Selective reductions

[thundley4]

Makes it sound a little like price cuts at Walmart.

Instead, it's yet more signs that the death culture is alive and kicking:

Like so many other couples these days, the Toronto-area business executive and her husband put off having children for years as they built successful careers. Both parents were in their 40s -- and their first son just over a year old -- when this spring the woman became pregnant a second time. Seven weeks in, an ultrasound revealed the Burlington, Ont., resident was carrying twins. "It came as a complete shock," said the mother, who asked not to be named. "We're both career people. If we were going to have three children two years apart, someone else was going to be raising our kids. ... All of a sudden our lives as we know them and as we like to lead them, are not going to happen."

She soon discovered another option: Doctors could "reduce" the pregnancy from twins to a singleton through a little-known procedure that eliminates selected fetuses -- and has become increasingly common in the past two decades amid a boom in the number of multiple pregnancies.

Selective reductions are typically carried out for women pregnant with triplets or greater, where the risk of harm or death climbs sharply with each additional fetus. The Ontario couple is part of what some experts say is a growing demand for reducing twins to one, fuelled more by socio-economic imperatives than medical need, and raising vexing new ethical questions.

wizbangblog

To me this is almost more disturbing than an outright abortion of both babies.

[Celtic Rose]

That is horribly, horribly disturbing    How would you explain that your children when they are older.  "Yes, you were conceived as a twin, but two children would have been inconvenient, so we got rid of your twin."

[thundley4]

That is horribly, horribly disturbing    How would you explain that your children when they are older.  "Yes, you were conceived as a twin, but two children would have been inconvenient, so we got rid of your twin."

I would think it could cause serious emotional problems for the survivor.

[NHSparky]

Amazing how in Canada one can't get heart surgery for 2-3 years or lifesaving cancer treatments, but they'll jump through hoops to abort your children.

[Ballygrl]

Absolutely disgusting!

[Thor]

And the surviving twin will be haunted the rest of its life. It's scientific fact that twins establish some sort of connection in utero. This will probably result in that surviving twin being some sort of psychopath or sociopath.

[Ballygrl]

And the surviving twin will be haunted the rest of its life. It's scientific fact that twins establish some sort of connection in utero. This will probably result in that surviving twin being some sort of psychopath or sociopath.

Especially if only 1 embryo was implanted and it split which means those babies were identical twins and there's more of a connection. My Mom is a fraternal twin and something like this is absolutely horrifying because that could be my Mom or Aunt that would be done away with, although my grandmother would never of made that choice.