The kind of woman who needs a late-term abortion

[bqbride]

This is horrifying. Furthermore, I cannot comprehend how the same party who supposedly all about small government and personal liberty is the same party who is pushing these laws.

I recently read a similar article where the couple found out mid-pregnancy that the babies lungs were not and would not develop fully enough to support life. Because "late-term" abortions were banned in their state, she was forced to carry the baby to term and then watch it suffocate to death for 15-20 minutes. Thank YOU, Christian right and the GOP, for that unnecessary and cruel bit of suffering.

[msmerymac]

Aug 3, 2012 21:53:21 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

I posted a link to this article on FB, and of course the first two comments are, "I actually went to college with the 2nd example [from the intro to the article]. Had the mindset of "if I dont think about it..it doesnt exist" until she was at the point where she couldnt pretend it didnt exist anymore. She went somewhere and "took care of it"..ugh."

and

"I knew someone who did the first. She got pregnant to piss her mom off, and said that she was going to keep it, even though she was on disability and 17 and couldn't afford a baby. Then, she had morning sickness until the time she aborted at 22 weeks. She got tired of being pregnant. She told her mom that the novelty had worn off."

To me this is just like welfare fraud/gucci wearing/fake nail having/iphone owning/food stamp using anecdotes. Some people kind of suck. Probably good that they didn't become parents at that time, then, anyway. Does this mean we should take away the choice for everyone? HELL NO.

[BettyBookWorm]

Aug 3, 2012 9:50:51 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

x thousands. How sad!

[pescalita]

Aug 4, 2012 7:41:58 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Aug 4, 2012 6:43:25 GMT -5 2vermont said:

And I completely get the heartbreak here. But I also get the heartbreak when an infant is diagnosed with a horrendous disease. I think a big factor for pro-lifers is the idea that this would not be allowed if the baby had just been born with some horrendous, heartbreaking disease. The law would not allow a parent to remove their child's pain and suffering then. Pro-lifers really don't see much of a difference between these two scenarios. Most of us don't think late term aborters are horrible people TYVM (and that's not directed at you Pesca).


And that's about all I'm going to say on the subject because we know where these threads go.....nowhere good.

I don't know. My mom is a hospice nurse so I will ask her more when she wakes up. But if you have a baby born with one of these horrible not life compatible conditions, you most certainly can make the decision to all hospice and give comfort giving measures only, which if the baby is in horrible pain, might mean so much morphine that the baby just goes to sleep. Happens more than you would think with hospice patients.

Yup, for an infant you can remove life-sustaining measures. I know that's an important distinction in Catholicism, and I understand the difference between removing a ventilator and removing the fetus's mother (esp when that includes killing the fetus), but I don't think it makes it the same as putting a pillow over a suffering infant, say.

[SusanBAnthony]

i verified with my mom and she said palliative care in the NICU is getting more and more common.

[MrsDL]

Aug 4, 2012 5:33:08 GMT -5 incogneato said:

Has anyone read the RoxyTandme blog? She's a bumpie who had amniotic band syndrome, meaning her baby was literally getting torn apart in the womb. We're not talking pain and suffering for the baby AFTER birth, but pain and suffering during pg. I CANNOT imagine her or anyone in that position being told they have to do nothing, knowing every minute that their child is being killed slowly and excruciatingly by their own body.

OMG. I think every politician should be forced to read her story. Most heartbreaking thing ever. I think I would be frantic for someone, anyone, to stop my child from suffering in that scenario. The thought could honestly drive a person to self harm if that was the only way to stop their child's pain.

That was one of the most horrible stories I had ever seen from a bumpie. I felt so bad for her. She also found out so late that she literally had hours to decide what to do, because she was one day away from hitting the point where abortion would have been illegal. Her fetus was severely impacted, but sometimes with that condition it can be minor enough that they can do intrauterine surgery. Thankfully for her they had a definitive diagnosis that it was bad, but can you imagine getting that diagnosis and doctors saying they needed a little more time/testing to figure out if it was severe or if it could be treated with success? With one day to decide, you'd be left with an even more agonizing decision. That condition, as rare as it is, is on my list of pg things that scare the shit out of me.

[EloiseWeenie]

Aug 4, 2012 13:36:23 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

What is TS?

Tuberous Sclerosis
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001791/
www.tsalliance.org/pages.aspx?content=2

[EloiseWeenie]

Aug 4, 2012 13:59:38 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Aug 4, 2012 13:51:09 GMT -5 EloiseWeenie said:

Tuberous Sclerosis
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001791/
www.tsalliance.org/pages.aspx?content=2

Ugh...

Sorry, my son asked me to lay with him, so I just linked a couple places.

My friend's husband is a carrier of TS (and probably has it), but was totally unaware until they had a child who began having seizures 2 years ago. After lots of tests, they found tumors on their son's brain. After lots more testing, they found out he has TS.

Many can have it and be unaffected, but others can have severe seizures, mental retardation, autism, etc. My friend's son has multiple seizures most days. He's 3, and developmentally delayed. When he can go a couple days with no seizures, he regains speech, etc., but when the seizures come back, he loses skills again. They hope if they can get his seizures under control, he will have a better shot of keeping/retaining basic skills. Unfortunately after trying almost every medicine and removing a good portion of his brain, his seizures continue to worsen.

Tumors can also develop on other parts, like the eyes, kidneys, etc.

Winson- I'm so sorry for what you've gone through, and how people have made you feel.

[winston]

Aug 4, 2012 6:43:25 GMT -5 2vermont said:

Aug 3, 2012 21:39:33 GMT -5 pescalita said:

It was a long time ago now, but I asked about this on this board once. There are people who don't think these people should or should be able to terminate. They think it's very sad, but they should let nature take its course.

I just can't.

And I completely get the heartbreak here. But I also get the heartbreak when an infant is diagnosed with a horrendous disease. I think a big factor for pro-lifers is the idea that this would not be allowed if the baby had just been born with some horrendous, heartbreaking disease. The law would not allow a parent to remove their child's pain and suffering then. Pro-lifers really don't see much of a difference between these two scenarios. Most of us don't think late term aborters are horrible people TYVM (and that's not directed at you Pesca).

And that's about all I'm going to say on the subject because we know where these threads go.....nowhere good.

Look, I just have to say... heartbreak doesn't come close to describing what it feels like when a doctor tells you that the child you're carrying is going to die. Desperation? Devastation? Closer, but still not big enough words.

I'm not sure what benefit there would have been to me being forced to continue to carry a child that would never survive the pregnancy. He was going to die. Period. He might have died three weeks later. Would it be okay with anti-choicers if I wanted to end the pregnancy at that point, or would I need to go until I delivered naturally? Either way, waiting that three weeks would have put me at serious risk, and even if my physical health wasn't a factor in my pregnancy, waiting even a few more days would have meant delivery rather than surgery. Full labor and delivery to give birth to a baby that was dead.

It's some sick fuck religion that wants anyone to go through that for a child that has zero chance of living.

[heightsyankee]

winston, i am so very sorry and you are so very right.

[Deleted]

Winston, I am so very sorry for your loss. Thats heartbreaking.

[mcgee]

(((winston))) I am so sorry for your loss.

We were told at 17.5 weeks that our baby had echogenic bowel, where the bowel appears as bright as bone on ultrasound, and that it was a marker for trisomies 18 and 21 as well as cystic fibrosis. We opted to wait a few weeks to see if it cleared up before we did anything, and we agonized that whole time, knowing that we'd likely terminate for a trisomy, but fearing the possibility of miscarrying a healthy baby if we had an amnio. It didn't help that a family friend butted in with the "So-and-so had an amnio and lost a perfectly healthy baby" line.

Fortunately it turned out okay. I can only imagine how devastating it would be to get the news that your baby will die.

As for the author of the article, I have a family friend whose infant suffers from a similar brain defect. I don't know if they didn't have an anatomy scan or if military OB service just sucks, but it was not diagnosed until after he was born. He is almost a year old and has constant seizures. He can't roll over, sit up, etc., speak, etc., and it's obvious when you look at him that he's just not "there" - you can see it in his eyes. His parents have been unable to handle the stress of his diagnosis, and they've split up. The baby is scheduled for major surgery to remove a significant portion of his brain later this year. His grandparents have told us that the 'best case' scenario is that he survives and is profoundly developmentally delayed. The quality of life is just non-existent, and it's such an incredibly sad situation all-around.

[bronxgirl]

I don't currently have the emoptional fortitude to read the article thoroughly, but I read all the comments and my heart breaks for Winston and every other woman in this situation. Nature can be unspeakably cruel on its own- we don't need humans to make things even worse.

[winston]

Thanks ladies. I always feel bad dragging out my sob story, but it's felt pretty relevant to a lot of topics this week. If nothing else of value comes from that horrible experience, maybe at least sharing what happened to him can help illustrate why strict anti-choice laws are wrong.

The world of pregnancy loss is not so black and white as people would like it to be. Every parent's experience is different, so even if you've had a loss I don't think it's fair to assume that you know how others feel about their own situations. And this is why religion has no place determining law. What do TPTB in the Catholic church know of transvaginal ultrasounds and trisomy and ABS? How did the Pope react after he was given a diagnosis that the child in his uterus was dying, and that for his own safety it was best to come to the inevitable conclusion sooner, rather than later? Oh right.

By all means, set values for the congregation - for the people who choose to be part of that faith and to follow the rules. But that's where it should end - with the church. There's no reason to think that people outside of a faith should have to follow those rules.

I'm grateful to people who are open minded enough to hold on to their faith while understanding that it shouldn't be forced on others. Faith is personal, and should be practiced that way. It's really easy to tell people how to live their lives when you have no idea what it's like to walk around in their shoes. It's much more compassionate to hold your tongue and remember that there are things that happen in other people's lives that we can never understand and shouldn't judge.

My heart goes out to people who know they're carrying dying babies and continue the pregnancy as long as they can. We discussed this option with our doctors. Not because we're particularly religious, but because we fought so hard for that child in the first place and couldn't process the idea of choosing to end his life. For us there wasn't really much of a choice. He was dying soon and putting my life at risk. If God's up there judging me for that, so be it. But I don't believe that He'd give us that information if we weren't supposed to act on it. I don't believe He'd want my daughter to lose her mother when it was 100% preventable.

*edited for clarity

[NitaX]

Winston - I am so sorry for your loss.

These stories are so heartbreaking, but a reminder that everyone should have the choice to make the best decision for their family.

[mrsb]

I was pro-life until a few months ago when I started reading some of the baby central boards about sick babies/pregnancies. One of the reasons I was so against abortion was because I always thought that the term abortion was only meant for terminating a pregnancy because you did not want to be pregnant. I thought that if something were wrong then they could induce you early or you would have a c section instead of what I thought of as abortion. Abortion is such a taboo topic and I have never had a non internet conversation about it. Growing up I heard very little about abortion except that it was morally wrong to abort because you simply did not want a baby. What little I heard certainly never presented the complexities of what is and is not considered an abortion. I am embarrassed about how little I actually knew about it.

[2vermont]

Aug 4, 2012 20:37:34 GMT -5 winston said:

Thanks ladies. I always feel bad dragging out my sob story, but it's felt pretty relevant to a lot of topics this week. If nothing else of value comes from that horrible experience, maybe at least sharing what happened to him can help illustrate why strict anti-choice laws are wrong.

The world of pregnancy loss is not so black and white as people would like it to be. Every parent's experience is different, so even if you've had a loss I don't think it's fair to assume that you know how others feel about their own situations. And this is why religion has no place determining law. What do TPTB in the Catholic church know of transvaginal ultrasounds and trisomy and ABS? How did the Pope react after he was given a diagnosis that the child in his uterus was dying, and that for his own safety it was best to come to the inevitable conclusion sooner, rather than later? Oh right.

By all means, set values for the congregation - for the people who choose to be part of that faith and to follow the rules. But that's where it should end - with the church. There's no reason to think that people outside of a faith should have to follow those rules.

I'm grateful to people who are open minded enough to hold on to their faith while understanding that it shouldn't be forced on others. Faith is personal, and should be practiced that way. It's really easy to tell people how to live their lives when you have no idea what it's like to walk around in their shoes. It's much more compassionate to hold your tongue and remember that there are things that happen in other people's lives that we can never understand and shouldn't judge.

My heart goes out to people who know they're carrying dying babies and continue the pregnancy as long as they can. We discussed this option with our doctors. Not because we're particularly religious, but because we fought so hard for that child in the first place and couldn't process the idea of choosing to end his life. For us there wasn't really much of a choice. He was dying soon and putting my life at risk. If God's up there judging me for that, so be it. But I don't believe that He'd give us that information if we weren't supposed to act on it. I don't believe He'd want my daughter to lose her mother when it was 100% preventable.

*edited for clarity

I hope you know that I am also very sorry for your loss winston. You're right...just like the Pope I can never know what it means to be pregnant let alone what it means to be pregnant and be told that the child will die. I still happen to think I'm pretty open-minded, compassionate and non-judgmental despite my opening my mouth on this topic. We all open our mouths on topics we may have never experienced.

I know you are speaking out of anger, but I think if you truly want to make any dents with pro-life Catholics, you might want to refrain from describing our religion as "sick fuck". Because I think I've shown I'm pretty open-minded in the past on this board and that sort of comment just puts up a wall for me.

[winston]

Oh, that's kind of funny. I was just thinking that you'd probably get a lot more traction from me if you weren't sitting around believing that women should carry a pregnancy to term regardless of the circumstances (circumstances including death for the mother which equals death for the baby, or baby being dead no matter what). All because someone told you to believe it, whether it's rational or not. Whether it's good for anyone or not.

But don't tell me that you 'get the heartbreak' and then follow it up with 'but...'. You're negating your own claim in the same post. You don't get it and I don't expect you to. And maybe, if you can't really gather up the kind of compassion that's necessary for forming an opinion on this type of situation, you should just keep your thoughts to yourself and not decide what you think everyone else should do.

Just a thought.

[2vermont]

Aug 6, 2012 16:05:42 GMT -5 winston said:

Oh, that's kind of funny. I was just thinking that you'd probably get a lot more traction from me if you weren't sitting around believing that women should carry a pregnancy to term regardless of the circumstances (circumstances including death for the mother which equals death for the baby, or baby being dead no matter what). All because someone told you to believe it, whether it's rational or not. Whether it's good for anyone or not.

But don't tell me that you 'get the heartbreak' and then follow it up with 'but...'. You're negating your own claim in the same post. You don't get it and I don't expect you to. And maybe, if you can't really gather up the kind of compassion that's necessary for forming an opinion on this type of situation, you should just keep your thoughts to yourself and not decide what you think everyone else should do.

Just a thought.

Actually, I wasn't negating a thing. With the "but" I was showing that the heartbreak of knowing this before or after birth is probably similar. No, probably not exactly the same, but similar. And then I went on to say that the law doesn't allow for ending the lives of newborns born with horrendous diagnoses....as in euthanasia (which to me is the same as abortion).

But if you would like to continue to make the interaction between us a negative one, you do that.

ETA: I was really trying to reach out to you despite our differences in beliefs and experiences.