Abortion (Pro-life/pro-choice/both)?

[ResearchMonkey]

Abortion (Pro-life is the choice)?

Not that I think you would, but there are those that would retaliate on me by filing ethics grievances to the governing boards of which I am member of. These reports matter and they are permanent no matter the findings (as well as raise the insurnace cost). So I’m not willing to open myself to that here.

The emphasis is on behavioral psychology, psychopharmacology.

Right now I am limited in diagnosis from DSM-IV. I can commit someone to psychiatric ward (W&I 5150, 5151). I can recommend medications but cannot prescribe them.

I am in a relatively new field that that is in the process of becoming its own separate licensure. The educational infrastructure is not fully ready to support the criteria of the laws that will govern the field. I have reciprocity in several countries, every state, and licenseing in most.

Once the educational component is complete I will need to take 3~4 more classes.

Once the laws are enacted I will be able to prescribe a variety of psychiatric medication under the supervision of a qualified psychiatrist. (like a physicians assistant). I will also have the charge to make limited diagnosis from the ICD-9 codes.

LCSW’s will be required to have another year of education to practice in this cross-over field.

I have 2.75 years of master’s level education, and was on one of 3 teams that developed the new model of treatment that has now been adopted by the state.

I have taken the last year off to raise my children, and help with the educational aspect. I also have several unrelated business dealings that I have become more involved with.

My wife is a practicing supervisor in the field, she also teaches phys & pharm, and law and ethics at the master’s level at two CSU campuses.

Ha! I’m an un-domesticated house wife.

* * * * * * * * * * *
We are getting dismal here.

“Sperm>Egg” was representative of the egg diving right in there J

Once an egg divides, there is no doubt it is alive.

Potentiality doesn't equal actuality

Then don’t make plans for the week-end! Since you only have the potential to be alive tomorrow.

We already do what we are able to do to prevent miscarriges.

I see a pattern, you have been skillfully avoiding the most blatant questions I have asked.

 

[MrBishop]

Ditto...but if you retype copy/paste those questions...I shall attempt to answer them in my best pseudo-Liberal way.

Lay on MacDuff...lay on!

 

[Gonz]

From another thread...

For the record, I am not Pro-Life, though I'd like to think everybody was for life, in general. I am unabashedly anti self-deceiving. The choice belongs to the woman. Kill it or don't. Just don't confuse your mass of cells with your fingernails. You'll not regret cutting your nails in 10 years or call it a tough decision.

 

[Gonz]

I've spent my youth not giving a shit one way or another. As I've aged, I've changed my stance to reflect the truth. Abortion is & should be legal, for those rare times when it may be needed. I assume anyone having one has a respectable reason. Anyone having multiples needs to reevaluate their life. Something is amiss. Yet, as awful as abortion is legal it remains.

This question is rhetorical. I hope it, in relation to the following article (which I plead with you to read all the way through), sheds some light on why so many are anti-abortion & that list is growing.

If handguns should be made illegal for civilians to posses due to the actions of a few...

When One Is Enough
By AMY RICHARDS as told to AMY BARRETT
Published: July 18, 2004


I grew up in a working-class family in Pennsylvania not knowing my father. I have never missed not having him. I firmly believe that, but for much of my life I felt that what I probably would have gained was economic security and with that societal security. Growing up with a single mother, I was always buying into the myth that I was going to be seduced in the back of a pickup truck and become pregnant when I was 16. I had friends when I was in school who were helping to rear nieces and nephews, because their siblings, who were not much older, were having babies. I had friends from all over the class spectrum: I saw the nieces and nephews on the one hand and country-club memberships and station wagons on the other. I felt I was in the middle. I had this fear: What would it take for me to just slip?

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Now I'm 34. My boyfriend, Peter, and I have been together three years. I'm old enough to presume that I wasn't going to have an easy time becoming pregnant. I was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody. Before I went off it, Peter and I talked about what would happen if I became pregnant, and we both agreed that we would have the child.

I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ''Are you sure you didn't take fertility drugs?'' I said, ''I'm positive.'' Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ''You know, this changes everything,'' she said. ''You'll have to see a specialist.''

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

The specialist called me back at 10 p.m. I had just finished watching a Boston Pops concert at Symphony Hall. As everybody burst into applause, I watched my cellphone vibrating, grabbed it and ran into the lobby. He told me that he does a detailed sonogram before doing a selective reduction to see if one fetus appears to be struggling. The procedure involves a shot of potassium chloride to the heart of the fetus. There are a lot more complications when a woman carries multiples. And so, from the doctor's perspective, it's a matter of trying to save the woman this trauma. After I talked to the specialist, I told Peter, ''That's what I'm going to do.'' He replied, ''What we're going to do.'' He respected what I was going through, but at a certain point, he felt that this was a decision we were making. I agreed.

When we saw the specialist, we found out that I was carrying identical twins and a stand alone. My doctors thought the stand alone was three days older. There was something psychologically comforting about that, since I wanted to have just one. Before the procedure, I was focused on relaxing. But Peter was staring at the sonogram screen thinking: Oh, my gosh, there are three heartbeats. I can't believe we're about to make two disappear. The doctor came in, and then Peter was asked to leave. I said, ''Can Peter stay?'' The doctor said no. I know Peter was offended by that.

Two days after the procedure, smells no longer set me off and I no longer wanted to eat nothing but sour-apple gum. I went on to have a pretty seamless pregnancy. But I had a recurring feeling that this was going to come back and haunt me. Was I going to have a stillbirth or miscarry late in my pregnancy?

I had a boy, and everything is fine. But thinking about becoming pregnant again is terrifying. Am I going to have quintuplets? I would do the same thing if I had triplets again, but if I had twins, I would probably have twins. Then again, I don't know.

...could you now support a similar ban on abortion?

 

[PT]

I read it, all the way through. I think she did the right thing. More important, I think she thinks she did the right thing.

 

[Gonz]

You see no problem? Not only is abortion okay but selective abortion is also, picking & chosing...kinda like shopping for apples. "I'll take those two but that one looks yechy"

 

[MrBishop]

I don't know if I could've made the same decision...even in similar circumstances. Multiple-births are tough...tough on the mother and on the kids. Most are born prematurely and underweight...most mothers have to stay bedridden for months on end.

MrsBish and I want twins. We're not going to go for a fertility clinic, but there is a history on her side of the family, so you never know.

If faced with more than just twins though...triplets, quarduplets etc... I'm not sure how we could ever afford it.

Two kids are almost as expensive as one, but three or more... all at the same time... I don't know.

If she feels that she made the right decision...then so be it. I personally, when faced with a similar decision and having to make the same hard choice...would've kept the twins and ... I can't even bring myself to type it.

Sorry.

Gonz - In the case of couples who make the decision to abort over and over again, as if it was a viable alternative to BC pills or condoms...I couldn't agree with you more. Its unconsionable.

IMHO, abortion should't be even considered in the same family as condoms, IUDs, BC pills etc... these prevent conception... while abortion stops it.

I need a drink

 

[Gonz]

I can't even bring myself to type it.

See, you see the inherent wrong, even if you choose to ignore it.

 

[PT]

You see no problem? Not only is abortion okay but selective abortion is also, picking & chosing...kinda like shopping for apples. "I'll take those two but that one looks yechy"

No, that's implying it was an easy choice, which it clearly was not. The fact is that this young woman knew what she would be able to handle. She chose to not make three children and herself and her boyfriend suffer, rather she chose to give the one child a much better chance at life, and herself a much better chance at raising him.

 

[Gonz]

Interesting take PT. It was a hard decision. Compared to...

but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

convenience.

 

[PT]

Yep,

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year.

Or realism.

 

[Gonz]

What about her boyfriend, in which

we both agreed that we would have the child.

If he's an upstanding honorable man they'd have married & moved to an affordable home, where she could get her bedrest & spent the next 18 years in bliss. Raising the children they humped for with the understanding of the consequences. Life happens.

 

[PT]

So, I guess he's not. Also note the quote.

we both agreed that we would have the child.

You don't think that changes things?

Now, you know I've got six kids, and yeah, it's tough and I wouldn't have done anything different. At the same time though I can't hold it against someone else for doing something different.

 

[MrBishop]

See, you see the inherent wrong, even if you choose to ignore it.

I'm not ignoring it...As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread...I'm anti-abortion. Though...similarly to freedom of speech, I may not agree with every choice that people make...but I'll be damned if I tell them which choice they have to make.

I never liked the idea of selective reduction, unless it was medically waranted. ie If the chances of each child's survival is at 40%, but a reduction increases that to %80 to each of the remaining feotuses...I would seriously consider it. If I was faced with Quints or Septuplets...I damn well know that I'd be on welfare pretty damn quickly.

 

[Gonz]

So, I guess he's not. Also note the quote.

Unsure. It didn't make it clear what happened or if the opportunity presented itself or if she'll be back in the labor pool by the kids 45th day on this earth.

You don't think that changes things?

It changes everything outside. More work, More preparation. More headaches. It should change nothing regarding the child(ren). Being such a snotty bitch, to be more concerned about having to live in *gasp* Staten Island instead of Manhattan & *double gasp* become a fill time mom as opposed to a wage earning egg donor. She has committed a grave sin. Selective abortion is somehow worse.

 

[Leslie]

No it isn't, not for that reason, anyway.

I'll concede in the matter of selective for eugenics/sexing.

 

[Gonz]

not for that reason, anyway

Care to expound?

 

[Leslie]

not really. If a mother can't for whyever, even if it is just plain weakness of soul, then I think she shouldn't have to, and really oughtn't, and that's it.

 

[Gonz]

So we can just toss half a million years of history out the window for convenience? How many billions of women rose above their expectations simply because they had too?

 

[Leslie]

Whether those up on the high horses like it or not, or can pry their shoes off for five seconds to step into someone else's, the reality is that some of us are weak, or half crazed, or mentally off, or don't possess the intelligence required for the strength of mind necessary, or simply don't have the mental or the physical or financial resources to carry off something as huge as a pregnancy, never mind the massive responsibility of raising a child well, and sometimes there are fuckups...and that's how it is. Anyone can provide a hovel and slap a kid some KD, but a child needs more...time, stories, devotion, and some just ain't able to give it, and some of those realize that, and take care of business in their own way.

And don't forget mister millions of years, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, that abortion's been around all that time too. We gotta do what we gotta do, and we will, whether the old boy's network of the day says we're "allowed" to or not.

/fever induced delerium typing