I’m asking honestly. People’s answers differ. If it’s hard to imagine answering these questions for yourself, can you imagine being asked to answer them for someone else?
My husband and I chose to end our child’s life. Many imagine this as an impossible decision to make, one that would take hours of deliberation. I will be honest with you. You may not want to hear this, but the decision was obvious to us. Our child would not be given a life of pain and suffering. Instead, we would take her pain on as our own.
I regret that we had to make the choice. I regret that she was so sick, so broken. But I do not regret the decision we made. Within 15 minutes of the diagnosis, we knew what we had to do: We would become baby killers.
Am I punishing myself by using that term? I don’t think so. I want people to know: I ended my child’s life. At 23 weeks and six days into my pregnancy, I had a “late term” abortion. When people ask, “How could you?” I reply that allowing her to live would have been a fate worse than death. Her diagnosis was not fatal, not incompatible with the bare mechanics of a living body. But it was incompatible with a fulfilling life. And that makes all the difference to me. That’s why I call myself “pro-life.”
The night before our abortion (a procedure that takes three days to complete), President Trump delivered the annual State of the Union address. I did not watch, but later I saw his comments about late-term abortion make the rounds on social media. Who are these monstrous women and doctors that, in his lurid language, “rip” babies “from the mother’s womb moments before birth”?
My child was lovingly cared for until her last heartbeat. She was gently laid to rest after her footprints were stamped in black ink on a rectangle of paper. Those same footprints hang on my bedroom wall along with a locket containing her ashes.
Is this not the picture of maternal feticide you had in mind? I am not a dark shadowy imaginary figure. I am a grieving mother.
bicycle_mice on October 29th, 2019 at 02:18 UTC »
I'm a pediatric nurse and care for lots of kiddos with severe congenital malformations. These children often will never eat, walk, or talk. They have very low or no quality of life whatsoever. They have many surgeries and lengthy hospital stays, shuffling back and forth between home and hospital for years until they eventually pass away from kidney failure, pneumonia, line infections, etc.
I love my job and while I feel great affection for many of these children, my heart breaks knowing that they will never taste a fresh grilled cheese, never sneak out with a boyfriend, never sing karaoke. Having dedicated my life to care for these babies, I would 100% have an abortion if I knew my child would have incurable medical complexities.
pm_me_your_sole_pics on October 29th, 2019 at 02:07 UTC »
I hadn't considered the difficulty of finding a support group for those mothers who chose to abort due to medical issues. They do deserve the same support as those who had a miscarriage, or still born birth. It's not easy for any parent in that situation, and support is fundamental to grieving.
joshy83 on October 29th, 2019 at 01:38 UTC »
I can’t read this right now without probably becoming an emotional mess, but I read an article where a mother had to have a medicine injected into her daughters heart to stop it. She described feeling the last kick and it’s absolutely soul crushing. It’s awful that people have to go through with this but I think they are so brave to making the decision of quality of life (or death) over their own feelings. I don’t think I could be brave enough to do the same. I really don’t. And I’m a nurse who should know better.