Because so few people really know.

Can't even imagine having to make such a decision. Anyone who presumes to judge these women is a grade-A asshole.

K & R

and which Right to Life pretends does not exist. But it does. And every time some Republican looks at a poor child of a poor mother and makes a rude face and says "It's the mother's fault that child is poor. She shouldn't have gotten pregnant and had that child" I wish that Republican would think about the women who were so happy to be pregnant only to be told that their baby had no brain and would not survive. Then, maybe the Republican would say "We should help that poor child."

Last edited Wed Jun 4, 2014, 10:02 PM - Edit history (1)

...it is something that is DONE to people."

(Heard in a Methodist sermon years ago)

I watched a close friend accept the death of her unborn baby. My heart goes out to these women.

These medical decisions are between women and their doctors... who can be trusted to make ethical decisions that are right for their circumstances. The people trying to interfere are horrible monsters.

to make that difficult choice. Nobody else has the right to decide for women who find themselves in that position.

Andrew Sullivan did a Series called "Its So Personal" - stories of heart break involving late term abortions - many of them done by Dr Tiller. Here is the link: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/threads/its-so-personal/

and if their photographs were taken at the time they made the choice, they'd have looked utterly devastated and grey, the six or seven month dream of holding a new baby in their arms shattered by medical reality.

Nurses know the stories but they're not ours to tell, stories of grotesque deformities discovered late in the pregnancy and of physical illness that would kill the mothers within days, not the weeks it would take to save the baby.

The religious right knows some of these stories. They prefer lies.

K&R.

for these brave women.

at any time, for any reason, during a pregnancy and those that make it are so very courageous.

Mostly for women. #FJL #REPROJUSTICE

Love, Peace and Shelter. Lmsp

They knew the fetus had problems but was diagnosed as possible dwarfism and the parents were still happy to be pregnant and welcoming of a new baby, it was only later in the pregnancy that the fetus was diagnosed with a very rare disease that was already causing the bones to fracture before it was born. Forcing a full term pregnancy and vaginal birth was going to cause further fracturing of bones, including the skull with no hope of survival. Well-meaning people tried to give advice that maybe there would be a miracle, that's nuts. The ob-gyn did not recommend c-section as it was an additional risk to the mother and would not result in a live birth anyway. The entire episode was a disaster. There are such things as medically necessary late term abortions and no one should be forced to carry a doomed fetus or risk their own life because maybe there will be a miracle.

I've met so many women in this situation.

Women who were facing terrible situations. Some chose to continue the pregnancies, some chose to end them.

All of them were doing the very best they could for their families and their very-much wanted children.

It shouldn't be a matter for shame, it takes an awful lot of strength and courage to move forward and take action, knowing that whatever you do, your heart won't ever be the same.

In some ways, I'm glad my loss was sudden and unexpected. I don't know that I would have had it in me to be as amazing as the women who know and have to make that choice.

that right-to -lifers don't want to acknowledge. It's not just about the right to live; it's about quality of life. To criticize anyone for saving a child from a life of horrible pain or existing as a vegetable, or worse - as many of these women do - is abominable. It's an agonizing decision that in the end is made out of love for the child.

Over and over it is pointed out that we treat our pets better. How many animals have been euthanized because to force them to live would just be an exercise in pain. But humans are somehow unworthy of the same compassion?

took two or three very labored breaths after her very premature birth at 21 weeks. The decision had already been made not to resuscitate her due to her previously diagnosed severe birth defects, including the "worst myelomenigiocele I've ever seen" (the doctor's words). She is loved and missed every day. The so-called "right-to-life" community would be denying her many of her basic needs to education and medical care today, had she lived. Screw them.