Ever since President Trump publicly denounced the Democratic Party’s increasingly clear push for legalized infanticide the increasingly far-Left HuffPost has been producing as much late-term abortion content as possible. Their strategy has often been to highlight the most obscure, uncommon pregnancy cases and present them as the norm.
Last week, the site profiled a couple who aborted their baby in the third trimester at the behest of doctors who diagnosed it in the womb with spina bifida. This week, the site featured a woman who got pregnant from a rape at age 17 and whose baby died one year after being born due to a birth defect.
“I Wish I’d Had A ‘Late-Term Abortion’ Instead Of Having My Daughter,” reads the title for guest writer Dina Zirlott.
Indeed, Dina Zirlott has a story to tell, and unfortunately, it does not end happily. Impregnated by rape at 17 from a boy she knew at school, Dina courageously made the choice to keep her baby — a daughter named Zoe — who eventually died a year after being born. Dina now wishes she had aborted little Zoe when she had the chance, instead of granting her a brief chance at life.
“The doctor came to us and spread the ultrasound pictures across the table,” Dina says of the time she first learned about Zoe’s disorder. “She pointed to darkness where gray brain matter ought to be. She called it hydranencephaly, a congenital defect in which the brain fails to develop either cerebral hemisphere, instead of filling with cerebrospinal fluid. The fetus continued to experience development because the brain stem was still intact, but she would be born blind, deaf, completely cognitively stunted, prone to seizures, diabetes insipidus, insomnia, hypothermia and more. The list of every agonizing disorder she would suffer was tremendous.”
Dina learned of Zoe’s disorder after being eight months along in her pregnancy. In the state of Alabama, whence she hailed, abortions were allowed up 26 weeks at the most. Dina says she did not seek the option out of state for fear of the pressure it might bring.
Unlike other medical anomalies, baby Zoe indeed suffered in the way doctors described and eventually died.
“Nothing can prepare you for losing a child, even when you know it is coming,” Dina says upon learning of Zoe’s death. “I crumpled to the floor. It seemed like the only thing to do.”
Now, at age 31, Dina has three daughters and is happily married. She believes that the merciful thing to do would have been to put Zoe out of her misery prior to birth, and to this day she still lives with the grief of carrying her to term.
As difficult it is to digest Dina’s story, not all cases of babies diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the womb end the same. Some, such as the case of Stephanie and Andy Schoonover, transform the parents in profound ways, allowing them to see life with a new perspective. For others, such as Melanie and Damion Sheenan, the baby defies diagnosis and lives on to become healthy.
No one can always be entirely sure what will result from an abnormal pregnancy. One thing, however, is for sure: All abortions end in the death of an unborn child.