That taboo topic - again -- Fetus aborted at 6 months because of a cosmetic deformity

Let me tell you a secret about abortion. You're not meant to talk about it. Really. Don't say a word.

As a journalist, you can call for hospitals to be closed, the poor to be ignored, minorities to be exploited and you'll still be acceptable in polite and correct society. But say that life begins at conception and the doors close on you like you were a criminal in a prison.

I used to write about the issue too often, I think. Now I hold my fire, make sure my guns are loaded to the full. And, oh, how full they are now, as I tell the story of a brave, beautiful woman and the child for whom she fights.

The woman is Joanna Jepson, a curate in the Church of England. She is 27 years old, attractive, modern and wise. She was also born with a facial defect that required corrective surgery. It was that fact, among others, that made her so very angry in this particular case of an unborn child in the sixth month of development being aborted in Britain.

The reason? It had a cleft palate. The parents decided they really couldn't cope with the now very common and relatively minor surgery to repair the palate of their child and instead asked doctors to get rid of it.

The obliging doctors did. Out it came, cleft palate and all, and into the hospital garbage along with the rotten organs and the bodily waste. Six months. Meaning it was a baby, could have survived outside of the womb, was perfect in every other way.

How a parent, how a mother or a father, could have requested such a thing is, frankly, beyond me.

Beyond Jepson, too. She felt not only a moral stab on hearing of this but a sense of solidarity with another powerless human being who happened to have a cosmetic deformity. Because Joanna's parents, if callous, could have decided to have had a hit job done on her as well while she was still safe in her mother's womb.

The law in Britain is vague on abortion but usually prevents the procedure from taking place after 24 weeks. Anything later than that is very rare, and would have to involve ultimate danger to the life of the mother. Not a cleft palate to the child.

So Joanna went to the police and the lower courts, who told her to get lost. After all, there were parking tickets to hand out and other serious offences like that. But this young woman, a feminist who has battled for recognition in church and society, refused to listen. She fought on, and finally the High Court in Britain agreed with her arguments and has ordered the police to investigate.

We don't know what the outcome will be, but already the pro-abortion advocates are screaming mad. Problem is, this time they've rather given themselves away and have alienated entire chunks of the previously supportive or indifferent British population. Because abortion has always been argued from the standpoint of female liberation and autonomy.

Hard to do that when a fully formed, healthy and beautiful child was slaughtered because of a cleft palate. Those who have previously preferred to argue about Beckham than babies are now questioning the basic premises behind abortion.

The abortion took place because this facial problem was classified as a "serious handicap." That is simply a lie. No debate, no argument. A lie. Liar, liar, government grants on fire. Because this involves lots of taxpayers' money and an entire industry. Just like in good old Canada.

Fool and romantic that I am, I'd like to think a child with a cleft palate has a right to live. But then I'm an extremist. I'd like to think children with Downs syndrome have a right to live, and that none of us measures up to some artificial notion of perfection. But then I believe in equality, which is something the abortion lobby seems to have abandoned rather a long time ago.

Not Joanna Jepson, though. She knows the pain and knows the truth. Voices sometimes cry from the grave, and their echoes are heard by living heroes. Thank heavens.

I agree with you. And it is being used as that. I had the displeasure of reading a couple of posts to a pregnancy list from two women, one of which had had 5 abortions in the past 5 years and the other 3 in the past 2 years. The latter of the two claims to be a health nut too and expounds on personal responsibility for one's physical fitness. Almost makes one laugh when you consider her complete lack of personal responsibility for her sexual behavior and the children she helps to create in her womb.

And I'll tell you what, any woman with an ounce of decency will push those limits with her own health too. I am 16 weeks pregnant now and have hypertension, which thankfully is under control with medication for now. At some point, it may be that the baby needs to be delivered. I am praying beyond prayer that things stay quiet until I get to the 7 th month at least and then who would abort when a baby can be delivered? I'm in favor of a mother's life abortion, but I gotta tell you, if I had to deliver my baby tomorrow and it obviously still would not survive out of the womb, I still do not want it sucked out of me. I want recognizable remains that I can bury. My point is that there needs to be an upper limit on abortion even for a mother's life. When a baby can be delivered and survive outside of the womb--let's say 28 weeks because of the very horrible complications that can happen to an infant before that time, then abortion should not be an option, but immediate delivery unless the woman is so sick that she can not handle labor or surgery(c-section). In most cases though, in the 3rd trimester, the baby can be delivered alive and the mother treated.

That's because they usually aren't 3rd trimester. Women in this country have the technology to find out between 18-22 weeks if they are carrying a child with a severe disability ie 2nd trimester. I know of two women personally who had abortion from severe disability. One was for a Down's baby and the other is a family member who DELIVERED at 5 months pregnant a baby with no brain, but she requested that the baby be delivered, not aborted, so she could bury her baby. The ancephely baby would have died shortly after full term birth. She had no brain whatsoever.

First and most important, I wish you and your child the best.

You are, of course, correct. My comment was insufficient, in that I failed to include my own opinion that once a fetus is viable, live delivery by normal or ceasarian must be the primary option, with abortion considered ONLY to save the mother. My wife has produced two sons in five pregnancies, and I vividly recall both her feelings and mine with each of them. Each child is a precious gift, and deserves our full respect for his humanity. The lost ones remain in our memories.

One coincided with the death of her father. He had a small dairy farm that he operated by himself after his divorce. He had a stroke out in the barn, and lay out there for about 36 hours before he was found and taken to the hospital. My wife, 3 months pregnant, flew up to visit him, but immediately started bleeding and was hospitalized herself. My employer, IBM, located an IBM family in Louisville where my 3 year old son and I could stay, and we drove up there to be with her and her father.

She was treated successfully at the time, and I drove her home a few days later. She had visited her father in the hospital only twice, both times in a wheelchair due to hospital policy. We had to tell him that she had sprained her ankle.

Two weeks later, with her father still critical 350 miles away, she started bleeding again and was hospitalized here in Memphis. On the second day of this episode, I received a call that her father had died. Her doctor told me that he would not allow me to visit her unless I promised not to tell. I told her brother about the situation, and sent flowers. Her miscarriage was on the day of the funeral, and she came home from the hospital two days later. She asked about her father, but I waited another day to tell her what had happened.

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