Shapiro: "First, calling the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism “ideologically charged” fails to reckon with that definition on its own terms.."
And by focusing only on the definition - as the author does - fails to recon with the examples supplied on the IHRA site as forms antisemitism may take. Specifically, quoted:
"Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:
...
* Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
* Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
..."
So she's being a bit pedantic....and perhaps a bit disingenuous. Sure, IHRA's 2-sentence definition doesn't include the items noted in the original FP article (or much of the commentary on this topic), but the reality is many of those items (or similar statements) ARE included on the IHRA as examples. And yes, those examples matter. So if she has a problem with people using those examples, then perhaps the better approach would be to write a letter to the IHRA arguing that they be removed.
I came across the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Free Press just a few days ago and hope it is not too late to share some thoughts about the miscarriage- fetal death vs. abortion conversation. I am a former midwife who helped many women have babies but I also advised and supported women who had abortions. I read Allie Phillips’ and Helen Raleigh’s articles with great sympathy.
Let me clarify some things, if I may: the term abortion in medical language means evacuation of the uterus before 20 weeks. And a miscarriage is sometimes called an involuntary or spontaneous abortion in medical terms because it occurs before 20 weeks. Therefore, the word abortion in medical terms does not carry the political, religious, emotional or cultural meanings we attach to it. What happened to Helen was a stillbirth, a baby who died after 20 weeks’ gestation. I understand why Helen equated her stillbirth with people who have had miscarriages. Because they are all about the same thing, which is losing a baby.
But Allie too lost a baby and for the sake of understanding her comments, we need to bring in some more information and several other terms. Just as there are spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), there are two other kinds of abortions, both of these performed by physicians: voluntary abortions and medical abortions. A voluntary abortion is where the person who is pregnant assumes she could carry the pregnancy to term without medical problems but chooses to terminate it for other reasons. A medical abortion is performed when there is a medical risk or complication that threatens the health or life of the mother or baby, or both.
Allie’s baby died much earlier in pregnancy than Helen’s baby, and Allie could not have a labor induction because she was too early in her pregnancy. Could she have waited a few more weeks until her baby was old enough and then gotten a labor induction? Not in this case. The baby had major malformations and was close to death when the malformations were discovered. As soon as the baby died, Allie would immediately become high risk for developing a uterine infection. Uterine infections can easily get into the bloodstream and cause body wide infections that can be life threatening or cause serious long term complications.
So Allie chose to have a medical abortion. When she did this, her baby was already dead, so the abortion did not kill her baby. Let me repeat that for those of you who oppose abortion: the baby was already dead. Therefore, in this case, the abortion was actually a lifesaving procedure that preserved Allie’s fertility and prevented her from developing a dangerous infection. We want Allie to save her fertility so she can have more children- right? I also assume that none of you who wrote critical comments about her would have wanted her to die. Had she died, can anyone say that would have been a good outcome for her older child, her husband or her parents?
On top of the grief Allie and her family must have felt about the death of her baby- grief similar to Helen’s- Allie could not just go to a nearby hospital, get the care she needed and then go home and grieve. She and her husband had the added burden of worrying about her health, having to raise money they did not have, find an out of state clinic that would help her, travel there, figure out who would take care of her older child while she was gone, and do all of this before Allie developed an infection. If that doesn’t constitute an undue hardship, I don’t know what does!
I understood Helen’s objection to be that pregnancy losses like hers are being politicized and equated with voluntary abortions. If that is correct, I think it is a misunderstanding. Stillbirths are not being equated to anything, but miscarriages are being connected, not equated, to medical abortions. Dilatation & curettage (D&C) and dilatation and evacuation (D&E) procedures are used for both voluntary abortions and medical abortions. In states where abortion is now illegal, doctors are fearful that if they perform D&C and D&E procedures for medical abortions (for women having miscarriages), they will be accused of performing voluntary abortions. Because the docs are now fearful, women who need medical abortions are not getting them and this is becoming a real and serious health problem. That means people need to be educated about these cases and fast. I suspect that is why Chrissy Teigen said what she did about her own experience with miscarriage.
I absolutely agree that most people do not know or understand what it is like to lose a baby during pregnancy. I appreciate both Allie’s and Helen’s courage and conviction in speaking out and sharing their experiences. I hope more people do this so that others going through similar situations can know they’re not alone.
Thank you for the well reasoned and kind comment on this subject. Even here on TFP I’ve found many of the commentators to be mean spirited and judgmental in regards to the topic of abortion. And for the record I’m a mom of two who would never get one unless it was a medical emergency. I personally respect motherhood enough that I would never think to impose my own morals about it on others.
I will never forget the look on our friend’s face when we congratulated him after hearing his wife had gone to the hospital for the birth of their second child, only for him to have to tell us the baby had died during labor. Although rarely discussed, this type of pregnancy loss seems more common than one might think, even in our first world countries.
Sorry but a) Allie is incorrect - an abortion and a procedure to remove tissue following loss of a wanted pregnancy are fundamentally not the same thing and b) it's a disgusting thing to say to someone who lost a wanted child. The insensitivity is outrageous. The original article bothered me for so many reasons, and I now realize the primary reason is the complete lack of empathy shown by its author.
The line “my pregnancy was incompatible with life” leads to the fact she’s propagandizing. She also goes back and forth between ending a life and a life dying naturally. I agree whole heartedly with Ms Raleigh.
"But unfortunately, our government politicized abortions when they took that access away from women and girls." This comment wins the internet so far this year for it sheer stupidity. I made a comment the other day on another thread that is quite applicable here: Why do so many people go to college to study a hobby? Is it so you can use bigger words for your almost purely emotional arguments?
Helen, thank you for sharing your story. My heart breaks for you and your family. TFP, thank you for sharing her response with us. Far too many media organizations fear presenting ANY disagreement with pro-abortion orthodoxy.
Ms. Phillips, abortion is not healthcare. It is choosing to put to death your baby (fetus). A D&C is not an abortion, it is evacuation of the womb when a baby has died or when tissue build up requires it. As a sufferer of a miscarriage for a baby I desperately wanted, you offend me more in your reply than you did in your original article. Tennessee is on our short list for retirement and I will be avidly watching your election run to see if you have bamboozled TN or if they are smart enough to vote against you.
It is ludicrous misinformation to define a D&C procedure to remove retained tissue from a miscarriage as an "abortion" much as it would be to call a skin mole removal an "abortion". A D&C procedure to remove a viable fetus is indeed an abortion, however, a procedure which does not remove a viable fetus is NOT an abortion, no matter how much activist language redefiners would like it to be. How hard can it be to figure this out?
I appreciate getting to see both sides of this facet of the abortion debate with the writings of Ms. Raleigh and Ms. Phillips. Giving both (or all) sides is what I subscribed to the FP for. There should be a front page link to letters so that these debates are more readily accessible.
How can Allie say “Abortion is a medical procedure that can remove a fetus whether it’s dead or alive. The procedure is the same either way.” And the justify abortion for a living baby. Just because a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant (which accounts for most of the cases), it is still a BABY. It doesn’t cease to have value because it is unwanted by her. Many couples would gladly adopt that child if given a chance. Don’t call this horrendous act “healthcare.” Thats an abomination.
A women getting pregnant is just so complicated and when you find out how this is one of most un-studied medical events in science you should all be amazed ! The main reason it's un-studied is that evolution has created many many ways for the process to occur . A honest specialized baby doctor will tell you this , i.e they have only tools and procedures that are mostly atonal in nature . And for every story you hear about a bad pregnancy you will hear 100 different things that should have been done. This is the fundamental problem with the abortion debate it keys into this medical un-studied event . In medicine they talk about best practices (Mostly a lawyer defense) but when it comes to having baby's they just don't really know , yes there are many ways they can look at it but it's a poorly studied medical event and thus best practices are what you can defend in a law suite and that is such a huge problem. So all of this just touches on the complexity of having babies , BUT when you hear there was only one way out of problem , you know that was just another BS story given to a desperate patent by a BS doctor that knows shit about the process ! I have run into a lot of doctors giving BS advice because they want the $$ involved in there solution or they just don't want to tell you "I don't know". Look for the doctors that tell you 'I don't know' and can send you more info or to another doctor that might ! The best medical advice is BEWARE and you need to make your own mind up about a direction to take , and before you do that go find more doctors to talk with about it !
Really grateful to Helen Raleigh for taking time to write this letter. I’m only three weeks post partum with baby number 5, however have been trying to find the time and headspace to write a response because a year ago we lost baby number 4.
Our baby had no heartbeat and I had to wait for my body to pass the remains. Something really startling struck me as we navigated the loss in our home state of Texas - several friends in Illinois (rather hysterically) worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the care I needed because of all the “draconian” and “anti-women” laws they had been hearing about. Like that these procedures had been banned
Outright and doctors were afraid to administer them? I was able to get two orders of the drugs that some people use to chemically induce an abortion. I also ended up needing a D&C, (a procedure sometimes used to abort a live baby)
Like Helen, it immensely complicated and added to my grief that people were politicizing these medical tools and procedures I needed. I was so happy to be able to firmly reply that I was getting incredible and professional care from my doctors in Texas. And My OB knew that the prescription might be met with skepticism and she also knew that she confidently needed to prescribe it for me, taking the extra time to call the pharmacy. That doctors would hesitate to prescribe it to a patient that needs it because they fear being misinterpreted and facing a legal challenge is sad but even sadder is people using this as an excuse to keep these drugs legal so that people can electively chemically abort their children at home.
When I read the original article I thought it lacked the usual journalistic rigor I’ve come to appreciate from TFP. My main burning question was why in the world didn’t Ms. Phillips’ doctor monitor her and give her the kind of care and attention that I got in TX when my baby died in my Womb? She should’ve been able to get a D&C In TN in a hospital. And actually, at 22 weeks, she should’ve been able to deliver the baby before it died in her womb. Those to me are the burning question that journalists can uncover. My heart breaks for her that she had to travel out of state and go to a facility that did not give great care. It doesn’t add up or make sense. Who is scaring these doctors into denying care that is totally justified and NOT an abortion?
I’ve been loving the free press free subscriptions and have sent many out to friends. I always have to say that abortion is the main issue I feel like TFP reports with a one-eyes cyclops view about instead of the nuance of two eyes to see both sides of an issue.
I am very sorry for your lost little one, and I’m sorry that the intellectual dishonesty people have shown about the Dobbs decision has added to your pain.
Thanks Paul & Sally. And Mrs. Kreager, I’m sorry you had to go through the same experience! The number of women who miscarry (most of whom grieve privately) has been one of the more surprising aspects of parenthood for me.
Held in Hope is wonderful ministry, especially if you have a missed miscarriage.
Fun fact: On Fri April 19, Baby Basil and I were featured in where I TGIF but he wasn’t born yet! He was born the next Monday 🥳
Beautifully said with insightful challenges. Congratulations on your precious Baby # 5. May holding this little one bring SOME balm to you in your grief for #4.
Once upon a time the employment of means to remove a fetus was deemed acceptable if the mother's life was in jeopardy. How many of these situations occur today versus the "I'm pregnant and want to fix this"? In the case of "unwanted" pregnancies, did those seeking their termination ever consider using pregnancy prevention measures or would that have "spoiled the mood"?
Professor Shapiro may have confused people. The first thing to understand is that *Jews are already covered by Title VI*. So are Norwegian-Americans. So are Blacks. All ethnic groups are covered.
The big question is "What is a Jew?" Or, rather, what does it mean to discriminate against Jews? That's what the Act is about. Pro-Hamas people say they don't discriminate against Jews, just Zionists. If someone says he doesn't want to kill all Jews, but he wants to kill all the Jews in Israel, is he anti-semitic?
This passage is a bit disingenuous:
Shapiro: "First, calling the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism “ideologically charged” fails to reckon with that definition on its own terms.."
And by focusing only on the definition - as the author does - fails to recon with the examples supplied on the IHRA site as forms antisemitism may take. Specifically, quoted:
"Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:
...
* Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
* Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
..."
So she's being a bit pedantic....and perhaps a bit disingenuous. Sure, IHRA's 2-sentence definition doesn't include the items noted in the original FP article (or much of the commentary on this topic), but the reality is many of those items (or similar statements) ARE included on the IHRA as examples. And yes, those examples matter. So if she has a problem with people using those examples, then perhaps the better approach would be to write a letter to the IHRA arguing that they be removed.
I came across the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Free Press just a few days ago and hope it is not too late to share some thoughts about the miscarriage- fetal death vs. abortion conversation. I am a former midwife who helped many women have babies but I also advised and supported women who had abortions. I read Allie Phillips’ and Helen Raleigh’s articles with great sympathy.
Let me clarify some things, if I may: the term abortion in medical language means evacuation of the uterus before 20 weeks. And a miscarriage is sometimes called an involuntary or spontaneous abortion in medical terms because it occurs before 20 weeks. Therefore, the word abortion in medical terms does not carry the political, religious, emotional or cultural meanings we attach to it. What happened to Helen was a stillbirth, a baby who died after 20 weeks’ gestation. I understand why Helen equated her stillbirth with people who have had miscarriages. Because they are all about the same thing, which is losing a baby.
But Allie too lost a baby and for the sake of understanding her comments, we need to bring in some more information and several other terms. Just as there are spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), there are two other kinds of abortions, both of these performed by physicians: voluntary abortions and medical abortions. A voluntary abortion is where the person who is pregnant assumes she could carry the pregnancy to term without medical problems but chooses to terminate it for other reasons. A medical abortion is performed when there is a medical risk or complication that threatens the health or life of the mother or baby, or both.
Allie’s baby died much earlier in pregnancy than Helen’s baby, and Allie could not have a labor induction because she was too early in her pregnancy. Could she have waited a few more weeks until her baby was old enough and then gotten a labor induction? Not in this case. The baby had major malformations and was close to death when the malformations were discovered. As soon as the baby died, Allie would immediately become high risk for developing a uterine infection. Uterine infections can easily get into the bloodstream and cause body wide infections that can be life threatening or cause serious long term complications.
So Allie chose to have a medical abortion. When she did this, her baby was already dead, so the abortion did not kill her baby. Let me repeat that for those of you who oppose abortion: the baby was already dead. Therefore, in this case, the abortion was actually a lifesaving procedure that preserved Allie’s fertility and prevented her from developing a dangerous infection. We want Allie to save her fertility so she can have more children- right? I also assume that none of you who wrote critical comments about her would have wanted her to die. Had she died, can anyone say that would have been a good outcome for her older child, her husband or her parents?
On top of the grief Allie and her family must have felt about the death of her baby- grief similar to Helen’s- Allie could not just go to a nearby hospital, get the care she needed and then go home and grieve. She and her husband had the added burden of worrying about her health, having to raise money they did not have, find an out of state clinic that would help her, travel there, figure out who would take care of her older child while she was gone, and do all of this before Allie developed an infection. If that doesn’t constitute an undue hardship, I don’t know what does!
I understood Helen’s objection to be that pregnancy losses like hers are being politicized and equated with voluntary abortions. If that is correct, I think it is a misunderstanding. Stillbirths are not being equated to anything, but miscarriages are being connected, not equated, to medical abortions. Dilatation & curettage (D&C) and dilatation and evacuation (D&E) procedures are used for both voluntary abortions and medical abortions. In states where abortion is now illegal, doctors are fearful that if they perform D&C and D&E procedures for medical abortions (for women having miscarriages), they will be accused of performing voluntary abortions. Because the docs are now fearful, women who need medical abortions are not getting them and this is becoming a real and serious health problem. That means people need to be educated about these cases and fast. I suspect that is why Chrissy Teigen said what she did about her own experience with miscarriage.
I absolutely agree that most people do not know or understand what it is like to lose a baby during pregnancy. I appreciate both Allie’s and Helen’s courage and conviction in speaking out and sharing their experiences. I hope more people do this so that others going through similar situations can know they’re not alone.
Thank you for the well reasoned and kind comment on this subject. Even here on TFP I’ve found many of the commentators to be mean spirited and judgmental in regards to the topic of abortion. And for the record I’m a mom of two who would never get one unless it was a medical emergency. I personally respect motherhood enough that I would never think to impose my own morals about it on others.
I will never forget the look on our friend’s face when we congratulated him after hearing his wife had gone to the hospital for the birth of their second child, only for him to have to tell us the baby had died during labor. Although rarely discussed, this type of pregnancy loss seems more common than one might think, even in our first world countries.
Sorry but a) Allie is incorrect - an abortion and a procedure to remove tissue following loss of a wanted pregnancy are fundamentally not the same thing and b) it's a disgusting thing to say to someone who lost a wanted child. The insensitivity is outrageous. The original article bothered me for so many reasons, and I now realize the primary reason is the complete lack of empathy shown by its author.
Standing ovation for Helen Raleigh.
The line “my pregnancy was incompatible with life” leads to the fact she’s propagandizing. She also goes back and forth between ending a life and a life dying naturally. I agree whole heartedly with Ms Raleigh.
"But unfortunately, our government politicized abortions when they took that access away from women and girls." This comment wins the internet so far this year for it sheer stupidity. I made a comment the other day on another thread that is quite applicable here: Why do so many people go to college to study a hobby? Is it so you can use bigger words for your almost purely emotional arguments?
Helen, thank you for sharing your story. My heart breaks for you and your family. TFP, thank you for sharing her response with us. Far too many media organizations fear presenting ANY disagreement with pro-abortion orthodoxy.
Ms. Phillips, abortion is not healthcare. It is choosing to put to death your baby (fetus). A D&C is not an abortion, it is evacuation of the womb when a baby has died or when tissue build up requires it. As a sufferer of a miscarriage for a baby I desperately wanted, you offend me more in your reply than you did in your original article. Tennessee is on our short list for retirement and I will be avidly watching your election run to see if you have bamboozled TN or if they are smart enough to vote against you.
It is ludicrous misinformation to define a D&C procedure to remove retained tissue from a miscarriage as an "abortion" much as it would be to call a skin mole removal an "abortion". A D&C procedure to remove a viable fetus is indeed an abortion, however, a procedure which does not remove a viable fetus is NOT an abortion, no matter how much activist language redefiners would like it to be. How hard can it be to figure this out?
I appreciate getting to see both sides of this facet of the abortion debate with the writings of Ms. Raleigh and Ms. Phillips. Giving both (or all) sides is what I subscribed to the FP for. There should be a front page link to letters so that these debates are more readily accessible.
How can Allie say “Abortion is a medical procedure that can remove a fetus whether it’s dead or alive. The procedure is the same either way.” And the justify abortion for a living baby. Just because a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant (which accounts for most of the cases), it is still a BABY. It doesn’t cease to have value because it is unwanted by her. Many couples would gladly adopt that child if given a chance. Don’t call this horrendous act “healthcare.” Thats an abomination.
A women getting pregnant is just so complicated and when you find out how this is one of most un-studied medical events in science you should all be amazed ! The main reason it's un-studied is that evolution has created many many ways for the process to occur . A honest specialized baby doctor will tell you this , i.e they have only tools and procedures that are mostly atonal in nature . And for every story you hear about a bad pregnancy you will hear 100 different things that should have been done. This is the fundamental problem with the abortion debate it keys into this medical un-studied event . In medicine they talk about best practices (Mostly a lawyer defense) but when it comes to having baby's they just don't really know , yes there are many ways they can look at it but it's a poorly studied medical event and thus best practices are what you can defend in a law suite and that is such a huge problem. So all of this just touches on the complexity of having babies , BUT when you hear there was only one way out of problem , you know that was just another BS story given to a desperate patent by a BS doctor that knows shit about the process ! I have run into a lot of doctors giving BS advice because they want the $$ involved in there solution or they just don't want to tell you "I don't know". Look for the doctors that tell you 'I don't know' and can send you more info or to another doctor that might ! The best medical advice is BEWARE and you need to make your own mind up about a direction to take , and before you do that go find more doctors to talk with about it !
“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”
Ecclesiastes 11:5 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/ecc.11.5.ESV
This is an amazing verse, I’ve never seen it before. Thank you.
This is an amazing verse, I’ve never seen it before. Thank you.
Really grateful to Helen Raleigh for taking time to write this letter. I’m only three weeks post partum with baby number 5, however have been trying to find the time and headspace to write a response because a year ago we lost baby number 4.
Our baby had no heartbeat and I had to wait for my body to pass the remains. Something really startling struck me as we navigated the loss in our home state of Texas - several friends in Illinois (rather hysterically) worried that I wouldn’t be able to get the care I needed because of all the “draconian” and “anti-women” laws they had been hearing about. Like that these procedures had been banned
Outright and doctors were afraid to administer them? I was able to get two orders of the drugs that some people use to chemically induce an abortion. I also ended up needing a D&C, (a procedure sometimes used to abort a live baby)
Like Helen, it immensely complicated and added to my grief that people were politicizing these medical tools and procedures I needed. I was so happy to be able to firmly reply that I was getting incredible and professional care from my doctors in Texas. And My OB knew that the prescription might be met with skepticism and she also knew that she confidently needed to prescribe it for me, taking the extra time to call the pharmacy. That doctors would hesitate to prescribe it to a patient that needs it because they fear being misinterpreted and facing a legal challenge is sad but even sadder is people using this as an excuse to keep these drugs legal so that people can electively chemically abort their children at home.
When I read the original article I thought it lacked the usual journalistic rigor I’ve come to appreciate from TFP. My main burning question was why in the world didn’t Ms. Phillips’ doctor monitor her and give her the kind of care and attention that I got in TX when my baby died in my Womb? She should’ve been able to get a D&C In TN in a hospital. And actually, at 22 weeks, she should’ve been able to deliver the baby before it died in her womb. Those to me are the burning question that journalists can uncover. My heart breaks for her that she had to travel out of state and go to a facility that did not give great care. It doesn’t add up or make sense. Who is scaring these doctors into denying care that is totally justified and NOT an abortion?
I’ve been loving the free press free subscriptions and have sent many out to friends. I always have to say that abortion is the main issue I feel like TFP reports with a one-eyes cyclops view about instead of the nuance of two eyes to see both sides of an issue.
I am very sorry for your lost little one, and I’m sorry that the intellectual dishonesty people have shown about the Dobbs decision has added to your pain.
Thank you for sharing your perspective! Hope TFP is reading.
Thanks Paul & Sally. And Mrs. Kreager, I’m sorry you had to go through the same experience! The number of women who miscarry (most of whom grieve privately) has been one of the more surprising aspects of parenthood for me.
Held in Hope is wonderful ministry, especially if you have a missed miscarriage.
Fun fact: On Fri April 19, Baby Basil and I were featured in where I TGIF but he wasn’t born yet! He was born the next Monday 🥳
I had the same miscarriage experience as you (back in 2011) - and was asking the same questions of Ms. Phillips original article. It doesn’t add up.
-Ryan’s Wife (posting as not-a-dude under my husband’s account)
Beautifully said with insightful challenges. Congratulations on your precious Baby # 5. May holding this little one bring SOME balm to you in your grief for #4.
Once upon a time the employment of means to remove a fetus was deemed acceptable if the mother's life was in jeopardy. How many of these situations occur today versus the "I'm pregnant and want to fix this"? In the case of "unwanted" pregnancies, did those seeking their termination ever consider using pregnancy prevention measures or would that have "spoiled the mood"?
Professor Shapiro may have confused people. The first thing to understand is that *Jews are already covered by Title VI*. So are Norwegian-Americans. So are Blacks. All ethnic groups are covered.
The big question is "What is a Jew?" Or, rather, what does it mean to discriminate against Jews? That's what the Act is about. Pro-Hamas people say they don't discriminate against Jews, just Zionists. If someone says he doesn't want to kill all Jews, but he wants to kill all the Jews in Israel, is he anti-semitic?