I just read this and want you all to read it too: "What 'Health of the Mother' Means"

Back when Ryan first babbled about ultrasounds in the VP debate, I was moved to compose a screed about what an ultrasound does and doesn't mean and how that should affect the way we understand reproductive rights. I was surprised, and very humbled, by the stories that appeared in the comments from people who had lost pregnancies, who had broken their hearts making the decision to terminate a pregnancy after discovering that the fetus would not survive birth, people who understood in a much more visceral and tragic way than I did why conception does not guarantee birth.

Here is a piece by a woman who contracted ovarian cancer during her pregnancy about some of the heartbreaking decisions she had to make:

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/24/what_health_of_the_mother_means/

Be warned that it will gut you. But here is the most direct and powerful statement I have yet found anywhere of why it is crucial to preserve choice for women in this situation:

"Although I do not know whether it was right to forgo the biopsy or what I would have done if I’d learned of my cancer earlier, I do know that both decisions were mine to make. I came to the present tormented and joyful moment in my life with informed consent about the risks I was taking. The full knowledge that both of our lives were in my hands, and that we might not both get out alive, made that consent meaningful. To disregard the impact of my possible sickness and death on my family was, to me, just as problematic as terminating my pregnancy. Had I been a single mother or had my job been a financial necessity for my family, I might well have weighed my choices differently. I might not have been able to take the chances that came along with skipping the biopsy. It is painful to imagine how I would feel, now, if the choice had been out of my hands—or if it had been so sharply circumscribed that it was clear that it was mine only in form, not substance."

I would like to round up every uterus-free jerk who has ever pontificated about how this "health of the mother" exception is bullshit and force them to talk to this woman for ten minutes. But that would put a lot of stress on her, and probably have no effect on them.

The Plaid Adder