[ChemistCat]

This time I can't agree with you. It probably hurt her a lot to make this decision. Imagine a 4 year old going through childbirth. She is not a soul-less anything...she's between a rock and a hard place, and is trying to make the best choice for her daughter under these circumstances.

Epilepsy medications DO cause severe birth defects. And I gather that nobody knew she was pregnant in her crucial first months.

But it is awful that this waited so LONG. This is an almost viable baby now, and if it is not so grossly deformed that it cannot survive, and if the mother's life is not immediately endangered, they are making a terribly, terribly wrong decision.

[Old Professer]

A friend of mine since 1st grade has epilepsy; she had two children while on medication. One child had a defective heart valve and has had several operations since the age of 6 but is otherwise in great health and has children of her own. Her sister is a perfectly healthy mother of two beautiful girls; they are my "adopted" nieces.

If it's perfection you seek, you must always be disappointed.

[cgk]

I agree with you, though that may surprise you. See post #26. I am (obviously) very passionate on this issue. But the article states the doctors had scheduled an abortion, but determined the baby was developing normally, and there was no immediate threat to the mother, so they cancelled it. What infuriated me most of all was the judge overruling the doctors on the word of a court appointed attorney who "concluded" this mentally disabled woman didn't want her baby, and the grandmother hearing the heartbeat and not listening to the doctors who saw no harm at this time, and giving life a chance. At this point, 6 months, we are talking about a healthy, normally developed baby - this according to the doctors. Delivering this baby now is no more dangerous than aborting this late-term baby. I'm no medical expert on seizures and medications, I only am speaking about what I read on the case.