During the third presidential debate, Donald Trump made a statement about abortion that left the audience gasping:
TRUMP: I think it's terrible if you go with what Hillary is saying in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that's okay and Hillary can say that that's okay, but it's not okay with me. Because based on what she is saying and based on where she is going and where she has been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day. And that's not acceptable.
Hillary Clinton responded by immediately calling out Trump’s lie about late term abortions, offering up the single most complete defense of Roe v. Wade in recent memory. But one Utah woman who’d had a late term abortion had heard enough from Donald Trump. Alyson Draper courageously used Facebook to share her own heartbreaking experience about having a late term abortion. In a post that she encouraged others to share, she lays out how utterly painful the decision was and why we have to keep abortion safe and legal:
I HAD A LATE TERM ABORTION. IT IS NOTHING LIKE DESCRIBED BY TRUMP. PLEASE DON'T BASE YOUR VOTE ON THE FEAR MONGERING HE IS DOING. PLEASE READ MY EXPERIENCE:
I had to have a late term abortion. It was the worst moment in my life. What made it even worse was the State of Utah had made it illegal. I had one dead twin. The other had severe Spina Bifida, and would only have lived with life support, in great pain, for a few days.
I lay on the hospital floor, bawling hysterically, for twelve hours, waiting for an ethics committee of the health care corporation to decide my case justified what had to be done. My health was in danger due to the dead fetus. My husband and I consulted our LDS Bishop, who assured me I needed to do what I had to do, that it was even within LDS guidelines to do so. He reminded me I had six kids at home who needed their mother to live.
The abortion was terrible. It was done very gently, by Caesarean section, leaving the babies in their amniotic sacs. The living baby passed very quickly.
It was horrific. I think it even affected my dear physician, as he had never had to end a pregnancy before. I developed PTSD for which I had to be treated for years, mostly because of the fact I had to have it at all.
No woman should have to have the state have a say in the most painful decision she will ever make. Nobody is tearing babies apart in late term. They are always humanely done, only in situations where there is a non-viable or severely defective fetus and/or the mother's health is at risk.
Please don't vote for a candidate or a party that would make these decisions for the women who will die or be forced to carry unviable fetuses to term. This is a decision that is so painful and so terrible. Only the parents of the baby and a physician should be involved in the decision.
This post is public. Please share it.
Special thanks to Alyson Draper for having the courage to share her story.
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