Posted on 04/10/2007 7:53:18 AM PDT by SmithL
Cherie Golant has three photos of her daughter Julia at birth. She has a lock of Julia's newborn hair, thick and dark. She has Julia's handprints, footprints and hospital wristbands.
She also has memories of 30 hours of grueling labor -- but no official record of Julia's birth.
Julia was stillborn, with her umbilical cord around her neck. The state issued only a death certificate.
"I remember my discharge nurse said to me, 'You are still a mom. Don't forget that,' " said Golant of San Francisco. "It was amazing to me how important those words were in the days and weeks after my daughter died. But there was no official evidence I was a mom. I had the milk in my breasts and the potbelly of a postpartum mom, but I didn't have a birth certificate."
It is more than a piece of paper to many of the nearly 3,000 families that cope with stillbirth each year in California. They are anxiously watching Senate Bill 850, which would authorize the state to issue a "certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth." It is headed to the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday for its first in a long line of hearings.
The bill's path is not likely to be smooth, even though similar legislation already has passed in 18 states and is pending in seven others.
The national discussion about birth certificates for stillborns, which are being pushed by bereaved parents working with the Missing Angels Foundation, has been mingled with the abortion debate. Pro-choice advocates have opposed the laws on the grounds that they could fuel the anti-abortion cause by acknowledging that an unborn fetus is a person.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Thanks for posting this. I didn’t even realize this legislation was out there.
“they could fuel the anti-abortion cause by acknowledging that an unborn fetus is a person.”
Well, now we’ve permanently established that these people have no heart. We already knew they had no soul.
Seems I might be a bit off - a precursor philosophy might be closer
Cyrenaics seems to be more in line......(Thanks to wiki)
Cyrenaicism (4th and 3rd centuries B.C.), founded by Aristippus of Cyrene, was one of the earliest Socratic schools, and emphasized one side only of the Socratic teaching. Taking Socrates' assertion that happiness is one of the ends of moral action, Aristippus maintained that pleasure was the supreme good.
He found bodily gratifications, which he considered more intense, preferable to mental pleasures. They also denied that we should defer immediate gratification for the sake of long-term gain.
Thursday will mark the third anniversary of my daughter's stillborn birth; only five weeks short of her due date. I wanted to be there as much as I could for my wife, but certainly wasn't interested in seeing the baby's lifeless body. However, the hospital staff were terrific in recognizing the baby as a person - pointing out her traits, taking pictures and, yes, issuing a birth certificate.
That recognition, from the certificate to the funeral was powerful support for us and it amazes me that legislators would stand against such help for couples grieving as we had over our loss.
I am so sorry for your loss. When I read this article, I was actually embarrassed that I hadn’t given prior thought to this. I had a miscarriage early in a pregnancy and felt a great sense of loss. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a baby so close to term. I am so glad you and your wife had such a compassionate and understanding nursing staff. I would think that a birth certificate would help keep close the memory of the little person you and your wife created. No one should have the right to deny you that.
Compassionate liberalism at it’s finest.
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