Letters to the Editor
jfwlucy
Published Letters: 10
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I've read this whole thread, and . . .
[Read the article: Supreme Court upholds ban on "partial-birth" abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]. . . not ONE SINGLE anti choicer on here has had the balls to respond to the wonderful question/situations posed first by jnestor and second by kitnode, which I reprint below.
I want to know what the hell you would say to these women. What would you do for them? Tell them to die? Tell them their children won't have shoes?
THESE are the women -- the FAMILIES -- that this decision affects. None other.
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"This woman had severe preeclampsia and was told by her doctors that it would not be possible to keep her alive long enough for her fetus to become viable. Medically, it was necessary to perform a D&C because it was the quickest way to end the pregnancy. This was a much-wanted child and it was a heart-wrenching decision, but it had to be done." (Let's also add in a couple of older siblings who don't want to lose their mother.)
second by kitnode:
"Here's another scenario. You're a married woman with five children, and you live in a conservative part of the country. You are sexually active and you have a birth control prescription because though you adore children you can't possibly afford another. Suddenly, your pharmacist decides that birth control is against God's will, which of course he must now personally mediate, and he won't fulfill the prescription.
Well, you think, you're getting on in years and you don't have sex that frequently anyway, maybe you'll just use condoms. One lovely night, you and your husband are able to find time and energy, and possibly due to experience or just the difficulty of men's sexual response as they get older and have five children in the house and work hard, it's a bit difficult to keep the condom on. End result: you get pregnant.
In fact, faced with the reality of another baby in the house, you're happy as can be, although you still don't know how you can possibly afford this, as your husband's company barely provides health care as it is. You decide to have an amniocentesis because you're 38 and you know the risk has become higher for birth defects. Lo and behold, your baby has a severe birth defect, one that would mean it wouldn't function well at all and certainly would never be self-sufficient. It would drain all financial resources from the rest of your existing family, which range from age 2 to 13.
Reluctantly, and in part because you know that adoption rarely extends to include severe special needs children (adoptive parents don't just get the luck of the draw like birth parents), you decide the best thing to do is abort the fetus. You cry for days; you spend a lot of time meditating on this -- in no way do you make the decision lightly. In fact your blood pressure starts going up, and your doctor begins monitoring you for pre-eclampsia."