I am sure many here already know this, but for those who don't, a human fetus at 6 weeks of

[tymorial]

17. Honestly, it shouldn't even matter. I know what you mean though.

There is no heart as we understand it. It's an excuse to ban abortion.

This decision and law has caused some horrible feelings and emotions to resurface in my home. My wife needed to terminate 2 pregnancies. One was labeled an abnormal pregnancy because it occurred outside the uterus. It was early enough that a DC wasn't necessary but it still meant ending what we hoped would become our baby. This probably would have occurred under the Texas law but the second one wouldn't and it would have buried us.

My wife and I struggled for years to conceive. I pushed for testing a treatment because we were just not conceiving. My labs were normal, not great but normal. My wife was fine. We were just older, approaching 40. We met late.

Anyway, she became pregnant after the 3rd IUI and everything was fine until we went for the 12 week ultrasound. There were some abnormalities in the images that led the radiologist to believe there was a high degree if probability that our baby would be trisome. We had the tests done and waited for the next ultrasound. The doctor showed us all that was wrong with out boy. His arms were deformed, his abdomen was open and his intestines were out... it was obvious in the ultrasound even to us. We learned he was trisome 18, Edwards. It was devastating. He may not survive the pregnancy. If he was delivered, he would die in the first year and would never leave the hospital. Would he be in pain? Would it be torture? There was no decision to be made. It was right to terminate and save our baby boy from pain.

I have his ultrasound images in a lock box in my office. My wife can't bare to see them. We named him Alex.

My wife's life wasn't at risk. She was in no danger of dying. He wasn't a mistake. We wanted him. But we would have been forced to just wait it out and see what happened. What kind of torture would that have been for us? What if he lived until 6 or 7 months into the pregnancy? My wife delivers our dead child who is terribly deformed? Can you imagine the psychological trauma of that? Would my wife and I survive? He'll, would our 5 year old daughter be here today?


So yeah, thr Texas law is very real for people like us. 1 in 2500 pregnancies. That is the statistic. Some family is going to go through the torture I just outlined and it's totally inhumane.