I revisited Choice this week and found myself having trouble deciding which story to choose until I came across Kate Maloy’s A Normal Woman. With all the goings on with the Tiller murder, this story got me thinking on how if the right would just listen to women and maybe investigate a little bit as to why late term abortions are performed, they might show a little compassion and back off a little.

  Growing up, Kate didn’t menstruate until she was 15 and only then with a hormone injection. She feared she would never get pregnant and never be a normal girl, attributing her failures to psychological short comings put upon her by her mother and her lack of female sensitivity. She had an ectopic pregnancy in her early twenties which spring boarded her into a late puberty as it were, finally feeling like she was a real woman and could in fact get pregnant.  At 38 she conceived with her then husband but something wasn’t right. She wasn’t able to get a proper amnio until well after the 24 week mark where abortion would be possible.  The fetus was too small and the ration of amniotic fluid was too low. When they were finally able to get a sample they found that there was an abnormally large chromosome paired with a regular one on the second pair. This was extremely rare and they were only able to find 9 recorded cases of this happening and the one case they found where the baby was carried to term it died 20 days after birth with severe heart and kidney damage and would most likely have been severely mentally retarded. Faced with this knowledge, or lack thereof, Kate and her husband had a choice to make. [Read more...]