Posted on 08/27/2005 6:15:58 AM PDT by NYer
CHICAGO (AP) - The editor of a medical journal that published an article this week saying fetuses likely don't feel pain until late in pregnancy said Thursday she has received dozens of angry e-mails from abortion opponents.
Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor in chief of The Journal of the American Medical Association, said she had to take a walk around the block after receiving dozens of "horrible, vindictive" messages.
"One woman said she would pray for my soul," DeAngelis said. "I could use all the prayers I can get." DeAngelis said she is a staunch Roman Catholic and strongly opposes abortion, though she also supports women's right to choose.
"Your licence should be stripped," DeAngelis said, reading aloud from the 50 or so e-mails that came to her office. "You're hypocrisy," "You should get a real job," "Eternity will definitely bring justice for you," others wrote.
Critics said the article in Wednesday's JAMA was a politically motivated attack on proposed federal legislation that would require doctors to provide fetal pain information to women seeking abortions when fetuses are at least 20 weeks, and to offer women fetal anesthesia at that stage of the pregnancy. A handful of states have enacted similar measures.
One of the five authors of the article is a University of California, San Francisco obstetrician who works at an abortion clinic and a second author - a UCSF medical student and lawyer - worked for several months at the advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
DeAngelis said JAMA will publish properly submitted critics' comments in an upcoming edition and will give the authors a chance to respond. But she stood by her decision to publish it.
"There's nothing wrong with this article," DeAngelis said. "This is not original research. This is a review article," based on data in dozens of medical articles by other researchers.
DeAngelis said the obstetrician's experience is not a conflict because performing abortions is often part of that job. She said she would have published the medical student's NARAL connection as a potential conflict of interest had she known about it in advance, but that not mentioning it does not mean that the article or journal are biased.
"If there weren't four other authors and this wasn't a peer-reviewed journal, I'd worry . . . but I don't," she said.
Dr. Mark Rosen, the review's senior author, is an anesthesiologist and fetal surgery pioneer who said the article is an objective review of medical literature.
Dr. Philip Darney, an obstetrics-gynecology professor at UCSF, said the review article represents "thoughtful and thorough scholarship. No conflicts of interest were present in conducting this work and no affiliations nor clinical practice information were withheld inappropriately."
DeAngelis said she attends mass at least weekly and is also a eucharistic minister, which allows her to administer communion to fellow Catholics.
Staunch? You can't be both Catholic and pro choice. With these mixed views, she should not be distributing the Eucharist either.
These messages are sharply critical. Frequently ungammatical. But "horrible, vindictive"? "Hate mail"? I think not.
Other opinions here?
Sloppy/biased reporting.
How about ONE example of "hate mail" that would back up the title?
DeAngelis said she attends mass at least weekly and is also a eucharistic minister, which allows her to administer communion to fellow Catholics.This is a disgrace.
She might actually be right about fetal pain. So does that change the nature of what an abortion is?
Now isn't horrible and hateful for someone to pray for you. My O my, how conditioned to be hypersensitive people are.
DeAngelis said she is a staunch Roman Catholic and strongly opposes abortion, though she also supports women's right to choose.
Sorry doc, but those two are mutually exclusive.
"How about ONE example of "hate mail" that would back up the title?"
One thing I learned during my years trying to debate with liberals is that it is the act of disagreement itself that sets them to frothing at the mouth.
You can say, "Please pardon me, esteemed colleague, but I must respectfully beg not to completely agree with all facets of your position," and you'll get the same response as if you called them brain-dead lockstep zombies.
That's why I don't bother being polite to them any more. It's a waste of time and effort.
Doesn't get much more hateful than that. LOL.
Liberals cannot debate because their positions have no basis in rational thought, it's that simple.
They "feel" everything therefore you are disagreeing with their feeeeeelings and that is hateful.
Another reason to get rid of the dread "EEM's," most of whom seem to be at best, little old ladies with nothing else to do, and at worst, would-be priestettes.
Sorry, the entire practice gives exceptional status to people in the Church who have done nothing to deserve it, not even having an ordained position, and I suspect never being expected in any way to adhere to Church doctrine. I've sure never seen any particular attention to their lives and beliefs. But it's something else the press can haul out in their gleeful proclamation of "pro-abortion Catholics." Now not only is this hypocritical and fundamentally dishonest woman a "devout Catholic," she has semi-official status as a "Eucharistic minister."
I hope her priest and her bishop have the guts to get her off the altar until she publicly acknowledges her error and accepts the teaching of the Church, but I'm not counting on it.
Who's her bishop?
This is a bullsh*t cop-out that people use to somehow justify their horrific views. 40 MILLION+ lives have been lost because of this "I don't care what others do" mentallity.
If she's actually in Chicago, it would be Cardinal George, who is orthodox if not as aggressive as people had hoped he would be.
I'm sure, btw, that there are many perfectly decent Catholics who are EEM's, but I have always felt that it was an unnecessary position, intended to go even further in cluttering the altar up with various and sundry laypeople and obscuring the role of the priest.
It's certainly not necessary and doesn't even expedite things (which seems to be a major concern, as if we were all on our way to a fire). There is always a huge snarl at the front, some of the EEMs are so elderly that they are unsteady and occasionally fall, and others seem to take advantage of their dubious position to assert that they are somehow "in charge" in other church situations. For some reason, it always seems to be the most liberal parish members who covet this job, so I suppose it's not surprising to read about this woman's confused opinions.
There - that's my rant for the day!
In any case, I hope Cardinal George is reading about her opinions, too - and that he does something about this.
"DeAngelis said she is a staunch Roman Catholic and strongly opposes abortion, though she also supports women's right to choose.
Staunch? You can't be both Catholic and pro choice. With these mixed views, she should not be distributing the Eucharist either."
No such thing as "eucharistic minister" any more. The priest is THE eucharistic minister!
Lay people who help with the distribution of Holy Communion are now called "EMHC" -- Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
Just one more indication that this lady is not that well informed!
And I really think they are necessary here, given the number of services (time IS a consideration) and the number in the congregation. Even with four lines (the priest, the deacon, and two EEMs, plus two chalice bearers, one on each side) we sing two complete anthems and the organist twiddles for awhile and the folks still usually haven't all received. Plus, they send an EEM up to the choir loft for us . . . no way we (and the other folks in the balcony) could work our way down to the floor level, up to the front, and back again in any reasonable period of time. It's a long flight of stairs with three landings (the balcony is HIGH off the church floor). There is an elevator for the infirm but it is S-L-O-W.
On the other hand, the little church in my parents' town is quite small, but they are covered up with EEMs which they don't need - and they are all women in short hair and sandals. And the downtown church I go to on weekdays has a tiny congregation for noon mass (even though it is a HUGE church most of its parishioners are long gone to the suburbs), no more than 15 people, and they STILL had EEMs swarming around. Maybe they can find some other job for them to do?
**Frequently ungammatical**
??
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