Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Salon.com, an online magazine, recently published an article “Why Women have second trimester abortions” by Irin Carmon.  As a woman who had a second trimester abortion I found it inaccurate and to be frank, downright offensive.

 She begins with the line “Despite thumb sucking fetuses you see waved around protests…”, implying that images you see are not accurate. I saw my aborted son,and a thumb sucking fetus is exactly what you may see in a second trimester abortion. My baby boy (yes a baby), was lying in the bed next to me after I gave birth to his dead body as a result of a saline abortion.

As a 17 year old kid, pressured to abort (like countless others), I had no clue what was going to happen to me when I consented to the abortion, and no one told me or explained a thing, from fetal development to the procedure. I can still shudder when I think of it…how can it be possible we allow this to happen. How can it be possible as a society we actually have given this the protection of the law?

Irin then goes on to tell us in her article, ”Later abortions are no one’s ideal situation, since the price of an abortion goes up, along with the relative medical risks, with every week of gestation…",that price is nothing compared to the emotional/psychological price that is paid by countless women who undergo late term abortions. Not once in the article does she (like the medical personnel I encountered) mention the development of the unborn baby or the fact that its life is being taken.

 What Irin does admit, is that these abortions are more likely to be had by teenagers. Teenagers who, most likely, as in my case, do not have a clue what they are subjecting themselves to. “They are often in denial, lacking education about their own bodies or terrified of telling anyone”. How true, and yet, organizations like these, subject these teenage girls to second trimester abortions which will most likely impact them for the rest of their lives. I think it is probably a safe bet to assume Ms Carmon, along with the National Network of Abortion Funds  (a group that helps women pay for abortions) , are not advocates of parental notification, yet, they willingly admit these teens lack education “about their own bodies” never mind that of their unborn child.

 One segment missing from her article where many late term abortion occur, is a result of an adverse diagnosis. Countless couples are pressured by the medical community to abort, and with the new testing for Down Syndrome set to begin in April 2012, more and more parents will be pressured to terminate.

 Ms Carmon, I saw my son. Your article is both cold and offensive to all of us, who, for whatever reason felt that we were not able to have our children. It disgusts me to read it and I am sure it disgusts any other woman who had a second trimester abortion. Compassion? I don’t think so, this article was beyond a disgrace.