Whether or not you remember what you did on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2012 will be forever memorable in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For while some of us were cutting out paper hearts, preparing for a romantic night, or pointedly ignoring the whole thing, the House of Delegates was busy approving “personhood” legislation granting individual rights to an embryo from the moment of conception. On that same day, a second bill was approved, requiring women seeking an abortion to undergo what will in most cases be a vaginal-probe ultrasound.
For those pleased with these decisions, congratulations on getting what you voted for.
But if these new laws scare or repulse you, I urge you to help keep similar laws from passing in this state. I’m not suggesting you become an activist. I’m hardly one myself. I’m advocating a simple first step: voting. For contrary to popular — or cynical — belief, politicians are not “all the same,” especially on social issues, such as abortion. According to a Gallup Poll taken in 2009, those Americans opposing abortion rights outnumbered those in favor for the first time, 51-42 percent. Each and every one of our votes counts.
Most of my students say they hate politics, and I can’t say I blame them. But as the passage of these laws shows, we avoid getting involved in politics at our own peril. If we refuse to make decisions, others make them for — and sometimes about — us. Why care about reproductive rights? Simply because they concern all of us.
You’re careful and always use birth control? Even the best can, and do, fail. You’re a man or, like me, a woman beyond child-bearing age? Or you’re celibate, or infertile? All of us have mothers, daughters, friends, nieces, colleagues and students who can and will be directly affected by these laws. I, for one, am horrified to see these politicians limiting my loved ones’ reproductive choices.
I am particularly shocked at the mean-spiritedness of those politicians who would deny an abortion to a woman who becomes pregnant by means of rape or incest. Such an attitude did not always prevail, even among conservatives, religious or otherwise. In his book, “Jewish Literacy,” Rabbi Joseph Telushkin notes that two centuries ago, Rabbi Yehuda Perilman ruled that “women differ from ‘mother earth’ in that they need not nurture seeds planted in them against their will.”
More recently, in 1989, conservative columnist James Kilpatrick took issue with then Republican Congressman Henry Hyde’s reference to pregnancy resulting from rape or incest as an “inconvenient” matter for the woman involved. Kilpatrick wrote, “It would be interesting to ask [these politicians] to look into their hearts” and ask whether, if their daughter were raped, they would insist on her carrying to term. Further, Kilpatrick wrote, victims of such crimes “will never recover fully … The humiliation, the horror, the degradation, the invasion of her most private self — these will dwell with her.” Finally, Kilpatrick took issue with the insensitivity of the reduction of such suffering to mere inconvenience. “Inconvenient!” Kilpatrick wrote. “What a jolly little word! Madam finds it inconvenient to play bridge on Tuesday.” Knowing that a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest is no mere inconvenience, I, like Kilpatrick, stand with these women in whatever choice they make, whether it involves carrying the child to term or not.
In order to have this choice, however, must a woman first suffer a violation such as rape or incest? I say no. That is why I support the right of all women to reproductive freedom. I think of one friend whose twenty-week-old developing fetus — which would have been her first child — was found to have major organs missing. Another friend, whom I’ll call Jean, was a mother of four, all under five. Jean, who was overweight and had other health problems, learned she was pregnant when her youngest was two months old. Oh, I forgot to mention: Jean was on the pill, and nursing. It happens. A third friend was raped by her estranged husband. The list goes on.
These women, loving mothers all, had abortions. Was this ideal? No. The ideal solution would have been to make time move backwards, to make the pregnancy somehow un-happen. Since this cannot be — illustrated by the fact that “un-happen” is not a word — these women, or any women in this situation, are left with two choices. Until a third alternative is found to aborting or carrying a dangerous and/or undesired pregnancy to term, I’ll continue to stand in favor of the right to choose.
If you disagree with my views, that’s fine. But if you agree and don’t like the direction our leaders in the House and state Senate have taken, I urge you to do your part. Vote. Sign petitions. Write to the governor, who has yet to sign either of the two invasive abortion bills into law. And write to your local political leaders and your newspapers. Letters make a difference.
Cora Schenberg is a faculty member of the University German department.
The baby killers at UVA are not just in the hospital. They are even in the language departments. Typical extreme partisan university. It’s amazing that we have academics who still support beheadings, Nazi medicine, and promote preterm birth in the year 2012. Cora Schenberg stands with the doctors at Nuremberg. The Virginia General Assembly stands with the prosecutors.
“I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of its conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity; I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity.”
Declaration of Geneva
Hippocratic Oath
Following the Nazi Doctors Trial at Nuremberg
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I have a SCIENTIFIC question. How many children needlessly born preterm and living (or lived) a life needlessly burdened with Cerebral Palsy and/or a host of other developmental disabilities have your beloved beheadings in utero been worth? How many per 1000? 100,000?
“Women with a history of induced abortion were at higher risk of very preterm delivery than those with no such history (OR + 1.5, 95% CI 1.1–2.0); the risk was even higher for extremely preterm deliveries (<28 weeks)"
British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
"This study shows that a history of induced abortion increases the risk of very preterm birth, particularly extremely preterm deliveries. It appears that both infectious and mechanical mechanisms may be involved.” This study showed that women who gave birth between 28 and 32 weeks of pregnancy were 40% more likely to have had a previous abortion, and mothers who gave birth to extremely preterm infants from 22 to 27 weeks were 70% more likely to have had an abortion."
French Study of 2837 preterm births conducted by pro abortion researcher Caroline Moreau.
"Induced and spontaneous abortion are associated with similarly increased ORs for preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies, and they vary inversely with the baseline preterm birth rate, explaining some of the variability among studies"
Journal of Reproductive Medicine
"A consent form that simply lists such items as "incompetent cervix" or "infection" as potential complications, but does not inform women of the elevated future risk of a preterm delivery, and that the latter constitutes a risk factor for devastating complications such as
cerebral palsy, may not satisfy courts"
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons
"Previous induced abortions significantly increased the risk of preterm delivery after idiopathic preterm labour, preterm premature rupture of membranes and ante-partum haemorrhage, but not preterm delivery after maternal hypertension. The strength of the association increased with decreasing gestational age at birth."
European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology
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Sean,
Though I respect your argument and your cause, your choice of words was crass and immature. You call Professor Schenberg extremist right before launching into accusations of Nazism. Nazis were not Pro-Life, they were Anti-Semite. The doctors executed at Nuremberg were responsible for the death and experimentation of countless Jews as well as other minorities Hitler sought to annihilate. To accuse a professor of affiliation with Nazis is the kind of disrespectful behavior one would expect of a teenager. You also assume that the author enjoys abortions, that they are her, “beloved beheadings.” The author clearly states that abortion is not an ideal solution. Pro-Choice activists take no joy out of abortion. You do a disservice to your fellow lifers. Learn respect for your elders or take your comments elsewhere.
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One of the least informative and most deceptive statistics is a percentage increase between two unknown numbers.
For example, what does “mothers who gave birth to extremely preterm infants from 22 to 27 weeks were 70% more likely to have had an abortion” actually mean?
Does it mean a rise from 0.1% to 0.17% (from 1 in a thousand pregnancies to 17 in a thousand) or is it a rise from 20% to 34% (200 in a thousand pregnancies to 340 in a thousand pregnancies).
The “70%” looks like a lot. But we’ll never know without the missing data.
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Sean (or anyone) has the right to disagree with me on abortion. I have respected friends and colleagues on both sides of this issue. Beyond that, however, Sean makes no argument, but resorts to name-calling, which I have no reason to dignify with a response. I will say that one thing the Nazis did was to suspend all human rights, including the right to disagree with one’s government. I treasure that right. In my editorial, I exercised it, and encouraged others to do the same.
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They always run like hell from the medical science, hide behind their political diversions, and fail to answer the simplest of questions. They never, ever face facts. Our preterm birth rate has doubled while they have held sway. Hundreds of thousands (at least) of children have been needlessly burdened with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities. But they will continue to endeavor to keep women in the dark regarding the link. OK with them. They support beheadings in the year 2012. The eugenics/nazi connection is only relevant in that these are the founding fathers of their movement in modern western legal precedent. Poland. March, 1943.
I never suggested that any other Nazi policy was tied to anyone, but I will repeat the obvious. The anti-science that has us asking our pregnant friends how their baby is doing and marveling at their ultrasounds, yet pretending the murder victims of elective abortion are worthless tumors is the exact same philosophy that referred to all the slaves who built UVA as “potential humans” who just had not developed yet. Putting quotes around somebody does not remove their humanity. Their political platform thuggishly retains the ultimate convenience for some, and the ultimate cruelty for others. Checkmated in logic, reason, kindness, and science – this is why they will always run like hell. And this is why they have to make up the most inane diversions from the actual facts.
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Cora Schenberg was either was woefully ignorant of what these two bills written by strong, intelligent, and brave women said – or she simply lied about them. Anyone can read them and see for themselves. Like many UVA faculty, her partisan political agenda superseded her academic integrity. My German professor in college was a communist who made us all read the East German Party newspaper Neues Deutschland and told us it was always the truth. Nothing has changed in 25 years in extreme liberal academia.
Swimming in money and with an eager media to back them, NARAL and Planned Parenthood simply cooked up this nonsense because they are terrified of what has already happened in the other 7 states states that have ultrasound laws. A mother sees and hears her child, that magic bond is instant, and she walks out the door with her frown turned upside down. An EMT can’t bring an aborted infant back from death, or even out of the garbage. If a healthy child is growing in a healthy mother, there are no more gray areas here than there were with slave camps or concentration camps.
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@Sean
I respect your difference in opinion but your reasoning doesn’t help illuminate your view point. On the contrary, your preposterous and incorrect generalizations about Nazis, science, communists, slavery and UVA in light of the editorial by Prof Schenberg simply serve to obscure the core of her argument: “I support the right of all women to reproductive freedom”. Insults and ad hominem attacks are antithetical to the gravity of the issues of sanctity of life, freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and human dignity. We all need to be aware and careful while exercising our right to express our beliefs, the least we can do is to show restraint and be disciplined in our argumentation.
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Fail 1. Fail 2. Fail 3. Fail 4. Take note of your complete inability and unwillingness to even approach the issue of the rights of your unique, innocent, and defenseless human victims. You revoke their human rights pretending that you can remove their Personhood. The Nazi and slavery shoes fit both your feet perfectly. You employ the exact same denial of science (“potential people”) and the exact same philosophy that pretends that your victims are subhuman, and yours to do with what you wish. What was Dr. Mengele arrested for in Argentina?
Even if we accepted your insane notion that babies in utero are worthless tumors, you still cannot even begin to consider the rights of all the other born children you have needlessly deformed and sentenced to a difficult, brief life. The rights of fathers also do not exist to you – only responsibility IF you don’t kill their child. Your list of victims may be a larger than the slave owner and smaller than the Nazis, but it remains that currently there is no thuggery or ignorance on earth greater than yours. You kill 3,400 people a DAY in America alone, and deform and harm countless others. This is on you, not me.
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“Insults and ad hominem attacks are antithetical to the gravity of the issues of sanctity of life, freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and human dignity.” Well Margot, clearly you have not been reading the Cav Daily comments sections for long. “Insults and ad hominem attacks” are all Sean is capable of presenting, then he can go home happy he made a point, because he has repeatedly shown he would rather insult people than do any good for the unborn.
From,
A pro-lifer who actually thinks it’s more important to prevent abortions and actually convince people that abortion is murder than insult people who disagree with me
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0-5.
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I take back everything I have ever said. Abortions are awesome and I wish my mother considered one for me!
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Hanes M. Swingle, Tarah T. Colaizy, M. Bridget Zimmerman & Frank H. Morriss, Jr., Abortion and the Risk of Subsequent Preterm Birth: A Systematic Review with Meta-analyses, 54 J. REPRODUCTIVE MED. 95-108 (2009)
This metanalysis included 12 induced and 9 spontaneous abortion studies showed an adjusted odds ratio for preterm birth following one abortion of 1.25 (25% increase), and following 2 or more abortions the odds ratio was 1.64, (64% increase). A very important finding is that women with prior induced abortions have a 64% higher relative risk of a VERY preterm delivery (less than 32 weeks) than women with zero prior Induced abortions.
AAPLOG comment:
Preterm birth (PTB) (delivery at <37 weeks), and especially VERY preterm birth (<32 wks) contributes to infant mortality and childhood morbidity, including chronic lung disease, sensory deficits, cerebral palsy, cognitive impairments and behavioral problems. Among very preterm newborns, the risk of cerebral palsy increases fifty-five fold (5500 percent) over full-term newborns. E. Himpens, C. Van den Broeck, A. Oostra, P. Calders & P. Vanhaesebrouck, Prevalence, type, and distribution and severity of cerebral palsy in relation to gestational age: a meta-analytic review, 50 Developmental Med. Child Neurology 334-40 (2008).
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Sean, I was unable to access the report at the magazine website (Journal of Reproductive Medicine). It appears from the summary that they are saying that both induced and spontaneous abortions correlate at about the same level with future preterm childbirths. But, again, without any base numbers, it is impossible to determine the significance of a 25% increase without knowing how big the numbers are that are actually being increased.
For example, if the normal percentage of preterm births is 1% then a 25% increase means only 1.25% have a future risk of a preterm birth. On the other hand, if 30% is the normal percentage, then it increases to nearly 38%. Do you see the problem with just providing the % increase without the numbers being increased?
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Leave it to Sean to pick an early study (it is one of three that actually investigate this topic) with a very small sample size. Leave it to UVA medical center to be honest, to say that the risk *might* exist, to note that most preterm births can be attributed to other factors, and to provide this in the list of warnings given to women. You can find this information with a single Google search if you are interested (I will not post the URL because it will need to go through moderation first).
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It was Sean and his colleagues who forced the political hacks in the hospital to admit to this link last year after 21 years off lying to women. But it was only done on a webpage to keep our lawyers at bay for the moment, and STILL does not appear on their abortion consent form. This university is an embarrassment to Jefferson. And the c omplete bibliography of studies can be found on the AAPLOG website. I have tried to post it, but the Cav Daily censors have repeatedly deleted the published science bibliography.
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We live in a civil society that is becoming increasingly uncivil, and that is too bad. Calling people Nazi’s – one of the true horrors and scourges not only of the 20th century but of any century – for expressing their beliefs calmly and logically does not help make society more civil.
In an ideal world, no unwanted or uncared for or unloved child would ever be conceived. No woman or girl who was unwilling or unable to care for a child would get pregnant. Teenagers would be abstain from sexual activity and focus on just being kids. No man or boy would ever impregnate a woman or girl and then just walk away from his responsibility. No woman would be raped or forced into sexual activity by a family member. No one who is pregnant would face a health crisis during pregnancy. But the world is far from ideal or perfect. I think that every woman considering abortion should have the ability to get all of the facts and options and then make a decision – and that it should be a hard decision to abort, not a decision made lightly. As a man, I will never know what it is like to be pregnant – wanted or unwanted. So I think this decision needs to be made by the woman in consultation with her doctor and ideally with family support, and in conjunction with her religious beliefs. If a medical test of some kind is deemed important by her doctor, then it should be discussed with the woman and implemented if she so desired. We do not need our Federal or State legislatures “playing doctor.”
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By far the most hilarious comment heard this past week from the far left and some (not all) democrats was that we need to……………………….. keep government out of medicine. LOL! Talk about instant amnesia! What did they spend almost all of 2009 and 2010 doing in Washington again??
Art, I called nobody here a Nazi. Nor do I call you one if I merely remind you of which of the two following human rights and social justice policies that you support:
“It will be necessary to open special institutions for abortions and doctors must be able to help out there in case there is any question of this being a breach of their professional ethics.”
Adolph Hitler
“I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of its conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity; I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity.”
Declaration of Geneva
Hippocratic Oath
Following the Nazi Doctors Trial at Nuremberg
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Congrats to our strong and brave Delegate Kathy Byron and Senator Jill Vogel for putting medical science, human rights, and women’s health above politics, profits, and cruelty! A bi-partisan victory for life.
HB 462 Abortion; informed consent, shall undergo ultrasound imaging.
floor: 02/28/12 Senate: Passed Senate with substitute with amendment (21-Y 19-N)
YEAS–Black, Blevins, Carrico, Colgan, Garrett, Hanger, Martin, McDougle, McWaters, Newman, Norment, Obenshain, Puckett, Reeves, Ruff, Smith, Stanley, Stosch, Stuart, Vogel, Wagner–21.
NAYS–Barker, Deeds, Ebbin, Edwards, Favola, Herring, Howell, Locke, Lucas, Marsden, Marsh, McEachin, Miller, J.C., Miller, Y.B., Northam, Petersen, Puller, Saslaw, Watkins–19.
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Please do explain how forcing a woman to have a completely unnecessary medical procedure when she is seeking to remove a miscarried, already dead fetus from her womb (something Republicans refused to change), is a victory? Please justify that refusal.
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An ultrasound is exactly what confirms that the child has died to begin with, and also verifies his or her size which is rather important for the doctor to plan for the extraction. Duh! Tell you what, go ask Ron Paul how many times he’s done this, and if he ever did so without doing an ultrasound once he had access to one, OK?
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