was dying. The choice here was never to kill a child or not to kill a child. The only choice available was to save the life of the woman or not save the life of the woman. They chose not to save the life of this woman. Please explain exactly how that choice was "pro-life".

@ 72, thanks for that. I was wondering how I forgot to close the tag - using the wrong tag explains that.

Now, if the slog masters can figure out how to make an error message appear that prevents it from posting in the first place. I've seen blogs with fugly, outdated styles and features that won't let you post when you fuck up the tags. How come Slog allows it?

Various studies cite the rate of pregnancies that end in miscarriage anywhere from 10-65%. This one says 31%:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/27/us/stu…

Miscarriages are nature or biology (or some would say God) indicating that all the conditions that produce a healthy baby are not present. It may be problems with the fetus or the mother. In many cases, the cause is not known.

So to assert that all the pregnancies that are terminated by abortion would have resulted in a live birth is simply factually wrong.

The question I want to ask the faithful is: Being that we are all God's creations, why can we not use our medical knowledge and our wisdom in determining which pregnancies will result in a child being born? In addition to the physiologically factors which create miscarriages, there are social, psychological, and yes, financial factors that indicate conditions are not right to continue a pregnancy.

That whole debate doesn't even apply to the tragic situation in the Irish story. They chose to sacrifice the life of the pregnant woman to allow the heart to beat for a few more days in a fetus they knew would never survive. No argument for that will ever make sense to me.

@79 Slog is a libertarian utopia. Hence why the trolls are allowed to roam free and you have to deal with the consequences of error with no help from the top only other individuals. Or they're just lazy.

i just wish that religion, politics, and medical necessity were not intertwined. this catholic shit it out of control man. fuck them.

@76 the EU Court of Human Rights ruled two years ago that the Irish government has violated the rights of women by withholding access to abortion - the government have still failed to act, even 20 years after the first such case was ruled upon by the Irish Supreme Court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A,_B_and_C_…

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_Ge…

Well damn. Now I want to know who Matt has blocked.

I'm in agreement with @78 (Root). This woman wasn't seeking an abortion for convenience. She was miscarrying the child. The baby was going to die and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

The woman, however, did not have to die. Had they done a D&C, and administered antibiotics appropriately, she likely would have survived this, although I'm sure she wouldn't have been happy about losing the baby.

This wasn't a choice to abort or not to abort. The choice was to save the life of this woman or not and the doctors choose to not save her life in favor of extending the life of the fetus that was dying and killing her in the process.

If this is "God's will" then why do we even have doctors in the first place? Then, cancer, heart disease, small pox, plague, and all other diseases are also "God's will". Who are we to try and stop them?

@84: I know! Me too!

@80. Sorry to post anonymous, but as a recent graduate of nursing school and proud of her LPN-- Any medical study over 10+ in a field is not considered a valid source. You should find more recent OB studies to reference, as there is.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/…

@80, @88 There are an awful lot of fertilized eggs that never implant, for whatever reason. And even of those that do implant, it's difficult to estimate how many defective blastocysts spontaneously abort, since few signs of pregnancy may be present and it's not anything that gets tracked. How many sexually active women having their period arrive late each month were briefly pregnant? Nobody knows. A dead blastocyst and a bunch of sloughed cells from the uterine lining don't look all that different to the naked eye.

What really pisses me off about the current abortion "debate" is the way the Bible-based "pro-lifers" adopt snippets of knowledge from modern science to support their position. That's not how science works. You can't pick and choose little snippets of reality when it's convenient to your theological argument and ignore the rest the rest of the time. They should stick to their Bibles. The traditional, Biblical definition of human life is pretty much the same one mankind used up until a couple decades ago. Breathing air with your own two lungs, after possibly a little swat on the bottom to jump-start things. Until then, human (and all) reproduction is just a sequence of potentials, even with all our scientifically-revealed knowledge of many of the details.

This expressed desire from the right-wing religious anti-abortion zealots, to declare every fertilized egg a human being, is pure craziness. Hmmm... Can we make them spend $10,000 on an elaborate funeral for every one that spontaneously dies? For the glory of God, and all that?

It's better to kill a pre-sentient fetus than to torment a sentient child by bringing it into the world unwelcome, unwanted, unloved, and/or unsupported ... or than to let its mother die against her will.

You know, people bitch and moan about the USA's tort system, but fuck: a healthy fear of being sued into smithereens and having their malpractice insurance premiums quintuple might have made a few of these idiots second-guess their own blithe bullshit about "oh, it's a Catholic country" and consider some other options.

@90: "The traditional, Biblical definition of human life is pretty much the same one mankind used up until a couple decades ago. Breathing air with your own two lungs, after possibly a little swat on the bottom to jump-start things."

I wouldn't say that was exactly the definition- as pointed out in Roe vs. Wade, it was basically acceptable to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester for centuries, but once it "quickened" (aka you could feel it moving), it had a soul and was supposed to be kept. That's actually part of what derived the trimester-system: in the first trimester, you can terminate your pregnancy for any reason, partly because the fetus is fairly inconsequential, but partly because that's the way it's been for centuries. Third trimester abortion is pretty restricted for similar reasons- traditionally, delivering in the third trimester would get you a premature/stillborn baby, not a miscarriage.

Funny thing about the "life starts at conception" angle is that is not even biblically supported:

Leviticus 17:11:

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood"

Therefore, one could argue biblically that until the fetus becomes infused with blood, roughly seven weeks in, it is not actually alive, and therefore not a person.

@74: Thank you for that bit of information. The best I could find in my search was Wikipedia's "Abortion law" article, and it doesn't make a distinction between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Abortion to me is about ownership. Do we allow slavery or do we only recognize self-ownership?
Thousands die each year in need of kidneys and livers transplants. We can donate these organs while living and for the most part survive the donation without complications. Yet people die because we do not give a right for anyone, even when dying to demand human parts from the living (or the dead for that matter). Yet when this equation is a woman, there is arguing that a fetus and society have full rights to demand partial ownership of women’s bodies. Women who stand up for our full citizenship rights are too often painted as blood thirsty murderers or too ignorant to understand.