Arkansas Senate passes bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks

[Marrah_G]

61. Tay-Sachs was my big eye opener in regards to later term abortions

I was fairly young and uninformed. Abortion was just something you did if you didn't want a child. Then a family member and one of closest friends had a baby, my godson and as the months passed something wasn't right. It took some months of testing and I remember the knock on my door at 7 am with my friend standing in the doorway with tears streaming down her face. Although neither she or her husband were Jewish or of any known Jewish decent, their baby boy had Tay-Sachs. He would live for 4 years, with no quality of life, just pain and seizures. I remember driving to her house after work, it was snowing and he was already gone. I can't even describe pain mixed with relief that filled the house that night. It's hard to explain to people how devastating this disease is. There aren't any "good days". No painfree days. No smiles, laughs, recognition, sight, hearing, eating.

A couple years later she became pregnant again and after a couple months the tests came back. The baby/the fetus, did have the same disease. She made the only decision there was to make and she let him go rather then let him be born to a life of suffering. It wasn't easy, it was devastating to her and her husband.

My point in telling this is this: I can't imagine how much more painful this would have been if she had been forced to stand in front a judge and plead to do what she and her husband and her doctor knew to be the right thing. What if the judge made the wrong choice out of ignorance or some religious beliefs? There should NEVER be a judge in the middle of a decision like this. It is between a woman and her doctor and no one else.