Remember, many women take prescriptions that are dangerous when pregnant.

[cally]

I take a prescriptions that warns that it is unsafe to take while pregnant. We won't be able to get abortions either.

[politicat]

1. Wasn't it thalidomide that helped raise awareness for the need for

legal abortion?

[cally]

2. It caused birth defects

but I didn't know it helped raise awareness. I wish I could say, "never again." Why do we have to keep repeating history.

[MountainLaurel]

3. To some extent, yes

There was a very high-profile case involving one of the hosts of Romper Room in which she was trying to obtain an abortion due to thalidomide effects. HBO did a film about it starring Sissy Spacek and Aiden Quinn: A Private Matter.

[ismnotwasm]

4. I don't know if it helped raise awareness

But I do know that it is being used again for certain types of cancer, (I think it was cancer-- I was still working in a nursing home when I was giving it, I haven't seen it in acute care, at least on my floor) The box has a picture of the baby with the typical "flippers" the extremity deformities commonly seen with it's use by pregnant women. Lots of warnings and restrictions for patients and healthcare workers.

Of course that doesn't mean mistakes or oversights won't be made. (Not to be a fear monger, but this anti-abortion movement has got me scared as shit)

[politicat]

5. Yes, it's used for cancer.

The rationale being that most cancer patients cannot get pregnant, due to age and/or the sterility caused by radiation and chemo.

[geniph]

6. And that brings up another question

Many women who find they are pregnant after being diagnosed with cancer are encouraged to consider abortion as an option because of the extreme danger to the fetus caused by either chemo or radiation. Obviously, with many cancers, if the woman opts to carry the pregnancy to term and to eschew cancer treatment, her life is very much in danger from the spread of the disease. What happens to those women in backward states like South Dakota and Mississippi? Will doctors not even be able to discuss the dangers of carrying the pregnancy to term with them?

I can't believe we're taking this giant step backward to 1972.

[cally]

7. Probably not

The docs made it very clear that if I became pregnant that I shouldn't carry the child to term with the drugs I'm taking. (I'm unlikely to get pregnant at my age, but still many women have cancer at younger ages.) Women in Miss. and SD will probably not hear the same info. Scary.

[geniph]

8. and thus BOTH will increase their chances of dying...

both the woman and the fetus will likely die if the woman's cancer goes untreated. So women with cancer matter less than fertilized ova.

I need to move the hell out of this weird-ass Puritanical society. These people are really starting to gag me.