Maternal mortality is high, and abortion saves lives

As a 14-year-old child, my cousin had a spontaneous miscarriage while riding a city bus. An advanced pregnancy began to break loose while she was in a crowd of strangers. She was humiliated by hospital personnel and by the police who were called to investigate whether an abortion had caused her miscarriage. It would have been against the law to help her before that moment. An early abortion could have let her make something of her innocent life. She barely survived but never recovered. She survived. Others don’t.

Women die from pregnancy and childbirth. Women die and fetuses die with them. Women die with fetuses that could not have survived if full-term. Women die and children are left motherless. Life begins at conception, but sometimes we must choose a life to save a life and there isn’t time to convene a panel to judge the necessity of ending a pregnancy. We must not intimidate physicians with threats of prosecution. We must trust that God works in the lives of doctor and patient, as we trust God in all things. We are not to judge. Abortion saves lives. It is not the place of the judicial system, law enforcement, or any of us as individuals to involve ourselves in the deeply personal and tragic loss of a pregnancy.

Please keep women safe in Maryland. Be aware of candidates who promise they cannot interfere with existing laws, but who in other votes have shown they oppose comprehensive health care for women. Keep those candidates out of office. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations. We will love and pray for the born as well as the unborn.

Sue Ellen Sherblom, Arnold