You’ve probably never heard of Anne Finger. She is a writer for the Progressive Media Project affiliated with The Progressive magazine, and she attended the funeral of Dr. George Tiller. As the former abortion counselor, and a woman who had an abortion, one would assume she knew what Dr. Tiller’s practice entailed. One would assume that she would understand people don’t go to get late term abortions for fun, on a whim. One would assume that she knows that women faced with these horrific situations in which their life is in serious danger from the pregnancy, or the certainty that their child, if it survived birth, would be born to a brief, unhappy and pain filled life due to a genetic anomaly or other disorder such as Anencephaly, Patau syndrome, Lethal Dwarfism, etc. are faced with making a heartbreaking and grief stricken decision.
Well, be careful what you assume. Just because someone writes for an organization with the word “Progressive” in its title doesn’t mean they are necessarily “progressive” if you know what I mean. Indeed, some of them can be downright mendacious. Here’s what Anne Finger wrote “disturbed” her regarding a vigil held for Dr. Tiller:
At the vigil, mostly I heard about the “tragedy” of “fetal defects.” The unstated assumption was that disabilities are bad, and of course we should want to get rid of them. If that’s not possible, we should prevent the birth of someone with a disability.
These unstated assumptions concern me. We need to be wary of the dangers of talking about choice in a vacuum, of not acknowledging the social and economic forces that shape our individual “choices,” and the impact that those cumulative individual choices can, in turn, have.
The strongest support for abortion comes in cases of “fetal defect,” but I think that tells us less about support for abortion and more about society’s fear of disability. […]
You could become disabled while you are in a car, backpacking, diving into a swimming pool or, as happened to a friend of mine, sledding down a hill on a school cafeteria tray.
You could get an infection or develop an autoimmune disease.
In fact, disability probably will happen to you or a family member; it will almost certainly be a part of your life.
I urge my fellow supporters of abortion rights not to reinforce prejudices about disability. We cannot allow ourselves to become a force for oppression of one group in the name of liberating another.
One wonders how Ms. Finger was able to read the minds of the speakers, and know that in their hearts they meant “disability” when they said “fetal defect?” What inner knowledge allows her to metaphorically point her damning finger at them for “fostering prejudice” against people with “disabilities” in order to advance an abortion rights agenda? I know I wouldn’t have assumed that the mere use of the term “fetal defects” (like Anencephaly, or Trisomy 18) equated to an unspoken desire to eliminate people with disabilities.
For example, here’s what the Wikipedia entry on Anencephaly says regarding the life expectancy of infants born with this “fetal defect”:
A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch may occur. […]
Most anencephalic babies do not survive birth, accounting for 55% of non-aborted cases. If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth from cardiorespiratory arrest.
And here’s what the Wikipedia entry on Trisomy 18 says regarding the complications an infant born with this fetal defect (also known as Edwards Syndrome):
The survival rate of Edwards Syndrome is very low. About 95% die in utero. Of liveborn infants, only 50% live to 2 months, and only 5–10% will survive their first year of life. […]
Infants born with Edwards syndrome may have some or all of the following characteristics: kidney malformations, structural heart defects at birth (i.e., ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus), intestines protruding outside the body (omphalocele), esophageal atresia, mental retardation, developmental delays, growth deficiency, feeding difficulties, breathing difficulties, and arthrogryposis (a muscle disorder that causes multiple joint contractures at birth).
Now I have a disability caused by my malfunctioning autoimmune system. My wife has a disability as a result of her chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer and severe Type 1 diabetes. My nephew who suffers from seizures and displays autistic like behaviors, has a disability. So I think I have some idea of what people with disabilities face.
A child with Anencephaly is essentially brain dead and not likely to survive long outside the womb, if it is not stillborn. A child with Trisomy 18 or Edwards Syndrome has a 1% chance of survival until age ten, and then only if he or she has the “less severe mosaic Edwards syndrome.” These go far beyond what we typically think of as “disabilities.” How Ms. Finger determined that the “unstated assumption” of the speakers at the San Francisco vigil for Dr. Tiller was that “disabilities are bad” and that these Pro-Choice speakers supported the idea that any child with a potential disability “should be aborted” is also beyond me.
Certainly no one who attended and wrote about Dr. Tiller’s funeral service had anything to say about these “unstated assumptions” which Ms. Finger somehow was able to sniff out at the vigil she attended. If anything, like fellow abortion provider Dr. William F. Harrison what they remembered about the funeral service had nothing whatsoever to do with prejudice against people with disabilities, and focused instead on the incredible kindness and generosity shown throughout the life of George Tiller, by all accounts a compassionate human being who was murdered by a fanatical right wing terrorist. And, of course, they mourned his loss.
George took them when they were not able to pay for his services. He accepted patients for whom we sometimes had to give money to even make the trip. George’s colleagues who knew of his deep religious faith, generosity, kindness and love called him St. George when we spoke among ourselves, though we knew it embarrassed him to hear himself addressed this way. […]
On the first Saturday in June, Dr. George Tiller’s funeral was held in the College Hill Methodist Church in Wichita. The Lutheran church where he was killed was much too small to contain the people from all over this country, Canada and South and Central America who showed up to honor this remarkable man and hear his friend and children eulogize him. His wife, Jeanne, a member of the choir at their church, sang a beautiful “Lord’s Prayer” for her husband, who she called “my best buddy and the love of my life.”
I find it extremely uncomfortable to cry. But I totally lost my composure at the oldest daughter’s eulogy to her father and during Jeanne’s beautiful song.
So, Anne Finger, as one person with a disability to another, please stop using your fertile imagination to conjure up the canard that the “unstated assumption” of those who support abortion, and particularly supporters of the late term abortion services provided to women in extremis by doctors like George Tiller, is the result of prejudice against people with disabilities. If I may be blunt, it’s highly dishonest of you to make that leap based on the use of the word “fetal defect.” It’s the sort low, deceitful statement I would expect from right wing hatemongers like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. To paraphrase your own commentary, I think it says more about your own prejudices than about the men and women who support a woman’s right to choose.
