Kate Cox and Stories of Trisomy 18
by Sarah Terzo
This is Part 1 of 2. We will run Part 2 next week, explaining what a D & E abortion entails as the proposed alternative to giving birth.
Kate Cox sued Texas for permission to abort her baby, who had Trisomy 18. Cox’s doctor told her that her baby was “incompatible with life.” When Cox asked how long her daughter could survive in the “best case scenario,” the doctor said a week at most. Cox lost her case but traveled to another state to abort her daughter, presumably through a D&E dismemberment abortion.
Cox’s doctor gave her false information, whether due to medical ignorance or willful deceit. There’s no cure for Trisomy 18, but these children can live into their teen years and beyond.
Numerous media outlets gave the statistic that only 5-10% of children with Trisomy 18 reach their first birthday. What they didn’t say was the reason – most hospitals won’t treat these children. Given proper care and needed surgery, 90% of these babies survive.
Bridgit Nora, from the Trisonomy 18 Foundation
John Hart Mack, from the Trisonomy 18 Foundation
Nora
Lauren’s daughter Nora, who had Trisomy 18, lived to be fifteen and a half. Lauren says:
Nora was exceptionally sweet and happy, and loved people, snuggling, holding hands, playing in water, school (especially her one-to-one aide, Ms. O, who was with her from kindergarten . . . and was like another mother to her) and she was a favorite with staff and students alike.
She especially loved music, and silliness made her squeal with laughter, especially if my mother-in-law or children would dance around and sing . . . She liked to give hugs and kisses . . .
Nora was comfortable, content, and loved.
She describes Nora as “cute as a button, with wild curly hair and the longest eyelashes imaginable, framing deep, wise brown eyes.”
Some children with Trisomy 18 must be tube fed, but Nora could eat by mouth and, according to Lauren, “loved food.” On Thanksgiving, Lauren said, Nora got to be “the center of attention” and “couldn’t get enough of all the different things to taste.”
People with disabilities have inherent worth and value by virtue of their humanity, and who they are, not by how they affect the lives of nondisabled people. Nevertheless, Lauren says that having Nora in their lives changed her entire family for the better:
We all are more patient, less judgmental, and accepting of others due to having her, and know the value of interdependence rather than fierce independence. We are comfortable asking for help and offering help in ways I don’t think we’d be if she hadn’t come into our lives.
Lauren says:
We didn’t know how to care for a medically fragile, differently-abled child, but we didn’t really know how to care for our first healthy child either!
In many ways, Nora was our easiest. She never had friend drama, jealousy, or anger. She never felt let down or left out. She was just happy to soak in whatever was happening around her and be a part of things.
Lauren wants people to know, “All people have inherent value. Their quality of life isn’t measured by what they can or can’t do.”
Verity
Beverly Jacobson wrote an article for Newsweek about her daughter, Verity, who is about seven.
According to Jacobson, Verity is “living an amazing life with Trisomy 18,” and her other children “adore their little sister.”
Jacobson argues that Verity has the same value as any other child. She says:
I don’t know how long Verity will live. But I do know she is not in pain. She is not suffering. She is a joyful and happy child. She is not a “drain” on our family. She is our most precious blessing! . . . I thank God for her.
Verity inspired Jacobson to set up Verity’s Village, an organization that helps families with children with Trisomy 18.
Faith
Faith Smith has Trisomy 18. In honor of her twelfth birthday, her parents sent a postcard to all the doctors they’ve seen – both the ones who treated Faith and those who refused.
The postcard said:
Faith is loud, happy, sweet, and well-loved. She gives the tightest hugs, best kisses, and has the craziest dance moves of us all. She loves swimming, horseback riding, balloons, and playing the piano. Faith’s quality of life is the envy of all that know her.
Faith’s sister Grace wrote:
As much time as Faith has spent in a hospital, she’s spent much more than that traveling, laughing, and loving her life… She loves walking around museums and going on Starbucks runs. Her life is full of fun.
Doctors told Faith’s mother that her other children would be harmed unless she aborted Faith. But Grace says, “It is my complete honor and joy to spend every day caring and spending time with her. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”
Tabitha
Tabitha Ensmnger, from KTBV Facebook page
KTBV News featured the Ensminger family and four-year-old Tabitha, who has Trisomy 18.
Tabitha’s older sister, Esther, mentioned Tabitha in her graduation speech, saying, “My baby sister Tabitha has a superpower. She has Trisomy 18, which means she is the happiest and the most lovable baby ever.” Esther told KTBV News, “[J]ust to see her smile every day, seeing her face – it’s just been awesome.”
Tabitha’s mother Sandy said, “Tabitha is just a ray of sunshine all the time. She’s just so precious and, like, her smile is contagious. As soon as she starts smiling, watch out, everybody’s got a smile.”
The Ensmingers regularly give support to other families beginning their Trisomy 18 journey. In response to the family’s activism, Governor Brad Little declared March Trisomy 18 Awareness Month.
The Ensminger’s goal is to educate people, including medical professionals, about the value of children with Trisomy 18 and the fact that they can survive with proper care. Together, Tabitha and her family are giving hope to others and fighting against the misconceptions about Trisomy 18.
The family is involved in promoting Simon’s Law. Simon’s Law is named after a Kansas child with Trisomy 18 who died after being refused medical care. Simon’s Law, which has been passed in several states, forbids doctors from refusing medical care to children with disabilities.
Sandy says, “I want people to know that there’s hope and [Trisomy 18 is] not something fatal… Hopelessness is fatal.”
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For more of our coverage on the Kate Cox case specifically, see:
For more more our coverage on children with disabilities, see:
Bigotry against Babies with Down Syndrome (United States)
Bigotry against Babies with Down Syndrome: International Experiences
A Lawyer’s Turnaround on Baby Doe with Her Own Down Syndrome Baby
Testimony Opposing the End-of-Life Options Act
Tom Taylor recently offered this testimony in opposition to the End-of-Life Option Act (HB403/SB443) in the U.S. state of Maryland
This legislation puts Maryland’s most vulnerable populations at risk – including individuals with disabilities, minorities, those experiencing poverty, individuals being treated for or having a history of mental illness, our veterans, and those suffering from prescription or other drug addictions. The legislation lacks strong safeguards to protect these vulnerable groups.
I am particularly concerned about the following:
- Assisted suicide violates medical ethics to save lives and do no harm. Major medical associations oppose physician assisted suicide. Just last November, the American Medical Association reaffirmed its opposition to physician-assisted suicide: “Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.” Similarly, the American College of Physicians (ACP) Code of Ethics states: “The College does not support legalization of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. After much consideration, the College concluded that making physician-assisted suicide legal raised serious ethical, clinical, and social concerns.”
- Maryland’s leading disability rights groups recognize the many dangers the bill poses to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, such as falling prey to undue influence from doctors or family members. This results in a lack of true informed consent. Disability groups are fighting physician assisted suicide because it says their lives are not worth living. The CDC website reports that suicide ideation is higher among people with disabilities, and cites research showing that “the prevalence of reported mental distress, which is a risk factor for suicide, was 4.6 times higher among people with disabilities.”
- There is no requirement that a person receive a psychological evaluation before a life-ending prescription is written. As an example from another jurisdiction (Washington state), just 4% of individuals who died from physician assisted suicide were referred for a mental health evaluation before being prescribed lethal drugs (Washington State Department of Health, Death with Dignity Act Report 2019). In Colorado, drugs have been prescribed for eating disorders, which is a treatable disease (Colorado Sun, March 14, 2022).
- Individuals report pressure to die via physician assisted suicide as opposed to getting treatment for cancer, mental health needs, dementia, or even because they were homeless or suicidal.
- A Nevada physician who treated patients from Oregon and California has reported cases of insurance abuse connected to physician-assisted suicide. In a commentary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, he wrote:
“Sadly, such real abuses are already being witnessed in states where PAS is legal. Since PAS became legal in California and Oregon, I have experienced firsthand the abuses that PAS incentivizes.
I cared for two patients in my hospital in Northern Nevada who were seeking transfers to their home states of California and Oregon for lifesaving treatments. With these particular treatment options, both patients had an excellent chance of cure. Without the treatments, both would likely die from their diseases.
When I spoke with the medical directors of the patients’ insurance companies, both of them told me they would cover assisted suicide but would not approve coverage for lifesaving treatment. Neither the patients nor I had requested assisted suicide, yet it was readily offered. Instead of the best treatment options, my patients were offered the cheapest option — a quick death through lethal medications. This was perfectly legal to do in those states but certainly unethical.” (Dr. T. Brian Callister, M.D., Feb. 9, 2019)
- Assisted suicide encourages people to feel like a burden to their families. According to data from Oregon and California, about half of those dying by assisted suicide reported that they did not want to be a “burden” on their families or caregivers.
- Loneliness and isolation are recognized as significant problems in today’s society. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of the influential book Bowling Alone, has identified declining social capital as a concern in America as well. Does this increasing isolation lead to worries about being a burden? And should we be making greater efforts to foster inclusion and engagement for our aging citizens to counter worries about becoming a burden? Do those facing end-of-life circumstances feel disconnected due to breaches in community life, or to our society’s strong emphasis on usefulness? Our focus should be more centered on solutions to this isolation and disconnect, and on fostering stronger community association, rather than on promoting assisted death.
- The legislation lacks real safeguards to protect people. Where assisted suicide is legal, safeguards like waiting periods are being shortened or waived.
- Assisted suicide sends a confusing message that suicide is OK, even as the state engages in systemic efforts to prevent suicides among the general population through the Maryland Office of Suicide Prevention. States that have legalized assisted suicide have experienced increased suicide rates in general. Young people are particularly susceptible to suicide. Among youth and young adults (ages 10–24), the CDC website reports that “suicide rates for this age group increased 52.2% between 2000-2021.” The CDC also reports that suicide rates are higher among veterans: “Veterans have an adjusted suicide rate that is 57.3% greater than the non-veteran U.S. adult population. Veterans account for about 13.9% of suicides among adults in the United States,” according to the website. Assisted suicide sends a conflicting message to these vulnerable groups, just as it sends a message of less worthiness to those with disabilities, as identified in an earlier point above.
- There is no way to accurately diagnose life expectancy. Individuals can request physician-assisted suicide if diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six months or less to live. However, medical prognoses are based on averages that often prove incorrect, and people frequently outlive these projections.
In considering this legislation, we must ask ourselves if the terminally ill might consider assisted suicide in part because of a decline in a sense of community in our society, leaving many aging individuals feeling lonely and isolated, and questioning their meaning in a society that stresses usefulness to such a high degree, and that perhaps pays too little attention to the lifelong wisdom they have gained.
For these reasons, I strongly urge an unfavorable report on HB403/SB443. Instead, we should give maximum attention to making sure that quality palliative end-of-life care is readily available to all Maryland residents who need it. As a former president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the medical association named earlier in this testimony, stated: “As a society, we need to work to improve hospice and palliative care, including awareness and access.”
Let us set our sights, therefore, on accompanying terminally ill persons with high-quality palliative and medical care combined with human closeness and a strong sense of community connection that assures them of compassion and meaning throughout the final stage of life.
The previously-cited ACP official well describes the path forward that Maryland, in particular, and society, in general, should follow:
“Through effective communication, high quality care, compassionate support, and the right resources for hospice and palliative care, physicians can help patients control many aspects of how they live out life’s last chapter.”
Please give an unfavorable report on HB403/SB443. Thank you for your consideration of my views.
Tom Taylor (left) and John Whitehead (right) holding our banner at the March for Life 2016
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Editor’s note: Good news! This bill never got out of committee in the Maryland Senate, and so is dead for 2024.
For more of our posts on euthanasia, see:
Figuring out Euthanasia: What Does it Really Mean?
A Process of Tender Understanding and Loving Closure when Life Ends
Creating a Loophole on the Life of the Mother Exception
by Sarah Terzo
Pro-Lifers and Abortions to Save the Mother’s Life
Mainstream media outlets are full of stories about pregnant people whose lives are endangered by their pregnancy and need an abortion.
Individual cases vary, and there are legitimate cases where a person’s life can be endangered by a pregnancy. Many times, premature delivery instead of abortion is an option. Direct killing by dismemberment isn’t a requirement. Live Action News discusses how a premature delivery, even when a child has no chance of survival, is different from an abortion.
The media often casts pro-lifers as the bad guys when we require confirmation of a life-endangering pregnancy or put ground rules in place for abortions to save a woman’s life. But there is a very good reason pro-lifers want (and need) to do this.
Pro-abortion activists are trying to create a loophole. They want to give one doctor, the abortionist, the authority, with no oversight, to claim that not having an abortion endangers the pregnant person’s life. Some knowledge of history is needed to understand why this is so problematic.
A Loophole in the Law
Before Roe, there was far more support for legalizing abortion among doctors than among laypeople. In a 1968 poll, 86.9% of doctors were in favor of liberalizing abortion laws, including 94.6% of psychiatrists.1 In 1965, 89% of psychiatrists said they would recommend abortion if the mother’s emotional health was endangered by the pregnancy.2
Therefore, many doctors were committed to giving women abortions on request. Yet abortions could only be done legally to save the mother’s life. So, doctors created a loophole. If a woman threatened suicide because of her pregnancy, then this meant her life was in danger. Thus, an abortion could comply with the law.
Dr. Allan Guttmacher, who would become the director of Planned Parenthood, stated in 1958:
At Mount Sinai, our rules are specific. The law says that one may abort to save the life of the mother, and therefore we insist that suicidal intent must be present in the psychiatric patient in order to validate the abortion.3
These women were often carefully coached on what to say.
From 1952 to 1955 there were 57 abortions performed at Mount Sinai Hospital, and 47.3% were on healthy mothers, done on grounds of averting suicide.4 From 1951 to 1953, 37.8% of abortions committed in New York City were done for this reason. This was up from only 8.2% in 1943.5 Between 1960-1962, it was 61%.6 In 1943, in Buffalo, New York, only 10% of abortions were justified by the risk of suicide. By 1963, this percentage had increased to 80%7, and the overall number of abortions increased considerably.
Sometimes, the pregnant person simply told the abortionist that she was suicidal. In other cases, the abortionist enlisted a psychiatrist to meet with the woman and certify that she was suicidal. He would write a letter or fill out some paperwork, and the abortion would be done.
Doctors Admitted to Dishonesty
Many in the medical field openly admitted that these “consultations” and certifications were a sham.
Two authors writing in 1973 stated:
Some liberal minded psychiatrists admit frankly that they sometimes must stretch their definitions of life-threatening mental hazards a bit, because they know that their approval is the only chance a woman may have of obtaining a legal therapeutic abortion.8
They quoted Dr. Leon Eisenberg of Harvard admitting, “I write letters recommending abortion that are frankly fraudulent, because I am satisfied to be used so that someone may obtain what our society otherwise would deny to her.”9
These weren’t pro-life authors. In their book, they compared abortion to “removing a wart from the side of the nose.”10
Dr. Pietro Castelnuovo Tedesco, associate professor of psychiatry at UCLA, said in 1972:
[P]sychiatrists would testify that a woman would probably commit suicide if she didn’t get an abortion … We were fudging on behalf of the patient for humanitarian reasons. It may have been for a good cause, but it was still fudging on psychiatric standards and on scientific truthfulness.11
In the documentary Voices of Choice produced by Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, abortionist Dr. Mildred Hanson described how she coached women who appeared before committees at hospitals for permission to get abortions before Roe:
We had a system put into motion so we could almost assure the patient that the process would go forward. I would coach her that she must convince the psychiatrist that she was indeed suicidal. How when she crossed a bridge she would think, “I’m just going to crawl over the top and jump over.”
Is that unethical to coach a person? Is that lying? Maybe … But when you are between a rock and a hard place you do what you have to do.
A Doctor Gives Pregnant Women Advice
Dr. Robert E Hall wrote A Doctor’s Guide to Having an Abortion in 1971. Hall wrote the book for pregnant women, as a guide on how to get abortions.
Hall writes:
A surprising number of hospital abortions are being performed in the 34 states with … laws which still require a threat to the woman’s life. Somehow the medical profession has always managed to bend these laws as it has seen fit, and right now many doctors in legislatively unreformed areas are openly responding to the growing demand for safe abortions…
Many practice in the most famous medical centers, where they can actually use the reputation of the hospital to protect them from the law. Most pretend to adhere to the law by going through the motions of having a psychiatrist friend certify their patients as suicidal.12
He then instructs:
Most of you will not qualify for an abortion on medical or fetal grounds. Without these qualifications, then, you must convince the doctor that you are suicidal. Some doctors will be satisfied with evidence that you are terribly upset…
[Y]ou will probably have to dramatize your symptoms. Tell your doctor how agitated or depressed you are, that you can’t sleep at night, and that you’re thinking of doing away with yourself…
I don’t mean that you have to lie to these men. Just spell out your fears, your fantasies, and your thoughts of self-destruction. Almost every unhappily pregnant woman has them. Emphasize them – make the most of them. And if the doctor is at all sympathetic to your plight, he will exaggerate your story until, by the time he asks for official approval of your abortion, you will sound like a raving maniac.
There is a certain element of theater in all of this, but it is founded on fact, and you must play your role in order to get an above-board abortion in an unreformed state.13
Actual Suicides Were Rare
Even before Roe, actual suicides among pregnant people were rare. In fact, according to a 1965 study, the suicide rate for pregnant women was one-sixth that of nonpregnant women.14
Of course, this didn’t matter to the doctors.
A More Recent Example
As recently as the 2000s, the suicide subterfuge was still going on.
Alice Eve Cohen wrote a 2009 memoir called What I Thought I Knew about her journey through a pregnancy with a disabled child. Doctors had told Cohen she was infertile, and she was taking estrogen. She didn’t realize she was pregnant until the 26th week. After testing, doctors said that her daughter was intersex, had limb deformities, and might have a fatal disease. Cohen sought a third trimester abortion.
She went to a late-term abortionist named William Raushbaum, who is now deceased. This was their conversation:
‘I don’t want to have a baby. I’m depressed and terrified. I had no prenatal care for the first six months, and the baby was subjected to drugs and x-rays, a CAT scan –’
‘Yes, and?’
‘– And she’s female, but she has a penis, and she might have CAH, a fatal salt-wasting –’
‘Yes, and?’
‘–And I’m scared I’ll go into labor any day and the baby will be premature and severely disabled and–’
‘Yes, and?’
‘Why do you keep saying ‘yes, and?’
‘Is your life in danger?’
‘What do you mean?’…
‘I don’t have time for stupidity. Why are you in my office? I can’t legally put words into your mouth. Exactly how depressed are you?’
‘I think about killing myself.’
‘Thank you! I’m sorry you’re so unhappy, but that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Since you’re contemplating suicide, the mother’s life is in danger, which is the only way you can get a legal abortion. Not in New York State, which has no exception to the 24-week limit.
You could, however, have an abortion in Wichita, Kansas … Do you want me to call the abortion clinic in Wichita right now?’
I nodded. He called Wichita and scheduled an abortion for Tuesday, in one week.16
She was over 27 weeks.
In the end, Cohen chose life. She and her partner named the baby Eliana. Eliana was born with a physical disability but learned to walk, run, climb, and ride a scooter. Cohen went through a long and difficult battle with postpartum depression but came to love her daughter dearly.
Footnotes
- Jane E. Brody “Abortion: Once a Whispered Problem, Now a Public Debate” New York Times January 8, 1968
- Leslie Aldrich Westoff and Charles F Westoff From Now to Zero: Fertility, Contraception and Abortion in America (Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Co., 1971) 133 – 134
- Quoted in Mary S Calderone, MD Abortion in the United States (New York: Paul B Hoeber, Inc., 1958) 139
- Ibid. , table 6-13, p. 93
- Ibid. , table 6 – 10, p. 84
- American Journal of Public Health 964 (1965). Cited in David Granfield The Abortion Decision (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1971) 100
- K Niswander, R Klein, and C Randall “Changing Attitudes to Therapeutic Abortion” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 28 (1966) 124
- Jules Saltman and Stanley Zimbering Abortion Today (Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas Publisher, 1973) 49-50
- Ibid. , 50
- Ibid. , 15
- Quoted in Clifford E Bajema Abortion and the Meaning of Personhood (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1974) 70
- Robert E Hall MD A Doctor’s Guide to Having an Abortion (Bergenfield, New Jersey: New American Library, 1971)
- Robert E Hall MD A Doctor’s Guide to Having an Abortion (Bergenfield, New Jersey: New American Library, 1971) 22-23
- Ibid. , 24-25
- Ajay Rosenberg, et al. “Suicide, Psychiatrists and Therapeutic Abortion” California Medicine, 102:407, 1965
- Alice Eve Cohen What I Thought I Knew (New York: Penguin Books, 2009) 44-45
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For posts on similar topics, see:
Is an Embryo More Important than a Woman?
The Safety of Incredibly Dangerous Things
by Rachel MacNair
A common method used to try to justify violence is to make comparisons to innocent-sounding things, saying that the violence being justified is actually safer than things that people don’t normally fear much. Here are three examples
Nuclear Weapons and Radiation
In my youth, when we were opposing nuclear weapons as mass destruction and nuclear energy as a bad environmental practice, nuclear energy proponents would commonly make the claim that the overall radiation in the area of Denver, Colorado was higher than it was around most nuclear power plants. They claimed this was because Denver was so very high above sea level. So if radiation levels around nuclear power plants were lower than radiation levels caused by higher elevations, they must not be so bad.
They left out a crucial point: near Denver was the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant (since closed). It made nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, something that produces far more radiation than mere energy production would.
Death Penalty and Humane Methods
Lethal injections were supposed to be a more humane way of carrying out executions. It seemed more like a medical procedure, in which drugs are meant to perform a specific task. Yet executions keep being botched, leading to torturous outcomes. As recently as January 25, 2024, an execution by nitrogen hypoxia – which euthanasia proponents have proposed as one method for a gentle way of ending life – lasted 22 minutes and was horrific. Being humane and executing someone don’t make a good match.
Abortion Pills
The claim is made that mifepristone, the first part of the two-part abortion pill regimen, is “safer than Tylenol.” Statistics show that more people have to go to the hospital emergency room because of Tylenol than because of mifepristone. Since Tylenol is well known for its safety, they argue that must make abortion pill awfully safe.
The first thing wrong with that point: way, way more people use Tylenol than mifepristone. So of course more people have problems with what more people use. It’s not the raw numbers, but the rates – how many per 1,000 people that use the drug end up in the hospital – that make an accurate comparison.
The next problem is that the vast majority of people who get into trouble with Tylenol do so because they overdosed. Overdosing is a danger with all drugs – that’s part of what makes them drugs. If there weren’t a danger of overdosing, it would be something other than a drug. Mifepristone, on the other hand, can send you to the hospital when used as prescribed.
But most importantly, any other drug causing miscarriages would have that as a mark against its safety. With mifepristone, a miscarriage is the whole point. Already you have a problem with defining safety in a way that can be compared.
But worse: any other drug that caused days of cramps and bleeding, even if it did so just a small portion of the time, would be taken off the take-at-home market immediately. There are no other legal drugs to compare mifepristone to, because if any of them did a small bit of what mifepristone does regularly, they would be reserved for monitored situations where treating diseases like cancer might be worth the side effects. They wouldn’t be allowed for simple prescription at all, certainly not for taking in unmonitored situations at home.
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Racism and Planned Parenthood: Documentation
compiled by Rachel MacNair
More documentation, including the court documents for individual lawsuits, can be found at Problems at Planned Parenthood. That website has an index page for specific problems – in addition to racism, there are health code violation documents, malpractice suits, 911 calls, sexual abuse, employee rights, etc.
Planned Parenthood itself offers detailed information on its own racist history:
The History & Impact of Planned Parenthood
Articles
from sources who otherwise favor Planned Parenthood’s mission
Employees Are Calling Out Major Reproductive Rights Organizations for Racism and Hypocrisy
by Ema O’Connor, Buzzfeed, August 21, 2020
employee Tweet in response:
Dozens of Black Employees Said They Faced Racism at Planned Parenthood, An Internal Audit Found
by Ema O’Connor, Buzzfeed, October 9, 2020
Excerpt:
(NEW YORK) — A former Planned Parenthood employee is suing the organization, alleging the reproductive healthcare nonprofit retaliated against her and ultimately fired her for speaking out against its treatment of Black women.
Plaintiff Nicole Moore, the former director for multicultural engagement at Planned Parenthood based at the national headquarters in Manhattan, New York, claims in the complaint filed on Wednesday that Planned Parenthood has perpetuated a culture of racism where Black women within the organization are discriminated against through unequal work distribution and opportunities for promotions.
“[Planned Parenthood] has blatantly ignored reports by dozens of its Black employees of systemic unequal hiring and promotion, more work for lower pay, overt hostility, and trafficking in stereotypes by leadership,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained by ABC News.
Moore, who says she served in the role from Jan. 13, 2020, through Nov. 2, 2021, also claims that “Black-centered campaigns were deprioritized and under-resourced.”
Ex-Planned Parenthood Employee Says Racist, Toxic Culture Sent Her to the ER
by Emily Shugerman and Brianna Sacks, The Daily Beast, October 19, 2022
KSRO Talk Radio, October 20, 2022
Open Letters from Planned Parenthood Employees
New York: General Open Letter, June 18, 2020
Excerpt:
Racism and Weaponizing of the Work of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Against Staff
Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist, white woman. That is a part of history that cannot be changed . . . After years of complaints from staff about issues of systemic racism, pay inequity, and lack of upward mobility for Black staff, highly-paid consultants were brought in three separate times to assess the situation. Each time, employees of color were brutally honest about their experiences, but nothing changed . . .
When diversity and equity are weaponized to make changes that are harmful to staff it diminishes the value of these very important areas of change. We know that Planned Parenthood has a history and a present steeped in white supremacy and we, the staff, are motivated to do the difficult work needed to improve.
Decimation of Institutional Knowledge Due to Unprecedented Rates of Staff Turnover
McQuade’s time at PPGNY has been defined by constant staff departures. Under her leadership, 23 members of senior staff have quit or been forced out. Many of these colleagues had 10-20+ years of experience with our affiliate. Others were people hired by McQuade directly to newly created positions who left mere months into their roles. This high amount of turnover has had a destabilizing effect on the organization. The loss of institutional knowledge is so profound as to be detrimental to every aspect of the organization . . .
New York: Supplemental Open Letter: On Equity, June 18, 2020
We write this — as a group of both current and former BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) employees of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York — to expand on the issues of racism and anti-Blackness in our workplace mentioned in our general open letter to the PPGNY Board . . .
PPGNY, under the leadership of CEO Laura McQuade, has effectively gaslit and silenced their marginalized staff thus creating a toxic work environment. While we stand together as people of color, we also stand firm in our commitment to acknowledge that anti-Blackness is a critical and specific fulcrum of white supremacy.
The PPGNY Senior Leadership team, despite the visual appearance of diversity, has repeatedly weaponized the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Rather than using their true definitions, senior leaders and upper management have used these terms to manipulate and silence those with differing opinions and perspectives. They have leveraged identity politics by putting Black and other people of color in positions of leadership who actively participate in harming Black staff and other staff members of color below them.
At this point, PPGNY’s attempts to present itself as a diverse workplace have been carefully orchestrated and superficial at best. PPGNY repeatedly tokenizes their Chief Equity and Learning Officer, a Woman of Color who is not of African descent, as the “voice” for BIPOC staff. The decision to hire a non-Black person in this role exemplifies the ways in which white-led organizations use non-Black people as a buffer to actually confront and uproot anti-Blackness within organizations . . .
The class tensions are made clearer when the BIPOC leadership were also complicit in the decisions to furlough/terminate 28% of staff. This included the closing of health centers in the Bronx and Queens, as those areas were being devastated by COVID-19. Additionally furloughed staff, many of which are BIPOC women, remain unclear when they will be called back to work and left with no official information regarding when their health insurance will be terminated.
With multiple attempts by the BIPOC staff to bring these concerns to our supervisors, we continue to be invalidated and marginalized. White and non-Black employees are still given more pay and more advancement opportunities than their Black colleagues. Blanket statements are used to overshadow our grievances, while only exacerbating the problem. Black staff are further disheartened when our white and non-Black colleagues use their privilege to amplify our concerns, and find they, too, are challenged and manipulated into silence.
Pennsylvania: Save Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates (PPPA)
On November 24, 2020, employees of Planned Parenthood released an open letter alleging racism and poor management of severe budget cuts. It was signed by the entire staff. The letter demanded the resignation of Executive Director. She resigned on December 1, 2020.
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For more of our posts on Planned Parenthood, see:
Medical Dangers, Sex Abuse, Labor Problems, Racism: Documenting Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Staff Revolt
Does Planned Parenthood Reduce Abortions by Preventing Pregnancies?
“But I was Empty”: The Story of a Doctor Who Left Planned Parenthood
For some of our posts on topics about racism, see:
Historical Black Voices: Racism Kills
Racism Kills: Several Perspectives
Movies with Racism Themes: “Gosnell” and “The Hate U Give”
Police Brutality to the Preborn
Words as One Root of Killing
by Rachel MacNair
One of the books we recommend that’s foundational for understanding the consistent life ethic is one that William Brennan wrote called Dehumanizing the Vulnerable. The first edition had the subtitle: When Word Games Take Lives. A later edition had the subtitle: The War of Words against Victims. Both subtitles give the connection: mere words aren’t just words. They can be at the root of all of the various kinds of socially approved killing that the consistent life ethic opposes.
Brennan gives categories of dehumanizing language common across all the different types of victims, and gives quotes throughout history to illustrate. Here are his categories:
- deficient humans
- nonhumans
- nonpersons
- animals
- parasites
- diseases
- inanimate objects
- waste products
Here are some examples he gave, and I added a line for Muslims since more recent quotes about them add to the point:
The victim being attacked may also be seen as an enemy, especially in war and other power struggles. Dehumanizing can then be demonizing the opposition. They’re seen as worthy of attack, monsters, demons, simply evil. Evidence that they’re real human beings interferes with this understanding. Therefore, the evidence is either ignored entirely or dismissed with scoffing.
Of course, those able to understand the insults can be badly hurt psychologically by the language alone.
But these aren’t mere insults. In linguistic warfare, the viciousness of the words serves as support for acts of violence against targeted groups.
So dehumanization allows violence that would otherwise be inhibited. For example, slaveholders such as early Americans can assert the equality of all and then deny the equality of all at the same time. People can engage in lucrative businesses that cause wars or otherwise hurt people by deciding that the people being hurt are not really people. Why do this, rather than doing without slaves and being honest in business?
Why do people dehumanize others? There’s actually a positive side to this: it shows we have problems with harming other human beings. Otherwise, why bother dehumanizing to be able to do harm? There are inhibitions against hurting others that have to be overcome.
The flip side of this coin is that rehumanizing language can be just as powerful. Language challenging these attitudes also confronts the violence they facilitate.
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For more of our posts on the psychology of the consistent life ethic, see:
War Hysteria and Post-Dobbs Reactions
The Creativity of the Fore-closed Option
Almost No One? How Survey Polls Work
The Mind’s Drive for Consistency
Tragedy Spreads: The Impact of Veterans’ Suicides on Families
by Sarah Terzo
The suicide rate for veterans is 57.3% higher than for non-veterans. Each veteran who dies by suicide leaves behind grieving loved ones.
A Disabled Husband and a Sick Daughter
Barbara Chism’s husband Mack lost both his legs in Vietnam. He would stay up at night chain smoking, drinking, and watching war movies. When he tried to sleep, he tossed and turned all night.
Their daughter Kim developed ulcerative colitis at age nine. Kim was hospitalized repeatedly throughout her childhood, once spending a year in the hospital. She had multiple surgeries. At 18, doctors removed most of her intestines.
Doctors told Barbara that Mack’s exposure to Agent Orange was to blame.
When Mack died by suicide, his family blamed Barbara, ostracizing her. Even Barbara’s mother blamed her. Barbara says:
I don’t want to say Mack’s suicide ruined my life, but maybe if I’d had someone telling me I was good, that I could do it, it would have been different. Instead, everyone was saying, ‘What did you do to that poor man?’ and ‘Why didn’t you save him?’
It’s like I still hear my mother’s voice in the back of my mind: ‘You’ve done something to get him to this point of killing himself. Maybe you don’t deserve to live.’ I try not to let that rule me, but it’s always in the back of my mind.1
Many years later, Barbara is still struggling to function.
Mack’s suicide also traumatized Kim. She’s in therapy. Kim says:
Whenever I see pictures of my father and me, I always think, ‘Look at this beautiful little girl. Why wasn’t I enough to make him want to live?… Just, I’m not enough. Why aren’t I enough?’2
Suicide Attempts and Emotional Trauma
Linda Robideau, whose husband Don was a Vietnam veteran who killed himself, wrote:
Every year he talked about killing himself – and always around May and June. It was the anniversary of when all his friends died. Sometimes he tried. He would take the car and get liquored up and deliberately drive to hit a tree. Overdoses of medication, lots of times. He just never readjusted to civilian life. 3
She described her husband’s struggles:
He didn’t like to be in crowds. He didn’t like the smell of diesel. If a car backfired, this is the first guy who goes down on the floor. He didn’t like it when it rained in May or in June. Any Asian he didn’t like.4
They had a neighbor who was Asian. One day, Linda came home and found Don standing at the window, aiming a gun at the neighbor. Linda was terrified that Don would snap and shoot the man or someone else.
Don would wake up from nightmares hitting Linda. They went to the VA, which told them the military had lost Don’s records. They told Don, “There’s nothing in your folder, so there’s nothing we can do but medicate you.”5
The VA put Don on a slew of psychiatric medication, but nothing seemed to help him. One day in May, he told Linda he was going to kill himself. She describes what happened next:
I got on my hands and knees, and I begged him. I said, ‘Please, please don’t kill yourself, because your pain will be over, but mine will just begin. I can’t live without you.’
So, he said, ‘Okay then, I’ll take you with me and then you don’t have to worry.’6
Linda continued to plead with him. But her life was now at risk. She says, “[W]hen he laid down, I had to think, was I ready to die? I really wanted to be with him because we loved each other so much and we’d been through so much. But I thought about my sons.”7
Afraid, she left with her children.
Sometime later, the police called and told her Don was dead. He’d left a long suicide note addressed to her, telling her he loved her and had never wanted to hurt anyone.
Linda regrets leaving. She says, “Whether I bit the bullet or helped him, I should have stayed . . . I felt so guilty. He held me close for thirteen years . . . Thirteen years wasn’t long enough.”8
A Daughter Sees a Change in her Father
Paula Elvick is the daughter of a Vietnam vet who killed himself. She and her siblings were never the same.
Paula describes how different her father was when he came home from Vietnam.
Everybody could see he’d changed . . . He would wake up screaming…
He started going out to bars a lot of the time. It was extremely stressful for all of us to see a person who used to be outgoing, boastful—you know, happy—come back withdrawn, negative, and mean, abusive, with us never understanding why.9
After her father’s death, Paula’s mother was ill, and it fell to Paula to arrange the funeral. She went to the VA and brought her father’s medals and commendations, asking them to help with funeral costs and to bury him in a military cemetery. When they found out he died from suicide, they refused.
Paula had to pay for the plot in a private cemetery. On the day of the burial, the VA called and said they’d made a mistake – they would bury him in a military cemetery. But the plot had been paid for and the arrangements made.
The military refused to give her or her mother anything. She says, “They told me that when he killed himself, his pension died with him.”10
Paula finished her law degree, but was suspended from practicing law because of her heavy drinking. All her remaining siblings had drinking problems.
Then Paula’s brother died of suicide. According to the CDC, a family history of suicide is a risk factor for suicide. He left behind two children.
Eventually Paula got sober. She says:
Sometimes when I get together with my sister and brothers, we go through old pictures and try to figure out when things changed, when things started.
We try to understand what he went through, and why it was so bad that he had to take himself away from us. And then, what happened to us?
Vietnam—that’s what happened. Before that, we were a family. When my father came back, everything fell apart.11
A Veteran’s Experiences Leave Emotional Scars
Maryallyn Fisher’s husband, Dennis, was also a veteran who killed himself. Before he died, he told Maryallyn about some of his traumatic experiences. Don was the only survivor of a hand grenade attack which killed five other men. He befriended a little girl who was later raped by an officer, which haunted him. He was also in a helicopter when the man next to him was killed and he was injured.
Maryallyn had left Dennis because of his erratic, troubling, and sometimes violent behavior. She says, “I had been gone a year and a half when I got the phone call. It was the Everson police, and I thought, okay, now what did he do? But the cop said Dennis had shot himself.”12
Jean-Marie Fisher, Dennis’s daughter, said:
My dad was awesome . . . He used to always buy stuff for me, just because . . . He let me dye my hair, and one time he drove me up to Canada for ice cream because nothing in our town was open . . .
But I remember being scared a lot, too. He was so unpredictable. There were times when he was really weird.
I remember one time he was sitting out in the garage with a BB gun. He was shooting at mice that weren’t there. I was scared out of my mind. That’s why I didn’t want kids coming over to my house.13
Jean-Marie began cutting herself and using drugs after her father’s death. She says:
[W]hen Daddy died, I think I went a little crazy. I would be sitting in class, and I would just be thinking of him, and I would see him with the gun to his head. I would close my eyes and the image wouldn’t go away. I would open them, and it’d still be there . . . I went to classes stoned, and I had really bad grades.
I thought it should’ve been me, it should’ve been me, and so I used to cut myself a lot . . . and then I would cry, and then I’d think, ‘What have I done? I’m such a messed-up person.’14
A Live Saved by Love for a Son
Sometimes, though, the love a veteran feels for their family allows them to resist the temptation to die by suicide. Love for one’s children can be lifesaving. Peter, a Vietnam veteran, says:
I remember once coming home after having a flashback while driving. It was of the Tet Offensive where scores of guys died. I nearly died on the highway because I lost control of the car and nearly hit some people.
Driving home, I decided I was a danger to society and should kill myself. But when I got home, my son, who was six at the time, was waiting outside for me. ‘Daddy, Daddy, where have you been? he asked. ‘I’ve been waiting for you a long time . . .
After that, I realized I couldn’t kill myself. My son needed me.15
Footnotes
- Penny Coleman Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2006) 94-95
- Ibid., 97
- Ibid., 13
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 14
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 15
- Ibid., 16
- Ibid., 17
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 39-40
- Ibid., 42-43
- Ibid.
- Aphrodite Matsakis, PhD Vietnam Wives: Facing the Challenges of Life with Veterans Suffering Post-Traumatic Stress (Lutherville, Maryland: The Sidran Press, 1996) 68
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This is a companion piece to the post:
Heartbreakingly Common: Suicide Among Veterans
See also:
Depicting Fatal Violence: A Double-Edged Sword
by Ms. Boomer-ang
How can depicting fatal violence and its results discourage and prevent such violence? Are there ways one can ensure that such depictions will generate mourning rather than excitement? That they will turn people off from such violence rather than whet appetites for more?
Following are examples of comparable fatal-violence depictions for contrasting purposes and examples of reactions to such displays that contrast with their intended purpose.
Emmett Till
Emmett Till’s mother in 1955 had people look at his battered body in an open casket, so they could see what had been done to him. But as late as the 1930’s, people sent each other postcards of lynchings to celebrate them (enclosed in envelopes after 1908, when the US Post Office banned postcards “tending to incite murder”). “A typical lynching postcard” displayed the victim “prominently,” while “smiling spectators, including children, posing for the camera to prove their presence,” fill the margins. 1
In the 1970’s, a newspaper article quoted a young man facing execution as saying he would not mind television showing him being killed, so that people would see what the death penalty really means. But would it really turn viewers against the death penalty? Throughout history, throughout the world, public executions have been happy, exciting attractions.
Pro-life displays show the bloody mutilated bodies of pre-born murdered babies, but there are those who now celebrate “abortion art” to boast of and celebrate abortions (see for example this New York Times article).
The producers of the film The Silent Scream aimed to turn people against abortion. But how does it differ from abortion art meant to celebrate abortion? Nevertheless, some people want to ban showing The Silent Scream to minors, lest it turn them against abortion. But do not some of these same people also not want children to see shoot-’em-up TV shows and movies, lest it develop in them a taste for such violence?
In The Silent Scream, the victim’s open mouth and desperate struggle shows the inhumanity of abortion. But when Aztec parents in the 1400’s agreed to sell a child for sacrifice, their leaders and tradition smugly proclaimed that the desperately struggling child’s bitter tears would generate rain to water the crops.2
A Catholic church in a suburb of New York City had a big billboard sign in front of it telling of the number of abortions in the United States since a certain time or in a certain year, for about a month, in the hope that it would spur people to act against abortion. But in the 1930s, when Japan invaded China, Japanese newspapers reported daily how many Chinese people certain military leaders killed, as if they were points scored by basketball stars. Did they hope it would spur people to act against that slaughter?
Metacomet
Boston’s Holocaust Memorial has six tall pillars which can be seen for a distance, supposedly with assumption that they will cause people to contemplate how bad the Holocaust was and commit themselves to not letting something like that happen again. But only 37 miles away in Plymouth, British colonists displayed the head of indigenous Wampanoag Chief Metacomet (called “King Philip”) on a spike for two decades after a soldier killed him in 1676. Was that towering display meant to remind everybody– settlers and indigenous — to consider the killing of Native Americans and the destruction of their communities a bad thing? To make sure it stopped and never happened again? To assure Native Americans that the world was on their side?3
And as late as 1849, French troops displayed on poles the heads of Algerian resistance from the village of Zatcha, which they “violently crushed” during the conquest of Algeria.4 Was that display to remind everybody never to do something like that again? To assure Algerians that the world was on their side?
Sometimes Holocaust commemorations can get praise and brownie points from Jewish leaders while satisfying antisemites. Many emphasize what happened without adding that it was a bad thing.
In hundreds of communities across Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, etc., most of the local non-Jewish adults cheered on, and in many cases actively participated in, killing most of the community’s Jews, on the days in the 1940’s when the German occupiers decided it was that community’s turn. One of these communities was Jedwabne, Poland. When the memorial for the Jews of Jedwabne, Poland, was erected in Jedwabne itself, some locals put up protest signs saying, “WE’RE NOT SORRY!”
Would not it have been more appropriate to put the memorial for Jedwabne’s Jews, and its list of names, in a country where most Jews survived the Holocaust (e.g. the US, Canada, or England)? In Jedwabne itself, would it not have been more appropriate to erect a modest pillar or plaque honoring the minority of local non-Jewish adults who did not participate in the killings? It could include a sentence telling the city and country where the memorial for Jedwabne’s Jews was. Should not this suggestion also apply to other communities with similar episodes in their pasts?
Why are government officials of countries that lost their Jewish populations invited to openings of Holocaust museums? When they give their speech, reciting how many Jews in their country were killed, what is the reaction of their own citizens thousands of miles away watching their speech on TV?
Cannot the same remarks about Holocaust commemorations also apply to some North American commemorations of violence against indigenous Native Americans?
A monument used by both mourners and rejoicers (at different times, of course) makes good business sense, by catering to more than one market. But what does it do for moral sense?
A letter to the editor of the New York Times October 2022 recommends “relentlessly barrag[ing] the Russian public with videos and photographs of the horrific human suffering caused by their tyrant’s” imperial pursuit. “Show them the bodies in the streets and the graves.” 5 Russians seeing them would will become aware of these actions that befoul “Russia’s culture and National image.”
However, the suspect in the killing of 10 African-Americans at a supermarket in Buffalo New York on May 14, 2022, Payton Gendron, said he was “drawn to the violence of other mass shooters, particularly the [one] who murdered 51 people” in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, while livestreaming. Mr. Gendron also livestreamed his own attack. 6
David Pucino, Deputy Chief council at a Gifford’s council at the Gifford’s Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, pointed out the “contagion” effect, where mass killers draw inspiration from other mass killers.7 In fact, in the Virginia Tech mass shooter called the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooters heroic.
More recently, the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance showed a film of videos that Hamas attackers made of them killing Israelis in their October 7, 2023 raid, using their victims’ own cell phones.8 The Museum’s objective was to quash “denial” of what happened. Some claimed that those who supported the attacks “denied” the attackers’ brutality. But the attackers sent the videos to their victims’ kith and kin. Doesn’t sound like the attackers wanted denial.
A New York Times article on January 29, 2023 asked: “Do you have a civic duty to watch [the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols] or a moral obligation not to?….Too often the worst abuses of power are . . . shrouded . . . Raw video offers clarity, transparency, and perhaps accountability. . . the unvarnished truth . . . This is the hope: that concerned Americans will become witnesses,…our senses shocked and our consciences awakened by the sight of uniformed officers repeatedly kicking and punching Mr. Nichols . . . [Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis] expressed faith in the power of even the most horrific images to foster empathy and community, faith in the human capacity to experience outrage and compassion when shown such images.”
However, the article added, “a delicate ethical line separates witness . . . from the more passive, less demanding condition of spectatorship. The spectacle of violence has a way of turning even sensitive souls into gawkers and voyeurs. Violence…is a fixture of popular culture . . . For much of human history, public executions have been a form of entertainment. The history of lynchings in the United States is part owikiwikipf history of public spectacle, in which the mutilation and murder of Black men brought out white crowds to stare, cheer, and take photographs. I’m not saying that looking at the video…is equivalent to joining in one of those crowds, but rather that Black suffering…has often been relegated to invisibility or subjected to exploitation . . .
“We don’t automatically recoil from violence. We can just as easily respond with indifference, morbid fascination, or worse.”9
Although learning what fatal violence has happened is necessary for knowing what can happen, do not the above examples show that one should be very careful about depictions of it, if one wants to discourage and stop it?
Citations
1Wikipedia, “Lynching postcards,” last updated June 8, 2022
2Time Life Books, Aztecs: Reign of Blood & Splendor, 1992, p. 107
3www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-philips-war
4NY Times, October 18, 2020, p. A4
5Mark Miller of San Francisco, without his permission. Letter to the NY Times, October 18, 2022
6 NY Times, October 19, 2022
7Ibid
8NY Times, November 9, 2023
8NY Times, January 29, 2023
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For more posts from Ms. Boomer-ang, see:
“Shut Up and Enjoy it!”: Abortion Promoters who Sexually Pressure Women
Political Homelessness is Better than a Wrong Political Home
Asking Questions about Miscarriage and Abortion
The Danger of Coerced Euthanasia: Questions to Ask
The Kate Cox Case in Texas
We’re obviously not giving advice in a particular case since we don’t have medical details about the diagnosis or its accuracy. Still, this case offers at least a scenario to consider. In December of 2023 this case was a major media story for several days. Kate Cox asked for an abortion in Texas under the life-of-the mother exception, which the Texas Supreme Court turned down as insufficiently proven. Her third child had Edwards Syndrome and she had been to the emergency room several times. She is reported to have gone to another state to get the abortion.
The Consistent Life Network Board had an active email discussion of the case. Below are some of the insights that might be helpful.
Lois Kerschen:
The most compassionate route is for the parents to choose perinatal hospice.
There are other ways to end a pregnancy than to kill the child. She is past 20 weeks, so if her life/health is threatened by a continuation of the pregnancy, then she can go to delivery. Considering the child’s condition and prematurity, it would likely die shortly after birth, if not before.
With perinatal hospice, the parents are prepared for a negative outcome, but they can be comforted in knowing that the child died naturally and not at their hands. The mother said she didn’t want her child to suffer, but the child can be kept comfortable. In my opinion, being torn apart, literally limb from limb, causes a lot more suffering for the baby.
Choosing the hospice route means that the parents will get to see and hold their child. They can get hand/foot prints or a lock of hair or pictures — something for remembrance. If the baby has not already died, then it can die in the loving arms of its parents and be given a death certificate and a respectful funeral rather than being tossed out with the medical waste. A funeral also helps the parents with their grieving.
With abortion, there are no good memories or considerations for the parents or child.
My guess is that Kate Cox is receiving medical advice with a political agenda and being scared into her actions. The most compassionate thing to do is tell her the truth and help her and her husband to make the best of a tragic situation.
Rachel MacNair:
An abortion this late involves inserting laminaria into the cervix to dilate the cervix, then reaching up into the uterus to cut the child into pieces. It’s a two or three day procedure. What I have not seen in any news source yet is why inducing early labor and having perinatal hospice would not be an alternative, if that would also protect the mother’s life and future fertility. Then the child could be treated with dignity, even if continued life isn’t viable. Without that option being mentioned to the mother, I would hold the doctors to be incompetent. That the court never comes up with that either means the court is also not very competent.
It helps in opposing violence to offer alternatives to that violence, rather than simply forbidding it.
Note from Rachel: This was posted as a comment on a National Review article; it garnered this response: “I’m not sure what you are saying is true. Most situations like this do involve inducing labor early. Often the fetus will die during childbirth or very shortly thereafter. The end result is the same, but your parade of horribles does not happen.” I’ve replied with a link to the video below.
Update from Rachel: on a report on the PBS NewsHour, Kate Cox was shown quite distraught but indicated that the idea of hospice had been presented to her as a possibility with the baby taken to full term. It’s understandable that she recoiled at the prospect, and I can sympathize with her anguish on this. But the details of what the abortion would do to her and to her daughter were nowhere mentioned. People seem to think terminating a pregnancy, even so late, is some kind of magic rather than realizing how horrifying violent it is.
Bill Samuel:
Most of the medical industry is strongly pro-abortion. I had friends who went to a doctor and there were some tests regarding her pregnancy. The office called a couple of times after hours to say there was a 1% chance the child would have Down Syndrome and asking whether they wanted to terminate! This turned the couple more pro-life, seeing how “pro-choice” was really pro-abortion.
Sarah Terzo:
Dilation and Evacuation takes two days of dilating the cervix before the baby is removed with forceps on the third day – instead of just removing the baby in minutes via c-section or hours via labor. She has to deal with the risk to her life (or the alleged risk to her life) for three more days because it takes three days to end the pregnancy if they choose the D&E, which is what they are insisting on.
By “removed” I mean the doctor inserts forceps and the child is torn apart and pulled out piece by piece, limb by limb. The doctor goes in and pulls off an arm, or a leg, then keeps pulling of limbs and then pulls out the rest of the baby, then crushes the skull.
There was a woman named Brenda Pratt Shafer who worked in a late-term abortion facility. She only worked there for three days and quit. She saw babies being aborted by D&E via ultrasound. The doctor, Martin Haskell, pulled off legs and an arms and extracted them, and she could see that the babies still alive. She could see a heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. The doctor threw the arms and legs in a pan, then pulled out the torso in pieces, then finally crushed the skull and extracted it.
That’s what they’re insisting on doing.
Here is a video of a former abortionist explaining the procedure (no pictures or video, just a diagram).
The person in the video, Dr. Kathi Aultmen, performed hundreds of these D&E’s before she came over to the pro-life side.
Is this really better than hospice? Or even a quick c-section or inducing labor, if possible?
Finally, I wrote an article analyzing all the studies they have done about women who had fatal fetal diagnoses and comparing those who chose perinatal hospice vs. those who chose abortion. All studies came to the same conclusion when looking at the emotional aftermath for the woman. Every single one found that the women (and couples) who chose abortion suffered more depression, grief, and guilt because they had to deal with choosing their baby’s death and never got a chance to have the closure of seeing the baby and saying goodbye.
Resources
Studies: Abortion not the best option for women pregnant with dying babies
From a medical doctor: Is abortion the right response to a baby with a potentially life-limiting diagnosis? The case of Kate Cox and her Trisomy 18 child. By Tom Perille M.D. with Democrats for Life of Colorado
A collection of stories of parents who continued their pregnancies after their baby was diagnosed with Edwards (Trisomy 18).
Live Action News take on the case.
If You Can’t Explain the Opposition to Your Case
by Rachel MacNair
Our student group organized a program explaining what was wrong with nuclear energy back in the late 1970s at Earlham College, a Quaker school where I majored in Peace and Conflict Studies. We did such a fine job of explaining the dangers that a student in the audience asked a very sensible question: how on earth could anyone support this?
So I launched into a three-minute pro-nuclear diatribe. And I did it so effectively that my fellow activists started worrying that I needed to stop and explain what was wrong with what I was saying.
On another occasion, several of us Earlham students were putting together a program to educate about what was wrong with nuclear weapons. Unlike nuclear energy, which is intended to be helpful, the whole point of nuclear weapons is to kill a huge number of people. One of my friends thought that was quite sufficient to make the case against it.
So a member of the audience asked the question: wouldn’t it be dangerous for us to not have such weapons for deterrence as long as the Soviets have such weapons?
This wasn’t an out-of-left-field question. There might be all kinds of questions an audience member could come up with that you might not have thought of before, but this isn’t one of them. This was basic. This was about as common a question as there was from the people who supported nuclear weapons. And my friend had no answer for it.
I’ve often thought that if I taught some kind peace studies course, this would be one of the assignments: Pick a topic about which you care passionately. Write a three-page paper making the case for that position. Then write a three-page paper making the case against it. If, when I read both, it’s painfully obvious which one is your position and the one for your opponent is mangled, you flunk the assignment.
All this was brought to mind recently when I was in a large room with about 150 people who understood themselves to be peace activists who were discussing taking a pro-access position on abortion. I wasn’t squelched entirely – I got about two minutes to make the most basic consistent-life pacifist case and point out how there were more complexities they hadn’t considered.
That they went against my view wouldn’t have bothered me so much – I mean, am I so arrogant as to be so very assured that I’m right and they’re wrong? What bothered me is that they only acted against my view. They didn’t argue against my view. As far as I could tell, they didn’t even understand that there was a counter-view that they needed to grasp and articulate.
My position is that on any of our issues, and anything that’s controversial, anyone who wishes to take a position of any sort should regard it as part of taking that position to first educate themselves on what other perspectives are, and feel confident in being able to make the case while taking those perspectives into account. Either argue against them well, or address underlying interests that could make someone holding those interests know that you’ve considered their point of view.
I fear that taking a position while utterly ignoring what opponents of that position think isn’t conducive to peace-making.
For posts on abortion complexities that abortion access advocates might want to consider, see:
Societal Impact on Women
How Abortion is Useful for Rape Culture
Abortion Facilitates Sex Abuse: Documentation
The Message of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”: Abortion Gets Sexual Predators Off the Hook
Gendercide: Millions of “Missing” (Dead) Women
Abortion and Violence Against Pregnant Women
The Back Alley and the Front Alley
Isolating Women and Encouraging Jerks
What Studies Show: Impact of Abortion Regulations
Is an Embryo More Important than a Woman?
Societal Impact on Born Children
Societal Impact on People with Disabilities
How Ableism Led (and Leads) to Abortion
Abortion and People with Disabilities
Bigotry against Babies with Down Syndrome
Bigotry against Babies with Down Syndrome: International Experiences