Reply #45: I STRONGLY beg to differ, nessa.

[kag]

And here is why: The doctors can never be %100 percent sure that the fetus is dead. They make their diagnosis, and they make recommendations, but I was told MANY times that there would always be a small percentage of a chance that the fetus was still alive. In most of the D&C's I had--all except the first--I had already started bleeding. But with that first one, there is no telling how long it could have taken for me to start bleeding on my own.

All of my D&C's went down in the books as "abortions". The fundies (don't you love how your spell checker turns "fundies" into "fun dies?" I just thing that is soooo appropriate.) don't give a crappola whether the fetus is living or dead. They want to STOP D&C's. Period.

Also, one little detail I left out of the story is that my mother once had a stillbirth. No telling how long that "baby" had been dead. Since it was most likely caused by the translocation, if she had had amniocentesis and abortion available to her, she might not have had to go through such a heartbreaking experience.

And another thing. If any of my UNbalanced translocation pregnancies (the ones for which I had "abortions") had gone full term, I was told that the "baby" would probably not be able to live on its own. I would either give birth to a dead baby, or it would be so wrought with defects that it would die very shortly after birth. With access to amnio, I never had to worry about that. My husband and I wouldn't have allowed a pregnancy with an unbalanced translocation to progress that far. We would have gotten an abortion. Fortunately, I never had to make that decision. But also, fortunately, the CHOICE was available to us.

And finally, that bill in Mississippi does not distinguish between living or dead fetuses. It simply states that "life" begins at "conception" (however you define that!). Since no doctor can ever be 100% sure that a fetus is dead, no doctor would ever be willing to put his/her license on the line to do a D&C on ANYONE. Except, probably, for those angels like Dr. Hern in Boulder, who constantly has people standing outside his office "praying" and yelling at people entering to "not KILL their baby."

If anyone had yelled that at me I probably would have LOST IT.