Attorney: Disabled Miami woman's pregnancy TERMINATED (FL rape case)

http://www.heraldtribune.com ^ | 5-30-03 | AP

[OXENinFLA]

Attorney: Disabled Miami woman's pregnancy terminated print

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The Associated Press

A fetus in its 24th week of development has been aborted by doctors who said the life of the mother - a retarded, deaf and seizure-prone rape victim - would be threatened if the baby was carried to full term, an attorney said Friday. The abortion and tubal ligation to prevent future pregnancies were performed late Thursday at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said Lance Block, who represents the disabled woman's mother. Miami-Dade police took DNA samples from the fetus in an effort to identify the father, whom officials believe raped the 28-year-old woman, he said. The victim is "doing well" despite the tragedy she has been a part of, he said. In a statement released Thursday by Miami-Dade Circuit Court, the judge who oversaw the case, Arthur Rothenberg, said the disabled woman's mother strongly objected to any other solutions. She "did not want her daughter to be subjected to any more of an invasive procedure than was absolutely necessary to terminate the pregnancy and for a tubal ligation," Rothenberg said.

[cgk]

Hmmph, you obviously were't present at the birth of my beautiful baby girl...

:) Congratulations! I have two, one baby and one 12 year old, and they are miracle to me every day.

[tbpiper]

a retarded, deaf and seizure-prone rape victim

Why didn't they just kill her too? What possible value could her life be having all of those problems. Now somebody is going to have to take care of her like she's a baby.......</dripping sarcasim

[unspun]

From the article:

"But the woman's mother said she had been told by doctors early on that pregnancy could be life-threatening to her daughter, who became disabled from bacterial meningitis when she was 3 weeks old and now lives in a group home."

Oh yeah; pregnancy is known to be so tough on a mother's brain tissues.

[muskogee]

If the grandmother had asked me to adopt her grandbaby, personally and face to face, how could I say no? (/tears on)

[Scothia]

Are people on the this post really saying a retarded girl with the mental capacity of a four year old SHOULD become a mother? What the hell is wrong with you people?

That is not, nor never has been the issue. Because of the cruelty and evil of a rapist, this unfortunate woman became pregnant--and because of the caving in to fear, and political and personal expediency, she is now the mother of a murdered infant.

That child would have been adopted before the week was out had he or she not been executed first. There was never an issue of the baby being uncared for. But then, you never mentioned the welfare of the baby either. (No shock there.)

No one ever said the mentally retarded woman should be forced to raise the child herself, i.e., "be a mother". It is pro-abortion people like you who play that worn card because you want to ignore the other person involved--the one that went to his or her grisly death with screams unheard. Or will you try to say that they administered painkillers to the child before they dismembered her or him?

No? I didn't think so.

Just thought I'd introduce you to the person who got the death penalty for what the rapist did.

[Nonstatist]

pregnancy is known to be so tough on a mother's brain tissues.

The woman was also susceptible to brain seizures. Did you read the article?

[cgk]

I certainly agree the circumstances are risky for the baby, and the mother. Choosing Life over killing the baby is no more invasive or dangerous, IMO.

Thank you for these reasoned discussions. Please understand that I, as a pro-life, pro-baby advocate, also pray for the mothers involved in these cases. (I am not speaking as to how you define yourself, if at all, you obviously feel for this mother).

I cannot discern a gray area, honestly. Both the mother and the baby are innocent victims here. Now that the mother has had the abortion, she will continue to be victimized by the PPh crowd as that shining example of the 1-3% of cases where they claim abortion is a "right". And the baby was killed, the other victim, who was punished without cause. While I will continue to pray for the mother and the soul of the baby, I imagine the PPh crowd will merely stick her on a poster and crow about "rights."

[unspun]

The woman was also susceptible to brain seizures. Did you read the article?

Just snippets. Did it say that her pregnancy was causing them?

[stuartcr]

out and out, blasphemy

[cgk]

Finally, we were blessed later in life with our Caitlin. She is our wealth and the light of my life.

Congratulations on your baby. You are truly blessed. :)

HERE is a question for the debate: " Who here would have opened their home , loved, provided for, and taken responsibility for that child that raped woman would have had?"

I would have. No doubts at all, and I am speaking truthfully from my heart. And I would not be considered a viable candidate for adoption, though I would have been considered a viable candidate for being aborted. I have MS.

On the adoption issue, I read about many FReepers who have similar problems with the system (including having the adoptee returned to the birth mother even after a number of years), and many eventually resort to adopting babies from overseas.

[Matchett-PI]

"This cannot continue much longer before God intervenes."

Really?

I'm sure most of us posting here are way under 80 years old, yet what is it about people that they always want to think that the times in which they live are, "the worst it's ever been"?

Here is some perspective for those who are interested:

"Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. Every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching." -- From an inscription on a tablet about 4800 years ago (2800 BC) now in the Municipal Museum at Istanbul.

"We are living in a decadent and dying age. Youth is corrupt, lacking in respect for elders, impatient of restraint. Age-old truth is doubted and the teaching of the fathers is questioned. The signs of the time forecast the destruction of the world at an early date." -- From an inscription in an Egyptian tomb ten centuries BC

"In the good old days every man's son born in wedlock was brought up, not in the chamber of some hired nurse, but in his mother's lap and at her knee, and that mother could have no higher praise than that she managed the house and gave herself to her children. Nowadays, on the other hand, our children are handed over at birth to some silly little servant maid with a male slave, who may be anyone, to help her, quite frequently the most worthless member of the whole establishment, incompetent for any serious service. Yes, and the parents themselves make no effort to train their little ones in goodness and self-control. They grow up in an atmosphere of laxness and pertness in which they come gradually to lose all sense of shame and all respect, both for themselves and other people. Again, there are the peculiar and characteristic vices of this metropolis of ours taken on, as it seems to me, almost in the mother's womb, the passion for play actors and the mind for gladiatorial shows and horse racing. When the mind is engrossed in such occupations, what room is left for higher pursuits?" -- By the historian Tacitus (d. 117 A.D.)

Dr. Will Durant, describing the period following World War I, said: "Hope faded away; the generation which had lived through the war could no longer believe anything; a wave of apathy and cynicism engulfed all but the youngest and least experienced souls. The idea of progress seemed now to be one of the shallowest delusions that has ever mocked man's misery, or lifted him up to a vain idealism and a monstrous futility." (Harper's, Nov. 1926).

Centuries before Christ, Solomon advised, "Say not, `Why were the former days better than these?' For it is not from wisdom that you ask this" (Ecc. 7:10).

He also reminds us or the endless, repetitious cycle of history: "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, `See, this is new?' It has been already, in the ages before us/i> (Ecc. 1:9-11).

Being centered on the present, we are forgetful of the corruption of former ages and we idealize them as the good old days.

Solomon was not writing of inventions but of the general cycle of nature and of man's efforts to gain satisfaction in it. Has the morality of mankind or his pursuit of happiness changed throughout his existence on this earth?

As each individual has been whirled in his brief spin in the cycle of time, his circumstance of locale, race, culture, and age might have differed from others, but universally the conditions have been similar.

We seem to have an inherent self-centeredness that makes us feel that this universe will not outlast us. Times past are the "good old days", and mankind has lost its innocence in whatever age we might live.

Bible believers have tended to support these perceptions by Biblical prooftexting and have interpreted all sorts of natural disasters and social and political upheavals in their generation and locale as being evidence that a catastrophic end is impending.

How many books, radio and TV programmes have raised the alarm in this generation?

And whether it's a hundred or several thousand years from now, twentieth century criers of doom may seem as amusing as those of the second century A.D. or 2800 B.C. are to us.

[Nonstatist]

Choosing Life over killing the baby is no more invasive or dangerous, IMO.

Thats not always true, and that may or may not be true here. My opinion is that the mother's life comes first, in cases of rape.

Its a difficult decison, IMO, and it could very well be the mother's mother was too cautious. But that was her decision to make, and rightfully so, in my view.

[stuartcr]

God does indeed work in strange ways, that is why He gave us the skills and knowledge to perform these kind of operations, as well as others.

[tiamat]

muskogee wrote:

If the grandmother had asked me to adopt her grandbaby, personally and face to face, how could I say no? (/tears on)

************************

Well, I am glad to hear you say it. I think that is true Love, and what Jesus would have taught.

Unfortunantly, too many conservatives would NOT be willing, despite the fact that they are often times the first to pick up a stone..... Well met.

Tia

[ImpotentRage]

This is a tragedy and I cannot imagine imposing a pregnancy on a rape victim - a retarded, disabled rape victim at that. I just don't know why it was allowed to proceed so far.

[ijcr]

After much self questioning and evaluating numerous books and articles from many sources I am left with the question that:-

What is it with some people that an innocent child can be given the death penalty,yet guilty murderers are a protected species?

[stuartcr]

Hope, like religion....part of the punishment for original sin.

[Maigrey]

This case really disturbs me to no end. I won't go into it, 'cause I don't want the censure of the ZotMasters.

[tiamat]

cgk wrote:

I would have. No doubts at all, and I am speaking truthfully from my heart. And I would not be considered a viable candidate for adoption, though I would have been considered a viable candidate for being aborted. I have MS.

My best girlfriend has MS as well. Like you, she has a loving, truly godly heart.

Here in Michigan, we had a case in Ann arbor that was heart-breaking. couple adopted a child from the Pacific Northwest and then moved here.
Three years later, Birth-Mom ( an unmarried substance abuser with a dubious boyfriend) shows up and says, "I've changed my mind".
The couple, and the little girl, were devestated and the spinless judge in the case allowed the child to be taken. AWFUL footage of crying little girl being loaded ibnto car to be sent off with strangers. I cried all night watching it.

I made it a point to vote against that judge when the time came, over that issue.

Adoption laws here need to be loosened up, and they need to be iron-clad to prevent this sort of thing.

Tia