Discussion: When 'Praying For A Miracle' Hurts Pregnant Women

Discussion for article #235910

The Texas housing wage is $16.77 per hour. For legislators who think they care so much about children, they expose way too many parents to the economic necessity of both working full time or longer, just to pay the bills.

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“Pregnant person”? “Pregnant people”?
Jeez, I need to know if saying “pregnant woman” or “pregnant women” is considered offensive speech in some quarters, or if men are now getting pregnant and no one told me.

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Women, unlike fetuses, apparently have a variable rate of personhood, scoring nearly 100% while not pregnant, but shooting down to near zero when God puts that little holy soul thingy in 'em.
And praying for anyone is offensive to God herself. Or it would be, if she existed. Please, if I get a terminal disease, save your prayer breath - I’ll have enough bothering me at that point.

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Feminism is the radical notion that women are people

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Seems like this scenario could be minimized if the women of Texas simply embraced abstinence.
No Sex With Texans!
Still leaves open the possibility of immaculate conception, but that really IS God’s will.

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True, but I don’t see the benefit in changing the language to make a point that religious zealots aren’t going to grasp anyway.

Which reminds me of some folks in a protest group my husband and I belonged to 35 years ago who insisted on calling volunteers “workerpersons,” in an effort, apparently, to demonstrate gender equality.

I thought it was hilarious. I asked if I could be called a “worker” instead.

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AJM, I’ve been a feminist since I was in high school, back in 1963, when I read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Just so you know.

Bill like this make me fume. Not just the misogyny, but the willingness to torture innocent fetuses/infants for personal smugness. I’ve spent some time (thankfully not that long) in a NICU, and insofar as the preemies I saw there were capable of perceiving the world around them, they were %#%$ miserable almost all the time.

If the resulting kid is going to have a relatively normal life after NICU, inflicting that pain makes sense, but if they’re simply going to be subjected to hours or days or weeks or months of misery and then die – I find it hard to imagine the kind of person who would knowingly do that to what they claim is a human being. I wouldn’t do it to an animal.

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“…and no one but God should have the ability to decide when that life ends.”

You know what I’d pray for? That an angel with a flaming sword would block access to any doctor’s office, pharmacy, ambulance, ER, or hospital for these schmucks. Can’t have any earthly medical care interfering with their God given fates, can we?

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I’ve also spent time in NICUs as well as waiting with my sister while she delivered her only baby, dead of Trisomy 18 in her womb. She had just made the decision to terminate her pregnancy when it was unbearably clear that he would die, then delivered spontaneously. She still has grief, but was and is at peace with the necessity.

My friends and relative who spent weeks in NICUs, including a child flown by helicopter to a more advanced facility, still second-guess their decisions, especially since all the babies died without ever having drawn independent breath. (No one could say for sure if they were suffering pain, which leads me to suspect the whole fetal pain business.) They are also burdened with medical bills which, in one case, caused bankruptcy and divorce. Tell me that’s a better option.

And seriously, Texas, are you going to pay for all that care?

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Good. It’s odd how the general terms are used almost exclusive for male or both rather than for female. I still remember the jolt the first time I heard a female professor say “When your period starts.” So I think that an occasional reminder that not all persons are male is useful.

And seriously, Texas, are you going to pay for all that care?

Isn’t it Texas that has the law allowing hospitals to pull the plug on anyone who can’t pay once someone(!) has determined that the patient is terminal?

Waiting for the ban on prosthetic limbs, because god and prayer should be given a chance to grow a new one.

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What little care Texas does pay for will impoverish those families for life, just enough to qualify for Medicaid. Anyone who recovers from their ordeal enough to maybe get a second job or a better job, or perhaps earn a raise, or God forbid accumulate any retirement savings, will have to contend with loss of benefits.