Abortion

One father's experience. Read it.

Comments

[janet]

Wow.

[Andrew Myers]

That's a really powerful story. For me, and probably for a lot of other pro-choice guys, abortion tends to be this abstract, intellectual issue where I get to compete to come up with the most nuanced violinist hypothetical, or whatever, but not one that really affects my life that much or that I really feel passionate about on a gut level. Stories like this (whether they're written by men or by women) do a lot to connect the debate to reality.

[Michael Hussey]

There are so many variables into why someone would have an abortion. To say it is a black and white issue is foolish.

The South Dakota law was vague in issues of the woman's life at risk. Someone in the woman's situation may not have had a choice if the South Dakota law was rartified. That is hardly pro-life.

[Vance Maverick]

Ack. I was only able to read that two lines at a time -- in between, I had to look away for a while. Wow indeed.

[Matt McIrvin]

When my wife was pregnant with our child, we spent some time squeeing over ultrasound pictures and such, and one might presume that the experience would soften my pro-choice views. But it didn't; if anything it hardened them. It was a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy that led to a healthy baby, and it was still such a scary and wrenching experience, with all of Samantha's aches and pains, and strange fragmentary indications of low-probability trouble popping up now and then in the doctors' examinations the way they almost always do.

We never had to go through anything like what these people experienced, but the possibility of serious trouble was always there in my mind--and the idea that politicians and preachers would want to interfere with that process for any reason other than Sam's health was terrifying.

[s9]

Yeah. My wife had two miscarriages before our only son was born. The first one was at 13 weeks, and the second was at slightly less than that.

When she got pregnant the very first time, she wanted to tell the whole world, and I pleaded with her not to tell anyone, not even her family, until she was 20 weeks along. Before the FACE Act, I had volunteered for clinic defense a few times. I was well versed in the statistical odds of a viable pregnancy. Of course, she didn't listen to me, and she told lots and lots of people.

After the first miscarriage, she was pretty devastated (though, not as one would be after the death of a child). Her family and our friends went non-linear and made it lots and lots worse, in all the ways that ignorant pinheads will do when they find out that you've lost a baby.

When she got pregnant the second time, she waited a little longer, but not long enough. The third time, she finally kept her mouth shut— to the point where we even lost a friend who got pissed off because we refused to entertain her speculations. At 20 weeks, at her gyn's insistence, she had a CVS. The results came back two weeks later, and we were relieved like I cannot describe to see all those nice, clean chromosome pairs. No gross transcription errors. A nice healthy boy, so long as there weren't any further complications. (There were, but I won't go into them. We have a wonderful son today.)

At this point, if you haven't got the point I'm driving at, then let me boil it down for you. In the wake of the recent SCOTUS decision, a lot of expectant couples will roll snake-eyes and get results from a CVS with a very bad prediction for the pregnancy outcome. There will be a lot of men who will suddenly discover, for the very first time, what "partial birth abortion" really means in terms of their lifestyle management strategy.

I'm not looking forward to watching that realization dawn on them.