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Danielle Deaver cradled her daughter, knowing the newborn's gasps would slowly subside, and the baby would die.
Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked her daughter over for physical defects.
Deaver, 34, of Grand Island, Neb., wanted to see something, anything to validate the news doctors delivered eight days before: Her baby had virtually no chance of survival. And if she lived, she would be severely disabled.
What Deaver saw was perfection: A tiny but beautiful child. Ten toes. Ten fingers. Long eyelashes.
Her baby tried desperately to inhale.
With her husband, Robb, at her side, Deaver sobbed, gently kissing her daughter's forehead and hoping her baby wasn't in pain. That fear - that the baby would suffer before its predestined death - compelled the couple to seek an abortion. But a new Nebraska law that limits abortion after the 20th week of gestation prevented her from getting one. The Iowa Legislature is considering a similar law.
A nurse at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings instructed the couple to closely monitor their daughter's breathing so when it stopped the staff could accurately record the death.
The clock ticked.
At 3:15 p.m. Dec. 8, 1-pound, 10-ounce Elizabeth Deaver - named in memory of Robb's grandmother - made one final attempt to breathe.
Her life struggle, 15 minutes outside the womb after 23 weeks and five days of gestation, was over.
"Our hands were tied," Danielle Deaver said. "The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. I feel like how to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should have been mine, and it wasn't because of a law."
...
One of the most aggressive anti-abortion legislators who supports House File 5, Rep. Glen Massie, R-Des Moines, said Elizabeth Deaver deserved the chance that Nebraska's law gave her.
"In life, amazing things happen," Massie said, noting examples of when unborn children have beaten the odds of a dire medical prognosis. "I know it may be a one in a bazillion snowballs' chance, but if I were that snowball, I'd want that chance."
Other anti-abortion lawmakers agreed that Deaver's doctor acted appropriately to maintain the pregnancy.
"You have to take into account the life of the child and the life of the mother," said Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, a board member of Iowa Right to Life and author of House File 5. "It's that basic foundation. You have two lives there."
The author of the Nebraska law, Speaker Mike Flood, a Republican and attorney from Norfolk, maintained last week that the law worked in the Deavers' case.
"Even in these situations where the baby has a terminal condition or there's not much chance of surviving outside of the womb, my point has been and remains that is still a life," Flood said.
Danielle Deaver cradled her daughter, knowing the newborn's gasps would slowly subside, and the baby would die.
Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked her daughter over for physical defects.
Deaver, 34, of Grand Island, Neb., wanted to see something, anything to validate the news doctors delivered eight days before: Her baby had virtually no chance of survival. And if she lived, she would be severely disabled.
What Deaver saw was perfection: A tiny but beautiful child. Ten toes. Ten fingers. Long eyelashes.
Her baby tried desperately to inhale.
With her husband, Robb, at her side, Deaver sobbed, gently kissing her daughter's forehead and hoping her baby wasn't in pain. That fear - that the baby would suffer before its predestined death - compelled the couple to seek an abortion. But a new Nebraska law that limits abortion after the 20th week of gestation prevented her from getting one. The Iowa Legislature is considering a similar law.
A nurse at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings instructed the couple to closely monitor their daughter's breathing so when it stopped the staff could accurately record the death.
The clock ticked.
At 3:15 p.m. Dec. 8, 1-pound, 10-ounce Elizabeth Deaver - named in memory of Robb's grandmother - made one final attempt to breathe.
Her life struggle, 15 minutes outside the womb after 23 weeks and five days of gestation, was over.
"Our hands were tied," Danielle Deaver said. "The outcome of my pregnancy, that choice was made by God. I feel like how to handle the end of my pregnancy, that choice should have been mine, and it wasn't because of a law."
...
One of the most aggressive anti-abortion legislators who supports House File 5, Rep. Glen Massie, R-Des Moines, said Elizabeth Deaver deserved the chance that Nebraska's law gave her.
"In life, amazing things happen," Massie said, noting examples of when unborn children have beaten the odds of a dire medical prognosis. "I know it may be a one in a bazillion snowballs' chance, but if I were that snowball, I'd want that chance."
Other anti-abortion lawmakers agreed that Deaver's doctor acted appropriately to maintain the pregnancy.
"You have to take into account the life of the child and the life of the mother," said Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, a board member of Iowa Right to Life and author of House File 5. "It's that basic foundation. You have two lives there."
The author of the Nebraska law, Speaker Mike Flood, a Republican and attorney from Norfolk, maintained last week that the law worked in the Deavers' case.
"Even in these situations where the baby has a terminal condition or there's not much chance of surviving outside of the womb, my point has been and remains that is still a life," Flood said.
I can't even.
This woman had to watch her baby die, and politicians are saying that's what's supposed to happen.
They would rather a person watch their child die than allow late-term abortion and spare parents and child both this kind of suffering, and then they call it right and good.
I used to be kind of on the fence about late-term abortions, but stories like this have convinced me that abortion ought to be permitted at any point during pregnancy, particularly in cases like this.
