The murder of Dr. Tiller and the Right to Choose

Posted June 6th, 2009 by JTjaden

[I myself have no idea what a woman has to go through when confronted by reasons to abort a pregnancy and I can't judge those who are confronted with that wrenching choice; on that note I've found some things which have given me more insight into that decision and maybe they will help you. The first link is from the ACLU Blog on Dr. Tiller and the next two are comments which have helped me understand the medical reasons]

Keep Abortion Providers Safe Now

    On Sunday, May 31, Dr. George Tiller, a doctor in Wichita, Kansas, who for decades provided abortions for women even in the face of harassment and violence, was murdered at his place of worship. Sondra Goldschein and Allie Bohm attended events in New York City and Washington, D.C., honoring Dr. Tiller’s life.

    Sondra Goldschein writes:

    When I heard about the murder of Dr. Tiller on Sunday evening, I went from shock to tears to fear to loss. I could feel those emotions but I couldn’t put into words what a tragedy his death is. ...

    [...]

    As many of us have now heard, Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms in 1993. What we haven’t heard as much is that he came back to work the very next day. Why? When he needed medical attention, he had received it. His patients needed his care and he was going to be there. “There was never any question in my mind that I was going back to work the next day.”

    Dr. George Tiller truly understood that a woman facing an unintended pregnancy should have the opportunity to make the best decision for herself and her family, whether her decision is raising a child, adoption, or abortion. He respected women and their decisions, and with his wonderful staff, was there to help women from all over the country

    [...]

    Allie Bohm writes:

    “When you come here, bring only love . . .” read the banner that backdropped the Washington DC vigil in honor of Dr. Tiller. Some 200 people circled the banner, standing in front of the White House. One woman tearfully read prepared remarks, and then the floor was opened up, and women and men of all ages came forward to speak as the spirit moved them. Some of them knew Dr. Tiller personally. Many did not. Some were long-time veterans of the pro-choice movement; for others, Dr. Tiller’s murder had galvanized them to come to a pro-choice event for the first time.

    [...]

    One of the vigil’s speakers was a man who has been a clinic escort for 20 years, influenced by a high school classmate of his who died from a botched illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade; at the time she could not afford to go to NY for a safe legal abortion. Those of us who work in the policy sphere sometimes forget that access to safe abortion is a public health issue. He said, “I do not want my son to have to continue escorting when I finally retire.”

    [...]

http://blog.aclu.org/2009/06/03/keep-abortion-providers-safe-now/
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Here is the first of two comments explaining some medical reasons to discontinue a pregnancy

    Yes, and the biggest reason for late-term abortions is the fact that it isn’t usually until after the 22nd week of gestation that parents find out for sure that their much hoped for infant has some of these horrid birth defects. (Trisomy 23 which produces children with no discernable internal organs, children with spina bifida from C2 to L4 (in other words, the entire length of the spinal cord), children with their entire organ system outside the body and half of their skeletons missing, children with only half a heart and Down Syndrome (not eligible for a transplant), and “monsters” (yes that is the medical term for them - children who are so misshapen, don’t have faces, have either minimal brains or sometimes two fused together, extra limbs or no limbs or partial ones, all of them in the wrong places, no openings for the ureter or anus, hydrocephaly, lungs that aren’t attached to the brachea, stomachs that arent attached either to the esophagus or the small intestine, livers that are fused to the lungs, and on and on.)

    Many if not most of these defects are not apparent on ultrasound until late in pregnancy when the fetus is large enough to be able to see what is going on. Trisomy 21 and 23 can be tested by amniocentesis but that test is dangerous for both mom and baby and unless there are indications that the pregnancy is a high-risk for one of those or other chromosome abnormalities it is not normally done.

    These babies are wanted, expected, planned for, and loved. Making the decision to terminate them is heart-wrenching and devastating to the moms, the dads, and their entire families. The women who go through this procedure do it for so-called selfish reasons - they are thinking of themselves, their husbands, their other children, the rest of their families, but most of all, and this is really important - for the babies. These babies are doomed to have very short lives, mostly spent in intensive care units with surgery after surgery - in a lot of pain, struggling to breath, suffering what can be only an unimaginable horror of a life that will end, in a few days or a few weeks at most.

    This is a decision that is absolutely best left in the capable hands of the mother and her doctor. No one else should presume to try to interfere with it. Unfortunately, the so-called pro-lifers out there with this killing of Dr. Tillen have probably ended the availability of this choice for women everywhere in this country. No law necessary banning it. Just no doctors left who know how, and are willing to put themselves at so much risk.

And the second

    The thing that really gets me mad is this “partial birth” crap….. anyone in the medical profession knows how this works…….

    First test to show anomalies of the fetus is around 14-15 weeks….. well too late for a first trimester abortion…….

    Then they retest…… still positive….. referral to OB genesis and they so an amniocentesis and that shows the issue…….

    so where are you now in weeks? you add the 15 weeks plus the testing, retesting, referral, amnio, and you are looking at something in the 20-24 weeks…..

    I had a co-worker who had to go through this and their third child, a boy had trisome 23…. a certain death after a few weeks and they are the ones that look like elves with long fingers and pointed ears…..

    It was the hardest decision this family had to make, devout Christians but they knew that they could not deal with or support a severely handicapped child and then deal with their death…. 24 weeks and now that option is gone……

    The procedure is the safest of the many that can be performed…. SAFEST!
    and they took it away…… another example of risking a mothers life…