My good wonderful, brave friend wrote the following post on Facebook and told me I could share it. So I’m leaving this here.

I am one of the very few and very unlucky mothers who, for both medical and ethical reasons, likely should have had a ninth-month abortion. This procedure would have protected my own safety as I faced a truly life-threatening situation, and also spared my beloved son from an immense amount of pain and suffering (he developed an extraordinarily rare tumor at the very end of pregnancy, and I would have done anything possible to save him; there are some options that may save babies like him now, with very careful delivery and immediate specialized care, but that wasn’t the case at the time he was born). In addition, I would have been spared extreme physical pain, as well as additional physical disability and emotional suffering, not to mention the additional risk that I and any future children now face in future pregnancies.

Because of the size of my son’s tumor, he had to be “ripped from the womb” one way or another, and it happened in a way that was very dangerous and painful for us both. In my case, this was due to medical error and missed diagnosis – not due to the law in my state. I am fortunate that I survived, and convinced that I would likely have died if I had not made the very wrenching choice to be induced at 39 weeks. Sacha would have died either way.

I am dismayed to realize there are so many people who would have liked to legally deny my medical right to a safer and more humane delivery for myself and my son. I am glad that there are so many women speaking up about these terrible situations, and I want to add my own voice to the mix, even though it is still quiet and broken in the face of the tragic loss of my little boy.

This is obviously a very sensitive and vulnerable topic for me, and although I admire those women who are publishing articles and public posts, I am sharing to friends only right now. I wish that anyone who cares about me would take my and Sacha’s situation into account when they cast a vote.