Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s ”” and their first son just over a year old ”” when this spring the woman became pregnant a second time. Seven weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ont., resident was carrying twins. “It came as a complete shock,” said the mother, who asked not to be named. “We’re both career people. If we were going to have three children two years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids. … All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen.”
She soon discovered another option: Doctors could “reduce” the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses ”” and has become increasingly common in the past two decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies.
Selective reductions are typically carried out for women pregnant with triplets or greater, where the risk of harm or death climbs sharply with each additional fetus. The Ontario couple is part of what some experts say is a growing demand for reducing twins to one, fuelled more by socio-economic imperatives than medical need, and raising vexing new ethical questions.
Experts question whether parents should choose to terminate a fetus just because of the impact the child would have on their lives, and note that even more medically necessary reductions can trigger lifelong angst and even threaten marriages.
Read it all (Hat tip:DT).
“Selective reductions”, risk reductions, whatever you call them, whatever the circumstances, it’s just abortion, and it’s just murder. This is what happens when people put the wrong things first. But then, if God is not recognized as part of their lives, then whatever moral/ethical compass they use will be wonky.
Disgusting. Of course we all know that eminent TEC theologians support and celebrate this choice.
Ordinariate bound adoptive father of twins
Selective reduction has been standard practice for years- several years ago the NY Times Sunday Magazine, not surprisingly, featured an article by the femalle partner of a shacked-up couple who selectively reduced two children in her womb that she might have just one trophy child who would not damp her life style nor interfere with her career. No regret, no handwring, no moral hesitation. She had a living breathing toy. What more could today’s liberated woman want?
I recall a case a couple of years ago (in Italy, I believe), in which it was determined that one of a set of twins had Down Syndrome. The mother wanted that fetus aborted and the “normal” fetus to continue to develop. Well, guess what? The doctors aborted the “normal” fetus by mistake and then had to abort the Down Syndrome fetus, too, because that’s what the original procedure was supposed to accomplish. I think it was divine justice that the woman was left childless.
Great parents. We need more parents like this don’t we?
Groan. Larry
Heartbreaking, really.
“The Ontario couple is part of what some experts say is a growing demand for reducing twins to one, fuelled more by socio-economic imperatives than medical need, and raising vexing new ethical questions”.
‘Socio-economic imperatives’–what a pretty phrase for truly “inconvenience”.
An OB friend of mine(who will not have anything to do with abortion) says that the abortion rates are highest amongst teen mothers and mothers over 40. The latter, I imagine, are used to life as it is and/or wrapped up in their career, and don’t necessarily want the “inconvenience” that pregnancy and a child, or another child, can bring. Too many also believe there’s no need for birth control at that age. One of my friends, though, just had a natural, beautiful, wanted conception at the age of 44 and her son is now the joy of her life. I saw a similar thing in a 47-year-old mother who now has a lovely little daughter.
Pity the doctors don’t keep them awake as they’re doing these “reductions”–if you could watch the doctor still that beating heart on ultrasound, you might not be so cavalier about doing it. For a detailed description on what happens during “reduction”, read Liza Mundy’s “Everything Conceivable”.
Appalling…