I cannot get Ronni Bennett's post about her experience with an abortion before Roe v Wade out of my head.
Ronni wrote:
"I remember it well in my teens and twenties. Not to be too graphic about it, imagine sticking a wire coat hanger up your vagina and poking around with it through excruciating pain and bloodletting risking failure and a mangled embryo or fetus, infection and hemorrhage. Some died."
Another haunting voice I hear is that of a caller into the Diane Rehm show on NPR the other day. He spoke so movingly about his family's struggle with infertility. His wife had 3 miscarriages and one stillborn. Her last pregnancy lasted 6 months until the doctors discovered the baby had Trisomy 13, a fatal condition. As the man described it, his wife had IDX, or a late term, intact abortion. He said it was so so important to this grieving couple: they needed to hold their baby, grieve it, mourn it.
Under this new ruling, this grieving couple would not have such an option.Suzanne Reisman put it well:
"In the same way that I would never force a woman to have an abortion to save her life or preserve her health, I deeply resent that others now can put my life and health in jeopardy because their religion says it must be so."
This decision is a new front in the war on reproductive rights. And its intent affects a new sector of women, men and families. I just got married. I will never say never, but at this point I cannot imagine having a pre-viability abortion, because I want to have children. As a dedicated pro-choice activist, I march with NARAL and send checks to Planned Parenthood, but certainly parental consent and interstate laws do not impact me right now. This ruling is different. But what if my husband and I were the couple with the Trisomy baby? What if my health depended on having an IDX?
Melinda Casino quoted BitchPhD: "Because there are other surgical options for late-term abortions, it is highly unlikely that banning IDX will prevent a single abortion. It may, however, prevent some women from having the safest procedure for their particular circumstances."
This ruling takes away not only women's rights, it takes away family rights. Men should be mad about this ruling too. The mere spirit of this ruling takes away the right for families to make decisions with dignity and self-reliance.

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I Could Never Imagine
teacherinheels April 21, 2007 - 5:03pm
I could never imagine the set of circumstances that would make me want to have an abortion. When I hear stories such as the man with the ill baby I realize that I am truly blessed to not have to make these decisions.
Thank you for that perspective.