:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Saturday, March 15, 2003 ::

I am a child of the 70's and unlike most kids my age I was a music NUT.  Carly Simon, Gerry Rafferty, England Dan and John Ford Coley... America, Bread, James Taylor and Helen Reddy. Although I confess that I love me some disco, you can see that in my heart I'm an easy listening girl. I like carnations and books, saddle shoes and black and white movies, and I spent at least a few unhealthy prepubescent years more than slightly enamored with a young Mickey Rooney from the old Andy Hardy series.

I'm a closet dork. I've been one for as long as I can remember. I love all things retro, and my memory of popculture begins circa the invention of the atom bomb. A guy I know calles me "'55" because he swears that's the year I was born. He's 5 years older than me and has to call his grandmother to figure out what I'm talking about. I own sweater clips for goodness' sake, and it's easier (and more interesting) for me to talk to a 70-year-old woman about gardening than it is to talk about fashion with an age-appropriate peer. Maybe part of my premature senior citizenship is from living with my grandparents.

In 1977 I pestered Grampa until he gassed up the white Thunderbird (with the trendy red naugahyde interior, baby) and zoomed down the street to the theater in the old Kmart shopping center in Nashville, Tennessee. Pete's Dragon had just come out, and I was delighted. It was an actual kids' flick, and I could go to watch Mickey Rooney and Helen Reddy "legitimately". My eyes were glued to the screen, and when the lights came up I knew that someday I would be a movie star so I too could get paid for playing dress-up and dancing on exploding beer barrels just like Reddy.

On the way home her voice came on the radio singing "You and Me Against the World". I was only six-years-old, but even then it choked me up. In case you missed it, it's the quintessential single mother anthem of the universe. The song most noted by feminists in the 70's had nothing to do with motherhood however, and was called "I Am Woman". It was also pretty catchy and didn't squirm around in your guts like "You and Me..." did. At the time, I was still wearing days-of-the-week underwear and had quite a penchant for Saturday morning Sid and Marty Krofft, but I knew what I liked, and I idolized Helen Reddy. "Delta Dawn" was my favorite. (What was that flower she had on?) That song came on the radio and no one was allowed to risk the loss of even one note by so much as breathing. (Truth be told, I kinda felt the same way about Rhinestone Cowboy, but that's a closely guarded secret). Oh to be a kid again and not the adult who grew up and was horrified to discover how proud Helen Reddy is of the fact that I was able to legally kill my child and also ruin my life.

Yep, in addition to having a gorgeous face and a set of golden pipes she also supports killing innocent children in the name of "choice". It makes me shudder. Needless to say, when a Reddy song comes on I hear it in a whole new way. See if you don't feel the same...

Here are a few lyrics Reddy and company sing in Pete's Dragon's "There's Room For Everyone":

"There's room for everyone in this world
if everyone makes some room
won't you move over and share this world
everyone make some room..."

"From an ant to a bird
to a buffalo herd
let them walk and fly and roam
step aside
LET THEM LIVE
it's simple to give
like us they just need a home"

"Just think how far out the ocean goes
The whirling wind blows
shore to shore
door to door
Think of the valleys and mountaintops
The earth never stops
so deep
so high
there's miles of sky
we all have a part of the pie"

"There's room for everyone in this world
Will everyone make some room
Love given freely can spare this world
Let friendly feelings bloom
Just give an inch, give a yard, never flinch
When the time comes to offer a hand
So let's all make sure
We give everyone somewhere to stand
Just the way God planned it
Just the way God planned it."

If that doesn't just beat everything, check out a few lines from "I Am Woman":

"I am woman watch me grow...
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand"

(Wait, did she just call herself an "embryo" in an argument to be recognized as an equal person under the law???) Not only did a seemingly very confused Reddy write the single mother anthem and the feminist anthem, apparently she has also written the abortion-related post traumatic stress disorder anthem (also known as "post abortion syndrome"). Read a few lyrics (or the whole song) from "Leave Me Alone":

"Big ole ruby red dress, everybody laughs
Say she's got no future and never made no past
Something hurt that ruby, something she can't bear
Ya look at her real close now, you see a little tear
When she says now

LEAVE ME ALONE (repeat over and over)

Some folks say some farm boy up from Tennessee
Taught it all to Ruby, then just let her be
Her daddy tried to hide it, tried to keep things cool
But something happened to Ruby, she broke down to a fool"

I throw my hands up. I simply don't understand Reddy's support of abortion. I just sit here, shake my head, and feel betrayed (and stupid for never noticing the contradictions before). If she lost a child in a second trimester abortion because no one would help her any other way... well I can't help but wonder if she'd be "singing a different tune".

If I can stand the frustration, I think for the next couple of blogs I'm going to talk about the obliviousness of famous people whose ties to abortion are particularly baffling due to the fact that the rejection of abortion in a crisis pregnancy either saved their own lives or filled their hearts with unending love. The subject is the stuff ulcers are made of.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:15 PM # ::
...

A couple of years ago I got the call: "They're on sale NOW. Go get yours before anything happens."

I jumped in the car and rushed down to the tag office where I bought 3 Choose Life tags. I talked to the office's head honcho and asked him what the chances were that opposing forces would be able to get an injunction and my tags. He said, "Once these things are on cars, I'd say the chances are pretty much nil."

But abortion supporting groups (including the National Organization for Women a.k.a. N.O.W.) sought to shut these tags down and have them all recalled. I dared anyone to tell me what I could or could not display on my car.

I'm a butt, so I immediately snail-mailed the NOW a picture of the backs of my three cars all lined up in the driveway with shimmering yellow Choose Life tags. On the front was the bold caption: "How ya like me N.O.W.?" I also emailed them and said, "Hey, I'm a woman and I want this tag on my car. Why are you trying to take away my choice?" Surprisingly they wrote back: "We support your right to go out and get a bumper sticker saying whatever you want it to say." I wrote back: "You say it's OK for me to sport a bumper sticker but not a license plate. Since when do you get to decide HOW I am allowed to convey a message on my own vehicle? I have a new car. I don't want a tacky bumper sticker plastered on the back of it." The NOW representative wrote back: "I can't argue with that."

But argue they did, under the representation of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. At one point they claimed that the phrase "Choose Life" was a Biblical quote, and for the state to authorize a plate with a Biblical quote was a violation of the separation of church and state. Gimme a break. It's two words. You could take "in the" out of the Bible too, but that doesn't make it a Biblical phrase. When the argument didn't work, they tried something else.

The next phase was to accuse the state of violating the First Amendment (freedom of speech). This was even more ridiculous than the first argument. The abortion advocates said that because only one side of the debate was represented by a specialty tag, the state was only supporting one message. This, as the argument went, somehow prevented abortion supporters from being heard. But here's the kicker: abortion advocates never even tried to get their own "Choose Choice" tag! (Or perhaps they tried and didn't have enough public support to get the thing off the ground. Most people are kind of wishy washy about abortion. Of the ones who support it, many feel it's just this hushed necessary evil that they'd rather personally forget about, but it's not something they're going to go out and have a parade-or a special tag-over.)

In addition to demanding that the tag violated freedom of speech, abortion groups also sought to receive funds generated from the sale of the tag. "I hate the tag, but give me the money it makes." Time and time again, their case against the tag has been rejected, but they keep appealing and guess who has to keep paying for all the lawsuits? The state of Florida. And you can guess where that money comes from.

Up, up, up the argument went, all the way to the Federal Appeals Court in "Hotlanta" (Atlanta, GA), but the 11th Circuit rejected the abortion supporters' arguments. It also schooled the abortion supporters on the First Amendment by basically saying states only have to protect the speech of those who wish to speak. They also threw in a lovely little zinger that makes me snicker every time I read it:

"The First Amendment protects the right to speak; it does not give Appellants the right to stop others with opposing viewpoints from speaking."

Leave it to abortion supporters to use freedom of speech to try and imprison speech. None of us should be surprised. When you're getting away with murder every other day of the week, pushing the envelope of reason is just par for the course.

Way to go, Russ! Keep up the good work you do for women and families!

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:09 AM # ::
...

I just want to extend some thoughts from yesterday's post on the inability to heal in this life. When I say the thing about Jesus... I know He has the power to heal us, the power to do anything.  BUT He had the power to heal me of my illness and save my child's life, and He didn't choose to do that.  So I know from personal experience that wanting God to do something has no ultimate bearing on what He will or will not do. 

After working in a funeral home for a few years, I saw grieving mothers that would tear your heart out.  Some of them were Christians.  I think that actually complicated the death for them in a way that secular moms didn't have to deal with.  There wasn't the same sense of betrayal in those subscribing to chaos.  Of course, the secular folks had no Author to lean on and no hope for reunion in the future.  If I'm wrong, may God correct me, but I think that, in this life, merely wanting Jesus to heal you isn't going to do the trick.  I suspect a lot of women have already experienced a variation of "healing" simply because they convinced themselves that abortion was no big deal. 

I have a friend who lost three children in abortions. When she first told me, I asked her how she was coping. She was confused by the question. It had been years, and her attitude seemed to be: "What's there to cope with?" I have to admit, I was kind of disturbed/alienated, but I chalked our difference of emotion and perception to the difference in our pregnancy situations. Later she couldn't say if she personally regretted losing the children, but she wanted to tell her story at the Silent No More expose because of her religious conviction. When someone there handed her a rose she immediately dissolved into desperate tears and muttered to me in an unexpected panic, "I haven't dealt with it, I haven't dealt with it. I never have!" All these years she just stuffed it.

Now this is where I'm going to really anger some of my own people... but if some women can convince themselves that the most monumental deal in their entire lives was no big deal at all, then what is to stop someone from doing the same thing with Jesus?  I mean, He's JESUS, yes.  But is it logical to expect that Jesus work to heal every mother's heart of a child lost to abortion when He doesn't work that way with anything else on earth? On this plane, is there some sort of 100% malady-healing rate that I don't know about?  Or in terms of Jesus, is there a higher rate of post-abortion healing than there is cancer healing?  Is healing moms of aborted children His exceptional cause? I mean, it just doesn't make sense. 

The reader may not agree, but I think a lot of people actually use Christ as they use any other coping mechanism.  This doesn't mean that I don't believe in Christ, because I absolutely do.  This doesn't mean that I believe Christ isn't omnipotent, because He absolutely is.  It doesn't even mean that I don't believe that some can experience miraculous healing from God, because they do.  What I contend is that some people don't heal from a broken heart caused by the gruesome death of someone they love. 

When Gramma and Grampa (see: Mom and Dad) were dying of cancer one right after the other, I never asked for their healing and they both croaked like a couple of gigged frogs.  I sometimes wondered if I had not asked and therefore not received. So when I was pregnant, I was a human "rosary".  I'm not Catholic. I only mean to say that I prayed endlessly for hours a day for months.  My prayers were desperate; my soul cried out in anguish. My pleas of desperation, in a way, remind me of my prayers today.  But guess what. He didn't save my child or fix my pathetic body then, and He is not doing it now.  I am not healed of the physical impairment that happened as a result of the abortion, anymore than I am healed of the emotional result: a heart that breaks for a child who was slaughtered like a barnyard animal. I still have the disease that was NOT the result of any choice I made. My body is defective. My heart is working just fine.

Although I don't subscribe to Nye's fetal pain transference theory, he is right about what could very potentially be a nascent child's experience during abortion.  Like many of the surviving relatives of the 9/11 victims, I haven't neglected to wonder what the final moments of my loved one's life entailed.  It is agonizing. What's so confusing? Do the math: dead, murdered baby=brokenhearted mom.

I don't ache because I think I should; the ache is naturally, unconsciously present. It doesn't go away for wanting it to. God has instilled the species with the nature to continue.  Acting against that nature by destroying our young naturally results in a deep conflict. 

If I cut off my hand, the skin will eventually scar and grow over the stump, but I will never have a hand again.  I will not be able to undertake the activities that absolutely require two hands no matter how crafty I get at using my feet or how much I want to (or how much faith I have in God).  Some things are a done deal. If God had wanted it to be otherwise, humans would regenerate appendages like seastars; little babies would come crawling out of bell jars. They don't.

So while I deeply believe that Jesus can comfort us and even heals some of us, on this earth, He doesn't remove the consequences of being human or the aftermath of the choices we make.  Let me break it down Barney style for those who still insist I am rejecting Christ:

The consequence of being human is that at some point my body may get sick.  The consequence of aborting a child I value is the death of a child I value.  The consequence of the death of a child I value is grief over the child's experience and my own experience of the rest of my life without the child.  That hurts. That is the reality, and on this earth, God has not taken my consequences away.

A plea to the group of people I sincerely love and most identify with: "pro-lifers"...
Pray for my living child's immunity from the experience of being raised by the grieving mother of his aborted sibling. Pray for my comfort if you must. But stop demanding that I heal. Stop invalidating my relationship with Christ if I don't respond in an expected way. Stop trying to be comfortable at my expense. Just throw your arm around me and let the way abortion took my child suck as badly as it does. Never lend any credibility to the myth that abortion isn't as massively negative as it really is "because God forgives and makes everything all better." If that's the way it worked down here, there would be no SICLE Cell.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:54 AM # ::
...

When I was pregnant with Tennessee every conscious moment was physically unbearable. There were fleeting moments of lying very still, breathing thinly, and thinking "I can do this." But naturally the vomit would come roaring out for the 6th or so 15-minute puke of the day and I would only feel worse afterwards. I begged for sleep, for death, for an end, any end as long as the suffering would cease.

Emotionally I can still relate as I'm yet in something of a crisis 6 years later. Every day I wake up missing a child who should be here. Abortion is my morning cup of coffee, and flashback suppression is my sugar lump. Another day... the battle of "living with it".

I must confess I don't believe in "post-abortion healing". I know every good "pro-lifer" just loves the idea, and my non-conformist behavior sparks the complete ire of the group I most identify with. I can't help it.

My husband and I expected a baby just like every other happy married couple who feels they have won the lottery by getting pregnant without even trying. We were over the moon when we found out. We held a dinner party for the family. Everyone was ecstatic. The pregnancy went horribly wrong.

Severe debilitating illness and medical neglect literally beat the life out of me. My husband and I took a 15-week-old child we loved to an abortion clinic and had our child vivesected and disposed of like garbage. The biology of HG is such that the instant the child was removed I was physically healed. I was no longer preoccupied with a shockingly brutal illness, and I was able to return my focus to my child. But oopsie, I had left him/her in a twisted wet mess at the bottom of an abortionist's bell jar. How, for the love of God, HOW does anyone heal from that?

I know a woman who lost a 16-year-old son the summer before I lost my child. He stopped at a stop sign and some kids shot him to death in exchange for a joyride in his truck. No one ever pestered this woman to "heal". No one ever suggested that if Jesus wasn't doing it for her she was rejecting His sacrifice. Everyone understood that she was a mother who had lost a child in a very disturbing manner. If she had to flip out a little, so be it; people indulged her. They didn't push her into their little mold and try to force her to be what they wanted her to be: all better. I'll be the first to admit that her grief was not trouble-free.

Perhaps people didn't really understand. Perhaps they had their own time table for what they believed was an appropriate, overt mourning period, but no one ever suggested that her heart would or even should heal. It was broken because her child was gone. No one argued. They could just imagine the faint outline of the reality of such a loss: for the rest of her life she would have to do without her son's smile, his voice... she would never know what kind of man he would have been or what kind of father. She would never attend his wedding or the birthdays of his children. For these two, time ceased to pass. Futures were gone. This was heavy. This was what no one wants. And no one ever deigned to suggest that believing in Jesus would, in this life, heal such a profound and agonizing loss.

I realize the SICLE is different in that it is asked for. I suppose this is why people feel it is my duty to heal from my child's sanguine death. I've done nearly everything I can to please the concerned masses (and entertain myself). I started seeing a shrink when my "pro-choice" peers suggested there was something wrong with me because "abortion only makes you feel better". I started taking medication when my husband said he couldn't take my emotional state anymore. I started going through "post-abortion" counseling programs when the "pro-lifers" suggested God would make it all better if I would just trust in Him and "give" my situation to Him. I did the programs, I even hoped, but I knew better.

God doesn't heal you just because you're hurting and you ask Him to. He's got His own plans. Two dead parents and 2 dead children in my 20's taught me that He does what He wants to do, when He wants to do it, how He wants to do it, and you'd better just buck up. Rest assured, I know He forgives me and He helps me find the strength to deal with my choice to slay my child. I know He loves me and is my ally in the daily battle of pressing on. But living with a square stone that rolls around so long and so violently in your heart that it eventually wears its edges away is not really my idea of healing, and that's what this is, you know... crying until the tears refuse to fall, screaming until the vocal chords refuse to sound, beating your fist until your hand is worn away, feeling until you can't feel anymore, living with it... losing Tennessee.

"Healing"? No. Destroying my child in a second trimester abortion (the day after I felt him/her move for the first time) was the start of an emotional cancer that will eat at me for the rest of my life. It's just the nature of the beast. It's part of a contract I signed in blood and paid for with the most precious gift there is: life.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:55 PM # ::
...

I don't like the way the media is reporting the recent legislation efforts regarding the Partial Birth Abortion (PBA) Ban. I've blogged about media bias, and it's understood that the majority of the media supports abortion, but it still never ceases to really gripe me when I'm faced with the wildly biased news reports. It really burns me up. The first one I read (on AOL) this morning steamed me, but I wasn't going to blog about it. The second article, on MSNBC.com, was more of the same, and now I'm frustrated enough to comment.

The lead-in on the second news blurb says "Abortion foes are poised to pass a ban on PBA." The article is entitled "Chipping Away At Roe" and the term "PBA" is described as a "politically potent catchphrase". This piece, like the first one I read, seems to be less about PBA and more about anti-abortion advocates inventing a name for what abortionists describe as a "D&X".

No one knows what a D&X is any more than they know what RU486 is, but mention "PBA" or "the abortion pill" and that's something people can visualize and recall. Abortion advocates know this, and that is why they have invented the term "abortion pill" to describe RU486. They call it the "abortion pill" because it's is a pill that aborts a baby. To my knowledge, no one in the media has criticized the abortion movement for coming up with the layman's term. But flip the coin; describe an abortion in which a baby is partially born as a "partial birth abortion" and you're going to be criticized for making things up with the sole purpose of antagonizing everyone with your politically inflammatory propaganda. It seems that inventing accurate, though technically unrecognized, terminology is A-OK as long as you are using the terms to support and sell abortion. GIVE ME A BREAK!

Debra Rosenberg, author of the second offensive article, says there were "only" 2,200 children destroyed in the PBA method in the year 2000 and suggests that abortion opponents are lying (or "having credibility problems") when they claim that the procedure has been used for frivolous reasons up until the final weeks of pregnancy. She doesn't tell the reader about the abortionist who uses PBA up until the 40th week of pregnancy and admits to performing 9 PBAs due to fetal cleft lip ("hairlip"). Instead she notes that "41 states have laws restricting later abortions to cases where the woman's health or life is at stake". She doesn't mention that a "health" exception can be: "I'm breaking up with my boyfriend and having his baby would cause me emotional pain at this point." She makes the point that "[PBA] is often used on healthy women with healthy fetuses from 18-24 weeks."

Rosenberg was particularly biased when she talked about the Ohio Right To Life lobbyist who moved lawmakers to tears with a description of the PBA procedure. Instead of exploring the reason some lawmakers were reduced to tears by a description of a certain type of abortion, she focuses on the lobbyist. Rosenberg insists, "She knew she had a 'hot issue'." (Time and again it is clear that the focus of the abortion advocate isn't on women, children and families or humanity at all; instead the focus is on one-upping the opponent and winning the argument.)

Later Rosenberg admits that the issue was "hot" enough that "even abortion supporters signed on." Yet let me remind you of the article's lead in: "Abortion foes are poised to pass a ban on partial-birth abortion." To you and I the bias is obvious and tiresome. To a different (and vast) population it's yet another accepted vilification of those pesky "pro-lifers" who just want to inflame everything and refuse to mind their own [expletive] business! The life advocate doesn't like to acknowledge how unbelievably effective the media has been in its anti-anti-abortion campaign, but their endeavors have been devastating.

By exploiting a few serious nutbags, they've effectively painted those who oppose abortion as a bunch of raving lunatics whose thoughts, ideas and informative efforts are not to be entertained. Making those who are anti-abortion "off limits" helps to ensure that the reality of abortion will not be exposed. Before the facts unfold they nip truth in the bud. In addition to reducing the population, "pro-choice" media bias limits positive options for women and therefore actually chips away at a woman's choice.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 6:28 PM # ::
...

I don't want to sit and spill my guts today, so I'm going to do the lazy thing and post a speech I wrote for an anti-abortion event a year or two ago. I sent a copy of it to the jail that housed the abortionist who killed my child, but predictably, I never heard back from him. And of course he went right back to victimizing women, children and families just as soon as his fat little sausage fingers were released and could freely grasp a sharp curette again.

If you've been punishing yourself by following along with this blog, you will recognize a lot of the details. There is a pinch of clarification here and there, so it might be worth the read.

"Like so many in today's society, I knew my baby was a human being, but I still went through with the abortion. Such revalation may seem shocking to many who oppose abortion, but let me tell you how I came to commit such a rueful act.

I suffer from a severe form of a rare pregnancy-related disease called hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). This is not morning sickness. It is like being allergic to your baby. The symptoms are akin to going through chemotherapy while simultaneously suffering from food poisoning (24 hours a day)on an endlessly rocking boat for months. When medically neglected, it's no surprise that some women die. It should never get to that point, but sorrowfully, it continues to happen because some physicians refuse to properly care for their female patients.

When I was first diagnosed, I was already in a physical crisis. My husband and I knew nothing about the disease, and it was difficult to be an advocate for myself and our welcomed child. My doctor, who, unbeknownst to me, was having a mental breakdown at the time, did not give me needed information, accurate information or apply much merit to the amount of suffering my disease inflicted. She allowed me to lose over 14% of my total body weight without any intervention other than medication that I was allergic to. She and the other female doctors in her practice did not put me in the hospital or provide the treatments that were so necessary to manage the utterly debilitating symptoms of HG. At the time, I was led to believe that there were no treatments available that would help me. By the fourth month of my pregnancy I was jaundiced (from liver dysfunction), malnourished and severely dehydrated. I was so physically depleted that I began to have mild hallucinations, which I found very disturbing. I begged to be put in the hospital for at least 48 hours but was told by one of my doctors, "This is not a hotel." I threatened that she was leaving me no choice but to abort the child that I loved and wanted; I thought that would elicit some action. She wanted to know two things: who would perform the abortion and when could I come in for my post-abortion exam. I felt defeated.

I went to the emergency room demanding to be admitted. They put me in room 4, and a psychiatric nurse followed. I explained to her that I was so sick that I was ready to abort a baby that I loved and wanted if I didn't get some help. Her response was to force me to admit myself to a psychiatric hospital down the street. I knew the place; it's a lock-in mental facility that houses the people police find ranting naked on the streets at night. She told me if I didn't go, she'd have the police take me against my will. Though my husband and I were terrified, we went but not before a passing physician, shocked by my appearance, prescribed a quick IV for the "obviously dehydrated girl in room 4".

At the mental facility, the intake person took one look at my yellow body, gaunt expression, bloody, vomit splattered pajamas and inability to walk with a normal gait and told me I needed to be admitted to a medical hospital because I was sick, not crazy. When he realized we had just come from there, he told me that perhaps I should take care of myself and that my current physical condition might be my baby's way of saying s/he didn't really want to be born. I didn't agree with his personal philosophy, but I couldn't argue about a solution anymore. I couldn't stand the suffering any longer, my husband was scared I was going to die, and no one would help us. The mental facility was the last straw. Our faith died that day, and our child would soon follow.

Over the years I have had countless occasions to reflect on the sorrowful January night that we lost our first, anticipated child in a second trimester abortion. When I am not jaundiced and dehydrated to the point of hallucination, it is hard to fathom how I could have arrived at such a conclusion. There were positive solutions that I could have employed, but for the life in me, I couldn't see them at the time. Why was my personal life-ethic not stronger? I take full responsibility for my actions that night, but I have come up with some troubling truths about myself and who I was prior to the event. The thing that makes these revelations so troubling is not merely that they involve me but that they apply to so many in our society today.

Up until the point of my own ordeal, I had been "pro-choice" and staunchly so. I agreed with the popular, flawed logic that abortion was never something I would personally be involved in, but it was fine if other people wanted to stoop to such a level. I attended rallies that promoted abortion, donned a clever sounding abortion supporting bumper sticker on my car, and successfully ducked the "disgusting" Center for Bio-Ethical Reform's GAP project at Florida State University. (How often I wish I had not avoided the display.) The shocker is, I did know that gestating children were living human beings. (Why do you think I avoided the display?)

I knew that gestating children were real and very precious, otherwise I would not have made the delineation that abortion was personally unacceptable. I knew that it was not in my heart, that I was not capable of such a thing and, as an elementary school teacher, I knew I loved children and would never want harm to come to them. But the fact remains, I supported abortion. I am still perplexed that I could be so insensitive and vain, because it is out of character for me. If you had asked me if it were acceptable for a neighbor to choose to break her toddler's arm to alleviate the stress of a crisis, of course I would have said no and been shocked and offended at the mention of such a ridiculous scenario. But ask me about abortion and I would have uttered a continuous stream of abortion advocating rhetoric about "choice" and "rights" and the blood-curdling devolution of the coat hanger abortion. All of it obscenely flawed, all of it pathetically unresearched, all of it blindly accepted hook, line and sinker. Hear me when I reveal that ultimately, I knew what abortion did to children but somehow didn't care. It is so unlike me, so not who I thought I was. How could I ever have advocated something as unjust and cruel as abortion? How can those who identify themselves as Christians, and who are otherwise concerned and loving people, support such malice and victimization?

In high school we learned about slavery. Our history texts described unbelievable events in which people with dark skin were not regarded as people at all but as property to be bought and sold and abused as a slave owner determined. I remember absolutely balking at the idea that any human being could have before them the evidence of arms, legs and crying eyes and yet determine the person a property with no individual rights. For perpetuating such a unethical, hateful idea as slavery, I judged the people of a bygone era with an ease unsurpassed. Worm-eaten hearts beat in the chests of those archaic devils, and I believed that deep down inside they knew just exactly what they were doing but ignored their consciences for the sake of political correctness and convenience. After all, dissenters were alienated, and a plantation full of cheap labor could profit a slave owner with the kind of financial life he wanted for himself and his family or even deliver him from a crisis. Even in the 11th grade, I had enough moral sense to recognize malevolence when I was exposed to it, yet all the while I suffered the same type of clueless, crippled ethic. And my abortion advocating beliefs didn't disenfranchise just anyone, no: my beliefs targeted little children. (God help me, my virgin vote was cast for Clinton.) Words cannot express how horrified I am by my previous internal composition. To say that my experience has been humbling is a gross understatement.

Now that I am on the other side, I can see how senseless I was and how unintentionally but truly destructive. It's no consolation, but I thought I was helping people. In reality, I was killing them with my "kindness". This is particularly hard to swallow, because I have always imagined that I was not gullible. I have also always deemed myself innocuous and tender. But something was insidious enough to burrow its way under the skin of my consciousness and into my heart. It had to be a mixture of my own fallibility and the politically correct "choice" propaganda that is spoon-fed to those of us born around the time of the legalization of abortion (and after). For what it's worth, I am deeply ashamed of myself and terribly sorry for the part I played in so many deaths including the death of my own child. It is certainly fitting that it happened to me, this unfathomable loss. But it is not fitting that it happened to my child who had no voice or legal right to choose his or her own destiny. It is beyond my capability to resolve. It is something I will simply have to find a way to live with.

I submit that abortion is the most important issue of our time. I can only hope that one day a young girl in the 11th grade reads about, and judges with an ease unsurpassed, the barbaric people of a bygone era... people like me who somehow convinced themselves that it was OK to take the life of a growing human child."

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 2:51 PM # ::
...

(This blog entry has been footnoted as a hyperlink here by miffed abortion supporter Joyce Arthur, who claims that "pro-abortion" violence is a myth. You can read quite an interesting exchange between she and I at the blog entry here. I'm sure you will find her feminist compassion simply enthralling. Make certain you have a hanky handy as her emotional charity is sure to bring a tear to your eye.)

...

This is the last in a series of three exposes on the criminal activities of those who support and/or perform abortion. This information is taken practically verbatim from the Abortion Crime Report. Today's entry has mostly to do with the safety of abortion. You will not have to strain to notice the hypocracy of the law in many instances. This is a long one but as interesting as everything else the Crime Report has to say. So without further adieu, on to extolling the "virtues" of a woman's right to choose a "safe" and legal abortion...

April 1973 - Abortionist Xavier Hall Ramirez initiated a third-trimester saline abortion at Greater Bakersfield Hospital. The patient expelled a living 4.5 pound child. Nurses called Ramirez who ordered them to discontinue oxygen to the baby, but another doctor countermanded this order and the infant survived to be adopted. Abortionist Ramirez was indicted for solicitation to commit murder.

1989 - Abortionist Milos Klvana was sentenced to 53 years in prison after being found guilty of the mass murder of eight newborn babies and the still birth of another infant.

Harvey Karman is the developer of the menstrual extraction technique. His three-page police record includes an arrest for murder in the death of an abortion client and a prison term for illegal abortion and grand theft. One of his other abortion arrests was in connection with a West Los Angeles clinic where he was associated with abortionist John Gwynne. Gwynne has since been convicted of the murder of his nineteen-year-old girlfriend.

1994 - Abortionist Alicia Ruiz Hanna was convicted of second-degree murder after Angela Sanchez, a 27-year-old mother of four, died at Hanna's Santa Ana abortion facility. Hanna owned and operated the abortion business under the license of another abortionist (an actual physician) who rarely visited the two-room facility. Prosecuters asserted that Hanna posed as a doctor, performing up to 20 abortions with no doctor present. Sanchez suffered seizures after Hanna injected her with an unknown drug; Hanna later prevented a receptionist from calling 911. Sanchez had told family members only that she was getting a checkup. Two of her children sat in the waiting room for hours after she died. Later, they saw Hanna trying to stuff their mother's body into the trunk of a car in order to dump her body across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. Hanna told them that Angela had just collapsed after being attacked by an unidentified man who had run away, but the medical examiner determined that Angela had been dead for at least 6 hours at that point. Apparently legal abortion didn't stop illegal abortion.

Abortionist Bruce Steir was charged with murder after state regulators determined that he punctured Ms. Hamptlon's uterus during an abortion and then ignored the danger he knew he'd created. He knew he'd perforated the uterus because he pulled out bowel. Instead of rushing her to the emergency room, he sent her home with her mother where she died leaving behind a three-year-old son. Steir was already on medical probation at the time of the death because of his previous botched abortions which included uterine perforations. One of the incidents involved a case where surgeons had to remove a fetal skull found protruding through a huge tear in a patient's uterus. Showing their true colors, abortion supporters raised money for Steir's defense on the Internet, encouraged their friends to put pressure on elected officials and the California Medical Board, and urged the prosecutor to drop the charges. NOW, NARAL, NAF, and Refuse and Resist were involved in arguing against filing any charges against Steir at all. Naturally they blamed the murder charge on pro-lifers, claiming the charges were "trumped-up" and brought for "political" reasons. And despite Steir's own admission, the groups claimed that the complications he caused during the abortion were "undetected". The Hamptlon family's attorney said, "I don't understand why the pro-choice people want to rally around the cause of a shoddy physician. If I were in their shoes I would do as much as possible to distance myself from the likes of Steir... rather than having him be the poster boy for my cause."

In another case of legal abortion "preventing the deaths of women", Alfred E. Smith was found guilty of second-degre murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend Denna Moody. Smith killed Moody in April 1997 because she refused to abort their gestating child. The jury heard evidence that Moody had been pregnant by Smith before and that he had pressured her to abort the baby. This time she absolutely refused, and her charred body was found in her burned car near a Van Nuys Amtrak station the next morning. "What, me guilty?"

March 2, 1977 - Abortionist William Waddill, Jr. performed a third-trimester saline abortion and delivered a live, viable baby girl whom he then strangled to death. This was the second infanticide charge for Waddill.

Nurse witnesses stated that an abortionist from San Vicente Hospital, California aborted a 7-month-old child who lived. Some time later he noticed that the infant was still moving, so he drowned and poisoned the baby in a vat of formaldehyde.

Dec. 19, 1992 - Abortionist Leo Kenneally botched an abortion on Estella Gonzales at the HER abortion facility. She collapsed after leaving the building and was rushed to an emergency room for surgery to correct a lacerated uterus and intestines. Estella reported that while she was hospitalized clinic employees visited her and offered her $10,000 and later $5,000 and a Cadillac. HER's attorney called this a "humanitarian gesture". Kenneally had already been charged with negligence by the medical board in the 1986 death of Donna Heim following an abortion. The same year he performed an abortion on Liliana Cortez, who went into cardiac arrest. 40 minutes later paramedics arrived on the scene and transported her to a hospital where she died five days later. Her death was ruled a "therapeutic misadventure". Keneally's negligence resulted in several deaths and injuries and his medical license was suspended several times. However, despite finding Kenneally guilty of incompetence and negligence, the California Medical Board voted to allow him to keep his medical license because he worked in an "underserved" neighborhood.

Abortionist Steven N. Pine killed Yvonne Tanner (1984) and Belinda Ann Byrd (1987) at Inglewood Women's Hospital (abortion facility). Belinda's mother, Mattie Byrd, mourned her dead daughter Belinda in a letter to a friend: "I cry every day when I think of how horrible her death was. She was slashed by them and then she bled to death... Where is [the abortionist] now? Has he been stopped? Has anything happened to him because of what he did to my Belinda? ... People tell me nothing has happened, that nothing ever happens to white abortionists who leave young black women dead." Belinda Byrd was Pine's 74th abortion of the day. Several other women reported malpractice and injury at Pine's abortion facility. Among them are: Sandra Applegate, Vicky Rabourn, Betty Matthews, Tracy M. Medley, Susan Lee Minyo, Shanti Friend, Leslie M. Thompson, Kathryn Ann Hummell, Juana Nunez, Debra Weaver and Mary Younal. In 1988 the health authorities closed down the facility for several health code violations including: the use of operating tables "soiled by the fresh blood of previous patients", abortionists signing discharge orders for patients they hadn't examined, failure to monitor patients' vital signs, falsification of and failure to complete medical records, administering a fixed amount of anesthesia to patients of all weights, rushing patients through recovery, and killing at least 5 women. The judge said: "These are obviously life-threatening infractions, not technical violations. Obviously people's lives are at risk." State Deputy Attorney complained that the "hospital" had made "empty promises" in the past to correct violations: "They correct the violations on paper, but when we walk out the door they go back to their [dangerous] practices." 3 days later the abortion facility found their way around the law and reopened as the West Coast Women's Medical Group. The most outspoken critic of the investigation of the health care violations at the facility was a female state senator (Diane Watson) who received two very large campaign contributions from the facility. Big shock there.

Abortionist Kenneth L. Wright was a defendant in lawsuits re: the abortion deaths of 17-year-old Laniece Dorsey and Josephina Garcia. He was also a defendant in at least nine other malpractice suits.

Joyce Ortenzio developed an infection and died on June 8, 1988 after a laminaria insertion by abortionist Marmet, who had over a dozen other malpractice suits lodged against him.

Abortionist Lawson A. Akpulonu had his medical license suspended after charges were filed by former patients that he raped them after performing abortions on them.

Abortionist Lawrence Reich was charged with 28 counts of battery, attempted battery, sexual misconduct, prescribing drugs without a license, coercion and impersonating a doctor. Reich sexually assaulted two of his abortion patients, forcing them to have oral sex with him. Another patient claimed that he raped her and botched her abortion. Several court testimonies claimed that Reich sexually abused at least six of his patients and botched operations on at least four others.

Sept. 1993 - abortion proponent and lawyer David Lusskin tried to force his girlfriend Kim Mascola to abort their twins. She refused, so he hired a hit man to use a baseball bat to bash her in the stomach to make sure the babies were dead before bludgeoning her to death as well.

Jan. 1989 - Abortionist Ivan C. Namihas impregnated one of his patients and performed an after-hours abortion on her without adequate equipment or personnel. He also repeatedly raped his half-sister over a period of six years and carried out several D&C procedures on her himself. Over 100 patients and former patients reported allegations of medical misconduct or sexual abuse at the hands of Namihas. These included raping a patient with a foreign object. The rest of the report on Namihas is so long and so sexually explicit and vulgar that I simply refuse to print it. If you want to read the obscene details you will have to get the Abortion Crime Report.

Abortionist Lawrence Alozie Akpulonu was arrested for committing perjury on government documents, given probation for brandishing a loaded handgun at pro-lifers and threatening their lives, accused of raping a patient, etc.

Jan. 7, 1980 - Abortionist Christopher Dotson took it upon himself to abort 17-year-old Andrea Monique Ball's child without even telling her she was pregnant. He was also charged in 1976 with paying development commissioners $40,000 to vote in favor of the city of Compton purchasing a property from Compton Penny Venture for $701,408 HUD money.

Abortionist Gordon Goei had performed abortions for years in facilities throughout the Southern California region before authorities were called to a Northridge hospital where a 42-year-old woman was bleeding profusely after Goei had aborted her child. They investigated the facility and found her 26-week-old dead child in a trash bag. Goei was practicing despite a suspended license and was charged with performing an illegal abortion.

Abortionist Edward Allred attempted to bury a woman who died after an abortion without first turning the body over to the county coroner.

1992 - Joseph Durante was put on probation for failing to perform a pelvic exam or an ultrasound to determine the age of a gestating child before proceeding with the abortion. The 17-year-old patient told Durante the pregnancy was 8-12 weeks along, but the baby was actually 6.5 months old.

Dec. 8, 1994 - Abortionist Suresh Gandotra killed Magdalena Orteg Rodrigues in a botched abortion at the El Norte Clinica Medica. Medical authorities came under fire in the case because a file indicated that Gandotra had so seriously injured a woman in an abortion 4 years earlier that an examining physician described her anatomy as "difficult to identify".

Aug. 26, 1987 - Abortionist Nicholas Braemer botched an abortion when, while aborting a viable baby, he managed only to chop off one of the baby's arms. The mother miscarried the dead child the next day and could see that one arm was missing.

Abortionist Philip Rand had a number of malpractice lawsuits filed against him. In one of the suits by 17-year-old Shirley Bellamy, the abortionist had refused to treat her for bleeding during her pregnancy. Rand "yelled and screamed" that she was going to lose the baby anyway, so she should get out of his office; Bellamy requested treatment in a hospital to try to save her unborn baby, but Rand refused stating that he didn't run a taxi service. When Bellamy experienced a sudden gush of blood, Rand refused to allow one of his nurses to take her to a nearby hospital. She suffered premature birth and the subsequent death of daughter Sherelee Natai Allen.

Abortionist Anthony J. Lund raped a patient. The report details the sexual abuse of two other patients.

And on and on and on.

We will never know how "safe" legal abortion is, because reporting isn't required and because reports, when made, are by those performing the abortions. Obviously, it would be foolish to expect any sort of honesty from this unethical lot. Also to consider are the delayed risks of abortion, such as breast cancer, etc. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that abortion is an unnecessary health risk in all cases (outside of saving the mother's life), and anyone who chooses it is playing Russian Roulette with their own life.

For a list of names of women who have been killed by "safe" and legal abortion, visit the Blackmun Wall. There are several panels of this wall. Click on the names for individual details.

Read 'em and weep.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:28 AM # ::
...

My husband used to have a bumper sticker on his car that said: "Every Abortion Takes A Human Life." I say "used to have" because someone recently took it upon him/herself to remove it. Another friend is having a hard time keeping anti-abortion bumper stickers on her car because the folks who believe a woman should have a right to do what she wants with "her body" apparently don't feel she has the right to do what she wants with her van. As for me, I bought a Choose Life tag and outfoxed them all... I thought.

Just this week an abortion supporter vandalized my car. Actually, that's not entirely true. The car itself wasn't touched... just the tag. We came out of the store and found the back bumper dripping, because someone launched their supersized coke into it. In all the years I displayed my face-slapping abortion supporting bumper sticker, I never had an incident. It's only now that I sport the most innocuous message of peace that I get trouble. I've been on both sides and I have discovered that on several occasions those who believe in abortion lack self control and have consistently broken the law by vandalizing and stealing personal property, whereas those who oppose abortion were always respectful of my rights even when they didn't agree with me in the least. It's telling.

While the media is busy inundating the public with images of a very few "violent pro-lifers", they rarely ever expose the fact that abortion supporters are holding their own in the competition for nuttiest fruitcake.

From the Abortion Crime Report (and pretty much verbatim at that):
On March 28, 1981, at the Family Planning Associates Medical Group abortion facility, four abortion supporters attacked abortion opponents who were exercising their right to assemble and protest. The abortion supporters wrenched materials away and proceeded to beat abortion opponents with their own signs.

In March of 1989 abortion supporters defaced an abortion opposing church with red paint, red coat hangers and posters accusing the church of "crimes against women".

March of '89 was a busy month for abortion supporters as three more of them were arrested after igniting an incendiary device in a church packed with pro-life activists. Police also found concussion grenades beneath the speaking platform where abortion opponents were to speak. If these had been detonated, the speakers would have been killed or gravely injured. Roughly 2,500 people were present.

A member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) rammed abortion opponent Bill Soucie's car with a Chevy Blazer and forced him into oncoming traffic. The criminal fled to Canada to avoid prosecution.

Mark Hardie, a reporter for the student newspaper at the University of California, was forced to resign and was under police protection after receiving death threats for his conservative views. One abortion supporter said on a radio show: "He's gonna be a victim. I'm waiting outside. I swear to God I'm gonna kill his family."

Abortion supporting activist Frank Mendiola was arrested for calling in phony bomb threats to abortion facilities and the homes of abortionists in order, as he said, "to have you people, the media, come down with a harder line on those people who are harassing the clinics." He even called in three bomb threats to his own house. For years Mendiola had told heartbreaking stories of how his twin sister had died of a botched illegal abortion until investigators found that he was lying and never even had a sister.

On April 18, 1992, abortion supporter Julie Schollenberger of the Clinic Defense Alliance was arrested for sexual assault against a female participant of Operation Rescue.

On July 25, 1992, at a Christian prayer vigil, abortion supporters dressed as the Virgin Mary carried a six-foot cross in the shape of a penis, beat on drums, shouted obscenities, tore pages out of Bibles, threw them into the faces of the pastors and praying crowd, and called nuns "lesbians" before wheeling out a grill and burning a stack of Bibles on it. They were charged with setting an illegal fire.

On April 14, 1990, at the Family Planning Associates abortion facility, several abortion supporters physically assaulted abortion opponents.

In March 1991, a member of ACT-UP severely bit abortion opponent Chris Keys twice.

In February 1994, an ACT-UP member repeatedly kicked Terri Palmquist at the La Mujer abortion facility.

In March 1989, an abortion supporting police officer dragged an anti-abortion demonstrator behind a wall so he could not be seen as he savagely beat the protestor who had never resisted.

On July 9, 1990 the Catholic Church in Torrance, California was sprayed with obscene graffiti. Outside the church vandals left a wooden cross festooned with used condoms and a mattress stuffed with animal intestines. Someone claiming to be a member of "Artists Against Religious Oppression" called the next day and warned the church to "stay out of politics and stop its oppression of women..."

In August 1991, abortion supporters sprayed butyric acid on a church and spray-painted it with obscene slogans that supported abortion.

Abortion supporters defaced the Sherman Oaks Church with obscene graffiti several times in 1989.

During a speech by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney, a bottle of butyric acid broke in an abortion supporter's hand. He was arrested and charged with harassment.

On June 29, 1991 two abortion supporters exposed their bare breasts to ant-abortion demonstrators while two others removed their pants.

On July 7, 1994 an abortion supporter was arrested for stalking an abortion opponent.

In June of 1993, at the Redding Feminist Women's Health Center, an abortion supporter tried to run down abortion opponents Debbi McCallister and Walt Runyon with his truck. In July of the same year an abortion supporter wrestled Ron Walters' picket sign away and beat him with it at the same facility. In August 1993 one of the facility workers threw rocks at abortion opponent Steven McCallister. On September 24, 1993 abortionist Carl Serratt and others kicked, punched and jumped on abortion opponent Richard C. Rudolph after stealing his picket sign. On December 2, 1993, an abortion supporter soaked abortion opponent Steven McCallister and his video camera with a garden hose. All of this happened at the same abortion facility.

In November 1992, abortion supporters set fire to a church dumpster next to an anti-abortion church.

In 1998 two female abortion supporters attacked a GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) picture display with knives. The previous summer the display was rammed by an abortion supporter's car.

On July 7, 1994, police arrested an abortion supporter for assaulting an abortion opponent at the Sacramento Feminist Women's Health Center.

In March of 1989 abortion supporters wearing heavy steel-toed boots attempted to kill a disabled abortion opponent by kicking him repeatedly in the head even after they had rendered him unconscious.

On February 26, 1982 abortion supporters set fire to the office of California Right to Life. Fire officials ruled that the incident was arson partly because the arsonist stole the organization's membership lists.

In 1989 abortion supporters shoved abortion opponents and sprayed them with a bottle of urine.
And on and on and on...

While the media portrayal of the abortion opponent is unfair, it's no mystery. 86% of journalists support abortion and they don't make a habit of presenting abortion advocates as the real perpetrators of violence.

However, thanks in part to the Internet, anyone who cares to do the research will be able to determine the group that has been involved in the largest infringement on individual rights and certainly the most violence.

:: ashli 10:32 AM # ::
...

Ginny Foat, a California National Organization for Women chapter president, bludgeoned a businessman to death with a tire iron and killed another man after picking him up in a bar. When caught, she gave this explanation: "A political climate of violence and degredation of women is in a test stage with me as its first victim."

New York abortionist Allan Zarkin carved his initials on the abdomen of one of his patients with a scalpel because "I thought I did such a beautiful job, I thought I should sign it".

Texas abortionist, Raymond Showery admires Adolf Hitler and became a professional wrestler named "The Chinese Bandit" to raise money on the side. While loving Hitler isn't a crime, it is bad enough to mention.

Vilis Kruze, abortionist for Kaiser Permanente in Ohio and Hawaii, was a Nazi SS officer in WWII.

Chicago abortionist Richard Ragsdale made kiddie porn featuring his own 3-year-old daughter. When caught, he blamed his prosecution on pro-lifers.

Betty Friedan, world-famous American pro-abortion "feminist" and co-founder of the NOW, was caught by customs officials at an airport with a load of sadomasochistic magazines depicting women in extreme bondage.

New York City abortionist Judith Comeau-Samuel was found guilty of more than 200 counts of medical malpractice and incompetence. She explained this by saying that her husband dominated her with voodoo.

Alabama abortionist P. Scott Ricke had sex with a patient just before aborting her child. When he was caught, he told a newspaper, "I believe that if a woman decides to have a termination it should be done safely, legally and with some dignity." (That's tellin' 'em, Ricke!)

Mississippi abortionist Milan D. Chepko, a prolific producer of child pornography, was a member of the International Diaper Pail Foundation in which members are "infantilists" who enjoy wearing diapers, defecating in them, and then smearing the defecation all over their bodies.

Boston abortionist Kenneth Edelin botched an abortion when a viable baby boy was delivered live. To correct his professional mistake, he deliberately smothered the child, was convicted of manslaughter, released on a technicality, and was rewarded by being given the post of Chairman of the Board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. (What a guy! What an organization!)

Vocal Miami "pro-choice" activist Mark Eason murdered both of his roommates with an ax. He said the killings were totally justified because the inconsiderate roommates had "complained about his sloppiness". He also stabbed his mother, an abortionist, in the neck with a steak knife.

New York abortionist Ronald Tauber admitted to exposing himself to more than 700 women and young girls before finally kidnapping and raping a six-year-old girl and spending seven years in prison for the crime. He was then welcomed back to his abortion practice with open arms by the state of New York.

800 Planned Parenthood facilities were investigated, and 728 of them protected pedophiles.

On February 14, 2001 Oklahoma abortionist John B. Hamilton strangled his wife with a neck tie and smashed her face into the tile floor in their bathroom until she died. (Happy Valentine's Day, honey!)

109 women accused Phoenix abortionist Brian Finkle of sexual abuse during abortion appointments. His own staff testified against him. He went to jail, and upon posting $203,000 bond said, "I wouldn't wish this on anybody... I was in there with... baby-killers..." Later he was arrested again and posted $650,000 in the same evening.

Florida abortionist James Scott Pendergraft was convicted of trying to extort money from Marion County officials by threatening to bankrupt the county with a lawsuit over a proposed abortion facility. The official didn't particularly want the abortion business in his area, so Pendergraft falsely accused him of threatening to bomb his abortion clnics. When in doubt, pull the "violent pro-life lunatic" card. But oopsie! The FBI was listening in on phone conversations and Pendergraft was convicted. In an unusual move, he was released (pending the outcome of his appeal) after serving roughly 6 months of his nearly 4 year sentence. And oh yes, there's that other nagging thing... In addition to accusing the opposition of phoning in bomb threats, he killed my first child.

Most of this information was taken directly from the Abortion Crime Report which California Right to Life submitted to the Governor, the Legislature and the Attorney General of California. To read more about the report click here.

I'm just gettin' warmed up.
SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 2:32 PM # ::
...

News of another botched abortion rolled off the BBC yesterday. While aborting a 20-week-old child (exactly half way through a human pregnancy, mate) the abortionist poked a hole in the mother's uterus and pulled out one of her fallopian tubes, an ovary and her ureter. He concluded with some of her bowel and only two of the child's limbs. Oopsie!

Finally the woman was rushed to the hospital where they opened her up and found that the "cavity was full of blood and floating on top was a 20-week-old fetus, largely intact apart from a missing arm and a missing leg." They were able to save the mom's life though she is now absent one kidney.

In addition to being charged for this "bad day at the office", the abortionist is also in trouble for behaving inappropriately toward two of the staff and touching the breast and buttocks of one person. Of course like every other abortionist in world history he denies any wrongdoing whatsoever. I guess when you're getting away with murder on a daily basis you figure the sky's the limit.

Tomorrow I'm going to publish selected highlights from the criminal records of abortionists. Think you can't be shocked by their endeavors? Think again.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 7:41 PM # ::
...

Someone sent me a copy of something called the Pro-Life Action News. In it I found this excerpt:

"Early this month, a woman called our St. Paul office and told us she had been to the Midwest abortion center the day before and had changed her mind. Goin in, she was conflicted about the abortion and was hesitant about taking the information from the sidewalk counselor. But she did decide to take it and she and her boyfriend were bothered by the photos of abortion. She took some of the information in with her when she went in for her ultrasound. The abortion worker took it away from her, said, 'It's all lies,' and threw it away. We include a note with our literature, encouraging the woman to look at her ultrasound. This woman did ask to see her ultrasound (it wasn't offered) and she was amazed to see even her baby's lips (she was almost 15 weeks pregnant). Before leaving the ultrasound room, she retrieved our literature from the trash. She talked to her boyfriend more and they decied to let their baby live!"

Hmmmmm... my child was exactly the same age. I wonder how life would be today if I had seen the ultrasound. Maybe the image would have shouted me out of my deep, ailing sleep and afforded me the strength to stand up and fight my horrific disease for the sake of a child I had otherwise lost sight of.

My first pregnancy was torture, but at least it had an end and was for a good cause. Now my torment is bottomless, and no matter how I struggle, my battle will not save the life of my first child. Our tragedy has helped others and I hope to help many more, but there is very little personal glory in the day to day mellay of simply living a life that used to fit easily and without pinching. I would trade every humanitarian effort, every life positively affected for the one life of my first child. Oh to have seen the ultrasound... oh to have walked the both of us away from that building and back to the fightable fight.


(actual 4D ultrasound image)

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:38 AM # ::
...

"If you are opposed to abortion don't have one." I squealed with delight upon finding it at the bottom of a stack of bumperstickers at a local feminist book store. I was 20 and it was ohhh so clever. I didn't even wait to get home before sporting it on my cherry red pickup truck. When it came to supporting abortion I was one eager beaver. And it only gets worse.

My family went to a liberal church (United Church). It was so liberal that our pastor was a lesbian. She cussed, drank, creatively interpreted the Bible, and staunchly supported abortion. As a liberal, Clinton-voting, collegiate "NOWbot", nothing could have been cooler to me. Our church was very active on the political front. It held many lesbian and gay film festivals and even a few abortion rallies.

I drove my red ragtop past a line of flickering candles held by "strange and scary" praying pro-lifers who protested one of our evening celebrations of "choice". Through the window I could still see the delicate flames that dotted the public sidewalk outside. I wondered how they could be so backwards, and their presence only fueled my rebellion against them. Many of us stood up and regurgitated novel little sound bites. I myself rose out of the seat and said, "Abortion must remain legal, because I don't ever want a daughter of mine to look at a coat hanger and think of it as anything other than something to hang her coat on." The rest of the room could barely contain their applause. (Disregard the fact that there has never in all our history been one documented case of a self-induced coat hanger abortion.)

Before the evening came to a close our pastor stood up and began to tell a story that took place in the 70's when she was in college (and still sleeping with boys). Our interest piqued, we excitedly awaited the glorious abortion-advocating denouement. Shockingly, there was no happy ending. She spoke of a child she had aborted and how she often thought of that person, wondering what her world would be like if she had allowed him/her to grow and live and be a part of her life. Her regret unfolded and formed death bed images of her lying still with no hand to hold. Those in attendance shot confused glances back and forth across the room. What could it mean?

This was no story of the triumph of "choice". What she described was not liberating and free. It was poignant and sad. We didn't want to think. We wanted sharp slogans. We were uncomfortable and put off; if she was going to bust out with an abortion story, the least she could do was end on the upbeat. Her sadness was turning us into criminals. If she had left the building and lit a candle on the sidewalk I'm not sure any of us would have been surprised at that point. But somehow she snapped out of her stupor and ended the rally with a lecture on the necessity of abortion and the glory of "choice". It was weird and contradictory but as is typical fashion for the abortion supporter, we simply chose to ignore it, chalking it up to some quirkiness or lack of sleep.

The following Sunday I highlighted the rally by providing a pro-abortion lesson for my 9 to 13-year-old Sunday School students. Two of them walked in the room thinking abortion was wrong, but I offered them the twisted compassion that had been impressed upon me, and by the time they left I had a couple of converts. Perhaps more horrific even than ruining the minds of two sweet children is the fact that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong.

I don't know what the answer is for those who are taught by people they love and respect to believe in abortion. I used to be one of them. I remember talking to pro-lifers at county fairs, not because I wanted to learn about life, but because I wanted to learn more about them and how they could be so archaic. Once one of them gave me a 12-week fetal model, and I kept it with me for the longest time not because I was intrigued by the appearance of the developing child, but because it became a hilarious fetish our college click dubbed "Pocket Fetus". Need an answer? Ask "PF". Need change for a phone call? "PF" to the rescue. In a drunken stupor I eventually left "PF" in a bar as a tip to a waitress. "PF" had been no match for any of us. (We were all, by the way, students in the elementary education program.)

One of our gang, a Catholic friend (who was in no sense of the word practicing), argued that, jokes aside, she would take ALL the babies. Just bring 'em on, because abortion was terrible and wrong. She was outnumbered though, and it never impressed anything on us other than how stubborn and primative we thought she could be at times. She was the one who told us about the Genocide Awareness Project that squatted at FSU's student center. Evidently, they displayed large pictures of mutilated babies for anyone who would look. The whole campus was talking about it. Our popular group thought the GAP folks were lunatics, and we sought out alternate routes so we would never have to see any of their pictures.

Some people can shoot fruit off your head blindfolded. We could pull it from your wombs with one sightless vote.

I reflect on the times friends or people I knew got pregnant in college. If it was someone I barely knew, I'd offer to drive her to the clinic myself. (Thank God no one ever took me up on it.) But curiously, if the person was a friend I had known for years and genuinely cared about, abortion was the last thing I wanted for her. I desperately tried to talk her out of it and then agonized when she wouldn't listen. I knew I must be contradicting myself somehow, but I didn't want to explore that. Abortion was good enough for all the uncaring faceless women of the world, but not for me, and not for anyone I cared about. What that says, what it really says about me is that I didn't care about all those other women for whom I advocated abortion. I didn't care about them or their children. Abortion was just a solution for people who, outside of my own little world of acquaintances, existed to me as much as individuals that pass by in cars on the interstate.

I don't think anything ever would have changed my mind, because to evolve would have required genuine thought, and it never occurred to me to think at all about it. It was abortion for crying out loud, the big solution. What was there to think about? Besides, it was always someone else's problem. It would never effect me, because I was smarter and nicer and made better choices. It was settled, and there was nothing anyone could say to cause me to reexamine my hollow beliefs. But one person did come and grow with me for a time, and I learned everything I needed to know without any words at all.

In every pro-lifer's secret wet dream, a resolute abortion supporter is forced to face the truth. In my case, an unbelievably debilitating disease compelled me to contradict my own will and become one of the many faceless, "nonexistent" women who slide their legs into stirrups each day in this country. In exchange for physical refuge I literally broke my child's heart. S/he was tortured and killed and sacrificed for me, because I didn't know what else to do and no one I knew would help me any other way.

My child died in a second trimester abortion. My child. There is no denying the reality of that pregnancy or that child. If s/he was real then they all are. If mine was worth protecting, then they all are. If abortion hurt me this badly, there are others. If I'm worth protecting, then they all are. The logic is simple and pure and, for me, very expensive to finally gain.

Not a day goes by that I don't remember the clever comment I made regarding coat hangers and my hypothetical "daughter of the future". I often wonder if my first child was a girl. And if she was, the irony is not lost on me. She'll never look at a coat hanger and think anything thanks to legal abortion. I guess in the end I got exactly what I asked for at that rally. And it's everything I never thought it would be.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 2:35 PM # ::
...

Everything has changed so much since I was a kid. Everything that is, except Mr. Rogers. When my son was born my reintroduction to childrens' shows began. I admit I was a bit disappointed in programming. I was kind of turned off by the commercial mentality of the cast of Barney, and the Teletubbies I just could not figure out. Sesame Street was still around, but they had newer, "hipper" characters and though my child liked it, I felt a tad alienated. I'm a creature of habit; I still contend the show hasn't been right since Mr. Hooper died.

Once while flipping through channels I came across Mr. Rogers. I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it. I was afraid Mr. Rogers would be writing hip-hop songs while Mr. McFeely worked for Federal Express. I did not want to taint my cozy childhood memory, but I'm one of those people who just has to look while driving by an accident... so I watched anyway.

To my surprise every perfect thing was the same. Mr. Rogers still changed his sweater and shoes, fed his fish, talked to a trolly, sang the same songs and demystified industrial enterprise via dear ol' "Picture-Picture". And the best part: the puppets had not been updated AT ALL. They looked just as raggedy and unevolved as they did in the 70's prompting me to pledge my eternal allegiance to the show. Come noon, it was mandatory at our house.

I was so excited about the "stagnancy" of the show that I wrote a long letter to Mr. Rogers thanking him for the familiar comfort and for still being there for me. I'm sure I sounded more like a deranged fan than a concerned mother, but I just couldn't help being so personally grateful. Mr. Rogers wrote back, and thus began a precious course of correspondence. In one letter I mentioned my son was almost two and was really beginning to take to the puppets. Of course Mr. Rogers sent him a birthday package in the mail consisting of autographed pictures of himself and the puppets, a T-shirt, a wooden Holgate Neighborhood Trolley and a lovely letter. My son and I sat down and wrote him a note of thanks (my son scribbled, I translated), and here's the absolute best part: Mr. Rogers sent us a Thank You note for the Thank You note! Needless to say, I didn't send him a Thank You note for the Thank You note for the Thank You note! I mean, it had to stop somewhere! LOL!

Oh, Mr. Rogers, you were the best!

In recent years I have wondered how he felt about abortion. You would think that being an ordained minister would clear up that mystery. Unfortunately, these days many ministers support abortion in the name of God, so being a minister isn't an official stance opposing the practice (although it should be). I checked the internet extensively and couldn't find anything. Rogers' personal opinion is pretty well confidential. I have to admit I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but since I don't have that information at my fingertips I choose to go with the messages he sends on his show. Many of his songs support the uniqueness of the individual and the sanctity of life. Here's my all-time favorite (and personal pro-life advocacy anthem):

"I'm taking care of you
taking good care of you
for once I was very little too.
Now I take care of you."

Click here for a listen.

Ah, but now I'm bawling! The loss is slowly sinking in. Mr. Rogers has been my neighbor for as long as I can remember, and I am so grateful for the recent good fortune of knowing him as my friend.

Thank you for the Thank You note, Mr. Rogers... and for everything else.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:23 AM # ::
...

I love Charlotte's Web. At the risk of showing my age, I remember how excited I was when the VCR came out for home use. I remember this, not because I was an avid buff of all things technology but because it meant I could rent Charlotte's Web on video tape! (JOY!) And rent it I did! As soon as humanly possible! And I watched it over and over again as my precious 24-hour rental drew to a close. I even took my audio tape recorder and recorded the songs off the TV because I couldn't bear to return the video without a momento. It was a grand, memorable event.

Time passed and childhood treasures like Charlotte's Web were replaced with Tiger Beat subscriptions, Rick Springfield records (yes, records) and glittery hair care products. I grew up and away from my innocence as quickly as possible and was ultimately transformed into someone who secretly would like nothing better than to return to the inculpable child I once was. Of course that is impossible in the literal sense, but I find that through my son I can sneak back in time and live the world again through a child's eyes. It's an unbelievable gift and yet more proof of God's love. I try to honor that. I try to be a good mother in spite of knowing how miserably I failed at mothering my first child.

Some people are under the impression that having another child will replace the lost child and heal all the wounds. The truth of the matter is, you don't remove yourself from the pain of a failed parent-child dynamic by involving yourself in another one. It relates, and at times, it can be too close for comfort.

When my child is in pain, it cuts me to the core. Sometimes I shut off and become the void auto-matron I was at the abortion facility. My gears lock up, and I can do nothing but sit there waiting to reboot. It is stunning. For example, my child likes to roll himself tightly in blankets, and even though he is chronically claustrophobic, he cannot resist packing himself in a cottony cocoon. He did it just a few days ago and as soon as the last inch of quilt rolled over him he began to wail. This isn't just any ululation. It's a desperate cry coming from a tiny person hidden behind a veil: "Mama, MAMA!!! HELP ME, Mama!" I am never ready for this. I dissolve into tears at the blatant revelation of my relationship to him. I am his rescuer. I am the one he counts on for protection and safety. Through a dusty corridor of 7 years I hear the hollow ghost-voice of another of my children echoing, "Mama, MAMA!!!..."

Abortion has its collar on me, its fingers in the pot of my dealings with my child. It's always there, and I'm always trying to hide it. My son will not come out of this unscathed, but I endeavor to spare him every possible agony. I try to make his childhood happy. I try and remember my former life when abortion was last on the list of my perpetual thought agenda. I have been so psychically uncomfortable for so long that it takes earnest effort to rekindle the excited innocence of my past. But every now and again it comes from the gut.

Imagine my delight on perusing massive shelves of DVD's and finding Charlotte's Web among them. For an instant I was me again. Of course I plucked it off the shelf and spirited it home without delay. "You're gonna love this!," I said as I popped it in the player. My child sat riveted as Fern discovered the reason her father carried an ax out to the barn. As she begged for the life of a nursing runt pig, for the very first time I heard her ask, "If I had been very small, would you have killed me?" How could I have loved this story so much for so long and somehow never heard this? I went to the bathroom and cried aching for an alternate childhood where someone had instilled in me the truth about the value of human life and protecting the vulnerable. It did not happen for me, but all is not lost.

My son will know the truth. He will see it in the faces of mothers who are happier for having had their children and he will see it in the face of a childhood friend who would not be here if her mother had kept her abortion appointment. I will nurse him less on the obvious horror of abortion and more on the beauty of innocence and precious life.

May I find the strength to take what piece of unbruised heart remains and give it all to my living child. May God in heaven keep him from knowing in his own life the pain of parenting a child lost to abortion. And may he teach his children that Charlotte's Web is more than just a story about a frightened pig and a clever spider. Let the legacy of abortion end with me.

Tomorrow a tribute to our dear friend and "neighbor" Mr. Rogers...
SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 11:47 AM # ::
...

My letter to the editor of a local newspaper:

Why are liberals, whose hearts bleed on cue for women, opposed to legislation that would improve the physical safety of women seeking legal abortion procedures?

I'll bet many readers don't know that in Florida abortion clinics that go all the way up to 28 weeks are not mandated to offer the same standard of safety practices as outpatient surgical centers, hospitals and other doctor's offices. When you consider that second trimester abortions are more dangerous for the woman than first trimester abortions, it is obscene that safety requirements would be lower for second trimester procedures. Abortion facilities don't care about women's health.

The Women's Health and Safety Act would raise the level of safety for women who choose second trimester abortion by enforcing health standards comparable to those in doctor's offices and outpatient surgical centers.

Many abortion advocates oppose such regulation citing the fact that some abortion facilities will not be able to afford to implement newer, safer policies. They reason that some clinics will shut down, and access to legal abortion will thus be limited. The primary focus therefore is not women's safety but the availability of abortion period. Obviously, offices that shut down because they can't meet high standards of safety are exactly the ones that need to shut down.

I have been seeking out and reading through statutes and codes all morning. I'm not a lawyer or a licensing board, but it seems to me that Florida veterinary clinics are more regulated than Florida abortion clinics. It is absurd that anyone would have to argue that women deserve a safer surgical environment than a dog. Women deserve better. Shame on women's advocacy groups who care more about abortion than women. Floridians who are actually concerned for women should support the Women's Health and Safety Act.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:26 AM # ::
...

Abortion advocates call it a "weapon", but folks like Representative Cliff Stearns call it a womb with a view. Stearns has sponsored a bill that would basically help to provide ultrasound equipment to crisis pregnancy centers. Abortion supporters oppose this. They hate ultrasound because they know the old adage is true: a picture is worth a thousand words (and usually results in lost business for the abortion industry).

Talk is cheap, but seeing is believing. One look at the helpless little person who moves about in utero with a visibly beating heart and most moms realize pregnancy isn't just a state of mind but a reality. The usual response to the ultrasound image goes something like this: "Oh my God... there's a baby in there!"

Planned Parenthood's vice president for public policy says this is anti-abortion manipulation. She doesn't discuss the fact that abortion facilities often do ultrasounds, though they normally refuse to let the mother see who is on the screen. In my own experience, I instinctively turned to look but they whipped that screen around so fast it made my head spin. They were definately hiding the image of my child from me. They knew that if I saw how big and how developed s/he was my credit card and I just might go running out the door. Obscuring the humanity of the child is their business. Meanwhile they call truth a deception against women. THAT is manipulation of criminal proportion.

Technology advances exposing both the reality of the child and the reality of abortion, but in the industry of "choice" truth is enemy number one. Abortion advocates operate by purposely withholding the knowledge women need to make informed choices. They feed us a line about our "right to choose" while keeping information to the barest minimum. They protect themselves with the flawed boast that women, because they are women, know what they are doing without anyone having to tell them. Oh it sounds good, but by golly jerk that screen away, sister. Jerk it away, because despite clever slogans that feed the ego of feminism, they know women are just as confused and fallable as everyone else on this planet. They know that no one always knows what is best for them, that crisis is not the best climate for decision-making, and that being female doesn't exempt us from the human condition. They know that if we see our child sucking his thumb in utero nothing in this world will be bad enough to make us stay in their stirrups. They know, and that is why they quiver.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 9:51 AM # ::
...

I didn't watch the Super Bowl, so, until just now, I missed one of the most bizarre and offensive commercials I think I may have ever seen.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) came up with 4 new ads to dissuade people, teens in particular, from smoking dope. They want to make it clear that doing drugs can have tragic consequences. Four of the horrors they highlight are violence, death, terrorism and, of course, pregnancy . Woah, back up the circus truck! Did the ONDCP just say pregnancy?

In a familiar scenario a man and a woman are pacing the floor waiting for the results of the pregnancy test. They look worried. They look like they're in their 40's maybe, so perhaps the clock is ticking and they're having a hard time getting pregnant. We are told that their lives are about to change dramatically. The test is positive. Yippee! But what's this? The couple looks at each other like they've just been given a month to live. The text at the bottom of the screen tells us they are going to be the youngest grandparents in the neighborhood. The woman moves to the side and just beyond her we can see the form of her young daughter sitting on the toilet in expressionless dismay. She is the one who is pregnant, and her mother and father react as though she has just confessed to being JFK's "second shooter". The commercial ends just as the voiceover says, "Smoking marijuana impairs judgement. It's more harmful than we all thought."

WHAT?! Is it me or does this ad advocate abortion more than it opposes drug use?

Teen pregnancy is one of those things like finding out the baby you carry has Down Syndrome: it's not necessarily something you wanted for your child, but it's not the end of the world either. Unfortunately, you'd never know it from reading the ONDCP's website which alludes to teen pregnancy as a "serious long-term negative consequence" that can "cripple a young person's future", and so uh, just say no to hash?

To the commercial's credit, it does say the couple "will be" grandparents (never mind the fact that they already are), so technically it implies this family will not slap a tragedy on top of a challenge by aborting their family member. But one look at the effect the life choice is having and you get the clear message that you do not want to end up like them.

OK, so maybe I'm overreacting as much as the parents in this commercial, but good grief, the way America is innundated with subtle (and not-so-subtle) negative tapes of what it means to bear a child in a challenging situation... well is it any wonder that these days "unplanned" is synonymous with "unwanted"?

The ONDCP is telling our country that on the list of very bad things, a teen having a child is right up there with terrorism and death. With a message like that who wouldn't run to their nearest abortion clinic? When you consider that, in 1999, there were an estimated 52,000 drug-related deaths and over one million abortion-related deaths, promoting the one tragedy to disparage the other is neither compassionate nor reasonable..

Take a look and see if you don't wonder what the ONDCP was smoking when they came up with this thing.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:01 AM # ::
...

Yet another Democrat does the abortion shuffle. In a bid for president Dennis Kucinich has recently decided he no longer opposes abortion.

Kate Michelman says such a coincidental metamorphosis is not political. In fact, she suggests that only people who oppose abortion are political while people who switch to abortion advocacy are merely coming to their senses. The logic is more than a little silly.

Kucinich, I don't want a president who, for personal gain, waffles on issues as important as the lives of children and families, and Michelman, for God's sake, deal with your SICLE already. Sheesh.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 7:47 PM # ::
...

Dick Gephardt makes me sick. He opposed abortion for twenty years but became a staunch abortion supporter just as he decided to run for president for the first time in 1988. How conveeenient.

He explains that his former opposition to abortion was simply an unfortunate byproduct of sectarian upbringing in a denomination that promotes the idea that God creates each person, values each person, and wants people to care especially for those most vulnerable in our human menage. What chance did the God of his family Bible have when "some women" with abortion stories convinced him that the issue was one of personal choice?

It's ridiculous that a liberal would try to convince himself that a child's fate is nobody's business while at the same time supporting a plethora of children's programs. And interestingly, the "Young Turk" supports breast health legislation while at the same time helping to ensure a national future of 40,000-50,000 abortion-related breast cancer cases annually.

Pulling the ponytail of the current administration Gephardt says:
"There is nothing moral in strong-arming a personal belief, and there is nothing moral to a presidency that imposes personal morality through acts of government power."

First of all, the majority of citizens did not even support abortion when 7 people imposed the deaths of over 40 million American children on our country, so strong-arming personal belief is exactly what got us into this bloody mess in the first place. Secondly, it is absolutely ludicrous to imply that were Gephardt president he would not use acts of government power to impose personal belief. His attendance at NARAL's yummy abortion dinner was assurance that he most certainly would.

I'm disappointed that he couldn't come up with something better than the equivalent of "No tag-backs." However, he is among the many abortion advocates who reason: "If it's got a good beat they'll dance to it." This wouldn't be so bad if the masses weren't prone to doing just that. I should know; I used to shake it with the rest of them.

While some have little to gain from their errant support of abortion, salesmen like Gephardt have the presidency. His change of heart proves only that a number of people are willing to exchange the ethics of their upbringing for an obscene pandering of votes.

I'm a woman with a story too, Gephardt. I know what you're selling, and I'm not buying.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 12:06 PM # ::
...

This post carries a prerequisite: Lynn's story.
You must do the web-work or you will not get credit for today's blog.

(Cliff's notes for the indolent:
A married pregnant woman is horrified and resentful at the idea of bearing her child and so aborts the baby at 24 weeks. 11 years later she proudly proclaims her apathy for the child and is glad she made such a "positive" choice. She ends the piece with the impression that aborting her six-month-old "saved" her.)

Like reading a true crime novel, the story just pains the conscience. I admit, I had a hard time sleeping after reading the web page. Many of the personal stories on the site involve difficult situations that end in abortion mainly because women are afraid, confused, and full of rampant misinformation. Add emotional dysfunction and depravity and you will get this random sampling of quotes:

"[My friend] had to come up with more money for a more complicated procedure, as she was into the fourth month, and did so. She was freed from the larva..."

"Being pregnant to me was an unfortunate medical condition for which I needed treatment."

"[My boyfriend said] 'You HAVE to get rid of it!' He would hear nothing else. I didn’t protest too much, but in the back of my mind all I was thinking was 'oh, shit, not again'... ironically, I ran into one of my co-workers there; we were unable to look each other in the face for weeks afterward... I am forever grateful that I had the choice of abortion available to me, or else there would be three more damaged human beings in the world."

"My husband (then boyfriend) and I marched up to the abortion clinic and got it flushed on Saturday. I'm so glad I had that abortion! I'm just sorry I had to [experience "morning sickness"] with the pregnancy.

"If I had had a child, I would have been an alcoholic, abusive divorced mother on welfare or in prison for murder.

"Handicapped babies don't have homes if they are put up for adoption."

"I went on to finish high school and get a degree in Business Management, something I never would have done if I had been selfish enough to have kids."

"I got my great job that I've been in for almost 19 years when I would have been 7 months pregnant. THAT never would have happened, and I never would have gotten a job that paid nearly as well or had the kind of benefits and job security I'm lucky enough to have now."

"I didn't want a kid; especially at this age (I would have to drop out of college and ruin my life.)"

"Many, many women feel [relieved they aborted a child]--many more than those who regret the decision."

"Personally, I think all this "post abortion angst" that is being projected by women who are "haunted" or "have regrets" is just the latest fashion. It is most likely that those who mew about post abortion "regret" are just jumping on the bandwagon now. In a few years, they'll be "survivors" of something else."

Hopefully this smattering of impoverished quotation is only indicative of the rare individual who would so despise the pregnant condition that they would break the law to rid themselves of innocent human "larva" were abortion illegal.

Take a good look at the women represented here, they are the ones over 40 million innocent children have died for.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:17 AM # ::
...

It began with a desperate email to a woman obsessed:

"I can't take the HG anymore. I'm finished. Done. It has to end. I have an appointment in three days. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need someone to talk to when it's over. Do you think I could talk to you?"

It is not uncommon for me to receive email detailing individual struggles with the varying degrees of hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). They come from Australia, England, Germany, Hong Kong, all over the globe. I'm consumed with information on HG. I get and give what details I can whenever I can. Online, I've managed somewhat to put myself in the HG "mix", because my child was horribly finished, and I am gripped with purpose. Tragedy and cause go hand in hand, and I can relate to people like the late Maimie Bradley (Emmett Till's mother) who said, "The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all." I make it my business; I want to be the advocate I never had. When they come looking, I want to be found. And find me she did...

The email described total parenteral nutrition: she had a tube running through her arm and into a large vein a few inches from her heart. "Digested" formula flowed through this tube and fed her blood directly. This is how she had been living for several weeks, because she had severe HG and vomited an average of 25 times a day. Vomiting blood had become a casual affair, and incredibly, people blamed her for her condition suspecting that she was a whiner or that, down deep inside, she really didn't want a "surprise" baby. Physicians offered options that would keep her alive, but they were less interested in helping her manage the physical crisis of vomiting over 1,200 times in the last 7 weeks of her first trimester alone. Most people don't vomit that much in an entire lifetime. Still she tried to get a second opinion but was told nothing more could be done. Evidently she was getting the "best" care available, but sadly, it wasn't enough. Work became as impossible as life started to seem. Enough was enough. "Uncle" already.

In a long and rambling reply to her email I agreed to be there for her after the abortion but tried to explain what my life has been like since I threw in the towel and made the same decision. Can you imagine describing to a person in her physical state that what she was going through was nothing compared to having her health but not the child she had long since lost sight of? It couldn't have been at all coherent to her, not at her particular juncture. Though necessary, a warning will never have as much power as an option, but I had a few of those too.

I am furious that I (a person with a degree in elementary education) was able to offer a sick mother positive medical options that her doctors could or would not. This was serious business. Life was on the line any way you spun it. This woman needed the kind of real options that slogans and paternal pats simply don't provide. You can't give a Hallmark card to a person in hell and expect it to put out the fire; you have to have a hose and a LOT of water.

I had three days to offer a real option and that was all. That was the deal. One day over that limit and she would have to go five hours away to the same abortion facility that I went to when I lost my first child for the same reason. The pressure was on. I admit I didn't want her child to die, but at the crux of my concern was this sad, sick woman who no longer resembled herself (emotionally or physically) and who believed she had no choice. It was for her I sweated bullets. My silent mantra was not: "Don't kill your baby," it was: "Don't end up like me." I wanted to help her reduce her loss not increase it. That's what love is; it leaves no one behind.

She consented to see a new OB who agreed to try a slightly controversial drug therapy. Worlds rested on a few studies and an unlikely hypothesis, but it worked. Thank God in heaven it worked. It didn't cure the HG, but it was enough to go on. It was the hope she thought had been lost.

Three years ago a little girl was born one fine February day. I watched as her blonde head crowned, and I knew that in some special sense my own first pregnancy was finally being brought to term; staggering grief was bearing tremendous joy. I saw the mother vomit for the last time; I saw the daughter breathe for the first. For them, it was the end of HG and the beginning of the life my family could have had if I had been lucky enough to send a desperate email to a woman obsessed.

Thank you, Melissa, for those three days. I will cherish and carry them with me for the rest of my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KELSEY! Your life is such an incredible gift!


(Left to right: Melissa, Kelsey, Ben)

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 2:54 PM # ::
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