Back on June 3, 2008, I posted a diary here, that I believe deserves another look.
As many people here lambaste the passage of the Stupak Amendment in HR 3962, we need a reminder of a time, before 1973 when abortion was illegal in most parts of this nation.
There is no one who favors abortion. Those of us who are pro-choice just want it be safe, legal and rare.
This diary highlighted an article in the New York Times, titled Reparing the Damage, Before Roe. Written by a doctor who treated women who underwent illegal abortions. It is devastating and, I believe, required reading.
For my entire original diary from almost 18 months ago, take the great orange jump:
From June 3, 2008
As the primary race went on we saw some pretty miserable stuff said on the both the Clinton and Obama sides from their various supporters. On the Clinton side, the worst thing is the threat/promise that many of her supporters will vote for McCain come November.
Obviously, nothing could be worse than a split party that results in a McCain win.
In today's NY Times Science Times section a short essay titled Reparing the Damage, Before Roe. A retired gynecologist, Dr. Waldo Fielding give us a vivid idea what a McCain presidency would result in.
He is quite graphic, so beware after the jump.
Intro
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If this has been diaried today, my apologies. As the primary race went on we saw some pretty miserable stuff said on the both the Clinton and Obama sides from their various supporters. On the Clinton side, the worst thing is the threat/promise that many of her supporters will vote for McCain come November. Obviously, nothing could be worse than a split party that results in a McCain win. In today's NY Times Science Times section a short essay titled Reparing the Damage, Before Roe. A retired gynecologist, Dr. Waldo Fielding give us a vivid idea what a McCain presidency would result in. He is quite graphic, so beware after the jump.
Dr. Fielding never invokes current politics, but he says that what Roe did was not allow abortion, it was always there, it just made it safe.
Some excepts:
The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous "coat hanger" — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.
It gets worse:
However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.
And finally, the one illustration that goes beyond belief and the one that everyone should have in their mind if voting for McCain and an even more radical Supreme Court:
The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.
Well, if that doesn't wake people up to what's at stake here, I'm not sure what will. And of course, overturning Roe would overwhelmingly hurt the poor. Anyone with the financial means would just go to another country to have the procedure done safely.
I found Dr. Fielding's essay eye-opening to say the least. I just hope anyone who has said they would sooner vote for McCain instead of Obama feels the same way.
If anyone wants to cross-post this at other sites, please do.
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An addendum:
I left this out of my original diary. I'm still not sure if posting it is the correct thing to do.
Last March (2007), my wife and I found out she was pregnant. With both of us in our mid 40's, we knew the risks.
Near the end of April, we found out the embryo/fetus had what is known as Trisonomy 18- a third 18th chromosome that, as the doctor put it, "is incompatible with life." There was a 90% chance of miscarriage, and if the pregnancy went full term, the baby would die within a few hours. The laundry list of things that would be messed up was astounding.
There was no question as to what to do. A few days later we had the pregnancy terminated. At 12 weeks, the procedure was quick and relatively easy (its never really easy) to deal with.
I always wonder if abortion was illegal...imagine a woman being made to carry a fetus she knows will not survive. How brutal, how horrible.
It was difficult enough to deal with what happened. To have been forced to deal with it for nine months...unimaginable.
Back to today:
Every single Congressperson who voted for Stupak, should be required to read that article. It should be read to them, over and over and over again, until their narrow minded little brains bleed from their ears.
There is some validity to the idea that his Amendment will have a negligible effect on access to abortion. That doesn't matter. It is simply wrong. That is enough for me to see it stripped out in Conference with the Senate.