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It is Time to Overturn Roe
The following speech was given by President of Eagle Forum Alaska, Debbie Joslin on the steps of the Alaska state capitol on January 22, 2008 to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion during all nine months of pregnancy.
Today marks a solemn occasion. January 22 is an anniversary, but not one to celebrate. On January 22, 1973, thirty-five years ago, in a case called Roe v. Wade, seven justices of the United States Supreme Court decided that abortion should be legalized in all 50 states. Some fifty million unborn babies have been killed since that decision. The plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey, has recanted her false testimony that led to legalizing abortion and has let us know that the entire case was built on a lie. It is time for the court to take a fresh, honest look at abortion and decide in favor of women and babies by ending abortion in America. The one person who has the most vested interest in the abortion choice has none at all. Speaking on behalf of those little innocent babies, I tell you, IF they had a choice, they would choose LIFE. And as a mother and a woman who once made the choice to abort my baby, I tell you that women want a better choice. And so, I also come here today and speak on behalf of the tens of millions of moms who never had a choice; who were forced, pressured or coerced into having an abortion. I tell you if we had had a choice, we would have chosen LIFE FOR OUR CHILDREN. In 1976, I exercised the right the Supreme Court had handed me, and I aborted my unborn child. I did not want an abortion. But like many women, I felt that I too had no choice. I had no husband, no family I could go to, and no crisis pregnancy center. But, my boyfriend had heard there was a place called Planned Parenthood where we could rid ourselves of a problem. I did what was expected of me. I was not forced. But like millions of other women, I hoped to the last that someone would offer me another choice. It never came and so I ended a life, my own child’s life. I found that abortion didn’t offer me reproductive freedom. It brought destruction, pain and regret and it robbed me of my child. The promises abortion offered were all a lie and I know now that there was a better choice. Twenty-three years later, in 1999 I was married and we had three healthy children. In January of that year, I went for a routine ultrasound on the baby we expected to be born in May. The technician was all business and didn’t engage in any small talk. Finally, I was told the doctor would like to talk with me. He described a heart condition I had never heard of before, hypoplastic left heart, a heart with only three chambers. I remember him saying to me that my personal physician would explain my options. There was something about the way he said it…. “We aren’t going to kill him if that is what you’re talking about.” He didn’t answer because that is what he meant. Soon after, I found out that our little boy we named Isaiah also had a possible brain cyst, and a missing or unconnected stomach. I got the name of a perinatologist in Anchorage and called to make an appointment. Over the phone I spoke with the specialist and told her all I knew of Isaiah’s condition. Based on a phone conversation and not an examination, she told me he probably had a chromosomal abnormality and should be aborted. I told her that was not an option. I told her I hated abortion. She went ahead and scheduled an appointment for me to be seen in her office at Providence hospital the following week. My husband and I drove from Delta Junction at forty below, 350 miles to Anchorage. When we arrived at the hospital we were first seen by the genetic counselor. We were treated as if we were ignorant for continuing on with the pregnancy. I underwent a second ultrasound with more sophisticated equipment and was told of a myriad of other potential problems. I was told Isaiah would probably miscarry and even if he was born alive he would only live for a few minutes. I was told that his condition was incompatible with life, that he was going to die anyway, and to continue with the pregnancy would be very expensive and hard on my other children. She told me that if I continued with the pregnancy I would be putting my own life in danger and it would be very irresponsible of me to leave my other children motherless. We left that day very discouraged but I knew too much about abortion to be moved by anything they said to me. I was scared for Isaiah and I was scared I would die after all that the doctor had told me. We had phone conversations with the genetic counselor over the next two weeks and finally discovered that Isaiah had Trisomy 13, a chromosomal abnormality. The doctor told me that ALL babies with Trisomy 13 die. Later I found out that 90% of all babies born with Trisomy 13 die before they are six months old. But they do not all die. They lied about the prognosis for Isaiah and about the risk to my own health. I discovered later that my unborn baby’s health problems were never a risk to my health. They withheld information from me and gave me misinformation all in an attempt to persuade me to have an abortion. They chided me, “You should have had your amnio earlier,” a reference to the fact that I was too far along to legally have an abortion in Alaska. No matter, they were ready to send me to Tiller’s abortion clinic in Wichita, KS. They could be sure that Tiller would perform an abortion on me even though I was too far along in Kansas too. They would simply say my life was in danger and skirt the law in that fashion. Finally, after I had been asked many times about having an abortion and two weeks had passed, they told me that if I didn’t want to terminate the pregnancy I could deliver the baby at Providence and the doctor could arrange for the nursing staff to not interfere so we could be sure Isaiah would die. I declined that offer too and was finally told of a parent support group for families whose children had Trisomy 13. The Genetic Counselor apologized when she gave me the 800 number, “They are, well, rather positive.” She seemed apologetic as though I would miss the negative advice they had been dishing out. I carried my baby to term and I am glad I did. Isaiah was born May 10, 1999 and lived and was loved for 32 days. Through answered prayer and God’s mercy, the few minutes we were told to expect turned out to be a month. We loved him and he brought us much joy. His oxygen saturation monitor showed us that he responded with improved vital signs whenever he was being held or stroked by someone who loved him. When he died our hearts were broken but we were not racked with guilt and we have no shame. We gave Isaiah the best care we could give and we loved him as we love our other children and we are thankful to have had that short time with him. We have never for one moment regretted giving our son a chance to live and love, a chance to know what it is like to be held in his momma’s arms and to be kissed by his big strong Da ddy. Contrary to what the doctor told us, giving life to Isaiah was not too expensive. It was priceless. Giving life to Isaiah was not too hard on our other children, it was a blessing to them. I have experienced first hand the intense pressure to abort a baby, healthy or not. Many times women are being threatened, badgered, or killed for refusing to have an abortion. Homicide is the number one cause of death in pregnant women today. Three out of four women killed are in their first 20 weeks of pregnancy. As you can imagine, for each woman killed, thousands have been physically assaulted or subjected to verbal or physical abuse in order to force them into abortion.
As you can see, it isn’t always the Mommas who are doing the choosing. Almost two-thirds of women who had abortions say they felt pressured to have the abortion and many would have chosen life for their baby if they had had someone to support them. There are men who agree that abortion is wrong and yet are afraid to voice their opinion on this subject, believing wrongly that they would be going against women. You need to know that most women don’t want abortions, they want children. And we want men who will stand against the destruction of innocent unborn children and help us through our pregnancies. Abortion is wreaking havoc in women's lives. We need to protect the right of women not to be pressured, coerced or even violently forced into unwanted and dangerous abortions. The abortion industry should be required to put the welfare of women ahead of their profit margins and ensure that women are being fully informed and are not being pressured into having an abortion. Abortion does not make women’s lives better. We must give women a better choice. We cannot afford to sit back and let the courts continue to write laws from the bench that undermine the most basic rights of our unborn babies and their moms. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being compromised whenever the best choice we can offer a woman is abortion. Thirty-five years of killing unborn children at any stage, for any reason and hurting women is just too much. It is time to overturn Roe.
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