Voie: The Other Side of the Story on Late-Term Abortion Law

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I’d like to take the opportunity to examine Julie McDonald’s column about Patty Murray earlier this week.

It’s difficult to contrast with McDonald on this issue in some ways because, believe it or not, we share a lot of common ground on the issue. It’s not my place to share McDonald’s personal stories, but she was certainly a comforting person to me as I was going through fertility treatments to have my first son.

Speaking for myself personally, I can safely say that having to face the reality that you may not be able to conceive and bear your own children is certainly a transformative experience that changes how precious life and motherhood feels. Precarious, even. I remember reading books like “Every Drunken Cheerleader, Why Not Me?” as I cursed the skies, failed cycle after failed cycle, trying to conceive my first child.

Having gone through through fertility treatments, I would never personally ever consider myself “pro-abortion.” Life is precious. I think McDonald and I can absolutely, unequivocally agree there.

However, all that said, I found myself frustrated with McDonald’s assessment of Senator Patty Murray’s vote against Senator Ben Sasse’s “infanticide” bill. There is another side of this conversation that deserves to be represented on these editorial pages.

I went back and read conservative news articles on the topic, as well as more progressive assessments, as well as the actual laws on the books themselves — and I’d like to give some context to the issue for this audience.

Recently, the State of Virginia passed legislation that revised protocols for women receiving a late-term abortion. Now before we clutch our pearls, let’s make a point here: This legislation dealt specifically with women who were experiencing either A) a tragic pregnancy loss late in pregnancy, B) women’s whose unborn children had been diagnosed with fatal defect, or C) women whose health was threatened by the pregnancy.

You might ask yourself why this legislation was updated. Well, let’s think about this in terms of OB/GYN advancements. When many of our laws outlining legal, medically-sound abortion were written, we had limited means to see inside of the uterus during pregnancy. As sonograms and pregnancy ultrasounds become more accessible and common, more defects are being diagnosed sooner — prior to birth.

This legislation in Virginia made options for women facing such a diagnosis more accessible, so they can choose how they grieve and move on following traumatic loss.



One person might say ending a non-viable pregnancy is morally wrong. On the other hand, a different parent may believe it morally wrong to take such a pregnancy to term, knowing that it could cause suffering for the infant and that no medical intervention can change the outcome. They may seek closure in a way that feels more appropriate to them, given the unique tragedy they are facing.

The point is: It is a highly personal and traumatic family experience. A safe mechanism needs to exist for these situations. We have to be able to talk about the substance of these issues without the rhetoric and hyperbole fueled by clickbait headlines and slanted blogs.

After the Virginia bill passed, Senator Ben Sasse proposed the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” and he proposed it based on a flawed understanding of the update legislation. Some actually argued it was a political stunt for him to do so.

“We have laws against infanticide in this country. This is a gross misinterpretation of the actual language of the bill that is being asked to be considered and therefore, I object,” Murray (D-Washington) told colleagues on Monday, according to multiple news sources.

Quite frankly, it’s already illegal to kill infants. In 2004, President Bush signed the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act” (inspired by the deaths Laci and Conner Peterson) which even enhanced sentences for maliciously causing deaths of unborn children.

Murray didn’t vote against the Born-Alive act because she supports infanticide, as McDonald supposed. She voted against it because it’s a duplicate law proposed by a Senator who misunderstood the real-world application of the Virginia bill and, in so doing, marginalizes those women and families who the bill is intended to help.

I recognize that McDonald is passionate for children. And I can identify, as I outlined. However, her assessment was essentially the parroting of many of the conservative news articles I read without really delving into the nuts and bolts of the issue. It’s simply not the entire story.

I wish that our collective compassion to could extend to women who are actually facing these circumstances, instead of losing their voices in the chaos of misplaced outrage.