Jill Stanek has a post up in response to this Salon article by a woman who had an abortion that doctors believed was necessary to save her life.
What disturbs me the most are the comments on Stanek's post. Why is the immediate response to this story “Let’s see how we can pick it apart, discredit it, and cast the woman telling it as dishonest”? Why not, at the very least, “I’m terribly sorry that she lost her child and had such a traumatic health crisis,” or “The health professionals at that hospital treated her terribly”? Why not assume, at the very least for the sake of argument, that the story is true, and ask how we can ensure that pregnant women can get proper medical treatment that also respects the lives of their children? If we believe that it’s really possible to do both, then we should be able to handle listening to this story and figuring out what needs to change for women like Ms. Kendall to get better care.
I just don’t understand why a woman who lost a child and nearly died has to be cast as an enemy.
Because Prolife people like Jill Stanek really don't care about Mother or child. Stanek seems to thrive on the celebrity more than any cause. Prolife groups and their followers seem to want some kind of power. I haven't read anything or heard from anyone prolife that even mentions the Women,( unless referring her as a murderer or slut).It's as if the embryo/fetus is in a seperate demention. Somehow these people have got it into their heads, and Ms. Stanek is no different, that there is no such thing as a dangerous pregnancy and women don't die (And if she does, "Oh well, at least she didn't kill her baby")
Because Prolife only cares about fetuses, Well, until they're born and a Women's life means nothing. It's their Cause
The existence of All Our Lives, and of this very blog post, directly contradict your sweeping generalizations.
I think that it's because the woman involved refers to the procedure as an abortion and seems to associate that emergency with late term abortion in general. That doesn't mean that posters should be insensitive, but I think some of them raise a good point in that pro lifers don't generally object to the completion of a miscarriage brought on by placental abruption. As if, for instance, the laws she's protesting don't make excepion for the very situation she found herself in, when hey do. The writer makes it sound as if pro lifers in general would deny women the care they need in a life-threatening medical emergency when this simply isn't true. The pro-life position opposes elective termination, especially terminations done in the later trimesters. Yes, there are people who morally oppose "letting God take the reigns" as this woman's relative so insensitively put it, but even the most conservative abortion laws make allowance for procedures done to save the woman's life. So, I think the frustration comes from the woman involved presenting her story as a reaon for why elective abortion should remain legal when it has very little to do with elective abortion. Certainly, the story illustrates the importance of allowing abortion/the completion of miscarriage in the case of a grave threat to a woman's life, but such procedures are obviously not the same as elective procedures. Hence, the animosity. However, I agree, people should be considerate of what this woman and her family went through when responding to the article.
pardon me, I meant not "letting God take the reigns"
I would invite you to take a look around this site. 🙂
You're on a pro-life site that concerns itself extensively with the rights and needs of women, so I do hope you'll have a look around.
I think that there are a lot of pro-life people who genuinely do care about women (all women, not just those who do what they want them to) and children both. Unfortunately, the people and groups that have the most influence have a tendency to see aborting women as enemies rather than as people with legitimate interests and needs.
I think it's fair to question whether women in Ms. Kendall's situation are ill-served by the medical profession and whether there might be non-abortive ways to treat them. I definitely think it's legitimate to point out that this story is not an argument for abortions that are not medically indicated. But as you say, all that can be done in a respectful way.