A duck, a challenge, abortion.

Dear friends, please see the post below this one , because it ended like this:

‘Three diatribes later, Mr. Duck…’ had kinda ticked me off. He’d used all the Leftist epithets that dismiss conservatives: we’re ‘self-righteous’, judgmental ‘hypocrites’. That we’re simple-minded followers; un-intellectual, unsophisticated, has-beens. I didn’t respond to most of what he said, but one of his diatribes, I couldn’t leave unchallenged:

“Susannah, do you believe that partial birth procedures are the result of serious late term conditions…which make it impossible for the child to live outside the womb? Or conditions which threaten the mother, are they your decision? Or do you figure a woman who is 8 months along just goes into the doctor's, slaps her forehead and says, ‘Damn, I knew I forgot to do something’.

Let me know, I enjoy reading the workings of the conservative ‘mind’. Like Sarah Palin, you probably don't have a fastball. Just some homilies you heard from the preacher, but give it a go.”
No ‘fast ball’, eh?

My perspective doesn’t come from sermons, or even some intellectual pursuit. It comes from having been in some of the scariest, seemingly darkest places & simply holding on for dear life. I’ve never written of my experience, & certainly never thought of it as a ‘fast ball’, but Mr. Duck, since you asked for it…

[Readers, please know this: we all have stories. Sharing mine doesn’t 'completely inform' the issue of late term abortion – as Mr. Duck later accused me. Nor do I assume to make choices for other people. I share my experience simply to counter-balance 'health of the mother' that the Pro-Abortion Left uses, ad nauseum, to silence ‘questioners’.

I share the following [response to Mr. Duck] with the utmost, weighty respect for anyone who has had a similar experience. My story is not unique. Women arrive here - & in darker places - every day, all over the world…]

"Duck. I assume you're male…I think maybe I've got more field experience upon which to answer this ridiculous question. I had 3 'pregnancies from h#ll', to quote a worn phrase. Each one brought with it 'hyperemesis gravidarum', which means one literally cannot stop puking. (Think hospitalization, IV’s dripping Phenergan-laced fluids into my veins, LOSING 14 pounds in the first trimester.) With the 3rd pregnancy, I was allowed to take Zofran for 20 weeks in order to prevent hospitalization.

If I had been born 75 or even 50 years ago, I could have DIED EACH TIME. Perhaps before I knew I was really pregnant. (How's that for 'health of the mother'?)

Moving right along…

Before delivery, I developed HELLP Syndrome - all 3 times. HELLP is a severe form of Pre-eclampsia, & was only 'discovered' in 1982. It is FATAL to both mother & child, if not recognized in time & treated properly. Even with treatment, some mothers suffer permanent kidney damage, & can still die of kidney failure post-partum. (hmmmm… ‘conditions which threaten the mother’…)

My results?

1) Delivery - emergency C-section, 3 weeks early due to potentially FATAL 'late-term condition'. It's a miracle I'm now a living human being w/ a 12 year old son.

2) Delivery - on time. Thought we'd dodged the bullet, but HELLP showed up & we delivered - stat. Again, we’re both living miracles.

3) Delivery - 5 1/2 weeks early due to that pesky potentially FATAL 'late term condition'.

The MD’s had NEVER seen a patient who'd had these 'conditions' at both the beginning & end of pregnancy; 3 times in a row. Now that you've challenged me on it, I guess you could say if ever there was a case for 'conditions that threaten the mother', it was ME – every time.

Funny, though. Not once did the idea of ending the life growing inside my sick, weak, racked body even cross a single synapse in my brain; as miserable & scary as those times in my life were.

As I look back, I was convinced that God was in control & that all would be well. I also learned that surrendering-of-self was absolutely essential in order to just survive.

See, that's what we don't get in our society - the notion that we must surrender ourselves to something Greater, for something Greater...Instead, we have: "Feel good? Do it! Want it? Get it!"

Life is not about us, dear Duck. It's about living the truth. The Truth saved my life - in every way possible - and I refuse to be intimidated into silence by 'self-satisfieds' such as yourself, no matter what epithet you sling my way.

So, to answer your original question - my beliefs about late term abortion: for the most part I believe that American women, steeped in traditional feminist culture, choose to abort babies who could otherwise be saved. I'm just glad my mother wasn't one of them.”

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