Nebraska Anti-Abortion Law Forces Mother to Watch Her Baby Die
Witness the inhumanity of the right wing anti-choice movement: Abortion Law: Mother Denied Abortion, Then Had To Watch Baby Die.
Nebraska’s new abortion law forced Danielle Deaver to live through ten excruciating days, waiting to give birth to a baby that she and her doctors knew would die minutes later, fighting for breath that would not come.
And that’s what happened. The one-pound, ten-ounce girl, Elizabeth, was born December 8th. Deaver and husband Robb watched, held and comforted the baby as it gasped for air, hoping she was not suffering. She died 15 minutes later.
The sponsor of the controversial Nebraska statute, Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, told the Des Moines Register that the law worked as it was intended in the Deavers’ case.
“Even in these situations where the baby has a terminal condition or there’s not much chance of surviving outside of the womb, my point has been and remains that is still a life,” Flood said in an interview with the Iowa newspaper.
The law, the only one of its kind in America, prohibits abortions after the 20th week. It is based on the disputed argument that a fetus may feel pain at that stage. It took effect last October.
“Our hands were tied,” Danielle Deaver of Grand Island told The Register in a story published Sunday. “The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. I feel like how to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should have been mine, and it wasn’t because of a law.”
And again, we see the fanatic’s absolute lack of empathy for the woman who was forced to bear a doomed child, and watch it die in agony.
Julie Schmit-Albin, who heads Nebraska Right to Life, told the AP in a Sunday interview that the tragic outcome was better than an abortion:
“We acknowledge the tragedy that occurs with a poor prenatal diagnosis for the baby. But isn’t it more humane for the baby to die in a loving manner with comfort care and in the arms of her parents than by the intentional painful death through abortion?”
So heartless it boggles the mind.