QuestionQUESTION: Dear Deborah,
I've read your advice to others and I really value your opinion. I've been clean off of meth for five years and during the time that I was heavily addicted, I became pregnant twice. Each time I was naive about the fetal development process and in admist my addiction and fear I delayed action till the very end, one being terminated at 24 weeks and the other at 18.
Since then I've cleaned up, changed my life around and I'm not hte mother of a healthy girl. I put the past behind and I thought I had moved on.
Lately though I cannot stop thinking about my actions, how terrible I was to be so irresponsible that I had my abortions at such late times. I wonder if my babies felt pain and suffered? I dont know what procedures were done on me, just that the first time I had no sedation and was in great pain and the second I was knocked out completely.
I guess what I'm asking is, I read JAMA and it says there is no fetal pain till 28 weeks, do you agree? Do you think my babies suffered
Do you think I'm a terrible human being for having done what I did? I don't konw how I can move on. I know I must for the sake of my daughter but this guilt is eating at me.
ANSWER: Dear Sarah,
First of all, please forgive me for not answering this sooner. I had a medical procedure done and have been in bed for 3 days.
As for your question, even though your terminations were later, they were more dangerous to your well being. A fetus has no capacity for pain or awareness until at least after 28 weeks. If you had brought either of those to term, their lives would have been filled with agony and misery, because they would have been born addicted to meth. There is also no way to tell just how badly damaged their development would have been, also, because of the effect of the meth on the development of their cells, tissues, limbs, organs, etc.,.
I don't think you are a terrible person at all. I think people that bring badly damaged fetuses to term are terrible. Also, I think people who cannot care for children but bring them into the world anyway are terrible. Where would those children be now? They'd be in the foster care system because very few people adopt meth babies.
Write back if you want to talk about this further.
Deb
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QUESTION: Hi Deb,
I am very concerned about whether my babies suffered during this procedure. I was reading a excerpt from a court document where a nurse who worked at an abortion clinic testified a partial birth procedure. I have reason to believe that my first one was a partial birth as I did not hear any suction. She said that the baby after being delivered to the head was clenching and unclenching its hands and kicking. Does that still mean that the baby didn't feel pain?
I had no idea what my babies looked like, I honestly thought they were just globs a tthe time of the procedure. I waited so long because I was scared and high and couldnt afford the procedures sooner. The thought that they might have endured pain makes me so angry with myself.
ANSWER: I am very familiar with that nurse, and she is very anti-abortion. Don't listen to what she is saying. She isn't a neurologist who specializes in brain function. Doctors that are specialists in this field have said there is no way that a fetus feels or is aware of anything until AT LEAST the 28th week. Don't worry about it.
It would have been much crueler to have given birth to a meth addicted newborn who really would have suffered.
Deb
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Sorry to be a nag. Just one last question and I'll drop it. Even if you say the nurse is anti-abortion and not a neurologist, didn't she say those things under perjury? Do you believe that she lied or exaggerated the incident?
AnswerI believe she lied AND exaggerated the incident in this particular way:
By trying to connect a fetus having reflex movements, which is what she witnessed, to a fetus experiencing anything, let alone pain. In other words, just because a fetus moves DOES NOT mean in any way that it is experiencing anything or feeling anything.
Bacteria move, bacteria are not experiencing anything. Do you see what I mean?
By the way, you are not being a nag. I can understand how the anti-choice movement has caused a lot of stress and worry in women who have had abortions. They are doing that on purpose. Here are the two things you need to know:
1. Neither fetus could have possibly felt or been aware of anything.
2. If you had given birth to either fetus, they would have suffered greatly from meth addiciton and life long serious developmental problems, if they even lived.
Do you know that 35,000 children die every single day, around the word, from not having enough food and/or water to drink? Now that is suffering. I know this is difficult, but try to put this all behind you.
Deb
