In the Dominican Republic, a nine-week pregnant girl was diagnosed with leukemia. The girl’s mother pleaded with doctors to “allow” her daughter to get an abortion so the girl she could begin chemotherapy immediately. “I know abortion is a sin, but my daughter’s health comes first,” she cried.
The doctors responded by forcing her and her daughter to view ultrasounds so the two women could see that the baby was healthy.
Three weeks after the girl was diagnosed, the doctors finally began chemotherapy, but still would not end the pregnancy. Ultimately, the young woman miscarried the pregnancy, hemorrhaged, and died.
[read full post at ABLC]
[via RH Reality Check]
Professor
Now tell me how many men are gonna suffer a similar fate? But they make the decisions with the support of some idiotic women that affects other women’s life! How SAD!
Emma
God almighty. I don’t have words. None.
Plenty of rage, though.
Tata
But the doctors and the local priest are okay? Because I was starting to worry someone would get hurt!
Brachiator
The doctors should be prosecuted for murder.
Jay in Oregon
@efgoldman:
Yep. Consider this a preview of Mitt and Paul’s Wild Ride if they get elected and the GOP controls Congress.
Of course, I would have considered the administration of Bush the Lesser an object lesson as well, but a disturbing number of people seem to have short memories…
not motorik
Wow, you must think this topic is not very important if we must click to another site to read the “full post.”
MikeJ
Why didn’t she just fly to Switzerland where abortion is safe and legal and there are tax benefits to keeping your money there?
RedKitten
Well you know, if she’d just kept her legs closed, she would have been fine. God’s will, and all that.
Seriously, it boggles the mind that there are so many people out there who honestly believe that it is just punishment if a girl DIES as a result of having premarital sex.
Villago Delenda Est
So, instead of losing one life, we lost two.
Brilliant. These guys are so good at math!
gelfling545
I started to write a comment but had to delete it because it was so violent I just sat & stared at myself in astonishment. I have never been of a violent temperament and find the doing doing physical harm repugnant yet the insufferably self-righteous behavior of this person who was supposed to be responsible for this young woman’s physical well being is something mere words cannot address. It is enough to make one hope that there really IS a last judgment and a hell.
Sly
And the mother of a 9 year old rape victim was excommunicated after she authorized an abortion on her daughter, while the girl’s rapist was allowed to stay in the Church because, in the words of the archbishop, he committed a less serious crime.
A cancer killed the girl in DR, but it wasn’t leukemia.
someofparts
Remember that the anti-females-as-human crowd will be turned on by this. If they can kill beautiful child-women with their sperm that makes them feel pretty God-like. It may only be three inches, but by God it can kill.
Brachiator
@Jay in Oregon:
Extremist Republican governors will push for laws that result in tragedies like this no matter who is elected president or controls the Congress.
The battle over reproductive rights is happening now.
not motorik
What happened to your PAC, ABL?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The American beanies are bad enough, but the Catholic church is seriously fucking up the rest of the world even more. EJ Dionne and all the other “I support the Church because of Nuns” types bear some responsibility, but I guess even if they could rip the blinders off, Joey the Rat will always have Scalia, Notre Dame and the Domino’s pizza guy.
Anyone know how much the Church as a whole relies on US money?
Brachiator
@RedKitten:
No, punishment of the girl is not the issue here. The theology based position is that the doctors must try to protect both the mother and the newborn and let God decide whether to kill either, or both. The absurdity is that doctors are expected here to ignore medical evidence about the risk to the mother in delaying treatment.
And the woman cannot make an independent decision to save her own life without regard to what might happen to the fetus. Once she becomes pregnant, she is little more than a vessel whose continued existence is secondary to the right of the unborn child.
The doctors would be just as stupid if this involved a married woman.
They would be just as murderously cruel.
JPL
@not motorik: not sure why you are being such an ass,,hole but you could google the story yourself.
This is from CNN
LanceThruster
Well, at least the Jeebus-riding-a-dinosaur crowd is happy…so there’s that.
WereBear
It’s terribly ironic that in these kinds of “morality,” a woman has more rights as a fetus than she does from birth on.
Chyron HR
@JPL:
Better call Alistair Cooke, ’cause it’s a real fucking mystery.
Litlebritdifrnt
Everyone of these so called “pro life” motherfuckers needs to be put on a list whereby they agree to accept and raise until they are 18 years of age every child that they force being brought into the world against the birth mother’s will. When they’ve got a houseful you can bet their view will change pretty damn quick. Put your money where your mouth and your morals are assholes.
wrb
Mitt will re-baptize her and welcome her to his planet- so no harm, no foul.
Mr Stagger Lee
Will some of you screwballs quit moaning about clicking ABL’s links!!! Get a life, have some sex, or go to some porn site like World Nut Daily!!(well that is a mind porn site)
Mr Stagger Lee
Will some of you screwballs quit moaning about clicking ABL’s links!!! Get a life, have some sex, or go to some porn site like World Nut Daily!!(well that is a mind porn site)
RedKitten
@Brachiator: Not altogether sure I agree with you, though. Perhaps it’s not all about slut-shaming, but it really does seem as though, in these cases, people find SOME way to blame the woman. Either she should have kept her legs closed, or she should have gotten genetic testing prior to getting pregnant, or she should have lived a more devout, Godly life, or she’s paying for Eve’s sins, or some such nonsense.
At no point when talking about a woman seeking abortion, even if it’s to save her own damn life, have I EVER heard a forced-birther give even one iota of sympathy to the woman.
graves007
So what’s the problem? Isn’t this exactly what Republitards want for Amerika? Instead of committing the sin of abortion, both the mother and the fetus should die so they can be united with The Magical Bearded Uber Wonder? Isn’t this better than your soul spending an eternity in the fires of hades being endlessly tortured by The Big Horned Ghoul of Supreme Evil?
Speaking of which, I share this wonderful story of hades with local kids and for some inexplicable reason, parents are angry with me because they say their kids are terrified and having nightmares! Can you believe the nerve of these parents? After all I’m doing to save their kids eternal souls?
Sheeesh…
red dog
Repubs and Catholics stand and rejoice. Your will has been done. The Dominican is a church state so lookout USA.
Triassic Sands
Compassionate conservatism at work.
Imani Gandy (ABL)
@JPL: added the link to RHRC. i meant to earlier, but then i had to go get pancakes.
Imani Gandy (ABL)
@not motorik: not that you really care, jackass, but here.
Mr Stagger Lee
@red dog: And they provide rich baseball owners with players, if they can break the MLB players union, cheap ones too.
WWStBreitbartD
I am guessing ABL has no problem with deaths caused by abortion. I’ll bet she will defend PP over this.
Planned Parenthood and Barack Obama both responsible for death of Tonya Reaves
Imani Gandy (ABL)
@WWStBreitbartD: Barack Obama already favors infanticide, so killing a 24 year old is really no big deal.
LAC
@WWStBreitbartD: Did you miss your train back to fucktard? That village needs its idiot. Hurry…
McCandles
@WWStBreitbartD: People die from getting their wisdom teeth removed, I don’t see anyone passing laws against dentistry.
No surgery is 100% safe. But for most people, denying people lifesaving lifesaving medical care for a treatable condition is criminal negligence.
Scott S.
@not motorik: Oh, the heartbreak. Oh, the agony. Never has one suffered as you do.
Citizen Alan
@gelfling545:
I know how you feel. As I’ve said many times, the thing I hate most about conservatives is the fact that they did actually make me hate them. Genuine, honest-to-God hatred. I am almost to the point where it is impossible for me to have any empathy or compassion for people who are suffering if I know that they are conservatives and that they have expressly opposed the very same liberal remedies that would have prevented their suffering in the first place.
Citizen Alan
@WWStBreitbartD:
I’ve found that just seeing the name “Breitbart” now cheers me up when I am blue because it reminds me that that fucking pig Andrew Breitbart is dead.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Citizen Alan:
When I regret that we’re lowering ourselves to their level, this is what I think of. Not so-called Chicago politics, but of reaching the point where my knee-jerk reaction is to think of conservatives as monsters.
Patricia Kayden
@efgoldman:
Under R&R, this is exactly what would happen. Except, they’d put the girl and her mother in jail for trying to get an abortion.
SiubhanDuinne
@Imani Gandy (ABL):
This is just an awesome philosophy of life.
SiubhanDuinne
Hey John Cole, if you’re around, could we have this as a rotating tag plz?
karen
Isn’t this what will happen in Arizona when the doctor doesn’t have to tell the pregnant woman she has cancer if the doc is afraid that the woman may abort? Or that choose chemo to save her own life that may kill the baby?
Brachiator
@RedKitten:
According to the article, the laws of the Dominican Republic declares that life begins at conception. There is no exception based upon the morality or the marital status of the woman.
The position of the authorities is consistent with a hard theological view that pregnancy comes under the authority of a magical deity, who will either make sure that things turn out OK, kill the baby or the mother, or both, or otherwise exercise His divine will.
The relentless logic of this position is not that women should keep their legs closed, but that all women should put their lives at risk and be fruitful and multiply.
People really need to look beyond the idea that these wingnuts just want to punish wicked women.
There are already attempts to pass laws that would prevent doctors from giving a woman medical information that might lead her to opt for abortion. It is not unreasonable to believe that these people would try to ban ALL genetic testing if it might lead a woman to choose contraception or abortion at any time in their lives.
This is not about blaming women. It is about controlling them.
Sophia
I couldn’t be more strongly opposed to laws like this but my preference for reason/science forces me to point out that we don’t know if the poor girl died because of a three week delay in treatment. It seems unlikely. That doesn’t change the fact that the delay was wrong. But, you know, good arguments don’t need lies to support them.
Brachiator
@Sophia:
You’re right that we don’t know whether the girl died because of the delay in treatment. Nor do we know what is or is not unlikely.
However, we do know that the girl was robbed of her right to make the medical choice to try to fight to save her life.
And we know that her doctors shit all over the dictum, “first, do no harm.”
Ash
@WWStBreitbartD: Some abortions are serious medical procedures. All serious medical procedures include the risk of death. It is up to all people to decide for themselves if they are willing to take that risk. STFU.
not motorik
I’m just saying — if this is an important issue, why would you require someone to make an additional click to see the rest of the argument and also the action you advocate?
There are only two reasons I can think of:
1. The post’s length has exceeded some arbitrary limit established by the proprietor, so an additional link is required; or
2. You value the click-over traffic more than you value the potential influence of a complete post on those BJ readers who will choose not to click.
#1 is understandable. #2 is cynical, because you seem to think the subject is extremely important (ABLC shouty font and all).
Are you here to self-promote, or are you here to make a difference?
Joseph Nobles
@not motorik: John Cole is cool with how ABL posts here, and it’s his blog. So why the fuck do you care?
There are only two reasons I can think of.
1) You’re in need of your medications.
2) You’re a shit-for-brains troll.
Which is it?