Carrie and Corey Elliott were picking out strollers when they found out the child they had tried so long to conceive had tetrasomy 22, a rare genetic abnormality. At 21 weeks of pregnancy, sonograms showed the unborn baby they had decided to call Emma was beginning to suffer kidney failure."I don't believe she was ever going to come home," said Carrie Elliott, 41. "It was just a question of, do we make it fast or drag it out and make her suffer? So we decided to terminate."The procedure doctors chose to end Elliott's pregnancy with the least risk to her health may well have been one of those Congress has banned, calling it a "partial-birth abortion." doctors who perform abortions say D&X is merely a variant of D&E, and virtually any D&E can run afoul of the law. They say the only way to be sure of not tripping the ban is to kill the fetus before removing it or to cut it out of the woman's body, both of which are riskier to the woman. Dr. Cassing Hammond, an obstetrician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said that if the ban goes into effect "it will put the health and lives of many of my patients at risk. I won't be able to do the procedure in the way that's safest for the patient. And I really don't want politicians in my operating room, telling me how I'm supposed to help my patients."Carrie Elliott was not a candidate for a first-trimester abortion. When she was in her third month, a test indicated a possible problem. But doctors couldn't be certain."Both my husband and I wanted the baby very much," she wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court, "and neither one of us was willing to terminate on a `maybe.'" By the time they knew for sure the fetus would be severely malformed and likely would not survive, she was in her fifth month. Elliott, who lives in the Southwest U.S., said the only procedure available to her was a D&E, which doctors assured her would be a "painless passing" for the fetus and the safest thing for her.
Women shouldn't have to terminate their pregnancies on a "maybe" they deserve the chance to know for sure before making a life altering decision. And they certainly shouldn't be forced to carry a child to term who will die shortly there after because they weren't willing to terminate on a maybe.
Kennedy appeared troubled throughout the session by the potential implications of the law. Would it leave few legal alternatives in cases in which a pregnancy threatens a woman's life? How frequently is a late-term procedure medically necessary? Would doctors be held criminally liable for performing emergency late-term abortions when they had no other choice?Hopefully the justices will make the right choice and women's lives will be protected against over zealous do-gooders that would deny them the best medical treatment. Doctors must be protected from facing criminal charges for saving a woman's life, and choosing the safest medical procedure for the woman.
