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...and why I support a woman's right to choose.
PLEASE read this thread before commenting. This is a thorny issue that I would rather not be obliterated by angry ideology.
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-s...ht-not-to-know
I have two kids, and this is painful to read. It's the one thing you dread hearing, it's the thing you are afraid of from the moment you find out you're expecting.
This is not someone who is "using abortion as contraception". This is someone who has been faced with the stark choice of bringing someone into a lifetime of suffering if they live at all or being able to start over and have a healthy child.
She then describes the new invasive sonogram procedure dictated by Texan law, how she was forced in the midst of this anguish to suffer the cruel indignity of having a doctor try to talk her out of it.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, I admit it. But I am pro choice. It's this sort of situation that makes the point that some issues are complicated and difficult, they cannot be boiled down to talking points and angry rhetoric.
I hope that by reading this you might feel the same.
PLEASE read this thread before commenting. This is a thorny issue that I would rather not be obliterated by angry ideology.
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-s...ht-not-to-know
Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that my baby was ill. Profoundly so. My doctor gave us the news kindly, but still, my husband and I weren’t prepared. Just a few minutes earlier, we’d been smiling giddily at fellow expectant parents as we waited for the doctor to see us. In a sonography room smelling faintly of lemongrass, I’d just had gel rubbed on my stomach, just seen blots on the screen become tiny hands. For a brief, exultant moment, we’d seen our son—a brother for our 2-year-old girl.
Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”
Yet now my doctor was looking grim and, with chair pulled close, was speaking of alarming things. “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”
before I’d even known I was pregnant, a molecular flaw had determined that our son’s brain, spine and legs wouldn’t develop correctly. If he were to make it to term—something our doctor couldn’t guarantee—he’d need a lifetime of medical care. From the moment he was born, my doctor told us, our son would suffer greatly.
It felt like a physical blow to hear that word, abortion, in the context of our much-wanted child. Abortion is a topic that never seemed relevant to me; it was something we read about in the news or talked about politically; it always remained at a safe distance. Yet now its ugly fist was hammering on my chest.
In those dark moments we had to make a choice, so we picked the one that seemed slightly less cruel.
"... I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.”
I hope that by reading this you might feel the same.
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