The letter below, in italics, was printed in the October 28th edition of the Lafayette Journal and Courier. While I don’t support Sen. McCain, I felt the need to defend him against the allegations in this letter. Furthermore, I felt obligated as a Pro-Life advocate to write a letter in response.
Women’s lives should be protected
In the final presidential debate, John McCain mocked Barack Obama, stating that concern for the health of the mother was an “extreme pro-abortion position.”
When my husband and I moved to Lafayette, we planned to start a family and were overjoyed when I got pregnant. The joy was short-lived when we found out that the pregnancy was ectopic. Not only would it not produce a baby, but it endangered my life.
Thankfully, I did not require surgery and my husband and I have gone on to have two beautiful sons, one adopted and one biological.
I am a married woman who was trying to start a family and things went awry. When carried out, the extreme anti-choice position held by Mr. McCain could have cost me my life.
There are two little boys and a wonderful husband to whom my life matters, even if it doesn’t to John McCain.
 My response:
I am writing in response to the woman who wrote in the 10/28 J & C re life of the mother clause for abortion. I am sorry that you experienced the loss of a child. I too lost a child early in pregnancy and know that it is very tragic and often the emotional difficulty is borne alone.
However, I wanted to address the misconception that John McCain holds an “extreme anti-choice position.†regarding abortion. According to Sen. McCain’s website, he believes that Roe vs Wade, the decision allowing legal abortions in the United States, should be overturned and abortion laws handled on the state level. Furthermore the Republican Party platform on abortion has been for many years, to allow it in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Sen. McCain himself has said, when discussing the abortion ban in South Dakota, that he “would have signed the legislation, but would also take the appropriate steps under state law — in whatever state — to ensure that the exceptions of rape, incest or life of the mother were included.” Clearly an ectopic pregnancy would fall under that allowance.
According to the website http://www.nlm.nih.gov ectopic pregnancies occur in 1 in every 40 to 1 in every 100 pregnancies. The website goes on to say that “…the most common complication is rupture with internal bleeding that leads to shock. Death from rupture is rare” and “…the rate of death due to an ectopic pregnancy in the United States has dropped in the last 30 years to less than 0.1%.”
Finally, while I think it is important to point out the truth in this matter, I do not agree entirely with the Republican platform regarding abortion and would prefer that more loving alternatives to abortion be sought and encouraged.
**What I didn’t put in my response, though it is worth noting, Catholic Church teaching allows for a woman to under go a procedure that would remove the fallopian tube to save the mother’s life in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.This in effect is removing the injured area, which sadly, holds a child, however, the child is not being directly killed. The church goes on to say that when this procedure is done, the child must be treated with dignity and should be baptised as soon as the tube is removed. Please email me if you have questions about this as it is not the easiest thing to understand. You can send emails to catholicmumma at gmail dot com
Hopefully tomorrow or this weekend we will see my letter in the paper!
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