By Dave Andrusko
A “thank you” to all of you who wrote back to me about our story on the advances made in prenatal surgery based on a piece that ran on “All Things Considered.” I didn’t make a huge point of it, but the schizophrenia was hard to miss.
One minute the “object” of this spina bifida surgery was a “child,” the next a “fetus,” and occasionally a “baby.” Sometimes the different usage was in back to back sentences. (See here)
Just as that entry wasn’t lengthy, so too will this one be because the point need not be belabored.
I think most of us heard a few months ago about the changes the FDA will require on cigarette packaging. “Beginning September 2012, FDA will require larger, more prominent cigarette health warnings on all cigarette packaging and advertisements in the United States,” you read on the FDA webpage.
The shorthand description for the nine different text warnings and accompanying color graphic is that they will be “graphic.” And some of them are quite startling. What has that to do with us?
First, one of the graphics which we reproduce below, includes the warning, “Warning: Smoking During Pregnancy Can Harm Your Baby.” (Not your “fetus,” but your “baby.” As you can see, this visual is not overwhelming.)
“Smoking during pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage, stillborn or premature infants, infants with low birth weight and an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS),” we learn.
Second, what if someday something along the following lines appeared– “Warning: An abortion increases a Woman’s risk of having breast cancer” (or future sterility or miscarriages or ectopic pregnancy, etc., etc.); or “Warning: An Abortion Hurts a Separate Human Being”? The accompanying graphic need only be that of a normal woman and/or a normal developing unborn child.
Referring to the new anti-smoking warnings the FDA tells us, “The introduction of these warnings is expected to have a significant public health impact…” Well, warning women of what abortion always does to a baby and can often do to them would also have a “significant public health impact.”
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