geauxtohell
Choose your weapon.
I think we all (men and women) are the final arbiters on what medical proceedures we will or won't undergo. We can have all sorts of reasons that we think are important enough to ignore medical advice, even if it costs us our lives. In the end, it is, and I think it should be, the patient who tells the doctor how to proceed and not the other way around.
I agree. As I said, I see the abortion issue as a patient autonomy issue. Patients have the right to refuse medical advice, even if it is detrimental to their health. As a student, I've seen patients refuse to take insulin, even though it is inevitably going to result in their early demise.
That being said, on the larger issue, I find it to be poor form for FOTF to run an ad where they advocate women ignoring medical advice. If it becomes an issue, I don't see how they won't get blow back from it.
In whatever decision making capacity I have into the matter, if I was given the choice between the chance that my wife would die or be seriously harmed versus carrying a baby to term, that would be a no brainer. (I realize that men have no legal rights to compel or prevent their wives from carrying a child, I just said that for perspective).
I would think that most men, would take the position that if they had to choose between the woman and the baby, they would choose the woman. I don't know too many men who would insist on a woman going through with a pregnancy if there were a serious threat to her life.
I don't think many women would either. I think Tebow's mom is the exception. If her placenta was truly abrupted, it was tremendiously risky for her to carry the baby to term.
The placenta, when exposed, has a ton of tissue factor in it that sets off the bodies clotting cascade so that you have thousands of microemboli going through your system. As if that wasn't bad enough, once you've exhausted the equillibrium of your clotting factors, the body can't stop any bleed and the real danger is that a person will hemorrhage and die of shock.
If that was truly the situation, she was pretty brave.
Placental abruption is a medical emergency that always calls for immediate intervention.*
*This statement made by a mediocre medical student and not a real doctor.