Posted on 02/14/2013 4:58:23 AM PST by Kaslin
Jennifer Morbelli’s baby had a name. The baby registry was complete, filled with already-purchased items like the book “I’ll Love You Forever.” The nursery was set up. Jennifer Morbelli’s baby, Madison Leigh, was a wanted child—and only seven weeks shy of birth.
Instead, mother and child both died last week from a botched late-term abortion. After learning that Madison had severe birth defects and a short life expectancy, Jennifer and her husband turned to Leroy Carhart, one of the only doctors in the country who performs third-trimester abortions. On February 7th, Jennifer was rushed to the emergency room. (When hospital staff desperately tried to contact Carhart, he was MIA.) Jennifer apparently died from internal bleeding as a result of the 33-week abortion.
As the story broke online, comments flooded in. Some expressed sympathy and sorrow for Jennifer’s family. Other “pro-life” commenters called her a murderer and said they were glad she was dead. They asked, “How could she? What kind of mother was she?”
My answer: probably one who knew how parents in her position are treated. Many women are met with hostility and shaming when they make the unpopular “choice” to carry disabled children to term.
Back in 2009, a young single woman, Myah Walker, learned that her baby had anencephaly, a fatal anomaly in which only part of the brain develops. Instead of terminating the pregnancy, Myah decided to carry the baby (named Faith Hope) to term, and chronicle her experience on a blog.
The response? An avalanche of hate. Entire blogs were created to slam Myah and her child.
The first thing you’ll gather from reading these blogs is that these people are really, really angry, because—well, I’m not sure why. Because Myah walked the walk when it came to her Christian beliefs and eschewed abortion? The hate brigade weirdly accused her of “bigotry,” ridiculed her for supposedly being date-raped by the child’s father, and e-mailed her lists of suggestions for how she could off her “zombaby,” who lived to be three months old.
How many women receiving a poor prenatal diagnosis could withstand that kind of torment?
Throughout the 2008 campaign and beyond, liberal bloggers and “comedians” hurled abuse at Sarah Palin’s infant son, Trig, who was born with Down’s syndrome. Jeff Stuef of Wonkette celebrated Trig’s third birthday by sneering, “‘Oh, little boy what are you dreaming about’…What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded.”
This is bigotry against the disabled—nothing more, nothing less. The left’s usual political correctness went out the window, and it was okay to toss around the word “retard” like fifth graders on the school bus. They repeatedly claimed Palin earned this treatment by talking openly about her experience raising a special needs child. (Palin was accused over and over again of “using Trig as a pawn,” which I gather meant “not acting ashamed of him.”)
And it’s not just controversial politicians and their children who receive this sort of treatment after deciding to “keep” a special needs child. Ask my friend Cassy Chesser, who gave birth to her son, Wyatt, after receiving a prenatal Down’s syndrome diagnosis.
“Online, it’s mostly the usual... people calling him a retard, saying he'll never have a meaningful life. Stuff like that,” Cassy told me. “The worst is one girl who told me that I was crazy for having him and I should have had an abortion. Another person told me I shouldn't have any more kids because Wyatt would be too much of a burden.”
This is the message drilled into women carrying disabled children. Their pain and fear is already great, as women like Cassy can tell you. Doctors, friends, and family say: terminate it. And if you have a few thousand dollars on hand, doctors like Carhart will do just that—on the eve of the child’s due date, and sometimes at great risk to the mother’s health.
As a commenter on Operation Rescue’s site said of Morbelli, “I knew her…she believed she was doing something selfless.”
I believe she believed that. If we want to stop these gruesome late-term abortions, Americans ought to take a look in the mirror: how do we treat women like Jennifer Morbelli and their babies?
But if their wives or daughters are told that severe birth defects are in the cards for their baby, they will look the other way when the visit to the abortionist is made.
Now I am NOT saying that pro-life Freepers are all in this group. But it's a reason why the polls showing that America is a pro-life nation don't get translated into results.
You're right. I know a family of church going Catholics. Their daughter was carrying a baby with a congenital kidney defect. The deformity was such that the family was told the child wouldn't live long after birth. They tried some sort of experimental surgery, when that didn't work, they aborted. They told anyone who would listen that the abortion in this instance was a "grey area". Even their priest told them that, they said. (I know their priest. I know that's BS. They're hanging on to some kind words he said to them, I am sure). I see the mother of the aborted child from time to time. My guess is, she's an alcoholic now. The grandparents seem much the same on the outside.
Pure and simple.....I cannot believe a woman subjects her almost full term baby to the pain & suffering of late term abortion for altruistic reasons!...
...but some people will believe anything.
Much like Waco, save the chilrun by burning them to death.
Kill the kids, it's alright, it's for their own good.
There is sufficient support to prohibit abortions which are not "grey".
Here on FR we have a lot of pro-lifers who are unwilling to take an incremental approach. For them it's all or nothing, and nothing is what they have gotten.
*...the abortion in this instance was a “grey area”.*
Translation of “grey area”: Black (wrong) with white (right) blended in to excuse the wrong.
Folks, wrong is wrong, no matter how many times you repeat a lie, it is still a lie.
I had a similar experience with a childhood friend of mine. Observant Catholic family, staunch “defenders” of life, to the point of being very evangelistic on the subject - esp. when we were in our teen years.
Years later after she was married she became pregnant. Then they found out the baby was sick, and my friend tried to convince me that killing her 5 mo. old unborn baby was okay. One exact statement was “it’s very hard to have a sick child”, and I must not understand because my children were all healthy...
As if anyone has a guarantee? With my 1st daughter a screening at 16 weeks indicated that I - aged 19 at the time - had the same risk of having a child w/Down Syndrome as a 40-year-old... No guarantees.
I’m grateful my OB was Catholic, and he knew of my beliefs as well. The word termination never came up - even after I was diagnosed with cervical cancer DURING that pregnancy, and showed those risks stated above.
It would seem that so many’s hypocrisy shows no bounds. I was a lapsed Catholic and yet put more faith in God than some who claim - to this day - to be so pious. Those that believe in that so-called “gray area” are deluding themselves.
God gives life and only He should decide when to take it.
There’s more to the story, but I think you all get the gist of it.
PS - I have been cancer-free for 21.5 years, and have four beautiful daughters, and have a grandchild on the way. As far as I know, my friend ended up divorced, and has no other children - her child was alive to me, so I won’t say she never had any - even though she didn’t name her baby and allowed it to be thrown in the trash as waste.. Particularly when the procedure was a partial-birth... perhaps the most horrendous of all types, imo.
I will NEVER understand the decision. I have no problem being compassionate to several other girls I know who had abortions because they were young [HS age], unmarried, and didn’t have the same beliefs or upbringing within a religion - or not much of one. And, one was “forced” to have one by her parents despite her not wanting to abort.
However, with this former friend I can find nothing that indicates hers was not a fully conscious decision, or that she didn’t know the consequences - particularly according to the Church. When I think of her, or see her on fb on occasion the same word always comes to mind — murderer. May God forgive me if I am harming myself, or even her by not being able to forgive her.
Abortion for PERFECT Babies: Who’s to Blame?
You are; America
You are...
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Are you still killing your unborn? -- GOD |
(And we wonder why our Country is screwed up...)
I can suspend judgment on Jennifer, but I despise her parents. How could middle class Catholic parents take their very pregnant married daughter to have their grandchild murdered? We are all sinners and many of us are hypocrites, but I really don’t know anyone who would take her daughter for a third trimester abortion.
Totally agree. But express that view in certain quarters here at FR and you'd better be wearing a flameproof suit.
How many unrestricted abortions a year are the absolutists prepared to accept while they wait for perfection? Apparently quite a few.
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