My friend would have died without the late-term termination she had.

[Phillycat]

This is my friend's story.

She and her husband went through 5 years of fertility treatments, and then finally got pregnant with twin boys through IVF. She carried them to 22 weeks. They were so excited, and so relieved. FINALLY, they were going to have their children.

She developed pre-eclampsia at 22 weeks and one of the babies died inside her. The remaining twin was still alive, but she then developed full-blown eclampsia and her organs began shutting down. Her doctor, who is world-renowned for high-risk pregancies and L&D, told her they needed to terminate immediately or she would die. My friend and her husband, possibly the most well-informed people on the planet about high-risk pregnancies by that point, concurred, and the termination was done.

There wasn't time for a saline termination and labor. Her liver and kidneys were in organ failure. She was going to die, period.

I see my friend weekly, with her husband, and their much-adored 10-month old daughter who finally arrived, after everything above. I see her, her red hair and bright blue eyes, and I think that my government says it's okay that she be dead. That she shouldn't exist. That their beautiful little girl shouldn't exist. That her husband should have lost his sons AND his wife that day.

I think about if/when I am ever pregnant, and if I'm even willing to do that now, knowing that if something happened late-term, I might be allowed to die, because of bigotry and hatefulness, disguised under the guise of religion.

This is not okay. This will never be okay. This is why I cried in 2000 and 2004 and everyone (not on DU) said I was overreacting. This is why elections are important.

[StarryNite]

1. This never would have passed

if men were the ones who gave birth.

[Bjornsdotter]

11. We have a winner! n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. Indeed!

[eyesroll]

2. The Act and decision still contain a life-of-the-woman exception, but otherwise I agree completely.

After all, who knows where the line between a "health" and a "life" at risk really is?

Glad your friend is doing well now; thanks for sharing.

[Phillycat]

8. Exactly.

She lives here in Philadelphia, a progressive place with progressive medicine. If this law had been in place and she had lived somewhere like the Bible Belt or a more rural area, who knows what decisions her doctor would have made? Would he have insisted on a more dangerous saline termination with labor and delivery? Would she have survived it? I don't know.

[LiberalFighter]

14. Whether the doctor will make the decision based on religious or medical reasons

If they will decide if the fetus is more important than the life of the woman.

[northernsoul]

3. K and R!

thank you for bringing it all home. I share your outrage.

[AndyA]

4. This is why elections are important.

And as Barbara Boxer said not too long ago, "Elections have consequences."

I'm glad to hear things worked out for your friends.

I believe government needs to get the hell out of our bedrooms, and spend time and attention on things that are really important: like the war in Iraq that is based on lies told to us by our pResident, that is killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

[Beaverhausen]

5. I have a friend who also would have died

I have no words for what I'm feeling today about this.

[Phillycat]

9. I'm sorry.

I am grieving today for the loss of our rights as women. I am sorry your friend went through that.

[Horse with no Name]

6. Thank you for sharing.

These stories are so important.

[Heidi]

7. No judgment whatsoever here, regardless of the circumstances.

I've never been pregnant, never wanted to be, and never will be. I've absolutely no judgment about a woman or couple choosing abortion as a means of self-defense to protect one or the other's health. At the same time, I realize that having children is an equally valid choice, and I won't judge the woman or couple that chooses to risk their own physical, spiritual and or economic health in order to deliver a child.

[Phillycat]

10. Well, right. The whole thing is about choice.

The choice of the woman, in conjunction with her loved ones and her physician. As far as I know, none of the SCOTUS are medical doctors, yet MANY doctors testified that this is a medically necessary procedure.

[IndyOp]

12. I cried with you. Elections are life and death. (n/t)

[progressoid]

13. I cried too...

And I remember thinking about what would happen to the Supreme Court.

Our fears are coming true.

[Pachamama]

15. I know a woman who had a similar circumstance with a multiple birth pregnancy and the procedure of

IDX (Intact Dilation & Extraction - I like to use the real medical term, not the Forced Pregnancy Movement's term of "Partial Birth Abortion") where this person faced the same difficult choice of either doing the procedure or not, where one of the twins had a condition that had caused the fetus's skull to swell to a large size and was going to inevitably die and not survive and inducing labor would have risked a premature birth of the other (and death of the surviving twin), and surgery would have also risked the same and ofcourse risks in general of major surgery.

They too have a healthy child like your friend and while they are sad about the loss of the twin that died, they understood that the procedure of IDX was necessary. With this court ruling today by SCOTUS, my friend couldn't have this procedure if she was facing this same situation today.

I have no idea of what alternatives exist for someone in this circumstance in the future, but it boils my blood to think that politicians and lawyers just made the decision for the health and safety of a woman in pregnancy, as opposed to her physician. Is a woman then in this circumstance forced with risking the loss of the surviving twin and her health?

I am very upset about this ruling on so many levels...And the reality is that even those who think that this ruling doesn't affect them because they are opposed to abortion, won't ever get pregnant etc., they might want to think about the fact that now that the precedent has been set, lawyers can make the decsions about what medical decisions and procedures can and cannot be done when it comes to their health. We have entered the slippery slope down, where lawyers and politicians decide what our medical choices are....very, very scary.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. A bloodbath is coming, I fear.

There will be women who will sacrifice with their lives, before this error is corrected. Conservatives are such crisis-oriented, visual learners.

[Phillycat]

17. "Conservatives are such crisis-oriented, visual learners".

God, that's true.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. this is all too much for their simpleton brains

The one dimensional morons who can't see past the immediate needs of a preganancy, and what it really means to be a family.

[Phillycat]

19. Exactly, a family.

Everyone I know of who has gone through this procedure, has been willingly, and in most cases desperate to be, pregnant. It has NOTHING to do with voluntary abortion. My friend and her husband went through hell for years to have a baby. If there was ANY way to save the babies, they would have done it.

There are nuances! That's why MEDICAL DOCTORS and the women themselves MUST be allowed to make these decisions!

It's a day later, and my rage is unabated.

[autorank]

20. We can infer that they want her to die.

They know all the facts. They're intellectually competent adults. They made this decision.
They endorse and ratify the culture of death brought on us by the thugs who run things.

I want everybody to remember how these justices got in.

[Phillycat]

21. Yes. Both the Rethugs AND the Dems who did not filibuster.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

[Bentcorner]

22. Would a doctor refuse to do a late-term abortion if it would save the mother?

Don't get me wrong. What the Supreme Court did was wrong.

[Phillycat]

23. The problem is between the terms "health" and "life".

The ruling includes an exception for the "life" of the mother, but for the first time since Roe v Wade, none for the "health" of the mother. Where is that line? If my friend had been able to survive one or two more hours of organ failure, would that still fall under "health" and would she have been subjected to a saline termination and labor and delivery? Would she have survived? Would her doctor have tried to do everything possible, even if medically dangerous, to avoid doing the most straightforward and least dangerous procedure available, because of the law?

Multiply those questions exponentially in areas like the Bible Belt and rural America, and you begin to see how women's lives will be sacrificed to this insane ruling.