My daughter exists because abortion is legal in Virginia.
That may sound confusing, but let me explain. My story started 11 years ago when I was 37 weeks pregnant with my son. It was also my 31st birthday, and I had a nice, relaxing day planned.
My body, however, had other ideas. Throughout the day, I experienced increasing pain in my right shoulder and under my ribs until it became so intense that I lost the ability to hold a conversation.
It took multiple medical professionals, doctors, midwives and nurses a long time – and a lot of consulting with other specialists – to diagnose me with quick onset pre-eclampsia with HELLP syndrome.
Pre-eclampsia is a type of high blood pressure that occurs in pregnancy and can cause seizures, organ damage and death. It can happen in 5-8% of pregnancies and is one of the leading causes of death and illness of mothers and infants in the world. HELLP is an acronym for Hemolysis (red blood cell breakdown), Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelets. Serious illness and death occur in 25% of cases.
Basically, I had extremely high blood pressure and my liver was failing. I went from a healthy, active woman to a dying woman within 24 hours. The only way to have a positive outcome, to save the lives of myself and my baby, was to have an emergency C-section.
My son was born, and the numbers on my chart began to return to normal – we were both healthy. Listening to the stories of others, I’ve since learned how fortunate we were that I was only weeks from my due date and that my doctors had the freedom to act in my family’s best interest. It saved our lives. I got to walk away with a baby. My husband didn’t have to walk out of the hospital alone. Many are not as lucky.
Fast forward a couple years. My husband and I started to talk about having a second child. But we had a lot of concerns and a lot to learn first about my increased risk with pre-eclampsia. We talked about what it would mean if things went wrong again. I lost my mom to breast cancer when I was young. It was hard growing up without her. I didn’t want my son to go through what I did. I also just didn’t want to die.
So, we did our research and we talked to a lot of professionals. Let me tell you who was involved in this discussion: myself, my husband, my midwives, my OBGYN and my primary care doctor. Now let me tell you who I didn’t bother to ask: any local, state or national politicians.
When we decided to get pregnant, it was on the condition that our medical professionals were on the same page as us. If my pregnancy showed signs that it was going to kill me, we would have an abortion to save my life. The reasons are not really anyone’s business, but they should be glaringly obvious. My son deserves to have a mother, my husband deserves to have his partner, and I deserve to live a long, healthy life if the appropriate care is available.
The fact that abortion was a legal and safe option enabled me and my husband to grow our family. Without the freedom to have an abortion if we needed to, we would never have tried for a second child. Trust me, we discussed this at length.
In November, Virginia voters can vote “Yes” on the Reproductive Freedom Constitutional Amendment, protecting our ability to make safe, healthy choices based on our personal values and circumstances. As we have seen in other states, without these protections, people have died.
I am here today because I had access to reproductive healthcare, and my doctors weren’t afraid they would go to prison for doing what was best for their patient. My son is here today because the doctors were able to use cutting-edge science to save our lives. My daughter is here today because I had options available to me and the freedom to make my own medical decisions.
A lot of people will try to tell you what reproductive freedom is. But what it truly is, is personal. For my family, reproductive healthcare is pro-life because I had doctors who could provide me with life-saving medical care if I needed it, pro-family because it made it possible for us to have our daughter and pro-freedom because it kept the government out of our family decisions.
Enshrining reproductive freedom in our state constitution means that we love and care for our neighbors and respect the personal decisions they make with their doctors.
Kacia Kriener Putman is a proud mom of two, a clinical social worker and an Alexandria resident.
Source: InsideNOVA