I'm a nurse/midwife and when I was practising, it used to sadden me greatly, that a baby born at 6 months gestation was considered "viable".. that is, had the potential to live outside it's mother, and survive. Every available resource was put into helping the baby survive, nothing was spared.
Next door in the operating theatres, mothers would be wheeled in for last trimester abortions. These little babies were also over 6 months old and every available means was used to assist them to die horrible deaths.
No, I refused to take part in these procedures and on the grounds I was a Christian and morally opposed to abortion I did not even need to nurse anyone having an early first trimester abortion.
Still the reality was always there. Sure the doctors thought they could justify these things on moral grounds too (mother would die with it, or baby was deformed and may die anyway..), yet the reality is the same, why were these babies somehow different than the babies born in the labour ward?
My girlfriend was offered a test to check if her last baby had downs syndrome early in her pregnancy so that she could choose to abort it if the tests came back positive. She chose not to on two grounds. She would never have an abortion anyway, and would cherish the baby, no matter how she was born, and secondly, the test increased the risk of spontaneous miscarriage anyway, and this was almost like having an abortion. My girlfriend had a lovely baby girl who had downs syndrome, but who today is an absolute gem and an angel in disguise. Her life may have been destroyed if she had had different parents
Marty, those tests open a world of reality.. those little babies in utero, live and experience so much. Mothers are told to speak to their babies, play music for them.. bond with them before birth, as it's meant to have a significant role in their personality development.. it makes the whole question of abortion so sad.