Ken Blackwell thinks I should be dead.
Now why would I say that about a man I’ve never met? Why would a man who has no idea on God’s green earth who I am want me to be dead?
In fact, why would the thousands who support his campaign to be Governor of Ohio want me dead?
They all think I should be dead.
It is a sobering thought. To know folks think you should be dead.
The very idea makes my head whirl.
Back in 1967 my husband and I were looking forward to the birth of our child. Until, at three and one half months along, I began to bleed profusely from my vagina. I was having a miscarriage. Only I didn’t know that. I just knew I shouldn’t be bleeding down there.
We didn’t even have a telephone. My husband had to leave me alone in our apartment and walk to a pay phone to call our doctor. Who said, get her to the emergency room.
We went and after several hours, the doctor sent me home with instructions to take it easy.
A few days later the bleeding started again. Only heavier. I was actually hemorrhaging this time. If felt like a gusher of blood leaving my body whenever I moved.
Another telephone call, a speedy trip to the emergency room. A few hours later the bleeding had stopped. I was sent home and told to stay in bed. Not to get up for anything except to use the bathroom.
A few days later when the bleeding started for the third time, my husband was so frightened by the amount of blood he didn’t even wait to call the doctor, he just called an emergency squad to take me back to the hospital.
They admitted me this time. I was sent upstairs to the maternity floor. I was given a hospital gown and my doctor signed off on my case and turned me over to a gyn specialist.
I don’t remember the next days too well. Staying awake was sometimes difficult. My minister was often there praying for me and my husband and my mother were there every time I woke up.
I knew the doctors kept looking for foetal tissue in the blood clots my body was expelling. The doctors needed to see that before they could help me. They weren’t allowed to take the foetus because it was against the law in those days for a doctor to perform an abortion - no matter what the condition of the mother.
It became evident I was going to bleed to death. They thought the bleeding had stopped, but as I grew weaker the doctors suspected that all that had happened was a blood clot was forming inside my body which staunched the blood flowing out of my body.
After about a week, the gyn specialist asked me if he could perform a therapeutic abortion. He would need the concurrence of two other doctors. He wanted to be sure I would allow the abortion. I needed time to talk with my minister.
Although, right away, I thought, this baby won’t live if I die.
My doctor brought in the others who had agreed to examine me. Both doctors gave me a female exam in my hospital bed and looked at my charts and agreed that if something wasn’t done to help me I would likely die in a short time. Shortly after this, I was wheeled into an operating room and the foetus was removed along with two large blood clots, one the size of a grapefruit. The gyn specialist examined the foetus and told me it was nonviable, which means the baby was not capable of living or developing.
It is because of this experience in my life that Ken Blackwell and folks who follow him think I should be dead.
They want Ohio to return to the days and times when a pregnant woman had to die because it was unlawful for a doctor to perform a therapeutic abortion.
They don’t know me but they believe I should have been left to die in 1967.
Update on August 20, 2008 - I just wanted to mention that I recently posted another personal story that deals with this same subject. I discuss the conversation I had with my minister on the day I made this decision. The post is titled "I am free to choose"
