Wendy Davis, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor who stood up for women’s abortion rights as a state senator, discussed one of her own abortions with ABC’s Robin Roberts on Monday’s “Good Morning America.”
Davis said during the interview about her memoir that her unborn daughter was “a very important part of my life.”
“Our baby had a severe brain abnormality,” Davis said. “If she did survive to term, she likely would not survive delivery and if she did survive delivery, she likely would be in a vegetative state.”
Davis said the decision was what her family felt was the correct way to confront the “tragic experience.”
“We knew that the most loving thing that we could do for our daughter was to say goodbye,” she said. “And, like so many other families across this country, we made that difficult decision with as much love for our daughter as can be imagined.”
Roberts asked her if Davis could understand that others might disagree with her course of action.
“I respect so much that people make their own decisions and that that decision is the one that is right for them,” Davis said.
Watch, via ABC:
This has to be a very painful experience for her to share, as a male I will never be able to fully appreciate the difficulty of making such a decision but I can relate to letting go of some one that you love and seeing it’s suffering come to an end.
I know that many people will not see her actions as being borne out of love, so be it. I and many many others DO see it that way. There’s room for all of our beliefs in this world.
I’ve spent time in a NICU (with a happy outcome, for which I am very thankful). The babies in there have a horrible, painful time, with only relative brief respites when they’re asleep/unconscious. Subjecting even a vegetative infant to that kind of pain, without the prospect that they could eventually survive and prosper, seems to me at best a terrible lack of empathy.
“Roberts asked her if Davis could understand that others might disagree with her course of action.”
This is the kind of shit that pisses me off…Questions like that. Why does she have to see her personal and private decision, which is totally legal and was necessary in her life, as her and her husband and doctor saw fit, to have to consider someone else’s opinion of her decision regarding her family. That’s a form of shaming I find totally offensive. Abortion is legal in this country Roberts. Women don’t have to answer for the religious objections others choose for themselves. When religious fanatics choose to impede and block access for anyone seeking a legal procedure…they are the ones breaking the law. Is that clear enough…And they’ll still have first amendment rights to bitch all they want.
Roberts most likely wouldn’t confront some Anti-Choice candidate on how others might “feel” about the legal right of women in this country to choose for themselves. Instead, they’d use the “Pro-Life” label to supplant the way they frame the issue, and debate it as if there were no laws already in place to insure legal access to abortion as a woman’s right. That isn’t a debate on the law as it stands, and avoiding that debate because of “feelings” is the real problem.
Again, I prefer to call these women anti-choice, who run afoul of the law that’s the real problem here, and which has been legal for over 25 fucking years. “Pro-life” has always been a misnomer from the start.
As someone that is against the current US abortion policy, I want to go on the record to say that this is NOT the type of abortion that I’m against. This was a high-risk pregnancy for both the mother and child. It had good probabilities of very bad downside (death for one or both of them) while having a very low upside (the baby was highly likely to be a vegetable if he/she survive).
Would I be correct in guessing that you are in the minority of anti-abortionists who feel this way? Most of them seem pretty rigid in their beliefs.