Doctors Do Not Want to Execute Babies
Contrary to a recent talking point, medical professionals are dedicated to saving children—not killing them
It is terrible to watch an infant die.
This should be the sort of utterly obvious statement that need not even be said. It should be understood, given basic human decency, that there are no substantial portions of our society agitating for the legal freedom to murder infants. It should be totally unnecessary to point out that the death of babies is heart-wrenching, and not the desired outcome of a major political movement.
And yet, we find ourselves here.
It has become a much-repeated talking point that the Democratic Party seeks to legalize infanticide. This flagrant misinformation has issued from the mouths of both the Vice President and the President, the latter claiming that Democrats seek to “execute” infants out of the womb.
The claim has no basis in fact. It is not a mere misrepresentation, though. It is unspeakably vile: a slander wholly, solely meant to demonize the speakers’ political foes.
We’re seeing children suffering from highly preventable diseases. The solution is not mysterious.arcdigital.media
This fabric of lies is woven from threads drawn from the controversy surrounding abortion. Unraveling it, then, requires the perspective of someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. One such person is Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a columnist for the New York Times and an ob/gyn. In a detailed blog post, Gunter lays out exactly how the infanticide charge is a gross falsehood.
Only 1.3% of abortions are performed at or after 21 weeks and most of these happen by 24 weeks. So right off the bat, 98.7% of abortions can’t possibly end in infanticide because they are performed before any chance of viability. There can never be a live birth no matter how much bad technique or malpractice is involved in the care.
Most states limit abortion to under 24 weeks. So it is clear there are very few places where the mythical ‘live birth’ abortions could actually happen. Some states allow for abortions after 24 weeks when there are lethal fetal anomalies. Let’s be super clear here — lethal fetal anomalies can’t have a life.
She goes on to discuss the tragic circumstance that sometimes arises when children are born with severe, previously undetected health problems that mean they are likely to die very soon.
Sometimes the conclusion about severe fetal anomalies is not reached until 25–26 weeks or later. These are typically situations where a live birth may result in a few days of life with multiple, painful interventions or perhaps a few months of abject misery due to medical interventions. These are conditions that after birth, should these anomalies have gone undetected prenatally, we would typically allow parents to withdraw care. Withdrawing care in utero or after delivery are the same thing.
As a pediatrician in general practice, I don’t perform abortions, and have never been trained to do them. But I have been present in a handful of situations similar to what Dr. Gunter describes. I spent a lot of time during residency in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), often caring for babies who were extremely premature, very ill, or both.
I have been to more deliveries than I can estimate, almost all of them ending with a family happily welcoming a healthy newborn. Sometimes that’s not what happens, though—no matter the hopes or efforts of everyone involved.
On a handful of occasions, I have taken care of infants with a major health problem that guaranteed they would die very soon. Some were born too early to survive. Some had a major birth defect that resulted in zero chance of survival for long at all. Some had been in the NICU for a long time, had already received extensive medical treatment, and their parents had decided it was time to stop.
In all of these cases, further intervention would have done nothing to meaningfully extend their lives, and the kindest thing to do was withhold those interventions, as peacefully as possible.
In absolutely none of these circumstances was the infant allowed to die without significant heartache for everyone. Not one of these deaths was easy. None were elected. All were painful. None were executions.
On the audacity of medical professionals commenting on matters of public healtharcdigital.media
Calling them anything other than compassionate decisions, made by heartbroken parents in consultation with caring and dedicated medical providers, is monstrous. Milking these situations to score political points is unspeakably ghoulish, and utterly despicable.
When these moments are described as infanticide, it is a lie. It is a lie when it comes from the White House’s official mouthpiece. It is a lie when daytime television’s favorite conservative says it. It is a lie when it is vomited forth by a know-nothing president who couldn’t care less about the suffering of any family not his own.
Not one doctor or nurse I have ever met would participate in murdering a baby. If anything, the medical profession as a whole errs too much on the side of interventions, when the more compassionate option would be to withhold painful, futile treatments in the face of inevitable death.
To suggest that these dedicated medical professionals are doing otherwise — with the blessing of grieving parents — is to defame those who want nothing more than to save the lives of babies. Such statements deserve nothing but contempt and condemnation.
Daniel Summers is a columnist for Arc Digital. Read more of his work and follow him on Twitter.
