I thought this article was very misleading.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every day, Rita of Tottenville thinks about the son she decided not to have.
Yet she has no regrets about the decision she made: On Nov. 12, 2003, she terminated her 19-week pregnancy in a procedure that many would consider a partial birth abortion.
"I never felt the baby," said Rita, a 36-year-old mother of four who considers herself "very Catholic." "It had no movement. He was sick."
Rita underwent a procedure called dilation and extraction after learning that her baby would have Down syndrome.
Not all D and E's are "partial birth aboriton". I find this story to be incredibly suspicious. Personally, I think it's anti-PBA propaganda. The law against PBA is pretty clear: as long as the baby is half out of the womb, he has rights.
A D and E is done in the womb. It's an intact D and E that involves dismemberment or cranial collapse once the baby's half-born.
It sounds to me that the journalist either didn't do her homework, or she is purposely using the ignorance of the reader to press for acceptance of PBA.
At 19 weeks, you can still do D and E's. Granted the baby might have had a large body.
Another thing I found fishy is that the journalist said that "bamboo sticks" were used for dilation. To the best of my knowledge, laminaria are made of seaweed, not bamboo.
I find it incredibly ridiculous that she values her baby enough that she didn't want him to feel pain, but not enough to respect his life.
As someone who is raising a child with a disability, the notion that your other children will be so seriously neglected that their lives will be ruined is bunk. It may be true that the period in infancy will be hard-- I have no doubts about that. But one thing about children that I find is that they provide support to one another. My two-year-old now plays with my autistic five-year-old, and that's a load off of my mind. Plus, she's not the first woman to have had a Down's Syndrome child with two young children. Other people have done it.
She doesn't take communion, but isn't ready to listen to the Church on abortion? Something's wrong with that.
She said her action was selflessly motivated, aimed at preserving the quality of life for her living and non-living children.
Non-living children? Huh? A child with a beating heart is "non-living"?
Selfless? How is not valuing the life of your children "selfless"? Somebody obviously failed to catechize her on that point.
The contradictions used to justify abortion are ridiculous. They do not stand up to examination.
_________________________
Visit Opinions Canada
a political blogs aggregator
_________________________
