Compared to women who have not been pregnant in the prior year, deaths from suicide, accidents and homicide are 248% higher in the year following an abortion, according to a new 13-year study of the entire population of women in Finland.

The study also found that majority of the extra deaths among women who had abortions were due to suicide. The suicide rate among women who had abortions was six times higher than that of women who had given birth in the prior year and double that of women who had miscarriages.

He calls himself an "abortionist" and says, "I am destroying life."

But he also feels he's giving life: He calls his patients "born again."

"When you end what the woman considers a disastrous pregnancy, she has literally been given her life back," he says.

"This is not going to be nearly as hard as you anticipate," he tells her.

She smiles wanly. Keeping up a constant patter - he asks about her brothers, her future birth control plans, whether she's good at tongue twisters - Harrison pulls on sterile gloves.

"How're you doing up there?" he asks.

"Doing OK."

"Good girl."

Harrison glances at an ultrasound screen frozen with an image of the fetus taken moments before. Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.

"You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out," Harrison tells the patient.

A moment later, he says: "You're going to hear a sucking sound."

The abortion takes two minutes. The patient lies still and quiet, her eyes closed, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. The friend who has accompanied her stands at her side, mutely stroking her arm.

Childbirth, he says, should be joyous; a woman should never consider it a punishment or an obligation.

"We try to make sure she doesn't ever feel guilty," he says, "for what she feels she has to do."

Manna Begum, 20, is to be investigated by Thames Valley police over the abortion of her unborn child.

Her fiance, Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, was stabbed to death by her brothers on the orders of their father after he discovered that she was pregnant by the 19-year-old student.

Chomir Ali and his sons, Mohammed Mujibar Rahman and Mamnoor Rahman, who were convicted of murder at Oxford Crown Court three weeks ago, killed Mr Ghorbani-Zarin because they disapproved of his relationship with Ms Begum.

When they attempted to stop her seeing him she attempted suicide, so Mr Ali's two sons abducted Mr Ghorbani-Zarin, an engineering student at Oxford Brookes University, and knifed him 46 times.

Then Mr Ali, who is of Bangladeshi origin, and another relative paid for his daughter to fly to Barcelona to have an abortion at the Clinica Ginemedex.

I personally believe that abortion should be legal for the first trimester only (3 months). After that, it should be legal only if the mother's health is at risk after a medical consultation. If a doctor signs a "health risk" certificate, he has to appear before a medical board stating why he felt the mother's health was at risk. If his reasons are proven incorrect, then the doctor should be stripped of his license and charged, if the abortion took place, with accessory to murder. Any doctor performing an abortion without said health risk certificate should be charged with first degree murder.

I think such a stance still allows for freedom of choice and for mitigating circumstances (health risk, rape, etc) but will also stem the horrific genocide going on in North America today.

Now, would this be considered a true conservative position or would this be labelled moderate?

When I hear about people who have aborted such a child because they didn't want him to have to "live a life like that," I am incredulous. How someone comes to the conclusion that not allowing a child to live at all is somehow better than living as a special needs child is beyond comprehension. Aborting a disabled child removes the option of looking at the glass as half empty or half full. Abortion takes the glass and heaves it over the side of a cliff while the pieces shatter on the rocks below. While it may eliminate the disappointment, sorrow and frustration, it also eliminates the hope, joy and pride of accomplishment that child can bring. What a travesty. What arrogance. What right do we have to destroy that little person because he doesn't measure up to someone's standard?

When Amy got pregnant during her freshman year of college, she knew that, at 18, she wasn't ready to be a mother. So she had an abortion. "That was a very easy decision to get to, but a very difficult emotional experience, both before and after," she says from San Francisco, where she now lives. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone else." Six years later, she says, she was living and working in New York City when, after a condom failure, she found herself with a second unwanted pregnancy. "That time, it was like, 'Oh, no! This sucks. Let me just take care of this.'" She had another abortion. "Oh well, that's over," she recalls thinking immediately afterward. "And then I didn't think about it very much." She didn't talk about it very much either, and, even today, she is loath to reveal it. "I rarely talk about the second abortion because of society's judgments about women who have a second abortion," she says. "It's like, 'Oh, you're allowed one mistake.'" But not two....

The natural assumption is that Bush is trying to con abortion-rights supporters. Only an idiot would squander the opportunity to rid the nation of Roe because of some fatuous nonsense about picking judges without finding out the one thing you most urgently want to know.

But Machiavellians of my acquaintance believe that it is the anti-abortion folks who are getting conned. The last thing in the world that Republican strategists want is the repeal of Roe. If abortion becomes a legislative issue again, all those pro-choice women and men who have been voting Republican because abortion was safe would have to reconsider, and many would bolt. Meanwhile, the reversal of Roe would energize the left the way Roe itself energized the right. Who needs that?

The underlying assumption is that a woman should want to have an abortion if she is carrying a child with Down syndrome. Following the logic of Singer, these researchers and physicians imply that it is perfectly understandable, perhaps even to be expected, if a woman were to kill her child because it had such bleak "future prospects."

But do such people truly lack "quality of life?" Barbara Curtis not only has a son with the disability but adopted three other boys with Down syndrome. She notes that instead of being institutionalized, such children are now raised at home, attend class with their peers, and even become homecoming kings and queens :

"How could these people who our society so fears that it spends vast amounts of money researching and testing to eliminate end up being number one in the hearts of their classmates?

My simple answer is this: because that's what they're all about. God is in the business of changing hearts, and a sprinkling of people with Down syndrome among us is one way he uses."

In his study on the concept of "love", the philosopher Josef Pieper said that loving someone is a way of saying, "It's good that you exist; it's good that you are in the world!" Society, though, is sending the exact opposite message to these homecoming kings and queens. Children who have Down syndrome are encouraged to be discarded, never to exist outside the womb. In essence, they are being told that since they cannot "chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie" that they have no right to live.

Fortunately, our culture doesn't have Darrow's courage so we won't be chloroforming children anytime soon. But who needs to practice that sort of late-stage eugenics when we can do it at the eleventh week?

If we are going to breathe new life into this culture of death, by the grace of God, we need soldiers "at the gates" and political advocacy. However, we also need "underground" types - those who respond in love not only for the pregnant women and infants but the hundreds of thousands of children who will wind up in similarly desperate straits if we do not teach them to aspire to something better .

If every Christian family in America took one "unwanted" child (not just the cute infants, but the special needs and older children as well) into our homes, we could turn the tide against the Culture of Death in a single generation - and put a human face on the pro-life movement. The question is: Just how committed are we to this particular cause?

The law of unintended consequences can also be seen in another goal of the Pill: To reduce poverty by eliminating large families. They have virtually disappeared from our society, but questions remain. What is the best gift parents can give their child: A new car or a new little brother? And for that matter where does wealth come from? It is true a large family will probably be more hard pressed to make ends meet when the children are growing up, but there are lots of indications that that can be recouped in the long run. I think of my own four brothers and one sister. I do not want to romanticize our upbringing or say we are more cohesive than is true, but I consider overall we have been a help to each other. That help can be measured not only spiritually, but even economically.

the Bible says "Rescue those who are being led to slaughter." Does this mean that believers have an obligation to use whatever worldly means are necessary to stop abortionists in their tracks? Since I personally have been a Christian for 5 of my 15 years of pro life activism, and since those tempted to become violent often think that God might be calling them to harm abortionists, my primary approach will be from a Christian point of view...

The professed goal of someone who shoots an abortionist is to "rescue those who are being led to slaughter." Superficially, it might seem wise to simply shoot the person who plans to slaughter the babies. But is that what is really accomplished?[...]

Let's look at some of the ripple effects of shooting abortionists: demonization of pro life activists, increased sympathy for abortionists, draconian laws passed to keep peaceful and effective pro lifers away from abortion facilities. None of these effects is positive. So is shooting abortionists wise? Not at all. It simply feeds the pro abortion propaganda machine.

Skeletal remains discovered by hunters last week in Audubon County in western Iowa are those of an infant or fetus, Audubon County sheriff's officials said.

Ms. Eftimidades' account is structured such that the decision to abort is balanced (indeed offset) by competing interests  on the other side. With or without the commentary, the child is no less as dead, but it allows Ms. Eftimidades both to excuse her actions in her own mind and attempt to put abortion opponents on the defensive.

Eftimidades is 42 years old. She and her 52-year-old boyfriend discover she is pregnant. She hesitates to tell people right off the bat, she writes, because of her unmarried status. Sure enough, some"second-tier friends" make "insensitive remarks."

We learn she is the model of a concerned mom. Mike brings home fresh fruit. She gets annoyed when the pharmacy runs out of her prenatal vitamins. Heck, she writes Starbucks "to request they add black decaffeinated tea to their menu. (Herbals aren't good for pregnant women.)"

Then the amniocentesis reveals their son has Down syndrome. They are shocked. She's already told people she's pregnant. What to do? Some, including her mother, advise her to tell people she miscarried. (The mother used that cover story with one of Eftimidades' brothers.  "That brother's wife was a Catholic, and my mother was taking no chances. 'People are funny,' she said.")

So, the story thus far is (1) snotty second-tier friends make insensitive remarks about her pregnancy; (2) Eftimidades has been a good mother; (3) the baby makes a poor decision--he has Down syndrome; (4) having shared the news of her pregnancy with friends, Eftimidades has got to watch out for those who might object, especially her judgmental Catholic sister-in-law who might not want to see her nephew aborted.

But wait, there's more. She reminiscences about her days years back when she was a reporter covering "clinic bombings and protests." She writes, "Once I became one of those women ending a pregnancy, I found myself wondering how I'd react under that kind of pressure." And then she asks, do you get a "Get Out of Jail Free Card" if "your child will be born with a severe disability"? Her unwritten answer to her own rhetorical question is, Yes!

Then the politically correct, throwaway line: "While I have no doubt there can be joys and victories in raising a mentally handicapped child," immediately followed by the excusatory conclusion, "for me and for Mike, it's a painful journey that we believe is better not taken. To know now that our son would be retarded, perhaps profoundly, gives us the choice of not continuing the pregnancy."

(Of course, the "journey" has already begun, and, moreover, they have no reason to conclude their child would be "profoundly" retarded. Such rhetoric just makes the decision easier to rationalize.)

She approaches saying that ending the child's life is probably a decision the kid would concur with, if he could vote: "We don't want a life like that for our child, and the added worry that we wouldn't be around long enough to care for him throughout his life."

In her mind, perhaps she could almost hear, "Thanks, mom, for choosing death."

No such contemporary account would be complete without the mandatory attempt to turn the tables on those who oppose snuffing out children's lives. One night she has a nightmare about the three of them at a bookstore, gunfire, and a baby crawling away.

Eftimidades awakes the next morning, she writes, "mourning the child we wouldn't have."  She adds, "I'm sure pro-lifers don't give you the right to grieve for the baby you chose not to bring into the world."

Second thoughts on Eftimidades' part? Just the opposite. "Only now do I understand how entirely personal the decision to terminate a pregnancy is and how wrong it feels to bring someone else's morality into the discussion."

She concludes her opinion piece by telling us that she has her abortion, surrounded by kindly nurses and the doctor who "held my hand as the anesthesia took over." And then the abrupt ending:

"As for that baby that will never be, I will remember him always. But I'm quite certain that I made the right choice for the three of us."

Do I or any other pro-lifer begrudge her the right to "grieve"? No, of course not. Maybe if she does (now that they've considered the possibility that they might "try again"), were the same circumstances to arise, she might choose differently.

Do I or any other pro-lifer fail to see that raising children with disabilities demands a lot from the child's parents. No, of course not. Many of us have special needs children of our own, or have family members and friends who do.

But defenseless unborn children are not plastic containers that you depose of. They are not recyclables. Nor is the decision to end their "journey" like making a U-turn, going back to the front door, and setting the odometer back.

Lives have been lost, lives taken in a brutally calculated way. And while Eftimidades and Mike may consider the decision "the right choice," I can assure them that the little baby crawling away in her dream has other ideas.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote this week on the nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to be assistant secretary of State for the bureau of population, refugees, and migration. California Democrat Barbara Boxer will reportedly make the case against the former Maryland lawmaker's confirmation. Senator Boxer's argument goes something like this: Ellen Sauerbrey, who is pro-life, reliably represents the policy positions of the administration she has served.

While an orchestrated campaign of hostile editorials dishonestly casts Sauerbrey as a political crony in the tradition of FEMA's hapless Michael Brown, in truth, she is being blackballed by the feminist Left owing to the Bush administration's position on abortion and its refusal, backed by Congress, to fund abortions through donations to international organizations. Ellen Sauerbrey is far more than a "Bush loyalist," although as his nominee she would no doubt plead guilty to being loyal to the president's agenda. And, that's her sin in the eyes of the monolithic sisterhood.[...]

In making the case against this experienced, multitalented public servant, Senator Boxer will be representing the opposition of a host of left-wing women's groups who have appointed themselves gatekeeper. They are imposing an entry fee before admission to the worldwide effort to alleviate the desperate suffering of millions of women. Although Charlotte Burch, executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership has argued, "There is a need to create greater space and opportunity for women with various perspectives to be heard as public leaders - in elected office and as public writers and shapers of opinion," she doesn't mean it. Burch is a leading opponent of Sauerbrey's nomination because, as far as the Left is concerned, there is only space for abortion-rights advocates in the international campaign against the abuse and exploitation of women.

SIECUS and the CDC have a record of recommending curricula with extremely graphic content such as the use of grocery items like grape jelly being used as lubricants ( Becoming a Responsible Teen ), condom relay races, condom practice and fantasizing during classroom time, a homework assignment to go shopping for condoms, and how-to instructions for oral sex ( Becoming a Responsible Teen, Be Proud! Be Responsible!, Get Real About AIDS ). Focus on Kids, a curriculum for 9-15-year-olds, assigns teens to create a list of ways to be close to a person without having intercourse, including, "body massage, bathing together, masturbation, sensuous feeding, fantasizing, watching erotic movies, reading erotic books and magazines."

Karen Pearl, the group's president, spoke about her memories of a time before abortion was legalized, when young women took dangerous chemicals or used coat hangers to self-abort their pregnancies. She said she was worried that we were coming back to those days as the Roe vs. Wade decision is being "slowly eviscerated."

Roe vs. Wade was the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that overturned all state laws that outlawed or restricted abortions. Since the decision, there have been numerous attempts, says Pearl, to "chip away" at it.

Such attempts, according to Pearl, include state laws that require parental notification before an abortion can be performed, state mandated "waiting periods" that make women wait a few days before going through an abortion and requiring doctors to read "inflammatory and inaccurate" information to a woman prior to abortion.

Pearl says that all of these amendments to Roe vs. Wade are destroying the fundamentals of the case and will only serve to hurt women. "Restricting access to abortion will not make it go away," Pearl said, "it will just make it less safe."

Pearl claims that restricting a woman's access to abortion may make her seek out less safe ways of aborting her pregnancy. "It will cause women to die," she said.

"I personally believe very strongly" in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III.

The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House will release today from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. [...]

"I am and always have been a conservative," he wrote in an attachment to the noncareer appointment form that he sent to the Presidential Personnel Office. "I am a lifelong registered Republican."

"It has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly," he wrote.

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Willem,

These are the presents you've given me. I have the strongest desire to thrash them out but I strongly believe in recycling now. If they will make another girl foolishly happy for a while, I am glad to be of service.

I remember your words when you gave me the puppy. I have since taken very good care it just as you want me to. 'Take good care of it so that it'll grow up to be a strong friend to you.' Well, the doggie has been a better friend to me than you have, dearie. Dogs are faithful companions who trust their masters and vice-versa. Since you obviously have no concept of integrity and loyalty. I have decided to return the puppy to you with the sincerest hope that he will teach you some important values.

The white rose? Well darling, you gave it to me the day you arrived in Singers. Call me a sentimental fool, but I preserved it, on the pretext that someday I'd look back and reflect on the things, the little things that had mattered to me once. Now I just ask myself, why a white rose, why not a bunch of roses. You cheapskate.

I had a really in-depth talk with my coven members about you. And I had an in-depth talk with someone I have been neglecting: my gut instincts. I decided to be honest, truthful and to be myself. You are right. You need space. Nobody who knows their true worth will want someone like you. All the therapy in the world can't save you. A smidgen of integrity might help. I doubt it but please.. please.. please try for your sanity's sake. I truly care for you, no matter what. But surely I deserve better?

Still I don't regret that all our paths crossed. Yes, crossed and tangled with the other girls you had, like some goddamned telephone lines. Thank you for allowing me to step off at a station. You have to continue alone on this sick, dark journey that has been a big part of your life. You are right. I deserve someone better. I can never be angry with you for reminding me of this fact, darling.

Dear Willem, I'll always, always remember you. I'll always remember how it felt, how happy you made me feel, how you made me laugh. False memories, that's what they are. I will survive through this because I'll remember how you make the other girls feel that way too, you shit. They are lucky. They woke up, I need to do the same now.


Regrets but still beautiful,
Alex

p.s. I feel strongly about helping you even though we are not meant to be together. You have to know that 10 minutess or less for a bedroom performance is really not good at all. I hate to be judgemental, so I'll need to ask the other girls about this. We may want to help you. Don't push us away, please. You have a gift with words, don't waste it with a lacklustre weiner. Surely there must be a place to ask for advice without being too obvious. A place where sympathy can be gained and advice given from the local expat community.

p.p.s. Don't reply please. I've cc this email to people who matter to me. My beautiful friends, supportive family and some coven members whom you may remember fondly, but who may not feel the same way about you. Be afraid, be very afraid darling but have faith. Singers is such a huge place. There must be room for losers like you.

"A few years ago, a young woman about twenty years old came to the ER because she was feeling very sick. She'd become increasingly ill ever since the abortion she'd had about a week earlier. I had her admitted to the hospital from the ER with a severe pneumonia. The following days revealed that the pneumonia was just a part of the problem- she had overwhelming sepsis, which is infection throughout her entire body which had, at its source, the abortion.

"This woman died. The admitting physician never reported the incident as abortion-related, nor did she inform the abortion provider of the results of his 'care.' He was still practicing, without the slightest idea that his intervention had led to his patient's death..

"The medical diagnosis reads 'severe pain'- the real cause is abortion. The record reads 'vaginal bleeding'- the real cause is abortion. The operative note says 'ruptured ectopic pregnancy and internal hemorrhage'- the real cause is abortion. The autopsy states 'cause of death- overwhelming sepsis'- the real cause is abortion."

Screening women before the second trimester allows those who might opt to terminate a pregnancy to make that decision when doctors say an abortion is safer and less traumatic. It also gives those who want to continue the pregnancy more time to prepare emotionally for their child's condition, and provides earlier reassurance to those whose babies are healthy, avoiding weeks of anxiety, Malone and others said.

The dirty little secret is that most pregnant teens are impregnated by adults (who are not their parents) and abortion clinics don't want to know. A recent study of over 46,000 pregnancies of school-age girls in California found that over two-thirds were impregnated by adults. These are child molestations and little or nothing is being done about them!

The message of Sen. Boxer and her colleagues to parents in this election should be clear to anyone who was paying attention: "You are too stupid, too feared and too abusive to be trusted with an important matter like your child's health care. Leave it to the abortionist or the mother of the kid who knocked up your daughter or her adult molester. Now these are the people who really care about your child!"

The truth is many men have adapted Roe v. Wade into Moe v. Wade - an excuse to behave badly without consequences. "It's her body" sure comes in handy sometimes.

But strangely, even those fathers who have lost the instinct to protect their own children from being killed by abortion are so because of abortion. Abortion deadens one of the characteristics that makes a man a man: the will to create, protect, and provide for his family.[...]

The more I learn about abortion, the more overwhelmed I am at the enormity of its destruction.

Yet the silence of men is deafening.

Why? Aside from the fact that men avoid discussing feelings publicly, most abortions are the result of promiscuous sex. While sex with abandon is promoted these days as normal, men know deep inside what their mamas would say if told: "You should have kept your zipper zipped."

At first, I wanted an abortion, and I went to a clinic to get one.

I remember that day, because I was so scared. At the same time, I just wanted to get it all done. I thought maybe this would work out for the best, and my family would be less disappointed in me, and my life would get back to normal.

I walked into the clinic, saw about five to seven girls there, went to the front desk and paid. Then, I sat down and thought about the process. I was so nervous because I had never had surgery before, and abortion is kind of like surgery.

They finally called my name. I got up, followed a nurse to a room so she could weigh me, get my blood pressure and check my iron. Then, I went to another room for an ultrasound. Right away, the nurse went to get the doctor. The doctor told me I was 6 1/2 months pregnant, too far along for an abortion.

My first thoughts were, "How am I going to tell my mom?" and "How are we going to tell everyone else?" My next thought was, "Is it a boy or a girl?" In a big way, I was relieved to get out of the abortion clinic, but I also realized how much work I was going to have to do and how hard my life was going to get in the next two months.

I decided right away I wanted my baby to be adopted. Adoption was right because I was only 16 and worked at Domino's Pizza and, despite how grown-up I had to be for the next months, I wasn't grown-up enough to raise a baby. [...]

Laila was born on May 23. That was the hardest day of my life -- physically and emotionally. Laila Noelle was born at 5:34 p.m. She was a beautiful 6 pounds 9 ounces and 19 3/4 inches long. Holding her and having her look at me with her big dark eyes made me cry, because I almost had had an abortion.

I love Laila very much and, although it was hard, I wouldn't have chosen a different way.

I thought I wanted an abortion, because it seemed like something you could just do and never worry about again. But, in my experience, I think about my baby all the time and I'm really happy to know she is here.

Women who had an abortion were were more likey to die than any other group, the majority of these deaths resulted from violence. Interestingly non-pregnant women were more likely to die than women of conveived and gave birth or who had a miscarrage. A normaized rate of 1.0 equals the death rate of non-pregnant women. Women who had an abortion 12 months prior to death are the 3.52 times more likely to die and those who gave birth were least likely to die. [...]

In 1990 it is estimated that over 1400 women died following a legalized abortions with the majority of these deaths resulting from suicide, homicide or accident. In 1990 abortion related maternal deaths calculate to be 10 times higher than reported deaths caused from complications due to illegal abortion as reported to the CDC in 1972.

New Jersey Public Radio & Television aired a report Friday night in which New Jersey Democratic Candidate for Governor Jon Corzine was grilled about whether a staffer he allegedly had an affair with -- had an abortion.

NJN News' Michael Aron reported Friday: "The press is interested right now in personal conduct. Corzine was asked about a persistent rumor that he had an affair with a staffer whom the reporter identified by name."

Sen. Jon Corzine: "A, not true. B, I'm not going to comment on the kind of, I think, low, guttural politics that's going on over and over in this state, and I think the ad that was talked about was just symptomatic of that."

NJN's Michael Aron: "He was asked about a rumor that the same staffer had an abortion in Ohio." Reporter: "Can you respond to those rumors that are circulating?"

Corzine: "Trash."

Saturday's edition of THE NEW YORK TIMES reported the incident but ignored the specifics: "But Mr. Corzine did deny a new allegation raised by reporters yesterday regarding another woman."

TIMES reporter David Kocieniewski has been investigating the claims, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

"He had the details. He's sat on the details," says a source.

Today I would have been a mother. Today I would have been sitting here uncomfortable and screaming at X that he did this to me. Today I would have met my daughter, but I am not. Very rarely in life are we offered a glimpse of what the road not traveled would look like, but today I see that very clearly. I can see how drastically one decision changed (or didn't change) the path my life was on. I often wonder what my life would be like if I had stayed in NY. I have daydreams and thoughts about it, but I don't know for certain what it would be like. I know where I would be if I had kept the baby and it's caused some strange emotions and quite a bit of confusion. In my imagination I can see the other me, waddling around with a big belly, but I can't relate to her. I wonder what I would be feeling, what the past couple of months would have been like. But I don't know and there is a sadness in that.

Today I am thinking about all the things I don't know because of the abortion. I don't know what it's like to feel a baby move. I don't know what it's like to not see my feet. I don't know what my baby girl would look like. I was so close to all of that, so close I could almost comprehend it. I haven't changed my view of my situation, I still believe the right thing, but today I am going to mourn my daughter. The laughter I'll never hear, the first smile I'll never see. Today I will honor her memory and all of the things I do know because of her.

I understand what I did, but I don't think I killed a child. I killed the potential of the child. In a perfect world I would love to have been excited, happy and a mother. But that's not my life, so on my due date I allowed myself to mourn what an alternative universe could have allowed. The best analogy I can come up with, and admittedly this is a stretch, is how you feel after an elderly, sick relative has passed away. You miss them, you mourn them, but there is a sense of peace because you knew it was best for them. I did what was best for me and might not be for someone else in my shoes.

Against mom's wishes and my christian roommate's pleas I had a nice and clean D&C. I didn't know what it stood for but it couldn't have been Decapitation and Cauterization. It was an incredibly fast procedure considering the weeks of agony spent in coming to the decision to do it. You know, all murder is pretty quick actually, though I wouldn't know personally about any other kind.

After an hour recovering I sauntered into the Sizzler for my first good meal in two months. I had spent 11 weeks carrying a child who was killing me slowly. I was VERY sick, something doctors later diagnosed as 'hyperemesis'. I justified the abortion because I really believed I would die of morning sickness. [...]

Why in the world am I writing this? One of my attempts at transparency I suppose, but because I feel it in my spirit tonight to say a word to the woman reading this that is considering doing what I did. If I say it once it's not enough... I regret it. I regret every part of it. I regret not knowing God. I regret leaning on myself for wisdom. I wish I had just sucked it up and gone home to my parents who would have supported me. I wish I had done anything but answer to fear.

This statistic speaks to just how pervasive the use of abortion for birth control purposes really is. While the report does not contain "rape and incest" figures, the studies that have been done along this line have universally shown that infinitesimal numbers (from .1% to 3% at the upper range). And, while I would personally view every abortion in which the mother's life is not in danger a tragedy, the fact that 45% of the women who are getting abortions have had abortions before and are apparently uninterested in changing the behavior that led to the first abortion is really inexcusable. An even more stunning 18% per cent (almost one-fifth!) admitted to having two or more previous abortions . When almost one out of every five women who is getting an abortion is apparently more inclined to visit the abortion clinic than use a prophylactic device, it's clear that we're we've created a regime that has destroyed any meaningful notion of personal accountability and responsibility with the lives of others.

The numbers speak for themselves. Since 1973, the unborn have been killed in this country at a rate that rivals the worst mass executions in history. Abortion has become an easy and cheap solution to an inconvenient problem in the minds of Americans, at the cost of countless human lives. It has contributed especially to the dilution and diminution of minority (especially black) communities in this country, all with the encouragement and blessing of the Democratic party in this country.

40 Million. Approximately one-eighth of the current population of the United States - dead before they had the chance to contribute anything to their families, their communities, their country, or the world. Somehow, the madness must stop.