Another Memory of Visiting Dr. Tiller

A second friend recalls her visit to Dr. George Tiller's clinic:

In July 1993, my husband and I received the worst news about our son's impending birth: He suffered from multiple, severe fetal anomalies, both internal and external, thought to be the result of a rare blood disorder. If he could survive his early birth at 24 weeks he most likely would not survive his blood cancer beyond the age of 9.

After several years of trying to conceive our second child, the news could not have been more devastating. When we heard the news, I had been in Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC for more than two weeks, hooked up to a subcutaneous pump delivering a medication to stop contractions. While still reeling from the shock, we were told we could take our chances and let the baby be born, but that the state would be forced to intervene if we did not then take every measure to keep our son alive. Or, we could consider two late-term abortion clinics—one in Wichita, Kan., the other in Holland! Our initial thoughts were "how could we be in a major NYC hospital in the United States and be told these are our only choices?" To say it was surreal is an understatement.

We made the very painful decision to travel to Wichita after many sleepless, tear-filled hours of discussion. The "quality" of life our son would have had, and the effects this birth could have had on our family for years to come, brought us to that difficult road. I could never explain to anyone how it felt to travel six hours with my baby kicking, knowing that I was about to end the life we tried so lovingly to create. While my husband lived this nightmare with me, even he could not understand or experience the depths of despair that I felt. The scars are still there.

My husband and I found Dr. George Tiller to be a caring, sensitive, and compassionate man who truly believed he was helping those of us who were desperate and had nowhere else to go. While we were at his clinic, he was very concerned about an 11-year-old child raped by her stepfather. And, when we were tormented by Operation Rescue protesters outside his clinic, he put on a bullet proof vest and personally drove us out of there while we hid in his van.

You can read other tales from inside Tiller's clinic here and here.

VIEW THIS CONVERSATION

Emily Bazelon is a founding editor of Double X, and a writer and editor at Slate.

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Not Every Woman Thinks of Abortion as Birth Control

By: BlueDahlia77 | Wed, 06/03/2009 - 23:37

I get upset (and I don't mean to flame any of the posts here) when people make assumptions about first trimester abortions.

Not every first trimester abortion is a college student or rape/incest survivor. They can also be medically necessary -- cancer patients and women with blood clotting disoders are just two examples.

But even the college students and rape/incest survivors don't see abortion as a Sunday picnic. It's very rare the woman who can casually have the procedure. 99% of women know their options and wrestle with themselves over what to do.

Re: Prenatal testing should equal prenatal choice

By: mwt | Wed, 06/03/2009 - 14:31

I too had the diagnosis of anacephaly with my first pregnancy and am also grateful I had early testing and ultrasounds to diagnose the problem early. It was such a hard and sad time for us. We now have 3 healthy children but I still mourn the loss of our first child.

Prenatal testing should equal prenatal choice

By: kbutler | Tue, 06/02/2009 - 16:57

This was a quote (paraphrased) by Dr. Tiller. Everyone rolled their eyes when I was newly pregnant and found an OB who did ultrasounds at every visit. That pregnancy was fine. Three years later, the same Ob diagnosed my daughter with anencephaly at my 16 week appointment. That means she had no brain, no skull, no chance of survival. We chose to terminate. It was the worst day of my life, but there is no way I could have carried her to term. She was a planned, wanted baby. If I had not had those early ultrasounds, I may have been in the shoes of women who had to travel to see Dr. Tiller. How many women get ultrasounds before 18 weeks? Then another week for the results, a week for a second opinion, and time to make a decision. It is easy to see how women end up past their state limitations for abortion. These are not women who simply decide they don't want to be pregnant any longer.

Really important story

By: nicolerenee | Tue, 06/02/2009 - 14:49

I believe stories like this are really important to the national debate about late-term abortion. It's really good to get all sides of the argument out there, and for women and families who are considering this difficult choice to hear other voices. I fully support families who need to make this choice, no matter which way they decide to go. It takes great courage to come to either decision- to keep, or to abort.

My aunt and uncle were in a very similar predicament- faced with the many dangers of a very early birth, delivery complications for the mom and lifelong problems for the child, as a conservative Christian family, they chose to keep their 6th child. He is well cared-for, but his constant illnesses, surgeries and developmental setbacks have cost a lot for the family, both in time, effort, and financial expense. The parents and their other children have had to make endless sacrifices for the little boy. The other 5 kids are all pretty young, but over the last three years have done an excellent job of learning to care for their now 3-year-old brother, who will never be able to do most things that we all take for granted.

What it comes down to is that every family needs to have the option of making their own decision based on their circumstances, faith, values, support system, ability- etc, etc. This cannot be a national or majority-driven decision, it needs to be made on the ground, by each individual family, no matter how much the rest of us want to get in the way and impose our own morals and values.

I admire this person's bravery...

By: shelerin | Tue, 06/02/2009 - 13:21

...for speaking out so that everyone can come closer to understanding the thought processes that occur while making the incredibly hard decision to terminate a pregnancy...this story lends support to the point Obama made in his Notre Dame speech that abortion is a hard decision...also, don't know if anyone watched the Rachel Maddow show last night, but a friend of Dr. Tiller's and fellow abortion doctor asked women who have received abortions to stand behind their abortion doctors and speak out...I was hoping to hear stories like this one in the coming days and am thankful that someone spoke up.

Dr. Tiller IS about extremes

By: malathion | Tue, 06/02/2009 - 11:11

What I can speak to are the vast majority of abortions that occur as more a matter of convenience and birth control. Although circumstances like this and the rape example occur, lets not try to define the whole debate around the extremes.

But Dr. Tiller's case is not about the "vast majority of abortions" -- that is the whole point. THIS debate is not about first trimester abortions. It is about whether you think that women should have to risk their lives or health to give birth; and whether you think women should be forced to give birth to children who will only suffer and then die soon thereafter. Dr. Tiller believed that women should not be made to risk their lives and that they should be able to chose to alleviate or prevent their fetus's suffering, and he DIED for these beliefs.