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Message |
    
Michael Janay
Citizen
Username: Childprotect
Post Number: 1446
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 3:07 pm: | 
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http://bad-mother.blogspot.com/2005/01/safe-legal-and-rare.html
FWIW and in the spirit of full disclosure, Ayelet is my cousins very very close friend (I think they were roommates in college, but I could be wrong).
Either way, it is a great read no matter where you come down on the issue. |
Mark Fuhrman
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 1129
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 3:22 pm: |
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Michael:
An amazing link to an amazingly open person. Thank you.
It raised so many issues for me, pro and con. I am glad I never had to make the choice she had to make. I am glad she had the freedom to make that choice. I wonder about the wisdom of her choice. I know that I have not one whisp of insight enough to judge her choice.
The responses are interesting, also. |
Brett Weir
Citizen
Username: Brett_weir
Post Number: 526
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2005 - 3:53 pm: |
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Stunningly candid and honest. A brave testament. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 3011
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2005 - 9:55 pm: |
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Here's another story that I think belongs here.
I'm well aware of the hard choices to make when someone is told their 'fetus' is deformed or impaired. I also celebrated this Christmas past from someone who was told that fetus was impaired or deformed with the daughter of that case, who is now an adult. A very happy one.
For what it's worth, here it is. Warning -- lots of Jesus here, which disqualifies this story to mahy on this board.
"Abortion survivor to tell story at rally
Gianna Jessen testifies on Capitol Hill before a House subcommittee on abortion in 1996.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
By AMY WHITE
BEE STAFF WRITER
Gianna Jessen came into the world as a surprise. Her 17-year-old mother knew she was pregnant. She also knew she didn't want to be. She underwent an abortion procedure, having toxic saline solution injected into the womb during the third trimester.
Jessen, then in the womb for 7½ months, spent 18 hours in the solution. "It burns the baby inside and out," she said. "(The mother) is to deliver a dead baby within 24 hours." But when a 2-pound Jessen emerged, she was alive.
"I did not die that day," Jessen said. "I was delivered alive in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic in a room full of teenage girls who had already had the saline injections and were feeling their children die inside of them."
Jessen will tell her story Friday at a Sanctity of Life Rally in Modesto sponsored by the "11th Hour" TV program.
Raised in California, Jessen lives in Nashville, Tenn. She has traveled the world since she was 14, telling of her experience.
Jessen spent her first three months in a hospital incubator. Doctors at the hospital did not expect her to live, she said. But she did. She was then put in emergency foster care, before being placed at 17 months with a foster mother who would become her adoptive grandmother. Afflicted with cerebral palsy resulting from lack of oxygen in the womb, Jessen was "32 pounds of dead weight," she said. She wasn't expected to hold up her head, sit up, crawl or walk.
Her foster mother worked with Jessen, who at age 3½ began to walk with a walker and leg braces. Today, she walks with a slight limp in her left leg.
Jessen has done indoor rock climbing and is training for the Music City marathon in Nashville in a few months. She plans to take swing or tango dance lessons after that. Jessen also writes and performs songs, ranging from love ballads to social commentary.
"Never say never," she said in a recent phone interview. "A person and God always have the opportunity to progress. No matter what point you are at, you can always do something, even if it is just the tiniest thing."
On Christmas when she was 12, Jessen learned she had survived an abortion attempt. Before, when she had asked why she had cerebral palsy, her adoptive mother — the daughter of her foster mother — told her hers was a traumatic, premature birth. But that day when she asked, her mother decided Jessen was ready to hear the truth. She told her that her biological mother was young and without hope.
"I was aborted, right?" Jessen asked. Her adoptive mother confirmed it. Jessen was calm.
"It must have been the Lord, because I didn't freak out," Jessen remembered. "I totally believe that the Lord Jesus spared my life and I would not be walking today if it were not for the grace of God and the power of Christ. I know that when you need God to walk every day, you know that God is real."
Jessen said she never dwelled on feelings of rejection, and someday wants to have or adopt children herself.
Louise Shatswell, producer of "The 11th Hour," said she hopes those who hear Jessen will be touched by her story and "that their eyes will be opened to the reality of life at that stage of life."
The rally will include a question-and-answer session with Jessen, as well as counselors and literature from the Modesto Pregnancy Center.
It's impossible to know exactly how many babies survive abortion procedures, but it is rare, said Jessen, who met 11 others — ranging in age from young children to 65 years old — at a conference about 10 years ago.
Shatswell thinks Jessen's appearance brings another view to a society that endorses the idea that "if you don't want it, get rid of it," she said. "I don't believe the majority of people who get abortions are really informed about what they are doing.
"She is a living example of an unborn child being a child and not being a thing, a glob, an unidentified piece of nothing," Shatswell said. "It's a real-life living baby … and the sanctity of life that the Bible gives doesn't sanction killing a child, whether in the womb or outside the womb."
If a woman told her she was considering an abortion, Jessen said she would listen to her, then lead her to a pregnancy crisis center for tests and counseling.
"I would say that choosing to have an abortion is something she would never forget," said Jessen, who advocates adoption.
"Can't we just give a little and say, 'I may not be the best mother for this child, but I love this child enough to sacrifice for it'?" she asked. "Isn't that the ultimate love?"
Jessen is conscious that examples speak louder than words. She often talks to young people about the value of chastity, modesty and honor. She wants to remind people that all of their choices have consequences.
"My biological parents made some really poor choices," she said. "I forgive them for what they did (but) I live every day with the result of the 'choice' that my biological mother made 27 years ago. So it's ridiculous to think our choices on a moment-by-moment basis only affect us. They always affect someone else, for good or ill."
Jessen is sometimes unprepared for the grief that pours out from others when they hear her story. "Women who have had abortions have come up to me crying, saying, 'I wish I had never done this. I had no idea the pain I would live with for the rest of my life,'" she said.
Men, too, have talked to her of feeling powerless or regretful about supporting an abortion. "At the end of the day, I do a lot of listening," Jessen said.
It's not all listening. She met President Bush in 2002 and has appeared before Congress, including speaking against partial-birth abortion in 1999 and in support of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in 2000.
She said she doesn't often think about her mother's abortion. "I just spend my life trying to smile and overcome," she said. "Sometimes, it does hit me, 'Oh, my gosh, I was aborted; that's huge.' There are days I think about it and I think, 'This is amazing.' But my whole life has been, so far, kind of an adventure. I really look at life that way."
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Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 1391
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2005 - 10:34 pm: |
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Her efforts will merely put more young women into the position her mother was in - scared (or unable) to have a safe abortion in her first or second trimester, and hanging on until forced by desperation to go to a clinic far too late.
Sad that she lets herself be used that way. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 3014
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2005 - 10:39 pm: |
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Better she would have died in the womb. Makes a great poster, and I look forward to the pickets outside of where ever she speaks. |
kmk
Supporter
Username: Kmk
Post Number: 388
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 9:51 am: |
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In reference to the first article....
I was told my first born child had genetic defects, the amnio proved it they insisted. Five days after she was born the new set of tests came back....she was perfect. "Ooops," they said. I had been offered an abortion more than once.
Who in the world thinks they are so important that they can "shop" for a child and only let the right one survive? How could a woman with a genetic abnormality feel entitled to the one perfect child she might conceive out of ten imperfect children?
What is "too late" about full term pregnancy and adoption? Yeah - your life might be screwed up-tempoarily. Deal with it. Give birth and move on. |
ffof
Citizen
Username: Ffof
Post Number: 3245
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 10:48 am: |
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Late term abortion is hardly representative of the whole abortion issue and judging people for their decisions does not change the fact that people are going to have abortions.
Anyway, has anyone seen or read Cider House Rules? |
Strawberry
Supporter
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 4290
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 10:52 am: |
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I never saw it or read it. |
ffof
Citizen
Username: Ffof
Post Number: 3246
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 10:54 am: |
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It's great John Irving. Set in the 40's in Maine and deals with abortion/adoption. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 1073
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 11:13 am: |
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Read it and saw it. I think it's pretty great, as a piece of art, and on the subject. Michael Caine is great, Toby McGuire, too. |
Chris Prenovost
Citizen
Username: Chris_prenovost
Post Number: 254
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 12:22 pm: |
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Michael Janay, thanks for posting that link. Very good article. |
RR
Citizen
Username: Rogers4317
Post Number: 71
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 2:11 pm: |
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ditto |
redY67
Citizen
Username: Redy67
Post Number: 559
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 3:46 pm: |
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kmk I had the same thing happen to me. They told me my daughter was going to be severly handicapped, and she is perfect. It makes me wonder why they give women half these tests. |
Montagnard
Citizen
Username: Montagnard
Post Number: 1392
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 4:16 pm: |
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Because the tests prevent needless deaths to disabled children in early infancy and to mothers in childbirth, that's why. |
mwoodwalk
Citizen
Username: Mwoodwalk
Post Number: 259
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 17, 2005 - 10:55 pm: |
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Montagnard, your smug self-satisfied posts are positively infuriating and unnecessary. An absolute faith that you reap what you sow, that is what gives me comfort. |
ina
Citizen
Username: Ina
Post Number: 156
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2005 - 1:25 pm: |
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Mwood,
Montaganrd's posts here, on this particular thread, are neither smug nor self-satisfied. |
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