(Oregon Right to Life) — An Idaho mother who received life-saving care from doctors during a severe pregnancy complication pushed back against pro-abortion talking points in a powerful column published last week. Her firsthand story presents a clear example of what professional medical care can look like when both the mother and the baby are treated as patients deserving of protection.
Idaho resident Valerie Abraham, mother of four living children and wife of a trauma physician, shared her experience in a column published Tuesday by the pro-life advocacy and news organization Live Action.
When she was eighteen weeks pregnant with her fifth child, a daughter, Abraham began bleeding and was rushed into the emergency room.
“I was in the middle of a massive hemorrhage, not just experiencing minor bleeding,” she wrote.
Current Idaho law prohibits abortion under nearly all circumstances, protecting unborn lives with narrow exceptions. Pro-abortion advocates argue the law places women experiencing pregnancy complications at risk. Abraham observed that, according to prevalent pro-abortion content on social media and in news outlets, she ought to have “been fearing for my life” at the hands of doctors in a state “where obstetric care is (so they say) still in the dark ages.”
Instead, diagnosed with placental abruption, she received “life-saving care” by “compassionate, competent physicians.”
“After my body went into pre-term labor, they jumped in with more life-saving care for me to stop the hemorrhage,” Abraham said. “I received the same medications abortion advocates claim women won’t have access to in abortion-ban states.”
But the hemorrhaging could not be stopped. Her daughter was born: “a tiny baby girl who reached out her delicate fingers and grabbed my husband’s hand and opened her mouth.”
“She lived for 43 minutes after birth. We held her, prayed with her, and treasured every minute of her brief life,” Abraham said. The baby girl’s parents named her Amal, Arabic for “hope” and the name of a great aunt. Held and comforted in the arms of her mother, she passed away. Abraham said she and her husband “filled out her birth certificate and death certificate on the same day.”
RELATED: Idaho Federal Judge Narrows Ruling on Lawsuit Against Abortion Ban
Though grieving, the family wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Amal died with dignity instead of trauma because of Idaho’s current laws,” Amal’s mother wrote. “I was given life-saving, and health-saving care because of Idaho’s current laws.”
In her column, Abraham urged Idaho voters to reject Proposition 1, a pro-abortion ballot measure that would enshrine a “right” to abortion in the Gem State’s constitution. Opponents of Idaho’s current laws argue that physicians are prevented from taking necessary measures to save the lives of women experiencing pregnancies with life-threatening complications – a claim Abraham rejects.
“As I have read some of the accounts of mothers telling their stories as justification for why Prop 1 is needed, I’m shocked at the ways mothers in similar positions as mine have been manipulated and lied to,” she wrote.
“A recurring theme is ‘I could have DIED under Idaho’s current laws!’ No. Fellow moms, you have been manipulated and lied to. Nothing prevents physicians in Idaho from using their good judgment to preserve life,” said Abraham, who noted that, in addition to her own experience, her husband’s profession as a trauma surgeon makes her knowledgeable about “the high ethical and professional standard physicians are expected to hold themselves to.”
She urged people to read the text of Idaho’s law to understand that it does not restrict professional judgment of physicians or the provision of life-saving care for mothers.
“I am voting no on Prop 1 because I have experienced obstetric care for a high-risk situation, and I know that Idaho law respects the mother, the baby, and the physician.”
Abraham also shared her story in a video posted to YouTube last month.
Right to Life of Idaho is active in opposing the abortion ballot measure which will be decided by Idaho voters next month. A rally opposing Proposition 1 will take place in Boise on October 31. Learn more about Right to Life of Idaho and get involved here.
