Reproduction, we are now told, is a fundamental right. That sounds good. We don’t want government preventing people from having children.
But under this theory, the right to reproduce has become more than just the right to have children. Women who don’t want their babies can abort–multiple times if they want, as many do. Couples–even if fertile–use IVF not just to have a baby, but the baby they want using techniques such on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. Research is ongoing to permit more than two people to be biologically related to the child. Women who don’t want to carry their own babies can hire a surrogate uterus. In this regard, biological colonialism uses destitute women in countries like India and Pakistan as so many brood mares. Some say that reproductive cloning should be a right once it is “safe.” All of this moves having babies from (ideally) an act of selflessness and unconditional love to one focused almost wholly on the desires of parents and what they want from a baby.
And now, we learn that some women are planning premature birth–not because of health reasons, but convenience. From the story:
The number of women giving birth early – often for no medical reason – has increased dramatically during the past two decades, altering the way we bear children and posing new health risks, experts say. The average time a fetus spends in the womb has decreased by seven days in the United States since 1992, according to researchers and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers say shorter pregnancies coincide with a large number of women and doctors now scheduling childbirth for convenience. One study of nearly 18,000 deliveries in 2007 showed that 9.6 percent were early births – through scheduled inductions or C-sections – for nonmedical reasons.
Nature has a reason for the length of gestation. Cutting it short can adversely impact the baby’s health:
Shortening a pregnancy could affect a baby’s lung development, vision, weight and some fine-tuning of the brain, experts say. Babies born too early often sleep longer than normal and have trouble learning how to breast-feed, causing dehydration and jaundice. “For every day and every week before 39 weeks, it’s an increasing risk to the baby,” said Dr. Bryan Oshiro, vice chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Loma Linda University. “The vast majority of early-term babies do fine, but it’s like playing Russian roulette.”
I’m sorry, but cutting the length of gestation for convenience–as opposed to using the technique to protect the health of either mother or baby–is unloving and selfish. It would be interesting to see whether these attitudes are also reflected in later parenting.
December 27th, 2010 | 12:10 pm
And let’s not ignore all of the current medical birth practices whose primary purpose seems to be the comfort of the medical staff, rather than ease of birthing. I’ve heard that studies of C-sections have shown peak hours around 4 and 10 pm, curiously.
December 27th, 2010 | 12:57 pm
Thanks for bringing the issue of induction for convenience to our attention. FYI, the Ethical & Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (5th ed), by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops allows induction “for a proportionate reason” after the fetus is viable (Directive # 49). In other words, we don’t do induction for convenience, yet it would be interesting to review the cases in Catholic hospitals and see. In our facility cases that are fuzzy about “proportionate reason” go to our ethics committee and on an number of ocassions we’ve said “no” to induction.
Induction for convenience, along with the other trends you mention, are chipping away at human dignity. Never in history have so many women been so out of touch with their own fertility and maternity. Ironically, we strive to be “Green” except in regard to these fundamental expressions of human nature.
December 27th, 2010 | 2:48 pm
Infants, and children who have not been born, have no money and no lawyers. Thus the trend will inexorably be in the direction of rights for adults that are measurable – no matter how small or capricious – compared to vaguer rights of avoiding higher risk for the child. “You can’t stop me” – and of course we can’t and in many instances shouldn’t – becomes the center of all rights.
As to exercising control over what type of child one has, the traditional method was to choose one’s spouse and time of marriage wisely. Ironic that as that strategy fades, others emerge to take its place. In fairness, it’s not entirely the same people in both cases.
December 27th, 2010 | 10:46 pm
My third child nearly died of hypoxia (and suffered neurological damage to the frontal lobe of her brain) from having the cord wrapped twice around her neck. She was born a week early, but already weighed over 8 lbs. Two women I know lost their babies in the last week of pregnancy because of the same problem. I believe doctors should do a 4D ultrasound in the last weeks of pregnancy. They should take a baby early if the cord is tightly wound around his neck.
December 28th, 2010 | 5:05 pm
My first son was born in 1970. My recollection was that induced birth with pitocin was becoming fashionable, all done for the convenience of the doctor and the parents. The curve dropped when they discovered, some time in the 1970′s, that a large number of such babies, as well as premies in general, had insufficient lung development. Of course, this lead to the great breakthrough of using surfactants for treating the undeveloped lungs, but induction for convenience faded. Apparently we had forgotten all this by 1990 with the above reported rise in fashion again.
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