A New York couple who lobbied for the state’s radical new pro-abortion law defended having a late-term abortion at 32 weeks after learning that their unborn baby was disabled.
Now, Erika Christensen and her husband, Garin Marschall, are trying to convince more women to publicly share their late-term abortion stories, Yahoo News reports.
Two years ago, Christensen traveled to a late-term abortion business in Colorado where she had her son aborted at 32 weeks of pregnancy, according to the report. She said they made the decision after doctors told them that their son was “incompatible with life” and likely would die soon before or after birth.
Since then, they have been lobbying New York lawmakers to legalize late-term abortions. In January, they did, but the couple still is not satisfied.
The New York law allows unborn babies to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth. It repeals protections for pregnant victims of violence, and prohibits the state from enacting even minor, common-sense abortion restrictions.
Strong public outrage quickly followed. Polls consistently show strong opposition to late-term abortions, and leading voices of various faiths and political affiliations condemned the state’s new unrestricted, unregulated abortion on demand law.
Christensen and Marschall expressed disgust at the outrage. They began an open letter titled “We are later abortion patients” to allow families like theirs to respond. Their hope is that these stories will convince more people to support late-term abortions.
“Are you a later abortion patient (21 wks+) from anywhere in the country who is interested in a quick advocacy opportunity for later abortion access?” Christensen wrote on private abortion support groups. “Please reach out through any of our channels or PM for more info. #theirliesdependonoursilence.”
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Their letter now has more than 130 signatures from individuals willing to share their late-term abortion stories, according to the report.
“We are later abortion patients,” Marschall wrote in the letter. “We are not monsters. We are your family, your neighbors, someone you love.”
Christensen said many of the signatories “are angry at being accused of killing their babies on a whim. They hope their stories can add context to this hideous rhetoric that we’re hearing.”
Just last week, however, an Oregon woman admitted to New York Magazine that she aborted a late-term unborn baby at 28 weeks for purely elective reasons. She said neither she nor her unborn baby had any health problems.
Even the Yahoo report acknowledged that there is little evidence that late-term abortions only occur in difficult circumstances, such as fetal anomalies or risks to the mother’s physical health. Several years ago, a leading abortion advocate also admitted to the New York Times that he had lied to U.S. Congress about late-term abortions. He told the newspaper that late-term abortions are more common than abortion activists admit, and many are on healthy mothers carrying healthy unborn babies.
But Christensen and her group are pushing the heart-tugging, difficult situations to appeal to voters’ compassion.
Killing an unborn baby never is compassionate, even if the baby is suffering. No one wants to see a human being in pain, much less a child, but the answer is to provide comfort and care, not kill the person who is suffering. No matter now difficult the circumstances or severe the disability, every child, born and unborn, deserves the same basic medical care. True compassion can never involve intentionally killing an innocent human being.