The needle and the damage done

If you want to know why I am so ferociously pro-choice and have so little time for those who would deny a woman's right to control her life, it's because I can remember the bad old days, before safe and legal abortions were available.

So too can veteran Boston obstetrician and gynecologist Waldo L. Fielding who wrote this essay published today in the New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.

We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.

However, not simply coat hangers were used.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.

Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.

Bill C-484 is still in play. The co-called Unborn Victims of Crime Act -- whose passage anti-choicers trumpet as the end of abortion rights -- would, in effect, make a fetus a person. (Lots of background here.) The blog Birth Pangs is where you can get the 411 on what is happening with this bill, and how you can help to stop it.

Do something.

Comments

[deBeauxOs]

Horror stories about self-inflicted abortions do not circulate much these days because the procedure can be done safely in a medical setting. If that choice is taken away, however, those bad days will return with a vengeance. Many women who are desperate to end an unintended pregnancy will die as a result.

Why? Because those opposed to choice believe that a fertilized ova, a zygote, an embryo or a fetus has more rights than a pregnant woman. The crusade to re-criminalize abortion is counter-productive, since neither embryo nor fetus can thrive on its own, or be born if its “vessel” dies.

[Beijing York]

The crusaders are well aware that many women will continue to try to end their pregnancies any way conceivable, resulting in serious injury if not death. They don't care. For them, death or permanent disfigurement is a justifiable, god mandated response to evil women who cannot accept their blessings.

The worst thing about these control freaks is that they want to stop any attempts at women controlling their reproductive choices. All measures are off the table, even the pill. For them, it's not even a question of a viable fetus, it's about controlling women period.

[sooey]

I sometimes think we miss the point in the fight for choice. Many of the people opposed to choice see themselves as soldiers of Gawd, with their marching order coming from within their Church.

We're too respectful of organized religion. The gloves need to come off.

[Kathleen]

The accounts in the essay are horrifying, and I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of more than one of them. This essay needs to make its rounds, as this aspect of abortion seems to be ignored by many. It's a not-so-gentle reminder, so I thank you for it.