Late Term Abortion

Mr. Jasper seems to think that women have late term abortions on a whim... here are some of the stories:

When Congress first considered the ban in 1995, Watts testified on Capitol Hill. So did Viki Wilson of Fresno, Calif., who had a late-term abortion because the brain of the fetus she was carrying had developed outside the skull. So did Vikki Stella of Naperville, Ill., whose fetus had dwarfism, no brain tissue and seven other major abnormalities.
All three women told legislators they owed their health to late-term abortions and that a continuation of their doomed pregnancies posed grave health risks such as stroke, paralysis, infertility or even death.
As they campaign to save access to these procedures, Watts, Stella and Wilson point out that in virtually all cases, late-term abortions are the only way to respond to unanticipated complications: the death of the fetus inside the womb, problems that mean the fetus can't live outside the womb, or serious threats to the mother's health.
"No women has these procedures for frivolous reasons," says Stella. "They have them because it's their only choice."
In its Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged this fact, giving states permission to regulate--or even proscribe--terminations of pregnancies except "where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
Reference and full article can be found here.

Here is another equally compelling story which highlights why it is important that the decision of whether or not to have a late-term abortion should lie with the pregnant woman, her loved ones and her doctor... and why "maternal health" is an important distinction from "maternal life".

Instead of cinnamon and spice, our child came with technical terms like hydrocephalus and spina bifida. The spine, she said, had not closed properly, and because of the location of the opening, it was as bad as it got. What they knew -- that the baby would certainly be paralyzed and incontinent, that the baby's brain was being tugged against the opening in the base of the skull and the cranium was full of fluid -- was awful. What they didn't know -- whether the baby would live at all, and if so, with what sort of mental and developmental defects -- was devastating. Countless surgeries would be required if the baby did live. None of them would repair the damage that was already done.
We met with a genetic counselor, but given the known as well as the unknown, we both knew what we needed to do. Though the baby might live, it was not a life that we would choose for our child, a child that we already loved. We decided to terminate the pregnancy. It was our last parental decision.
Reference and full article can be found here.

That was their decision to make... not yours or mine or any other third party who would not be directly affected by this decision... that was theirs and theirs alone!