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Today I found myself sobbing in the car. A tale of Late Term Abortion

26 years 7 weeks 3 days ago sat in a hospital room in Seattle, thousands of miles from my home in NZ; I heard that my much loved and wanted (7yrs infertility 2 miscarriages 2 rounds of IVF) daughter was encephalic – she was developing without a brain. I was given choices. But none of them included delivering a healthy baby girl.

If I continued with the pregnancy I would carry a dying child for the rest of my pregnancy and then go through all the pain of delivery to still bury her.

Or she would die in Utero and there would be a risk to me that the pregnancy would become septic, and my Life would be put at risk.

There was a third Life to consider – her brother. Wrapped up, warm next to her, safe and alive.

There was not going to be a dream ending to this pregnancy. A choice I never ever wanted to have to make. I chose to carry on…

2 weeks later on the 15^th of October, nature intervened, I went into labour, and I delivered Bridie. Beautiful, tiny, dead.

Delivered.

Not sucked out.

By all the powers of modern medicine and sheer fucking will power on my behalf. We managed to stop labour and I held on to that other precious mite for another 8 weeks and on 13 December my beautiful son Liam arrived, early, but alive…..

Late term abortion is not about getting rid of an inconvenient pregnancy.

It is not about harvesting fucking stem cells.

It is not about sucking out bits of foetuses with a vacuum cleaner.

It is not about killing 1000s of babies that could be adopted.

Its about saving the lives that you can.

I am so fucking angry that in 2022 we are still having this debate.

That the ignorant – and they must be wilfully ignorant by this stage, continue to peddle their misinformation.

That the religious fear mongers are feeding their flocks with lies and untruths.

That terrified, unbelievable sad; desperate women are being vilified for making the hardest decisions of their lives. And now potentially prosecuted.

I watched a US senator unable to comprehend that an ectopic pregnancy could not be salvaged. You cannot reimplant an embryo. How is it possible that people without even the basic knowledge of reproductive science are making these decisions?

And the “let them be adopted” crowd? Bridie was never going to be a candidate for adoption.

Today I am tired

Today I am sad

Today I grieve once again for my daughter