So much of what we report on is because our kindly readers forward me stories. "When is twins too many" appeared last Friday in Canada's National Post, and it is a sobering reminder that just because we haven't read a lot about something, that doesn't mean it's not taking place.
"Fetal reductions are most commonly conducted by inserting an ultrasound-guided needle through the mother's abdomen and into the uterus, injecting a potassium chloride solution into the chosen fetus or fetuses, stopping their hearts," writes Tom Blackwell of the National Post. "They are typically performed between the ninth and 12th week, often with the most accessible or smallest fetuses marked for reduction, unless one is abnormal."
The difference now a days appears to be that the old justification--a woman carrying many babies is more likely to lose them all, so "reducing" the number is not as awful as pro-lifers say it is--is long gone. In classic slippery slope fashion,
Increasingly twins are being "reduced" to singletons, something that formerly was almost unheard of.
The number of such "selective reductions" is growing, not for medical reasons, but for socio-economic/lifestyle reasons.
Blackwell's story uses the pregnancy of a Toronto-area business executive and her husband as the hook for his story. When she subsequently aborts, she makes no apologies.
"I'm absolutely sure I did the right thing," she said. "I had read some online forums; people were speaking of grieving, feeling a sense of loss. I didn't feel any of that. Not that I'm a cruel, bitter person ... I just didn't feel I would be able to care for (twins) in a way that I wanted to."
The most interesting comments come two sources. One is a woman whose support group counsels couples over the loss of their unborn babies.
"She said she has heard from a number of people in the past several months who were seeking twin reductions to lessen their burden as parents, something she had never encountered before," Blackwell writes. "Though she strives to help them in a nonjudgmental way, she admits the trend 'saddens and scares' her. 'Is this a healthy thing? We have to ask these questions: Where does it stop? When do children become a commodity?'
The other is from Mark Evans, whose involvement goes back to the early days of "fetal reduction." Once upon a time he "believed reductions were ethically warranted only for triplets or higher-order multiple pregnancies," Blackwell writes. But now "he said the evidence now suggests that reducing twins to a singleton leads, on average, to better outcomes."
Better outcomes?
According to Evans, aborting one of the two twins now makes up 5% to 7% of the total "reductions," a percentage that can likely only increase "especially among the 40-somethings."
Evans uses the same defense of eliminating one of two unborn babies as when he justified selectively aborting a number of children: "In North America, couples can choose to have an abortion for any reason," he noted.
If there is any good news in this story, it is that when the Toronto-area couple decided to selectively abort, "Most obstetrician-gynecologists she and her husband contacted wanted no part of a twin reduction."
Contact: Dave Andrusko
Source: National Right to Life
Publish Date: December 16, 2010
