Offered as "Common Ground"-Late Term Abortion "Saved My Life"
by Thomas Peters
I might not do this perfectly, but I think it needs to be done.
I've been keeping tabs on Reproductive Health Reality Check (RHRC) since they announced a "common ground" forum on abortion.
Problem is, if pro-lifers want to head East towards life and pro-aborts want to move West towards the death of unborn children, any turning to the center of common ground by pro-lifers is movement in the wrong direction.
My patience and sincere attempt to be understanding and open to RHRC's common ground forum is about out. What might be the breaking point is a piece by Cecily Kellogg, who describes herself on her blog as a "foul-mouthed liberal, feminist, fat, recovering alcoholic, mother, wife, woman and writer."
So what did this individual contribute to RHRC?
"How a Late-Term Abortion Saved My Life"
It turns out to be yet another eulogy for late-term abortionist George Tiller, and a defense of late-term abortions in general. Now, because she makes her case based on her own personal experience, I have to talk about that to make my points.
Tiller, she claims "was committed to his work." Why? She says, "because he believed 'abortion is a matter of survival for women.'" I'd like to find out how many of his abortions saved women's lives. I know every one of his abortions killed a child. But that's not fair for me to say, apparently. That's not acceptable common ground. And yet it is acceptable for Kellogg to claim that Tiller "saved" lives.
She proceeds to narrate her nightmare story of succumbing to sever preeclampsia, which resulted in her doctors saying if she did not "terminate" her pregnancy, she was going to die "immediately."
After this experience (she had her son killed through "intact dialation and extraction" she "searched and found other women like me -- women whose lives were saved by the late-term medical termination of a pregnancy. I also met women who chose to spare their children from agonizing health conditions and birth defects by having an abortion."
... wait a second, Kellogg, you've jumped from abortions which aim to preserve the life of the mother over into abortions for genetic disease and birth defects. That's called eugenics. And who wishes to be "spared" from their problems through death? When she came down with severe preeclampsia - an "agonizing health condition" (in her own words) - would she have wished to be "spared" from it ... by death? This sort of thinking isn't merely unacceptable common ground, it's insane and inhuman.
Kellogg, in her ideological quest to eulogize Tiller and all the evil things he stood for, jumps more logical tracks: "... doctors only perform [late term abortions] in cases of extreme medical need. Dr. Tiller himself never performed a late term abortion without counseling the parents -- and getting a second opinion from another doctor. My doctor described the day of my surgery as the worst in his professional career."
Dr. Tiller did not only perform late term abortions in "extreme medical need." He did them at will. And what does Kellogg mean by Tiller "counseling the parents"? Of course he "counseled" them; late-term abortion is a major medical procedure! Kellogg's doctor might have had a hard day, but Tiller did this every day - he chose it. And just what, might I ask, is so hard about this decision, if Kellogg truly made the "right" one? If late-term abortion is medically "necessary", what need can there be for second opinions, counseling of options, etc?
Kellog's last sentence is especially deceptive and indeed,manipulative:
"My doctor knew the procedure and was willing to perform it; something that has already become rare and will be rarer still if doctors have to put their lives on the line to perform this life saving medical procedure. If it's you or your daughter, will you be so lucky?"
Quite honestly: how dare she say that. She paints abortionists as heroes who "put their lives on the line to perform this live saving medical procedure." However, medical situations in which the woman's life can only be saved by a late-term abortion are incredibly rare. They represent a failure in medicine. The answer to "medically necessary" abortions is to make them medically unnecessary. That is the challenge. Her manipulative "if it's you or your daughter, will you be so lucky?" is about as honest as claiming we need to kill all the sharks in the world because one of them might take a bite out of you or your daughter.
Finally, at a deeper level, Kellogg's argument is one of exception. And honestly, you could not find a more extreme exception than the personal one she describes. Through this exception, where she chose to have her son half-birthed, and have his brains vacuumed out, she proceeds to argue that George Tiller was a hero for doing this to dozens (if not hundreds) of children, and then she even has the nerve to scare her readers into wanting this "right" to be preserved for mothers and their daughters.
This is not common ground. It's a repulsive trick.
It's especially repulsive because Kellogg is presuming that no one will dare disagree with her because, by inference, she can claim they "want" her to die or would "be okay" with it.
Well of course I don't want her to die. I desperately want her, and all innocent human beings, to live. But I cannot condone her killing of another person to ensure the continuation of her own life. And I will not stand by and allow her to use the choice she made to preserve her life as a false justification for killing other innocent lives, including and up to those lives which are in no way threatening another person - such as the sick and disabled.
As I said at the outset, there are pro-abortionists who want me to move West, but I wish to move East. Meeting her in the "common ground" she offers of allowing late-term abortions, is a step in the wrong direction. It's a step towards death.
Sign up for the OV Daily Newsletter
OV Social
It seems to me from your article that you are saying abortion is never okay. If you really believe that you are being hypocritical when you claim that you wouldn't have wanted Cecily to die. There was NO OTHER OPTION. Yes, her situation is rare, but it is not unique. If you want to say you are pro-life , you must allow for safe abortions.
Another blogger I read had a very good point. If you believe there is any valid reason for an abortion EVER, then you must be pro-choice . If your 12 year old daughter was raped and suicidal and you wanted her to get an abortion, if your wife was dying of pre-eclampsia and you wanted to save her, if your child would be born with a hideously painful and 100% fatal disease and you wanted to end his suffering, then you must allow abortions also for the woman who just decided a baby didn't fit her lifestyle. Yes, I believe that last choice is horribly selfish, amoral and WRONG, but if I deny her the choice where can I draw the line? There are so many shades of gray that it is impossible to say that an abortion is okay in one circumstance and not another. If you believe that abortion is never okay, no matter what, then you must accept that inoccent women and girls will die, and their babies with them.
I wish the anti-choice people would put all their zealotry into making sure that children are wanted and taken care of, not just gestated.
OK, lets get the facts straight...
- Cecily had severe pre-e
- The only real cure for pre-e is delivery
- She wasn't able to be stabilized by medication , ie there was no way her son could continue to grow until viability, not to mention that one son had already passed
- Cecily would have died if her boys were not delivered, and she definitely wasn't stable enough for a c-section. Also, there was NO chance of her remaining son's survival.
There is no argument here that her "late term abortion " (hmm sorry, that's a term that doesn't exist in the medical world) was the only option for Cecily. It does NOT mean she supports it in all cases, and does NOT mean that she's a cold-hearted killer. Dr. Tiller saved lives by taking others, yes, but lets think about the aborted babies - they either would have been "incompatable with life" aka would have died before/shortly after birth, or they would have lived painful, humiliated lives. I'm guessing you're Catholic... can you tell me where the aborted babies go? The answer is Heaven. Wouldn't going straight to heaven be better than living a painful life on Earth?
Basically, your ad hominem argument is just disgusting, and HURTFUL. It's inarguable that Cecily's decision was the only one and the right one. She is alive today and has her beautiful daughter because of her doctor's bravery.
I believe there is a third category for the abortion debate , one that is neither pro-choice nor pro-life , and that is the human-beings are just not that dang great opinion.
Author Chuck Palahniuk in his book, FIGHT CLUB, has one character to the other state, "You are not a unique and special snowflake."
In my forty-six years on this planet, I have met or read about people who, quite simply, should never have been born. It's almost as if their lives were experiments to torture those of us who try to live decent, integral lives.
I am of the opinion that not each and every human being is a unique and special snowflake and that any and every means should not always be devised for their survival.
This planet, just as an example, would be better off without human beings. Part of me hopes that someday it will return to that state. Why? Because I do not have high hopes for the human race. Instead of becoming more civilized, we seem to be becoming less civilized, more selfish, more inward turned, and less caring about our fellow man and their individual needs. It feels to me that there are many, many people who want everyone else to think, and believe, and dress, and act, and eat as THEY do, and are willing to force, even to the death, their opinions and lifestyles on others.
I am not overly fond of the human race, even though I am a member of that club. In fact, I am often ashamed of the human race. I often feel that many people are not deserving of an opportunity to live and create lives for themselves. I feel there are many people on this planet who are just taking up space.
One baby more or less, I don't think makes a difference. That child may have found a cure for cancer or it may have been the next clerk at the local fast- food joint wanting to know if I want "fries with that?"
Human beings--I don't think they're that damn great. We can't even come to an agreement on what we, and when I say we I mean women, can do with our bodies. Bodies that men often have possession over either by law or threat.
I think somewhere a great cosmic eye (God?), is looking down on us, shaking their head, and saying, "too bad. They started out so well."
There are so many horrible things going on in this world right now and to worry over whether or not someone has a baby or not seems ridiculous to me. Utterly ridiculous.
I have never in my life so strenuously objected to the use of quotation marks in such a manner in my entire life. The entire tone of this article is extremely depreciating, offensive and inflammatory.
People Die. Sometimes horrible things happen, and there is nothing we can do to stop them right now with our current medical technology . Sometimes babies die. Sometimes the mothers can be saved, so that, perhaps they can continue to take care of the children they already have to the best of their ability, or continue to create the life you claim to be so fond of.
You will not be doing anybody any favors by banning abortion - not to mothers, fathers, society , and least of all not for children.
If you really wanted abortion ended, you would spend less time attacking people who have needed them as a medical necessity, an more time promoting better, affordable health care for mothers and children, birth control education , and social programs to beyond welfare, so that the impoverished families don't have to make the choice between having another unplanned child and making sure all of their current children can eat.
The day you get pregnant will be the day I care what you think about abortion .
thinking is the day I wake up a woman is the day I form an absolute opinion. But this thought runs through my mind. I would argue it's the woman's choice (i'm early development pro-choice ), but for the sake of conversation and to get the flavor of your argument, what if the father really, really, really wants the baby? Rarely does this aspect come up in conversations. I am not blind to the fact that it's the mother that has to carry the child, so how can we deal with the father's "rights" over the child that he helped to make?
Then he better be pretty well prepared to take full legal and fiscal responsibility for the child as a single parent, which is what happens to most mothers. I think the law should be able to chase him down for abandonment and neglect if he chooses to run out on the responsibilities he signed up for. If he wants the baby that badly, then he should be prepared to treat it's mother like a surrogate, and pay the expenses she would otherwise have to face on her own. He may not be able to have the baby, but he can take on the suffering that would cause a woman to have to abort. Women can handle the childbirth part. Then they would have their baby, and they can raise it as a single parent, just as the woman they knocked up would have had to.
When men are willing to do that, and the law is willing to enforce it, then I care about what they think about an individual woman's abortion . Until then, it is not their lives that are being irrevocably changed.
most agreeable terms. I came within a hair of saying that part of that already applies in the form of child support. While I know many fathers who pay a large amount of money (and they should) it is of course true that many fathers are completely useless and have run like cowards from their responsibilities.
I appreciate that you approach this with reason. I wonder how many women would agree to this, even if the law was well written and enforceable.
This is something I've been thinking about. It's now scientifically possible to implant a membrane into a fella that filters food and air, and implant a fetus into the guy. Why don't thees anti-choicers volunteer to be surrogate carriers for all those women who want to have an abortion ?
Would like to read that.