WhatsAPundit

Now for the hard, maddening stuff.

Right after the doctor said the equivalent of "whoops", and informing us that the original count of two had been a wee bit short, he started talking about "selective reduction". I'll get to the reasons in a moment, but first:

What's with the euphemism, dude? You were talking about aborting one of the fetuses. Don't blow smoke up our bottoms. We're adults with lots of smarts (well, she has 'em, anyway) who have both seen and been a lot of things. We know what you're talking about and we don't need it sugar-coated. Jeez.

Let's talk about triplets.

• Carrying triplets is hard on the mom. Liz is already having three times the fun, morning-sickness wise, and at a little more than 8 weeks she thinks she's already showing, and God help me I think she's right.
• If she carries all three to a normal birthweight, that means at the end she's carrying, well, a heck of a lot of baby around.
• Serious health concerns for the mom include:
  • Pre-term delivery. (Actually, this is pretty much a given for triplets).
  • Increased risk of pregnancy-related high blood pressure.
  • Increased risk of pregnancy-related diabetes.
  • Last but not least, a woman with triplets should try to gain 50 to 60 pounds during the pregnancy. That's a lotta lasagna.
• Serious health concerns for the triplets include:
  • Pre-term delivery, with concommitant low birth weight.
  • ...and stuff I don't even want to type, also associated with premie deliveries.
• Not to be crass, but human families are neither biologically nor societally designed to handle three newborns at a single time. (How many nipples do most people have, not to mention arms? And how many triplet strollers are displayed at the local Target?)

We've talked about it, and if we can safely do it we want to have the three babies. But the key here is safely.

And this is where we get into really subjective territory.

Let's say Liz develops high blood pressure. Her mom almost died of a stroke when she was just about Liz' age. Liz has to take her blood pressure seriously. I don't know what blood pressure medications are safe for fetuses, but it wouldn't surprise me if the answer was "none".

Twins are much less likely to be premies than triplets. Do we sacrifice one to make the chances better for two?

On the flip side, aborting one makes it much more likely to miscarry the remaining two.

And there are other factors, but the bottom line is we face a very tough decision. (Again, for the record, we want all three, but only if everyone involved comes out healthy and whole).

Now, why this is a WhatsAPundit post.

If Liz' life is threatened by the pregnancy, we'll abort one, or even two, of the fetuses. This is a no-brainer for me, anyway.

But if the absolutists among the Pro-Life contingents had their way, this would not be a legal option.

This is unacceptable.

Even if all three are perfect right now (8 weeks, 3 days) if the doctors say keeping all three will lead to a high probability of extreme prematurity, we would abort one to make the chances for a happy, healthy life better for the other two.

But if the absolutists among the Pro-Life contingents had their way, this would not be a legal option.

These decisions we may have to face won't be easy ones. They certainly won't be "cut and dried", because we will be relying on statistics and best guesses. But if we have to face them they will be our decisions to make, as they should be.

So file this as reason 117 for why this Pundit isn't a Republican.

PS: Getting away from bashing the "Conservative" base for a moment, I find that I'm not paying any attention to research coming from outside the United States on this. From the perspective of any "Universal" health care system, we should abort at least one of these tykes, and probably two. Factoring in the potential costs, allowing mothers to carry triplets is insane. (Think "million dollar baby" times three.)