I am the mother of two adopted children (now men). I can not imagine a world with out them and my husband and I are forever grateful for the brave decision their birth mothers made. I know adoption is not for everyone but i do wish the world would put a more positive spin on it as a alternative.
I thank God every day for the gift of life that beautiful women provided the world with.
I am pro choice with limitations. I have worked in the operating room decades in hospitals that did terminations. The risk to a mother's life as a reason to abort is rare as is fetal anomalies. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. What I am saying is too many women today use abortion like it's birth control and termination of a pregnancy up until 9 months for any reason whatsoever is immoral. I am pro choice within reason.
I also had a difficult pregnancy. I found out at my 26 week check up that my son was no longer growing. He had uterine growth restriction and I had preeclampsia. It was terrifying. At 26 weeks he was the size of a 24 week fetus. I was put on immediate bed rest and sent home. I had a panic attack two days later. I’d never had a panic attack so I didn’t know what was happening and we went to the hospital. While there running tests it was discovered that I had moved into severe preeclampsia and would be at the hospital for the duration of my pregnancy which only lasted another 4 days. Wesley was born at 27 weeks during an emergency c-section weighing only 1 pound 6 ounces. He spent 72 days in the NICU and is now a perfectly healthy and happy 7 year old. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me and I love him more than anything in the universe. When I look at his face I see God.
That was the most terrifying experience of my life and caused a ton of medical conditions that plagued me for several years. Those days were so hard and we decided not to have anymore biological children because I was still high risk and I didn’t want to risk trying for another baby and having that baby have permanent health issues that we were lucky enough to avoid with Wesley. We looked into adoption and it’s basically impossible if you aren’t rich. That dream died. We have one child when we wanted a minimum of two. I still struggle with not being able to have the family we envisioned and not being able to give Wesley siblings. But I know I’m lucky that we have a child at all. I am a woman who faced cataclysmic events in a pregnancy, faced death and the potential loss of a child and came out the other side of that experience profoundly pro-life. Just offering an alternative experience to the one in this story.
Good piece. Interestingly, having my baby made me more pro life. But I was aghast at what Texas legislators passed regarding abortion. I’m a Texan and a clinician. I’ve helped care for many patients who’s health was in jeopardy due to a failing pregnancy. How we as a society could force another human to suffer and put their own body in danger is barbaric. I’m politically center. I have no one to represent me. I feel abandoned by politicians who govern from the margins. Thank you for putting your story out there. ❤️
The word ordeal is barely adequate to this horrific story. But stories like this are not justification to abort a fully formed baby. As it turns out, both mother and baby are doing well after 13 years, showing that abortion after 8 months was not medically necessary in this case, but rather a more expedient choice during a period of terrible duress - when life and death decisions are most likely to be flawed.
I think most Americans see the 15-week milestone as a reasonable point to stop abortion at will for any reason. After that, I think most Americans support the mother’s right to survive should a pregnancy be determined to be dangerous to her life. Besides the mother, there is another human life involved here too, and as a moral and ethical species, we should not forget to speak up for that life too. It is true that we have all passed through that stage of development on our journey to our current selves, a perspective we should all bear in mind. In the case where the unborn is not viable or has a debilitating condition, there is again a reasonable case to be made to abort after 15 weeks when that condition is first detected.
The problem with unlimited access at any time being a LAW is that such a law codifies terminating a life for possibly frivolous reasons. We don’t allow anyone to terminate another life for a frivolous reason any other time, so why here? If it is to keep doctors from fearing lawsuits, let’s have the conversation to see how we could mitigate those concerns. We have found a way for self-defense and war. I think consensus could be reached on that. Since so few abortions are done in late term, this shouldn’t impact many mothers to be. And once consensus is reached, it will eventually be accepted by the population and become more uniformly applied in the law.
This story tells of a horrific experience, and it must have been awful. But congratulations on the outcome. And there is no doubt that even with that experience, this mother would never allow anyone to prematurely end her son’s life now. We need more expectant mothers to act this way.
I had a great history teacher once who always said “the pendulum swings back and forth”. I’ve always been pro-choice. I marched on our city hall to support the issue. That said, as the decades have gone by I have been increasingly appalled at the acceptance, indeed the demand, that abortion up to birth should be legal. Part of me thinks that if the left hadn’t pushed so hard to get partial birth abortion legal, and acceptable, Roe v Wade would not have been overturned and states would not be passing restrictions. I do think 6 weeks is too early, but I don’t think 15 weeks is unreasonable. If you think about it, that’s typically at LEAST two months without a period. There is such a thing as birth control.
It strikes me that more responsibility here could be placed on the doctors and medical system that put the author through an unpleasant couple of months. It wasn’t her son’s fault she had an “irritable uterus”, and it sounds like her hospital stay could have been made better. But instead, the author uses her story to make the case that babies should be made to pay the price when they’re not “wanted” by their mothers, their only crime being that they didn’t develop perfectly, or even that they happened to be conceived at an inopportune time.
The author probably means well, but this is a classic attempt to emotionally manipulate the reader into placing the blame on the baby’s existence, instead of demanding better medical care or (heaven forfend!) a greater willingness to accept and endure challenging and even scary circumstances on behalf of one’s unborn baby, because that baby’s life has worth and value.
Half way through your well-written article, you conflate medically necessary abortions and convenience abortions. Medically necessary abortions have only rarely been "outlawed," but the hype from the pro-abortion side apparently leads to irrational fear of performing medically necessary abortions.
Contrary to what the amplified radical voices say, there IS middle ground. I cannot believe medically necessary abortions are an abomination to God, nor is that decision easy for anyone involved.
But as one who has the blood of two perfectly healthy babies on my hands, I can say I am positive that abortions of convenience are murder pure and simple.
So we basically have irrational voices on one side saying no abortions at all and on the other side saying it's OK to abort inconvenient babies. Meanwhile, our nations remains violently divided over false premises promoted by extremists on both sides.
I don't know where the answer lies, but I'm sure no doctor will ever be convicted of aborting a baby for medial reasons. I assume if you know of one who has been, you would have mentioned it in your article?
Also ... another story coming from someone who had great
medical care that saved her life and that of her baby! And instead of gratitude to the medical community for cherishing her life and that of her baby, she asks them to be willing to betray their oath to cherish and protect life.
More honesty is needed here. The pro-choice side will continue to lose ground if pro-choice people cannot be honest about the fact that an early c-section or early induction to save the life of the mother is not abortion. Even if the baby dies as a tragic result. Ireland pre-legalization of abortion had one of the LOWEST maternal mortality rates in the world.
I went into labor and gave birth to my 13.5 week old baby—placenta had attached incorrectly. At that age I could see he was a boy-my only son—and every bit of him was perfect. He had the same wing-like shoulder blades his second sister did.
He was valuable and not just because I wanted him. Worth my life even with kids at home. Is it not a good mother that does everything in her power to protect her children—even sit in a hospital for a month? I would have stayed the rest of my pregnancy to save him and much more.
In the clinic they described what is passed as just a little mass of tissue. But aren’t we also, just bigger? Only they can’t cry or scream yet. At least we have had our chance to breathe the air and voice our opinions.
Every state that has limited abortion, does allow for ones that are medically necessary to save the mother’s life; But the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the stories of women being denied medically necessary abortions are due to hospital administrators/lawyers/etc willfully misinterpreting the law, to generate these types of stories. Even Catholic hospitals do salpingectomies for ectopic pregnancies.
If you don’t think abortion is murder then it really is the lamest petty grievance against the government to be excited about. The government steals half of my money all the time. Not once in a while. All of the time. Half of it.
So the idea that people are voting solely based on this fringe non-issue indicates to me that those are people who really shouldn’t be allowed to voted.
“Oh dear lord you might have to fly to California once every six years. God help us. What a grave assault on you by the government……..which steals half of all of my money.”
It seems reasonable to give states jurisdiction over abortion law. It also seems reasonable to make it available within limitations. De Santis might be shooting himself in the foot with a 6-week limit; I agree with the author that this is too soon, however it was within that time frame that I had my last and most regretted abortion, a hasty decision predicated on the usual self-serving rationale that left me unintentionally childless.
Much of what supports the author's pro-choice stance is predicated on her own harrowing experience, which is rare and frankly makes little sense because she wound up with the one child that she needs to acknowledge was worth everything she went through. I have a friend who was confined to bedrest throughout her pregnancy; this friend also had used abortion as a form of birth control, with about 5 abortions behind her before she was "ready" to have a baby. It is not a stretch to assume that all those abortions might have had something to do with her ability to carry a child to term later on. She wound up with one, though she wanted more, and interestingly enough, retroactively wished she'd kept those babies she aborted, as the man who fathered them was the love of her life.
The issue with abortion is the narrative surrounding it. That one has to be "ready" to have a child. That all the ducks need to be in a row. That one's career should be established first. An entire set of priorities that leave 1 in 4 "unintentionally childless." My modest proposal is to reconsider our priorities. It's coming out in the wash these days, that one of the most challenging goals to achieve is to get married and have a baby. It shouldn't be this way.
So how to keep abortion legal within the standard 12 weeks, while promoting it as a last resort?
As someone who would be classified by others as a non-religious conservative, I found this piece to be both compelling on one level, and pure propaganda on another. Not once did the author touch on the 90+ percent of abortions performed for reasons of lifestyle, finance, career, convenience, social standing or vanity. The law is such a blunt instrument, that perhaps it should not be the arbiter of whether the most innocent of human beings can be killed for the convenience of others. If today's parents-to-be had been raised on the premise that life cannot be terminated except for the horrific reasons that are already part of most state law, we would not need such hysterical displays of pro-abortion zealotry. After all, there are more families ready to adopt than there are babies being killed in the womb. Seems like a match made in heaven.
in a perfect world abortion would not exist.
But in an imperfect world....
I am the mother of two adopted children (now men). I can not imagine a world with out them and my husband and I are forever grateful for the brave decision their birth mothers made. I know adoption is not for everyone but i do wish the world would put a more positive spin on it as a alternative.
I thank God every day for the gift of life that beautiful women provided the world with.
I am pro choice with limitations. I have worked in the operating room decades in hospitals that did terminations. The risk to a mother's life as a reason to abort is rare as is fetal anomalies. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. What I am saying is too many women today use abortion like it's birth control and termination of a pregnancy up until 9 months for any reason whatsoever is immoral. I am pro choice within reason.
I also had a difficult pregnancy. I found out at my 26 week check up that my son was no longer growing. He had uterine growth restriction and I had preeclampsia. It was terrifying. At 26 weeks he was the size of a 24 week fetus. I was put on immediate bed rest and sent home. I had a panic attack two days later. I’d never had a panic attack so I didn’t know what was happening and we went to the hospital. While there running tests it was discovered that I had moved into severe preeclampsia and would be at the hospital for the duration of my pregnancy which only lasted another 4 days. Wesley was born at 27 weeks during an emergency c-section weighing only 1 pound 6 ounces. He spent 72 days in the NICU and is now a perfectly healthy and happy 7 year old. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me and I love him more than anything in the universe. When I look at his face I see God.
That was the most terrifying experience of my life and caused a ton of medical conditions that plagued me for several years. Those days were so hard and we decided not to have anymore biological children because I was still high risk and I didn’t want to risk trying for another baby and having that baby have permanent health issues that we were lucky enough to avoid with Wesley. We looked into adoption and it’s basically impossible if you aren’t rich. That dream died. We have one child when we wanted a minimum of two. I still struggle with not being able to have the family we envisioned and not being able to give Wesley siblings. But I know I’m lucky that we have a child at all. I am a woman who faced cataclysmic events in a pregnancy, faced death and the potential loss of a child and came out the other side of that experience profoundly pro-life. Just offering an alternative experience to the one in this story.
Good piece. Interestingly, having my baby made me more pro life. But I was aghast at what Texas legislators passed regarding abortion. I’m a Texan and a clinician. I’ve helped care for many patients who’s health was in jeopardy due to a failing pregnancy. How we as a society could force another human to suffer and put their own body in danger is barbaric. I’m politically center. I have no one to represent me. I feel abandoned by politicians who govern from the margins. Thank you for putting your story out there. ❤️
The word ordeal is barely adequate to this horrific story. But stories like this are not justification to abort a fully formed baby. As it turns out, both mother and baby are doing well after 13 years, showing that abortion after 8 months was not medically necessary in this case, but rather a more expedient choice during a period of terrible duress - when life and death decisions are most likely to be flawed.
I think most Americans see the 15-week milestone as a reasonable point to stop abortion at will for any reason. After that, I think most Americans support the mother’s right to survive should a pregnancy be determined to be dangerous to her life. Besides the mother, there is another human life involved here too, and as a moral and ethical species, we should not forget to speak up for that life too. It is true that we have all passed through that stage of development on our journey to our current selves, a perspective we should all bear in mind. In the case where the unborn is not viable or has a debilitating condition, there is again a reasonable case to be made to abort after 15 weeks when that condition is first detected.
The problem with unlimited access at any time being a LAW is that such a law codifies terminating a life for possibly frivolous reasons. We don’t allow anyone to terminate another life for a frivolous reason any other time, so why here? If it is to keep doctors from fearing lawsuits, let’s have the conversation to see how we could mitigate those concerns. We have found a way for self-defense and war. I think consensus could be reached on that. Since so few abortions are done in late term, this shouldn’t impact many mothers to be. And once consensus is reached, it will eventually be accepted by the population and become more uniformly applied in the law.
This story tells of a horrific experience, and it must have been awful. But congratulations on the outcome. And there is no doubt that even with that experience, this mother would never allow anyone to prematurely end her son’s life now. We need more expectant mothers to act this way.
I had a great history teacher once who always said “the pendulum swings back and forth”. I’ve always been pro-choice. I marched on our city hall to support the issue. That said, as the decades have gone by I have been increasingly appalled at the acceptance, indeed the demand, that abortion up to birth should be legal. Part of me thinks that if the left hadn’t pushed so hard to get partial birth abortion legal, and acceptable, Roe v Wade would not have been overturned and states would not be passing restrictions. I do think 6 weeks is too early, but I don’t think 15 weeks is unreasonable. If you think about it, that’s typically at LEAST two months without a period. There is such a thing as birth control.
It strikes me that more responsibility here could be placed on the doctors and medical system that put the author through an unpleasant couple of months. It wasn’t her son’s fault she had an “irritable uterus”, and it sounds like her hospital stay could have been made better. But instead, the author uses her story to make the case that babies should be made to pay the price when they’re not “wanted” by their mothers, their only crime being that they didn’t develop perfectly, or even that they happened to be conceived at an inopportune time.
The author probably means well, but this is a classic attempt to emotionally manipulate the reader into placing the blame on the baby’s existence, instead of demanding better medical care or (heaven forfend!) a greater willingness to accept and endure challenging and even scary circumstances on behalf of one’s unborn baby, because that baby’s life has worth and value.
Half way through your well-written article, you conflate medically necessary abortions and convenience abortions. Medically necessary abortions have only rarely been "outlawed," but the hype from the pro-abortion side apparently leads to irrational fear of performing medically necessary abortions.
Contrary to what the amplified radical voices say, there IS middle ground. I cannot believe medically necessary abortions are an abomination to God, nor is that decision easy for anyone involved.
But as one who has the blood of two perfectly healthy babies on my hands, I can say I am positive that abortions of convenience are murder pure and simple.
So we basically have irrational voices on one side saying no abortions at all and on the other side saying it's OK to abort inconvenient babies. Meanwhile, our nations remains violently divided over false premises promoted by extremists on both sides.
I don't know where the answer lies, but I'm sure no doctor will ever be convicted of aborting a baby for medial reasons. I assume if you know of one who has been, you would have mentioned it in your article?
Also ... another story coming from someone who had great
medical care that saved her life and that of her baby! And instead of gratitude to the medical community for cherishing her life and that of her baby, she asks them to be willing to betray their oath to cherish and protect life.
More honesty is needed here. The pro-choice side will continue to lose ground if pro-choice people cannot be honest about the fact that an early c-section or early induction to save the life of the mother is not abortion. Even if the baby dies as a tragic result. Ireland pre-legalization of abortion had one of the LOWEST maternal mortality rates in the world.
I went into labor and gave birth to my 13.5 week old baby—placenta had attached incorrectly. At that age I could see he was a boy-my only son—and every bit of him was perfect. He had the same wing-like shoulder blades his second sister did.
He was valuable and not just because I wanted him. Worth my life even with kids at home. Is it not a good mother that does everything in her power to protect her children—even sit in a hospital for a month? I would have stayed the rest of my pregnancy to save him and much more.
In the clinic they described what is passed as just a little mass of tissue. But aren’t we also, just bigger? Only they can’t cry or scream yet. At least we have had our chance to breathe the air and voice our opinions.
Every state that has limited abortion, does allow for ones that are medically necessary to save the mother’s life; But the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the stories of women being denied medically necessary abortions are due to hospital administrators/lawyers/etc willfully misinterpreting the law, to generate these types of stories. Even Catholic hospitals do salpingectomies for ectopic pregnancies.
Ms. Hontz,
You are super pro abortion. I will not argue with you or try to change your mind.
But what if, maybe, abortion is really killing another human being? It might be.
If you don’t think abortion is murder then it really is the lamest petty grievance against the government to be excited about. The government steals half of my money all the time. Not once in a while. All of the time. Half of it.
So the idea that people are voting solely based on this fringe non-issue indicates to me that those are people who really shouldn’t be allowed to voted.
“Oh dear lord you might have to fly to California once every six years. God help us. What a grave assault on you by the government……..which steals half of all of my money.”
It seems reasonable to give states jurisdiction over abortion law. It also seems reasonable to make it available within limitations. De Santis might be shooting himself in the foot with a 6-week limit; I agree with the author that this is too soon, however it was within that time frame that I had my last and most regretted abortion, a hasty decision predicated on the usual self-serving rationale that left me unintentionally childless.
Much of what supports the author's pro-choice stance is predicated on her own harrowing experience, which is rare and frankly makes little sense because she wound up with the one child that she needs to acknowledge was worth everything she went through. I have a friend who was confined to bedrest throughout her pregnancy; this friend also had used abortion as a form of birth control, with about 5 abortions behind her before she was "ready" to have a baby. It is not a stretch to assume that all those abortions might have had something to do with her ability to carry a child to term later on. She wound up with one, though she wanted more, and interestingly enough, retroactively wished she'd kept those babies she aborted, as the man who fathered them was the love of her life.
The issue with abortion is the narrative surrounding it. That one has to be "ready" to have a child. That all the ducks need to be in a row. That one's career should be established first. An entire set of priorities that leave 1 in 4 "unintentionally childless." My modest proposal is to reconsider our priorities. It's coming out in the wash these days, that one of the most challenging goals to achieve is to get married and have a baby. It shouldn't be this way.
So how to keep abortion legal within the standard 12 weeks, while promoting it as a last resort?
As someone who would be classified by others as a non-religious conservative, I found this piece to be both compelling on one level, and pure propaganda on another. Not once did the author touch on the 90+ percent of abortions performed for reasons of lifestyle, finance, career, convenience, social standing or vanity. The law is such a blunt instrument, that perhaps it should not be the arbiter of whether the most innocent of human beings can be killed for the convenience of others. If today's parents-to-be had been raised on the premise that life cannot be terminated except for the horrific reasons that are already part of most state law, we would not need such hysterical displays of pro-abortion zealotry. After all, there are more families ready to adopt than there are babies being killed in the womb. Seems like a match made in heaven.