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Monday, October 31, 2016

One time I was pregnant...

Several years ago I was pregnant for about six months. A nurse told me at a hospital visit that my pregnancy was life threatening. If I continued to carry my baby, I would die. Both of us would. In two. Days. Flat.
I guess I had two options at that point:
Let them reach inside of me, flip that 2 pound baby over, deliver her breech, tear her apart limb by limb while her head was still inside of my body, putting my life in grave danger and obviously ending her's. That is how I'm seeing late-term partial birth abortion described. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The other option was to do a c-section right then and there, saving us both. From this point there would be two more options: I could keep her and raise her, or if I wasn't prepared for that, I would have had the privilege to offer her tiny life to another mom who was prepared. I'm sure either I or the social worker who works for the hospital (I know her, she's awesome) could have called a number of social workers and organizations and she would have been given an adoptive placement within hours if needed.
Of course we did the c-section. No other option was even presented because it would have been absurd to consider doing away with one life and putting another in danger when there was a safe option that would save both lives, despite the temporary inconvenience of a c-section.
And since my doctor knew I wanted to keep her, of course he didn't bring that option up (despite how he felt about her actual life and the fact that he called her "it" moments after her birth.)

And in the air of honesty, this procedure is not legal in Louisiana today, not sure what the laws were four years ago.
So I just voted, and I thought I would walk away feeling proud of my vote and confident because I voted for Evan McMullin... and I did so, totally proud, totally confident. But I was surprised that I still felt like throwing up a little and tears still welled up in my eyes as we drove away.
There was a long line, and I know what was happening in there. Lives, like my child's, will be tossed because people have been lied to about what has to happen when a viable child's mother's life is at risk.
Please please please vote for life. Lives matter. Period. Please vote for whoever values keeping people alive. Even tiny people like this one:
Ladies... our country's children even matter more than what some rich jerk said about women years and years ago. Even if he still says that stuff today (because let's be honest, he probably does), and even if that offends you and makes you feel mad and sick and gross, as it should, people getting to be alive and stay alive still matters more.