Re: Late-Term Abortion Provider Gunned Down In Church
Well, it certainly sounds as though a measurable percentage of people opting for late-term abortions are folks with severely damaged babies. Examples:
My wife and I are/were staunch choice advocates; we'd both done our share of marching on Washington for the cause. Actually enduring the process gave us a much more nuanced opinion about abortion.
For us, it was Trisomy 21 -- Down Syndrome. The test came after my wife awoke one night in a pool of blood screaming and thinking she'd suffered a miscarriage. After she ran to the toilet, it fell upon me to call her doctor and then scoop out the remains--that actually turned out to be huge clots--and take them to the doctor the next day. The geneticist said that because of all the bleeding and other complications there was almost no chance the fetus would make it to 20 weeks let alone full term.
My wife says one of my finest moments as her husband came when I somehow made her laugh while she awaited the abortion. My wife doesn't talk about her feelings of the abortion and the "failed" pregnancy. But we've been together for more than a decade and I know she will always be crushed by it. I know we made the right decision for us but it still hurts badly. This was the son we would never have.
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My wife and I spent a week in Dr. Tiller's care after we learned our 21 week fetus had a severe defect incompatible with life. The laws in our state prevented us from ending the pregnancy there, and Dr. Tiller was one of maybe three choices in the whole nation at that gestational age. My wife just called with the news of his murder, weeping. I can't really come up with some profound political statement just now, so let me just list some memories of Dr. Tiller.
I remember him firmly stating that he regarded the abortion debate in the US to be about the control of women's sexuality and reproduction.
I remember he spent over six hours in one-on-one care with my wife when there was concern she had an infection. We're talking about a physician here. Six hours.
He told the story of his previous shooting, where a woman shot him twice in both arms as he drove out of his clinic. At first he wanted to run her down with his Jeep, but then he thought "she shot you already George, she'll do it again!"
I remember being puzzled about a T-shirt he was wearing, which said "Happy Birthday Jennifer from team Tiller!" or something similar. Turns out it comemmorated the birthday of a fifteen year old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and came to Tiller for an abortion. As luck would have it, she was in the clinic the same week as her birthday. So the clinic threw her a party.
The walls of the clinic reception and waiting room are literally covered with letters from patients thanking him. Some were heartbreaking - obviously young and/or poorly educated people thanking Dr. Tiller for being there when they had no other options, explaining their family, church etc. had abandoned them.
I remember my wife, foggy with sedation after the final procedure, being helped from the exam table. He had her sit up and put her arms around his neck, and then he lifted her into a wheelchair. "You give good hugs" she whispered. He paused just for a moment. "You're just fine," he told her.
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My brother and his wife received a diagnosis at the beginning of the second trimester's ultrasound that their child had anencephaly - a condition where the fetus' skull does not completely close and the brain forms partially outside the skull. It is a neural tube defect, similar to spina bifida, but it happens higher up on the body. They were told the child would die before, or shortly after, birth. There was no doubt about the diagnosis. My brother and his wife were encouraged by their doctor to go to Kansas for an abortion, the closest place where they could obtain one in the second trimester.
It was an agonizing decision, but they chose not to have the abortion for religious reasons. The pregnancy went to term and the baby lived for several weeks. She was surrounded by love for the brief time she was here.
I wish I could say unequivocally that they made the right decision, but the long-term effects on my sister-in-law's mental well-being have been serious. She is very much changed from the person that she was before.
Imagine what it is like to walk around in your third trimester, obviously pregnant, while well-meaning people ask you about this baby that you don't expect to be taking home from the hospital. Innocuous comments become incredibly hurtful in this context. Then imagine the baby survives and days later you take home this child who will die. In case you might relax and pretend for a little while that everything is okay, a hospice nurse comes to your house every couple of days and reminds you the signs and symptoms of death. Every time you open the refrigerator you see the narcotics you've been given to ease the baby's suffering once things get really bad.
Eventually, this baby dies a grueling death in your arms and you go home to an empty house. You want another baby, but are paralyzed by the thought of having another child with the same condition, yet you desperately want a child that is related to the child you lost. You find yourself unable to conceive and resentful of those who have many healthy children so easily. The infertility takes its toll on your marriage. The suffering and injustice takes its toll on your faith.
I often wonder what would have happened if they had the abortion. I'm not sure my sister-in-law could have lived with that decision, but at least she was given the gift of making a deliberate choice and this did make a difference in how my brother and his wife perceived their circumstances. How do people respond when they feel trapped?
I agree with those who believe abortion is a selfish choice, but in some cases the cost to the self is too high and the benefit to the other is too hard to determine. I'm afraid that the murder of Dr. Tiller will hasten the decline in doctors willing to do this work and deny desperate people of options.
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