The Dish

A reader writes:

Enough of the judgment from your readers: a well-considered decision to bring either an adopted or biological child into a family is a highly personal one, and the idea that it is well-considered is the important part.  I appreciated the candor of your reader who had 11 miscarriages; her perception that an adopted child may be more risky or difficult to parent may or may not be correct, but if it gives her pause or causes her to think deeply about why she wants to be a parent and what her coping skills realistically are, that is a good thing.  It is far better than someone whose romanticized view of adoption – as a selfless act that is all about giving a child a family, not giving a family a child – leads them into a situation they cannot cope with.

Sometimes, perhaps a decision to hold out for a same-race child may signal that a person has gotten in touch with some hard truths about themselves and is simply being honest about what they think they are equipped for.  I am not sure they should be made to justify the decision or cover it up with a lie.

by Zoë Pollock

Lynn Harris praises MTV's 30-minute interview special on abortion, "No Easy Decision":

Seriously, they nailed it. And by "nailed it," I don't mean they just did a great PSA for abortion. I mean they told the many-sided truth: that abortion is safe and common, that abortion has been made difficult to get, and, most importantly, that abortion is a complex decision made by complex human beings. (That thump you heard around 11:35 p.m. EST was the sound of 100 feminist media critics falling off our collective couches.)

(Perhaps the best posts this year were penned by readers, and the most illuminating, gripping and emotional posts were related to late-term abortion, in the wake of the assassination of the abortion doctor George Tiller. I've never seen the power of this medium so clearly and up-close: one personal account caused a stream of others. How could old-school reporting have found all these women? How could any third-person account compete with the rawness and honesty and pain of these testimonials?

It was a revelation to me about what this medium could do. Like the Iranian revolution that followed this post, it made 2009 a very special year for this blog. – Andrew)

Many readers have asked us to compile the various late term abortion testimonials we published this week (which are only a fraction of the ones we've received). Here they are, in chronological order:

It's So Personal
It's So Personal, Ctd
The Catholic Mother
The Trauma
A Doctor's View (reader reaction)
A Target Of Terror
The Regret
Not Knowing For Sure
When Principle Meets Reality
Serial Abortions (reader reaction)
Preparing For The Worst
An Unforgiving Family (reader reaction)
The Guilt
Holding On
The Gay Fathers
What Guilt?
Ectopic "Miscarriage"

Still more to come. (And maybe a bound collection? We're actively thinking of it, prompted by many reader requests. But this should be a useful link for now.)

by Patrick Appel

This video of a couple who choose to take their son to term despite his being diagnosed with a terminal illness in the womb is heart-breaking. It's hard to get through without bawling.

Our series on late-term abortion and the terrible choices some families are forced to make is here.

(Hat tip: Dreher)

A reader writes:

Last January, at the age of 41, I conceived my first child, a child I have wanted all my life. At 22 weeks into the pregnancy, my partner and I went for a routine ultrasound at a clinic in Overland Park, Kansas, near our home in Lawrence. We and all the expectant grandparents were eager to find out the baby’s gender. Before the appointment, my mother wrote a quick email: “What time is your ultrasound? I'm excited!! Let me know what gender my "Grand" is! Love, Mum.xoxoxoxo”

Our appointment began jovially. The perinatologist and nurse joked about names, and at one point, the doctor called the baby a “little rascal.” As the ultrasound continued, the room grew quiet. The perinatologist scanned the baby’s head again and again. He finally announced, in a solemn voice, “I’m seeing some things in the baby’s brain that concern me.” Time stopped, and everything in the universe shifted. Holding my partner’s hand, I struggled to listen despite the thick blanket of grief that settled over the room.

The doctor continued, “The baby has holoprosencephaly. It’s a brain malformation in which the forebrain fails to divide. Most of these babies die before term. Those that are born have severe disabilities.” He finally took a deep sigh and started to deliver the especially delicate part: “I don’t know what your beliefs are but some people would terminate a pregnancy of this nature. Since you are 22 weeks along, you would have to go to Wichita for the procedure.” Everyone in the room knew this was shorthand for, “You would have to see George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortion doctor. No one else will help you at this point.” Numb, I asked to know the baby’s gender. He placed the ultrasound wand back on my stomach and read the grainy image: “It’s a girl.” We walked out of the clinic with blank stares and wept in the car.

A reader writes:

My wife has Marfan Syndrome, a condition that (among other things) leaves people susceptible to sudden dilation or aneurysm of the aorta. It weakens the walls of the aorta with no symptoms, followed sometimes by catastrophic tearing.  When it tears, there's an 80% of death – 65% en route to the hospital, 15% at the hospital – and only 20% survive through aortic graft surgery.  Pregnancy greatly exacerbates that risk.

We knew about the dangers during my wife's first pregnancy, so she had repeated measurements of the aorta.  It got a little bigger, but never to the danger zone. Our daughter was delivered by C-section without serious complications.  Once the aorta gets bigger, however, it never gets smaller, so the pregnancy left my wife on the precipice of serious medical catastrophe. 

A few years later came the second pregnancy.  Her OB/GYN sent her to a Marfan specialist at Johns Hopkins.  He treated us like we were murderers – or rather, treated her like she was a slow-motion suicide.  He insisted on an immediate abortion.  He plied us with his recently published study demonstrating that all of his previously pregnant Marfan patients died during the second pregnancy.  And he pointed out that all the women in his study were at least 5 to 10 years younger than my wife at the time.

We decided to proceed instead with the help of an OB/GYN who specialized in dangerous and difficult pregnancies, fighting to make them safe and successful.

A reader writes:

While I've always considered myself a pro-life conservative, I do admit to having mixed feelings about abortion.  I've been following your series on late-term abortion for the past several days, and I thought I'd pass on our story.

About 5 years ago, after a lot of effort, my wife got pregnant with our second child. We did the regular genetic screening (I can't recall the name of the test, but it was just a simple blood test). It  came back positive for Down's Syndrome, but only at a slightly higher risk. Our OB/Gyn said the odds for someone my wife's age (27) to have a Down's baby were about 1 in 10,000. The positive test result put the odds closer to 1 in 150. He recommended we go to a doctor who specialized in high-risk pregnancies to confirm there was no problem. She was 5 months along at the time.

During the additional testing, we had an ultrasound done with an amazingly high-tech machine. During the scan we kept asking the tech if she saw anything, but she kept telling us she wasn't legally allowed to say one way or the other. We sat quietly until the end of the test, at which point the tech turned to us and said, "Well, I'm going to be honest with you, because it's the only way I know how to be. I see some problems with the head."

I could hear my wife's breathing quicken, and my hands started to shake uncontrollably. The doctor came in and said he saw holoprosencephaly, which, as we learned, essentially means that the brain did not divide into two hemispheres. In fact, although we were 19 weeks along, the brain had stopped developing at 11 weeks.

A reader writes:

In August 1989, my then five-and-a half-month pregnant wife and I went in together for a routine sonogram at her OB's office. The sonogram showed that the fetus was

Immediately after the test we sat down with the OB in her office where she told us the reality of what we were facing. We scheduled a hospital visit for the next day. At the hospital they induced labor and the pregnancy was terminated. The baby was a little girl and she died during delivery. We were able to hold her for about an hour after the procedure. We named her and buried her.

It was a traumatic time and decision, but it was the right decision to make. How can you make a woman carry a baby to term when she know that the baby will die soon after it is delivered? Psychologically how much damage does that do to the mother and the family who cares for her?

A reader writes:

I know that you and many others do not approve of late-term abortions and those who perform them and I understand the reasons.  However, there is one aspect of this moral dilemma which I have not seen addressed by you or the media: the fact that clinics like Dr. Tiller's can help SAVE the lives of unborn children. Here is my best friend's story…

My friend "Katie" is pro-choice, and her husband "Rob" (raised Catholic) always considered himself pro-life.  They have two wonderful children, one of whom is a special needs child.  With all of the complications of raising their autistic daughter they decided against having a third.  But Mother Nature vetoed this decision and Katie became unexpectedly pregnant at the age of 39.  Though unplanned, there was no question they would keep the child. So they initially decided against any invasive screening.  However, due to her age and other factors, the doctors recommended extra testing.  And sure enough, one of the tests came back with measurements that indicated chromosomal issues and/or heart deformities.

It was then that the reality of their situation sunk in. Rob started seriously thinking about what their situation might be if they had another child with even bigger medical issues and perhaps Down syndrome.  So it was Rob who asked Katie whether they should get genetic testing.  She agreed.  In the meantime, Rob was experiencing ambivalence about the future and what the best choice might be.  Time became a factor; Katie was starting to show and was bonding with the baby, whatever its condition.  Rob, on the other hand, became more and more certain they couldn't handle another baby with severe health issues.

Katie and Rob started discussing the "what ifs".  What if it had Down's – keep it or not?  What if it didn't have Down's but major cardiac malformations – keep it or not?  All this they had to think through in a short amount of time while they waited for the genetic test results. They still were in an "acceptable" window to terminate.  Katie knew that if the fetus had any major issues, Rob wanted to abort.  She, the "pro choice" one, was not so sure.  Although the clock was ticking, they agreed to wait for the test results.

Kate Dailey understands what we are trying to do.

A reader writes:

My twins were delivered at 29 weeks and 3 days because I had severe high that there was a risk the boys’ oxygen supply would be cut off, leading to brain damage. 

So I had a C-section.  The boys were in the NICU for 9 weeks. Owen in particular had a hard time; he was on oxygen and IV for a long while, had a heart murmur, and aspirated his milk.  Retinopathy  affected both boys, so they both wear glasses and always will.  Oliver had surgery for a couple of hernias.  They are now three and speech delayed, so we're going through testing to determine if they're autistic.
 
The reason I give you a brief outline of my boys' birth and development is because they were born nearly six weeks after a fetus is considered “viable”.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t view my children as having been viable when they were born; I couldn’t feed them by mouth (the suck/swallow reflex doesn’t develop until at least 35 weeks), they couldn’t breathe on their own, their digestive systems didn't work properly, they couldn't regulate their body temperature (having no body fat), etc, etc.

Many readers have asked us to compile the various late term abortion testimonials we published this week (which are only a fraction of the ones we've received). Here they are, in chronological order:

It's So Personal
It's So Personal, Ctd
The Catholic Mother
The Trauma
A Doctor's View (reader reaction)
A Target Of Terror
The Regret
Not Knowing For Sure
When Principle Meets Reality
Serial Abortions (reader reaction)
Preparing For The Worst
An Unforgiving Family (reader reaction)
The Guilt
Holding On
The Gay Fathers
What Guilt?
Ectopic "Miscarriage"

Still more to come. (And maybe a bound collection? We're actively thinking of it, prompted by many reader requests. But this should be a useful link for now.)

A reader writes:

My heart goes out to the  pregnancies don't last. They aren't in the uterus. They simply don't go to term, except in extremely rare and bizarre cases. You have one choice: seek treatment immediately. Or wait for a natural miscarriage and risk major abdominal surgery, infection, infertility, and death. The baby will not live regardless.

I had an ectopic pregnancy scare in January. (It turned out to be a run-of-the mill none-ectopic miscarriage.) My doctor didn't hesitate to tell me to take a chemotherapy drug that ends the pregnancy. But she didn't use the word "abortion." No obstetrician would consider ending an ectopic pregnancy an abortion. No pro-life obstetrician would refuse to treat one and send you off to Planned Parenthood. They would consider it a medical necessity — a treatment of a life-threatening illness.

A reader writes:

I cannot help but think you are cherry-picking your printed stories, highlighting those who have had enormous difficulty with abortion, simply because you yourself have difficulty with abortion.  
 
Here is my own story. I got pregnant when I was 22 by my then-fiance (now husband).  I was, at that time, not ready to be a parent.  I certainly could have done it, but I wasn't personally ready. And to me, if I'm not ready to have a child, I should not have one.  Children are a big responsibility – not one that one should assume just because they got unlucky one night.
 
After I took the store-bought test, I immediately scheduled an abortion (which was a trick, since I had no privacy at work).  First, I called a place I whose ad appeared to be offering abortions ("Pregnant?  Don't want to be?  Call us").  I didn't know about fake pro-life pressure clinics at that time (aka "crisis pregnancy centers").  They didn't tell me their agenda, just scheduled me for an appointment. But I could tell something was weird, so I canceled it.  I only later discovered that they put out misleading ads to trick women.  I think trying to trick desperate, pregnant women is about as shady as one can get.

A reader writes:

I'm not sure I feel comfortable having the all the details shared on the website, but I wanted to give you another story, this time from the point of view of gay fathers.

We had had a difficult road with our surrogacy, but by the 20th week, everything looked great — all of the tests and previous ultrasounds on the twins had been fine, the pregnancy had been easy, and we had (and have) a wonderful relationship with our surrogate and her family. We had flown halfway across the country to be with them for a week to celebrate, and plan the baby shower.

Then out of nowhere, a nightmare. The technician brought us into the doctor's office, where he delivered the news that one of the twins had a grievous birth defect, one that would not only doom her to a short life of pain and suffering, but also one that would endanger the development and delivery of the other twin and the health of our surrogate. We were in the Midwest, and the specter of having to brave the protesters in Wichita was more than we thought we could put her through (or take ourselves). So we made arrangements to fly everyone home with us for the procedure, and hope that our other child would be OK.

A reader writes:

My wife and I had our lives forever changed by an unexpected pregnancy that began one year ago, almost to the day. It was to be our first child, Zoey, and we were both very scared in the beginning. Everything had gone perfectly, when nearly four months into the pregnancy, we paid a routine visit to the hospital for an ultrasound session. The doctor's face all of a sudden became grave, and he told us that not all was well.

Zoey had what is called a cystic hygroma, a buildup of fluid on the backside of the neck. These can, in some cases, go away, but in other cases they can grow, leading to hydropsy, which can cause the baby to die or be born in a severely handicapped state. Hers was a severe case. I will never, ever be able to forget those minutes inside the doctor's office. They were the longest and most heart-rending of my life, and exponentially so for my wife. The pregnancy had forever changed our lives to begin with, and now everything had changed even more drastically.
 
In Korea, where we live, there really is no social issue regarding the rights and wrongs of abortion. The common phrase for aborting in Korea is to 'erase' a child, generally used in cases of pregnancy outside marriage, and this well illustrates the no-issue attitude held by the majority of the nation's people. Virtually every OB/GYN clinic is an abortion clinic, and the procedures are as easy to get as anything. Further, hospital staff put great pressure on mothers to abort in cases of abnormality, big or small. This was our experience.

We returned to the clinic in a few days as instructed to repeat the ultrasound and monitor the cystic hygroma, and it had grown even in that short time. The doctors immediately began to prepare for the abortion without even so much as asking my wife what her choice would be, and she had to stop them. Then things got ugly.

A reader writes:

Thanks for your stories from the families that went through agonizing choices. I come from a family of Christianists. They may have started out Christians, but I think the abortion debate started them on a path away from the followings of Jesus to the followings of some fairly wacko evangelicals. I respect them for holding on to beliefs that they cherish, but I found over time my respect for them, as thinking and supposedly loving human beings, has diminished. I married late, at age 40, and my husband and I had no plans for children. As we were waiting for his vasectomy to “kick in”, using condoms, I somehow became pregnant. Ultrasound revealed that the pregnancy was ectopic. I was not well, feeling sick and in pain every day. There are extreme risks to the health of the mother in allowing an ectopic pregnancy to come to term.

I would have kept the whole issue to myself and not shared it with my family if it hadn’t have just so happened to coincide with a long-planned family reunion. I had to give a reason to not attend the reunion so I decided to share my predicament with my family. I chose to terminate at six weeks. My family heartily disagreed, saying that it was my duty to risk my life for a pregnancy I never wanted and had taken rational steps to avoid. This happened in 2007 and my tenuous relations with my family have not recovered. It still is a profoundly deep hurt that aches within me that my family felt that it would be proper for me to die rather than take the medical procedure that would save my life. My family seems to value the six week of cell growth over the person they have known for 40 years. Birthday wishes seem hollow; them checking in with me to see how I am doing seems hypocritical of them since they all would have chosen that I die, along with the fetus, during a painful ectopic pregnancy.

A reader writes:

My third pregnancy resulted in the birth of twin girls – one with horribly deformed internal organs and the other normal.  I had chosen not to have testing done, because although I believed in the right to choose, I did not think I would ever choose abortion for myself.  The doctors wanted to do surgery on our daughter that held a 10% chance of survival and promised another decade of surgeries for a child whose disability would leave her blind, mute and severely mentally retarded.  We had to make the excruciating decision of whether to allow that course of events.  We chose to baptise and let her return to God.  We held her as she died three hours later.  Her sister, blessedly, survived after a 2 month stay in neo-natal intensive care.

The struggle and torment of burying and grieving for a child, and explaining to the three older siblings why we only brought home one baby, was an ongoing horror that lasted years.  It took a huge toll on our marriage for a long time.  The next time I got pregnant, I was terrified.  Your odds of having a child with birth defects goes up with age and previously affected children.  I did not want to be blindsided by another child dying in my arms.  I did not think my family would survive another experience like that intact.

I decided to have every test they offer this time.

A reader writes:

Twenty-seven years ago I went to the ER after having suffered my fourth miscarriage.   After genetic screening, my husband had previously been diagnosed with a chromosal defect which would result in the spontaneous abortion of about 50% of our conceptions (actually, more like 66).  It's called a balanced reciprocal translocation, and the anomaly is so severe that the fetus dies within about 12 weeks of conception.  We managed to eventually have a son and daughter, but both are carriers who will in turn someday face the same daunting experiences we endured.    
 
Anyway, back to the ER.  As I was registering to get my D and C [dilatation and curettage], a woman barged in the front door demanding an abortion immediately.  The attendant told her she would have to wait her turn, to which she responded that she'd already had six abortions and it was no big deal, couldn't they just rush her case a little since she had several more appointments to keep that day. 

A reader writes:

 About a year ago, my cousin went into have an abdominal hernia fixed.  She was born with kidney problems that required multiple abdomen surgeries, which led to scarring and fibrous growths on her uterus that resulted in three complicated pregnancies. Just hours before she was scheduled for the operating room, the surgeon realized he had not conducted a pregnancy test. Despite using birth control, my cousin had somehow gotten pregnant. Considering her history and condition, the surgeon did not believe it was wise to bring the child to term. He believed she would probably miscarry without at least six months of bed rest, and that she would risk not only her health but possibly her life. She got a second opinion from another doctor who believed that he could safely help her bring the child to term, though it would be a very complicated pregnancy.

My Catholic, Republican, generally "pro-life" sister and mother related this to me at the time. My cousin had not yet decided what she would do, but my sister was certain: if she were my cousin, with three children under five years old who needed a mother to raise them (and a father who traveled often and for long periods for work), she would have terminated the pregnancy. I, on the other hand – a gay liberal pro-choice Democratic male – sensed I wouldn't have been able to go through with an abortion. I would have felt devastated thinking about having ended the possible life of my own child.