**TRIGGER WARNING**
Recently, author Mikki Kandell wrote a courageous piece for Salon in which she retells her story of when it became medically necessary for her to have an abortion. This was due to a placental abruption, where the placental lining separates from the uterus of the mother. This eventually lead to a large loss of blood and hemorrhaging. And when she was brought to the doctor on call, he refused to perform an abortion, despite her dwindling health:
Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn't viable, that it couldn't be viable given the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything. The doctor on call didn't do abortions. At all. Ever.
[...]
Later I found out that the doctor had taken my husband aside as they brought me into surgery. She promised him she would do her best to save me, but she warned him there was a distinct possibility that she would fail. The doctor who didn't do abortions was supposed to have contacted her (or someone else who would perform the procedure) immediately. He didn't. Neither did his students. Supposedly there was a communication breakdown and they thought she had been notified, but I doubt it. I don't know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn't do abortions. Ever.
Eventually, she had an abortion because a nurse risked her job to bring in a reproductive clinic doctor, who wasn't on call, to save Mikki. The author also laudably points out that she does not want her story construed as "it is only necessary to have an abortion when it becomes a medical imperative." Her opinion is quite the contrary, fortunately.
Well, the empathy-deficient serial liar Jill Stanek decided to summon the swarm mind that is her online forced birther army in a disgusting attempt to shame Mikki for her choice to uh... live. Jill's comment pretty much sets the tone as far as how her bloggers responded:
As a former Labor & Delivery nurse, I really doubt the veracity of Mikki’s story. She may believe it happened as it did, but I don’t believe it happened as it did. No doctor, unless a true quack deserving of revocation of his/her license and a lawsuit, would leave a woman bleeding to death from placental abruption.
And why no lawsuit? There’s a whole other side to this that I’m sure makes sense.
Right. Because no doctor in the history of mankind has put their ridiculous "conscience objections" above a woman's right to live. Because she has to sue the hospital for her story to be believable.
This is just the most vile shame game I've ever seen.
**Please contact Jill Stanek to let her know that her baseless and disgusting defamation of Mikki's character is unacceptable.**
Be forewarned though that she may publish some of your emails according to her description. Regardless, this is unbelievably disgusting and worse, the shaming has spilled over onto Mikki's blog as well.
I now leave you with comments representing the true nature of the "pro-life" movement. Comments that reveal quite clearly that the movement is about controlling women, shaming them, and just not giving a fuck about the lives they'd ruin if they had the power to. They have questioned her mothering skills and how much she loves her born children due to her calling the pregnancy a fetus. They have questioned her husband for not doing more (Annaliese). They have asserted that she has been paid to tell this story. They have said that this was PLANNED on her part to prove a point and it was never wanted to begin with.
It's time to push back.
...the lady probably had partial abruption, which required some medical care and complete bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy, and who knows – maybe she just didn’t want to deal with that and decided better to have an abortion there and then and now is angry at the doctor who didn’t jump at her wishes and performed the procedure straight away.
Follow the money….
Is or isn’t there a lawsuit, did she or did she not seek to have the doctors liscence removed?
Or was she paid by someone for this revelation?
First, I have friends who lost a son at 5 months gestation. They didn’t bitterly call their son “some fetus” like this woman did. She already stated that she thought about abortion early in the pregnancy. How committed was she to this child? Doesn’t seem very, imo. She thought about an abortion at 10 weeks then finally decided to give it a go. Her child at 5 months that she most likely felt kicking etc… a child she claimed she was going to mother, died and all she can conjure up is to call her child “some fetus”. Wow. I wouldn’t call my son “some kid”. He’s my CHILD. Where is her love for her dead child? Cold!
I read the story and I didn’t buy it. C-section and vaginal delivery are typical treatments for placental abruption"
She was in mourning for the baby? When did the mourning turn to intense bitterness towards the child? She sounds so calloused and hateful toward the baby like the baby had NO WORTH and like she didn’t care just KILL IT.
Name the hospital, Mikki. Name the doctor. Show me the charting.
You may really believe your story, Mikki, but it is fiction, and the editors of Salon were irresponsible to print it.
^ That one was Stanek again.
Because there is almost always something that can be done to try to save the child when these things happen post-viability, there should be natural skepticism when someone claims that abortion was necessary. Ending the pregnancy? Yes. Killing the child? No.
First of all, pr-choicers have to realize, that if her abortion story was so very personal – she would have kept it to herself, not published it for all the world to see on the internet
Mikki is making the accusations. She is the accuser. If she had a real case, it would be in court, not in Salon. Her real complaint is that the hospital tried to save both her and her baby. That she didn’t die is pretty well evidence that they were within standard practice to try to save the baby. Just because she really thought she was bleeding to death, doesn’t mean she really was and obviously she didn’t. This case is more about emotion than anything else.
But when Mikki publicly dehumanizes her child (no matter the reasons) and tries to bash pro-life doctors I do have a right to call it as I see it. She presents herself as cold and I call her on it. If she didn’t want public criticism then she shouldn’t have publicly told her very one-sided story.
I am NOT saying that she should have sacrificed her life to continue the pregnancy. I am saying you don’t have to rip a child to shreds in order to end a pregnancy. If there was a very real threat to her life and needed to end the pregnancy there are ways to do that without intentionally killing the child. What are you not understanding?
After my experience, I started volunteering to help with women who were placed on bedrest following abruptia or PPROM. I helped them fight for their babies. Sorry if I find someone fighting against these same children to be a bit upsetting