I'm curious to know how those who are Pro-Choice deal with the issue of natural pregnacy loss; miscarriage, stillbirth etc... Say you had a friend that is grieving from an early or late term miscarriage. What would you say to help her through her tough time and comfort her without minimizing her loss? Or say you had a friend that was trying to get pregnant but for some reason is unable due to possible infertility or other causes?

I guess why I'm asking these questions is that I don't understand how our government and society can be accepting or sympathetic to both pregnancy loss and abortion. How on one hand can we sympathetic to women (and men) who are grieving the loss of their little baby and on the other hand support the right for women to take the life of their unborn. It just seems so contradictory to me.

As a mother who has delt with both an untimely pregnancy and and untimely pregnancy loss, I will tell you that is just adds insult to injury when I hear from the pro-choice movement say things like,"Its just a blob of tissue and not a real baby" and other similar comments.
The first pregnancy that I miscarried was at 20 weeks. I had two boys by that time and my husband and I were in real fincancial hardship. Having another baby was not a good idea. But even though this baby wasn't planned it was certainly wanted. I was hoping for a girl. At 20 weeks I went into labor. I went to the hospital but before they could take action to stop it my water broke. Once you water breaks there is no turning back, I had to deliver. My labor went so fast that there wasn't even time for an epidural. I delivered a 1lb baby girl. My baby was born alive but because she was so young the hospital staff did not take any life saving measures. They gave her an apgar score of 2 and I watched her draw a few breaths before she passed away in my arms. This loss was extremely hard and it wouldn't be my last. My next two pregnancies ended prematurely. One at 8 weeks and another at 22 weeks. The 8 week loss was a blighted ovum the other was another baby girl. I have since had two more children. Both boys but my last one was born at 26 weeks and spent over 3 months in the NICU.I have since decided to end my chilbearing with a tubal ligation. Not because i don't want anymore children but because my body is no longer strong enough to carry a baby to term. I went from having two flawless pregnacies to suddenly loosing them with no medical or scientific explanation. Someday my husband and I will adopt the little girl we've always wanted. In the meantime we have four wonderful boys to raise.

I also want to say that the hospital staff was very kind to us. They took pictures and gave us a paper mache' box with little poems and momentos. They gave us pamplets with rescources for grieving parents and options for funeral arraingments. We got to hold our precious babies and keep them in our room for as long as we wanted so we could say goodbye. It grieves me to think that babies who are "unwanted" and aborted just get tossed in the trash when we were given so many resources for our "wanted" baby.

My older children often ask about their baby sisters. We hold a ritual every year to honor them. We light a small fire in a #10 can and after saying a prayer we toss little letters to our girls in there. My boys really like this as they never got to see or hold their baby sisters that passed away as they were being tended while I was in the hospital.

Now, that you know a little about me I hope you see why I take a pro-life position and feel so strongly about it. A baby is a baby whether it is "wanted" or "unwanted". The gestational age makes no difference in a pregnancy loss. Grief is grief. And the hardest thing anyone can ever go through is to loose a child. No matter what age that child may be. From pregnancy to adulthood.

I don't know why any woman would want to put themselves through that kind of grief especially coupled with the fact that it was her conscious desicion that ended that life. I know I would give anything to have my little girls back.

Jamie