Last night 60 Minutes aired a controversial report into selective reduction.
Selective reduction is the practice of aborting one or more fetuses in a multiple pregnancy for medical or ‘lifestyle’ reasons, if the parents do not wish to have more than one or two babies.
The reduction procedure is generally carried out during the first trimester of pregnancy and the most common method used is to inject potassium choloride into the fetus’s heart; the heart stops and the fetus dies as a result.
With IVF becoming increasingly common, the number of multiple pregnancies is increasing and the practice of selective reduction is becoming more widespread.
60 Minutes interviewed one mother with triplets who chose not to selectively reduce and another mother who was pregnant with triplets via IVF and decided to reduce down to one foetus because she only wanted one child.
There was also a mother who reduced for health reasons. Kass Hall writes:
The discussions around the water cooler across Australia today will be firey, no doubt, after the story on “selective reduction” on Sixty Minutes. Twitter and Facebook are in meltdown, with a range of views from ‘murder’ right through to ‘it’s a woman’s right to choose’, and everything in between.
The story by Michael Usher looked at women who have chosen to take this course of action due to lifestyle or financial choices, as opposed to reasons of impaired health for either mother or child. Many (but not all) of the women have used IVF and other reproductive technology to get pregnant.
I’m 34 years old and have survived cancer four times in 21 years. It has not only ravaged my body through surgery and treatments, it has also left me unable to conceive my own child. Given the long term nature of my diagnosis, I also don’t meet the criteria for adopting or fostering.
Despite my inability to have a child, I am strongly pro-choice – in fact I believe both men and women should have complete control over their bodies and what they do with them. But it’s hard to get my head around the women in the Sixty Minutes story on Sunday night.
My problem with selective reduction is two-fold: first, the way it occurs. A needle containing poison being injected into the heart of the fetus, until it stops beating. I don’t think it matters whether you support or oppose the ethics or morality of selective reduction. Watching that needle being inserted on the sonogram was horrific. (Ed’s Note: One Mamamia reader has had to make this heartbreaking decision before – you can read about that story in full here)