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Dominican pregnancy death sparks American demagoguery over life-of-the-mother cases

The girl’s mother, Rosa Hernandez

On Saturday, CNN reported on the leukemia death of a pregnant teenager in the Dominican Republic, which is being blamed on the Dominican constitution’s uncompromising anti-abortion language. Because chemotherapy could have harmed the unnamed girl’s unborn baby, doctors delayed the treatment for 20 days after hospitalizing her:

Her body rejected a blood transfusion and did not respond to the chemotherapy, and her condition worsened overnight, Cabrera said.

She then suffered a miscarriage early Friday, followed by cardiac arrest, and doctors were unable to revive her.

Representatives from the Dominican Ministry of Health, the Dominican Medical College, the hospital and the girl’s family had talked for several days before deciding to go forward with the chemotherapy.

The case sparked renewed debate over abortion in the Dominican Republic, with some lawmakers calling on officials to reconsider the abortion ban.

According to Article 37 of the Dominican Constitution, “the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death.” Dominican courts have interpreted this as a strict mandate against abortion.

The story has sparked a flurry of chatter in pro-choice circles including Jezebel, RH Reality Check, Addicting Info, and RichardDawkins.net, all of which follows a common theme: uncaring pro-lifers are on the verge of dooming American women to a similar fate.

Now, I’m as thrilled as the next guy to be held accountable for laws passed in other countries, but this pro-choice fear-mongering doesn’t check out. First, there’s some indication that the blame lies not with the law, but with the doctors interpreting it:

Bautista Rojas Gomez, the Dominican minister of health, has publicly indicated he favors chemotherapy over protecting the pregnancy, but doctors are still reluctant to act for fear of prosecution.

Pelegrin Castillo, one of the architects of Article 37, says the constitutional ban does not prevent doctors from administering the treatment. It does, however, prevent them from practicing an abortion in order to treat the patient with chemotherapy.

“It’s an artificial debate,” Castillo said. “What we have clearly said is that in this case doctors are authorized by the constitution to treat the patient. They don’t have to worry about anything. They have the mandate of protecting both lives.”

Second, the closest any of the linked authors and commenters come to showing that American pro-lifers want to let pregnant women die is this quote RH cites:

“There are no exceptions in Personhood USA’s presidential pledge because there are no situations where it becomes necessary to dismember a baby,” said Jennifer Mason, spokesperson for Personhood USA, in a January press release.

“With the passage of federal or state personhood amendments, recognizing the personhood rights of both mother and child, women will still of course have access to life-saving treatments and medical care,” Mason continued. “Procedures to treat both mom and baby can potentially lead to happier outcomes for both patients, whereas abortion procedures, which are dangerous as it stands already, intentionally kill a child.”

But reading the rest of the press release makes clear that RH is taking Mason out of context:

Regarding cases where the mother’s life is at risk, the pledge states: “I believe that in order to properly protect the right to life of the vulnerable among us, every human being at every stage of development must be recognized as a person possessing the right to life in federal and state laws without exception and without compromise. I recognize that in cases where a mother’s life is at risk, every effort should be made to save the baby’s life as well; leaving the death of an innocent child as an unintended tragedy rather than an intentional killing.” […]

Dr. Patrick Johnston of the Association of Pro-life Physicians explains: “When the life of the mother is truly threatened by her pregnancy, if both lives cannot simultaneously be saved, then saving the mother’s life must be the primary aim.  If through our careful treatment of the mother’s illness, the preborn patient inadvertently dies or is injured, this is tragic and, if unintentional, is not unethical and is consistent with the pro-life ethic.”

American Life League, perhaps the largest national-level advocates for the personhood and no-exceptions wings of the pro-life movement, also make clear that they don’t consider such genuine life-saving treatment to be abortion, and aren’t interested in banning it. It’s not abortion because lethal force is not being directly inflicted on the baby, and the baby’s death is an unintended side-effect.

Contrary to the stereotypes our detractors constantly spread about us, pro-lifers understand the pain and nuance of such situations all too well. Recall that in 1996, pro-life Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s wife Karen underwent medically induced labor to save her life from an infection, resulting in the death of her premature baby. Fair-minded pro-choicers could have admitted that the Santorums’ ordeal revealed that pro-lifers are people too; instead, they accused Santorum of hypocrisy. For them, the personal is always political.

Though increasingly rare, there are pregnancies where complications make it impossible to pull both patients through safely. Pro-lifers understand this, but we’ll never settle how society should handle such situations as long as abortion apologists insist on denying that there are two patients.

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  • peach

    Doctors are pretty smart and I imagine they would be well aware of all laws concerning their practice. If they misinterpreted that law, that law must be pretty dumb. Also, I think there’s a difference between misinterpreting a law (your conclusion) and fearing prosecution because of the law (what the article actually said). You say pro-lifers don’t want pregnant women to die but you want the same law in place that led to the death of this girl. You think doctors in America, the most sue-happy nation in the world, aren’t going to fear prosecution?

    Also also, Jennifer Mason needs to get her facts straight. Abortion procedures are less dangerous than giving birth.

    • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

      First, you don’t consider either a law’s author or the government’s top medical official to be reliable sources on how to interpret law?

      Second, America does have a ridiculously sue-happy culture. But that culture is a product of the Left.

      Third, Mason’s statement doesn’t make any claim about which has higher mortality rates; she just points out that abortions can be dangerous too. And for what it’s worth, there’s significant reason to believe abortion-related deaths are under-counted, based on a combination of abortionists’ general untrustworthiness and the fact that abortion providers’ reporting of statistics to state health departments is voluntary, and some states don’t report to the CDC at all.

      • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

        Your first point begs reconsideration of the laws across the south (most notably in Alabama and South Carolina) that were intended to protect children from parents/guardians that operate dangerous meth labs. Prosecutors there now interpret the law differently, irrespective of the legislative intent. Now, pregnant mothers who don’t sufficiently nurture their pregnancies (ie: drink too much or do drugs) are being rung up on “chemical endangerment” charges. Given that, it’s an easy case to make that personhood laws would be similarly leveraged by similarly minded officials.

        Your second point is a deflection, but it’s worth noting that I think peach’s contention is a little off-base, too. It’s not tort lawyers that the doctors would be afraid of under “personhood” law. It’s the kind of over-zealous prosecutors I just described, above.

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          And when the right to vote on abortion is restored and we can pass real legislation on the subject, we’ll be more than capable of drafting language clearly distinguishing such cases. This isn’t rocket science.

          • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

            I don’t know what you’re getting at there. You think the referendum process produces cleaner legislation? I grew up in California, so I’ve seen the statutory havoc that direct democracy has wrought.

            Maybe you just have faith that once the bright bulbs of the pro-life Right get together to write personhood statutes (one that has a chance of passing in, let’s just say, conservative Mississippi), they’ll be able to write it “clearly”. I won’t be holding my breath.

            What I will be holding my breath for: the Todd Akins apologia. I. Can’t. Wait.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            I mean exactly what the words sound like they mean: If you want a law to do x but not y, you write a law that says “do x but not y.” I’m struggling to see why even this would be a tough concept…

            As for Todd Akins: a moron politician said something moronic, and has been roundly criticized for it by many on his own side. The broader significance of the case is…what, exactly? Do you think it brings the pro-murder and anti-murder positions closer to moral equivalence, or brings pro-lifers closer to the intellectual level of embryology deniers?

          • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

            Okay. So you have faith that any future legislation will be written cleanly. What legislature, exactly, have you been watching that gives you that faith? For example, I bet the pregnant women behind bars in Alabama wish those “chemical endangerment” laws were written more “cleanly”.

            And I’m heartened to hear you think Akins is a “moron”. I thought he was simply expressing pro-life orthodoxy. He’s certainly been one of the pro-life movement’s best water-carriers in Congress. I’m sorry that you feel you have “morons” carrying your water.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Well, then your quarrel is with the authors of those Alabama chemical endangerment laws. Meanwhile, I’m not gonna lose sleep over whether the obvious will be written obviously.

            More interesting, though is your comment about Akins. By saying you can’t distinguish between his comment and “simple pro-life orthodoxy,” you seem to be inadvertently admitting more about your prejudices than you let on…..

          • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

            You know exactly what intellectual space he’s coming from. You’ve written about “honest rape” yourself.

            http://liveaction.org/blog/dr-ron-pauls-backward-position-on-rape-abortions/

            And outlawing abortion even in cases of rape is a common trope at LiveAction. Most notably, Ana Benderas.

            http://liveactionnews.org/opinion/ana-benderas-why-children-of-rape-victims-should-not-be-aborted/

            Even if you think his biology is off, as I suspect you do (you’re the biology stickler, after all), I doubt you have many bones to pick with his policy prescriptions in general. Let’s be honest, Mr. Akin’s offense wasn’t that his policies offend conservatives, it’s that he aired them too bluntly in the middle of a tightly wound national campaign.

          • Stoneybrooke

            The right to vote on abortion? Seriously? Either way you look at it, that’s not the answer. Voters shouldn’t be able to take away the individual rights of others. From the anti-abortion side, that would mean that people can vote on whether or not it’s okay to “murder” someone else. From the pro-choice side, it means people voting on whether women have the right to control their own bodies. How does that make sense?

            And in case you hadn’t noticed, legislation is often interpreted in ways the legislators never imagined, like the chemical endangerment laws. You can’t possibly address any and all possible complications or future applications of a law. And of course I can see the doctors being afraid to act, no matter what an official said. Unless they’re granted immunity in writing, there’s no guarantee that someone wouldn’t change their mind and decide to prosecute after the fact.

            Also, considering the respect you people clearly do not have for women’s rights and lives, I frankly have no trouble believing that this could happen in the US if the anti-reproductive rights people get their way. That’s just my impression, but I know many people who feel the same. It’s kind of scary.

          • liveaction

            “Voters shouldn’t be able to take away the individual rights of others.”

            And abortion isn’t an individual right.

            “From the pro-choice side, it means people voting on whether women have
            the right to control their own bodies. How does that make sense?”

            That’s just it: because you’re describing it in euphemisms instead of objective terminology, it doesn’t make sense. I really shouldn’t have to repeat this any more in these comment sections, but it’s simply a lie to suggest that “controlling women’s bodies” is what’s in dispute. The only “control” pro-lifers are proposing is preventing women from destroying *someone else’s* body.

            “You can’t possibly address any and all possible complications or future applications of a law.”

            Welcome to democracy. We can’t know that ANY law on ANY issue won’t be misinterpreted by someone in the future (as your side’s rampant twisting of the Constitution makes abundantly clear). That doesn’t change the merits of pro-life laws on this issue any more than it changes the merits of any other law. Nor does it change the fact that this particular concern is more than simple enough to guard against in basic writing.

            As for the “impression” you have of the our alleged lack of respect for women, that’s all it is: a slanderous impression with no more basis in truth than the average tabloid headline.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            “Voters shouldn’t be able to take away the individual rights of others.”

            And abortion isn’t an individual right.

            “From the pro-choice side, it means people voting on whether women have the right to control their own bodies. How does that make sense?”

            That’s just it: because you’re describing it in euphemisms instead of
            objective terminology, it doesn’t make sense. I really shouldn’t have
            to repeat this any more in these comment sections, but it’s simply a lie to suggest that “controlling women’s bodies” is what’s in dispute. The only “control” pro-lifers are proposing is preventing women from
            destroying *someone else’s* body.

            “You can’t possibly address any and all possible complications or future applications of a law.”

            Welcome to democracy. We can’t know that ANY law on ANY issue won’t be misinterpreted by someone in the future (as your side’s rampant twisting of the Constitution makes abundantly clear). That doesn’t change the merits of pro-life laws on this issue any more than it changes the merits of any other law. Nor does it change the fact that this particular concern is more than simple enough to guard against in basic writing.

            As for the “impression” you have of the our alleged lack of respect
            for women, that’s all it is: a slanderous impression with no more basis in truth than the average tabloid headline.

          • Stoneybrooke

            Haha, euphemisms? I don’t know what part of pregnancy you don’t understand, but forcing someone to go through with one definitely counts as assuming control of her body. Hence why I say you have a lack of respect for women.

            And yes, that’s my whole point, that you can’t know how a law will be applied in the future. You’re the one who claimed it would be easy to do so and prevent this sort of thing from happening.

            And, um, why don’t you explain how it’s all slander to the women who have been thrown in prison for actions that really aren’t illegal just because they’re pregnant? Or, of course, to the family of this poor Dominican girl who died thanks to a “pro-life” policy…

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Wow, this response is even more incoherent than usual….

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  • Astraspider

    My comprehension of strings of words are only as good as the strings of words that are put together by the writer. So when you defend Mr. Paul’s use of the phrase “honest rape” by saying “people shouldn’t be able to use false rape allegations to get abortions” my reading comprehension tells me you’re standing pretty close to Mr. Akin’s position on rape exceptions (in spite of your reasoned recognition that his use of flawed biology as a cover is, well, flawed).

    • Calvin Freiburger

      Ah, another Astraspider hallmark: goalpost-moving. Of course my *position* is the same – that rape doesn’t justify abortions. I trust that most will find the difference between that position and the objectionable content in Akin’s remark pretty clear.

      • Astraspider

        “I trust that most will find the difference between that position and the objectionable content in Akin’s remark pretty clear.” No. Actually not. Maybe among your friends here in the Movement. Not in the American middle. Good luck to Romney/Ryan doing something about the gender gap with the newly minted Akin plank of the platform hung around their necks like an albatross.

        • Calvin Freiburger

          Don’t attribute your perception difficulties to others. And to name a viewpoint that has been a part of the conservative and pro-life movements forever after one relatively minor congressman is…well, it may not be the most unserious thing you’ve said, but it’s up there.

          • Astraspider

            Well, thanks for clarifying, at least, that Akin’s is clearly smack in the GOP wheelhouse in terms of policy. If not biology. It’s a shame, though, that they put him on the Science Committee in the House. If even true believers like you consider him a — what was it? — a “moron”.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Considering that your side’s default position is outright embryology denial, you have no standing to pretend you care about the integrity of the Science Committee.

  • InGodWeTrust

    Doctors are NOT necessarily smart, especially when they KILL unborn HUMAN BEINGS, rather than save their lives like the Hypocratic Oath tells them to do. WOMEN DESERVE BETTER than the killing of their unborn children. ABOLISH ABORTION! The time has arrived to stop the discussions&debates—BREAK THE CHAINS of abortion—NOW!!!

    • P.D.

      if you really think you want doctors to follow the Hippocratic oath, then perhaps you should read it first. its not long. here is the first line: “I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:”
      i wonder if there is anything in there that you would take issue with…and by the way, doctors are not required to take this oath.

      • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

        Um, you do realize there’s a modern Hippocratic Oath, right?

        • P.D.

          oh, the MODERN one. the one that says, “But it may also be within my power to take a life;”

          remember Lincoln? take his advice: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Well, in addition to the Apollo nonsense and your stubborn refusal to learn anything about embryology, I guess we can add the difference between descriptive and prescriptive statements to the list of things that vex you. I leave it to the more sensible readers to note how what comes directly after the words you snipped from the oath completely undermine you.

          • P.D.

            “this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.”

            the next line. i can see why you wouldn’t quote it, as it doesn’t prove your point whatsoever. and by the way, i didn’t bring up the Hippocratic oath. an unintelligent commenter did, thinking it would help the argument. and it doesn’t. and you just can’t let anything i say go. i’m glad i get under your skin so much that everything i say is wrong, even if it isn’t :)

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            You don’t get under my skin – you just make me weep for the state of American education.

          • P.D.

            choosing to ignore the second line i wrote that proves how “what comes directly after the words [I] snipped from the oath completely undermines” me? cause it doesn’t. why is it so hard to admit you’re wrong (on just this one measly meaningless debate you started)? i was only pointing out how the original commenter should not have used the hippocratic oath to defend their position, and that if they had read it (or had a clue what they were even talking about) they wouldn’t have brought it up. and if you did, you wouldn’t be defending them so fervously.

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