Partial Birth Abortion
The hype on this story has settled in the mainstream media, but it has not left my mind in the past week. I am as knowledgeable as a man can be on abortion without being a physician. I wrote about my history and my personal position on abortion a little over a year ago.
My wife is now approximately 23 weeks pregnant with our third child. She is at about the same place in this pregnancy as she was when we learned about or son Caden’s life threatening heart defects. The heart defects (four of them) were so prominent that an amniocentesis has highly encouraged. I wrote about this experience in the draft for a book that I have been working on.
An amniocentesis is a procedure where they use a very large needle to collect fluid from the area around the baby. This fluid can be used to determine if the baby has a chromosome abnormality. We had but one question, “what is the benefit of gathering this information?” The answer was long and consisted of a lot of beating around the bush. Finally, the answer we got was that the amniocentesis results would empower us with information to help us make a “choice” on what to do next. We determined that what they really meant was that they wanted to know if we were interested in terminating the pregnancy.
Obviously we chose to move forward with the pregnancy. It is my understanding that many parents choose to end the life of their child if defects like these are found and often the decision is made as a result of pressure put on them by the prenatal clinics to consider the termination.
I really did not understand what a partial birth abortion was until a little over a week ago. What makes me sick to my stomach is that my wife and I were highly encouraged to consider our “options” in regards to her pregnancy with Caden. A choice to terminate at that late point in the pregnancy would have resulted in what I now understand to be a partial birth abortion.
Before you follow the links I am about to give you I want to give a firm WARNING that the information you will see and read is very graphic and it is very disturbing. It is all truth and I believe every parent who is considering an abortion should be required to see or read something like this at a minimum. La Shawn Barber has brought together a couple of the best posts on this subject that I have seen. The first post is titled ‘Intact’ Infanticide [WARNING, this is a very graphic description of late term abortion as witnessed by a nurse]. The other post provides a graphical representation of the procedure and is titled Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Partial Birth Abortion[Visual WARNING]. La Shawn has been one of the most faithful bloggers in producing dozens of sobering reports on abortion in a category she has named “child killing”.
It grieves me to think that children’s lives could be taken in this way. What grieves almost as much is the number of U.S. citizens who are sitting on the edge of the seat to cast a vote for a presidential candidate who criticizes the most recent Supreme Court Decision to stop partial birth abortions.
The Senator Hillary Clinton’s Response:
“This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman’s right to choose and recognized the importance of women’s health…”Source
From the Senator Barack Obama Camp.
“I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women…” Source
Did they get together for lunch to come up with matching opening sentences that read like they are in stereo surround sound?
Well Senators Obama and Clinton, our experience and many others is that many of the folks recommending this procedure have little if any concern for the woman’s health. The folks giving us the option to bow out of a late term pregnacy simply wanted us to consider reversing a CHOICE we made at conception.
A few months ago I was contacted by the founder of a great outreach project for those parents who face a difficult prenatal diagnosis like we faced with Caden. I almost forgot about this until Mrs. Ozz reminded as we were discussing this subject this past week. Please visit this site and pass it along to any parents who may be getting pressure to terminate a pregnacy as a result of prenatal screenings or tests.
“Benotafraid.net is an online outreach to parents who have received a poor or difficult prenatal diagnosis. The family stories, articles, and links within this site are presented as a resource for those who may have been asked to choose between terminating a pregnancy or continuing on despite the diagnosis. The benotafraid.net families faced the same decision and chose not to terminate. By sharing our experiences, we hope to offer encouragement to those who may be afraid to continue on. “
Check out other ProLifeBlogs.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Thanks for sharing your story, and for your decision.
I really wish there was just as much debate and concern about the children who are hungry, abused, and uneducated walking around among us today.
I also wish there was more help and support for families so that fewer people would be pressed to make such a wrenching decision. For instance, a poor single mother without insurance might be talked into an abortion because it would cost taxpayers more to have a child with medical problems.
I’m pro choice, and I believe that women and their families have just much of a right to not have an abortion as to have one.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Vera,
I appreciate your input. I guess you should know that my son is on Medicaid. That means that your and my tax dollars help to keep my family out of bankruptcy as a result of the half million dollars or so spent on his care in the first year. Over 90% of that was paid for by my personal health insurance, but the part paid for with taxpayer money did reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.
I find it difficult to believe that many parents decide on partial birth abortion for financial reasons. The most popular reason people are offered this option to end a child’s life via partial birth abortion is simply because they found out that they are not going to get the “perfect” child that they were expecting when they conceived. Some parents just don’t think they will be able to care for a child with special needs because of how it will impact their self centered lifestyle.
Ultimately everyone is pro choice. The difference for folks like me is that we believe that the “choice” to engage in sexual activity is where you pass the point of no return in regards to a child’s life.
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Thanks for sharing your personal story- I know that a lot of people, especially on the pro-life side, are loathe to admit that they have had first-hand experience with abortion, and it makes me much more willing to listen to your point of view (in the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I VERY rarely read entire arguments from pro-lifers, because I have yet to read anything that made me understand their viewpoint). Not only did I read this entire entry, but I read some of the others as well.
If you care to hear my feelings on the ban, you can do so here:
http://tayloropolis.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/a-dark-day-for-choice/
I completely respect you and your wife’s decision not to have an abortion when you learned of your son’s heart problem. It was obviously the correct choice for the two of you, and I’m very happy to hear that you don’t regret it. But how can you say that it would be the right choice for someone else? What upsets me the most about people who are anti-abortion is that they assume they are more adept at choosing the right choice than someone who is actually in that situation. To me, not allowing someone to have an abortion when faced with potentially devastating news would have been as much of a crime as someone forcing your wife to have one.
May 8th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I chose to have an amniocentesis because of my age when I became pregnant with my daughter. I was relieved when my doctor said having one means if anything is found then you can get prepared you can go on line and gather information. Not once was an abortion talked about. I will admit it was heavy on me while I waited for the procedure. It shook me while I waited for my results. That time seemed to drag. I remember the call when I was waiting for a the blood test when I was pregnant with my first born my knees buckled at work and I had to sit for a moment to rejoice in the good news. Can I honestly say that never would I have an abortion? No because that’s not something I ever had to actually think about. I know of a woman who carried a baby to term knowing the he would die shortly after birth it was emotionally and physically draining but something that she had to do because every moment with him was a moment of love. If you don’t want to have a baby then do something before you create one. They give birth control out free.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Milly,
Thanks for your comments. I am glad you never had to face the decision or the pressure of bad news delivered during a pregnacy. I still wonder if it was a blessing or a curse to know that Caden was going to be born with the health problems he has. According to one of Caden’s cardiologists, a large number of parents don’t know that their child will need emergency heart surgery after birth due to missed defects during prenatal screenings. The cardiologist told us that only about half of the life threatening heart defects they deal with are found during prenatal care. Sherry and I witnessed the results of this scenario numerous times in the waiting rooms at MUSC. Parents would arrive by car hours after their infant child had been flown in from as far as 200 miles away. The parents arriving in this fashion had not learned of their child’s heart defect(s) until after their child was born.
In response to Taylor’s comments:
I already commented on Taylor’s blog part of this information on the number of instances where parents do not find out about birth defects before the child is born. This information led me to a question for those who favor late term abortions to terminate pregnancies simply because the parents do not want a child with a defect. My question is: Do you also favor an option for parents to terminate the life of a child that is only a few minutes or hours old when a serious life threatening birth defect is found?
May 10th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I started to answer the question and found a post in it. So I decided to type on. This a a crazy time of the week so it may not happen any time soon.
The answer is this I wanted to be armed with everything I wanted to know exactly what was going to happen. You saw the faces of the parents who had to deal with it in a big hurry.