Jivin J’s Life Links 2-22-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Congresswoman Jackie Speier has a piece in the Huffington Post which seems to indicate that she didn’t have an abortion but rather a D&E to remove a miscarried child:
You admit guilt, but for me there was no guilt, only the pain of a pregnancy that did not work. The fetus had slipped from my uterus into my vagina and could not survive. To stave off a life-threatening infection and to keep the possibility of a future birth alive, I had what’s called dilation and evacuation or “d & e.” But for people, particularly my colleagues who don’t want Planned Parenthood to be funded, I simply had an abortion.
- The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the AP all have articles on the death of NARAL founder turned pro-life advocate Bernard Nathanson.
- In India, 2 individuals have been arrested after a woman died during an abortion, which may have been sex-selective:Two persons, a head nurse of the district hospital here and the husband of a 4-month[s] pregnant woman were arrested after the woman died during abortion here, police sources said today. Deputy Superintendent of Police Girish Pandey said Sabatina Toppo, the head nurse of the district hospital, was conducting the abortion on 32-year-old Seema Devi in an illegal private clinic when she died in process last evening. Seema Devi’s husband Lalan Prajapati, who brought her to the clinic and Toppa were arrested by the police after Devi’s grandfather lodged an FIR in the town police station today. The 2 were arrested on the charge of conducting operation in an clinic being run illegally, causing death in the process as well as destroying female foetus, the DSP said.
Feb.22, 2011 1:00 pm |
Blogs |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“But for people, particularly my colleagues who don’t want Planned Parenthood to be funded, I simply had an abortion.”
No, they would say she had a miscarriage. It is her pro-abort colleagues that want to mischaracterize miscarriage as abortion to make it seem like folks having elective late term abortions are doing what anyone would do. She is trying to confuse two different situations to gain support for abortion.
The fact that folks who would like PP defunded can tell the difference between such situations is evident in the laws they pass. Laws like Phill Kline was trying to enforce. That is regulations that permit procedures where there is a legitimate medical problem, but not elective late term procedures that do nothing to improve health outcomes and endanger and kill women.
Dear Congresswoman Speier:
When I had my first prenatal appointment in my second pregnancy, my midwife did an ultrasound because I was 12 weeks along and she couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat via Doppler. The ultrasound revealed that the baby had stopped developing at around 8 weeks, and there was no heartbeat. My midwife and an OB recommended that I have a D&C, since it’d been nearly 4 weeks since the baby’s death and nothing had happened naturally. I agreed and had the D&C a few days later.
That was not an induced abortion. That was a missed miscarriage. What you had was also not an abortion. It was a miscarriage.
An abortion kills a baby who is alive prior to the procedure and dead after it. The procedure itself is what kills the baby.
A D&E or D&C for a missed miscarriage removes the body of a baby who died PRIOR to the procedure. In other words, the procedure did not kill the baby; the baby died of natural causes.
If you baby was dead prior to the D&E, then you had a miscarriage and a subsequent surgical procedure to remove the baby’s body from your body. If your baby was alive and well prior to the D&E, then you had an abortion. You may want to figure out the difference between the two before you speak on this issue again, because all you’re doing is confusing the issue and making false claims against the pro-life movement.
Excellent letter, JoAnna!!
Does the good Congresswoman want us to believe that her doctor sent her to PP to have her d&e rather than carry it out at his/her medical facility? I think I would be finding a new doctor if that was the case.
Thats true, Jen B.!
Thank you, Carla. I posted a longer version of the letter on my blog.
Ms. Speier doesn’t give any new information. If I read it correctly, she still doesn’t say “I had an abortion.” (She accuses pro-lifers of calling it an “abortion”.)
So which was it? Abortion or miscarriage? Was the baby still alive at the time of the procedure? That makes all the difference. It would be nice if she responded here. There are a few hundred comments at HuffPo – too many to read!
~ ~ ~
hippie,
I agree with you!
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Does she really think pro-lifers oppose miscarried babies being surgically extracted? It’s unclear whether the baby was dead or alive at the time, but it seems like if s/he was alive, s/he didn’t have too long to live. (How would that work, anyway? The baby was in her vagina but the placenta was still in her uterus, or something?) Has she never heard the phrase “life of the mother” in relation to abortion?
This is like arguing that because your foot was caught under a ten-ton rock and you had to cut it off to save your life, Planned Footlessness should get government funding to help people cut off their feet for purely elective reasons.
How very odd….
After Rep. Speier’s comments on the House floor, it was the pro-abortion writers who jumped in, praising Rep. Speiers for bravely admitting that she had procurred an abortion.
The pro-life writers (and esp. Jill’s blog) were all scratching their heads, because it didn’t sound like Rep. Speier was describing an abortion. Our hearts went out to her, because it sounded like a miscarriage.
In general, the pro-life activists are far more informed about the medical facts. And we are not so judgmental as she thinks we are. Even if she had confessed to a real abortion, we would still be moved to pity by the pain in her voice.
We know how much abortion hurts women.
Is it just me or is she still not getting the anatomy right? Originally she said the baby went from her vagina to the cervix. In this article she said it went from the uterus to the vagina. Seems to me if it’s in the vagina you don’t need a dilation and extraction. I’m guessing the baby or placenta set up camp on her cervix. The more this woman speaks the more I can’t believe she holds office. I read on Wikipedia she took her Confirmation name after Jackie Kennedy. Yeah, that’s not how you pick those names.
However, it’s totally appalling how she’ll twist procedure to further her agenda.
Is there any evidence that the procedure in India was sex-selective? Or is that entirely baseless supposition?