A woman in Arizona is sharing the story of aborting her baby with a disability in hopes of convincing voters in the state to support a broad pro-abortion amendment appearing on the state ballot in November.
Kristin Gambardella and her husband were pregnant with their second child, a daughter, when they learned that the baby had health conditions. Already in the second trimester, Gambradella couldn’t have an abortion in Arizona, where the law protects preborn children older than 15 weeks from abortion. So she drove seven hours to New Mexico. She was further along than 18 weeks, and though it is unclear which abortion procedure Gambardella underwent, the most commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure is the D&E dismemberment abortion.
“The doctors told us that our baby would live a short life full of pain and surgeries and constant medical care,” Gambardella said during a panel on ‘abortion rights’ in Phoenix. “I was in shock.”
She added, “Even if she survived the complex surgery and everything went well for her and for myself, the doctors told us that our baby would live a short life full of pain and surgeries and constant medical care.”
Though she did not reveal the specific diagnosis or diagnoses that her preborn baby received, she did say that the baby had several anomalies, including one that would have required in-utero surgery. However, it appears doctors offered little hope to the family and it is unclear if the family reached out to any of the doctors who would have helped care for the baby after birth or any families raising children with similar health conditions.
It’s also worth noting that doctors are often wrong about diagnoses in the womb, like the baby who was aborted for having Trisomy 18 only for his parents to later learn he was healthy. OB/GYNs are not specialists in the condition with which the preborn child has been diagnosed. The doctors may not be aware of new treatments and advances in medicine to help the child.
The Copper Courier reported, “Due to Arizona’s abortion limitations after 15 weeks, Gambardella wasn’t able to terminate her pregnancy and save her child from a painful life. She had to travel out of state.”
But an abortion wasn’t “saving” her baby. Advising an abortion in these situations is discriminatory, pits mother against child, and forces a mother to make a horrific decision under the eugenic assumption that her baby is better off dead. Babies with disabilities and health conditions aren’t mistakes to be thrown away. They are living, valuable human beings who deserve to live as much as an able-bodied person does. To say otherwise is discrimination. To kill because of it is eugenics.
Gambardella added, “Instead of spending the last few days of my pregnancy giving my baby girl love and mourning our loss, we were tasked with all of the logistics of traveling out of state.”
But that didn’t have to be their story.
The family could have chosen life with the encouragement and support of their medical team. Had they been given the opportunity to give their baby girl a chance at life, they may have realized that raising a child with health conditions is challenging, but life-changing – in good and positive ways.
Instead, they aborted their child due to her health conditions, and now, they are using her short, interrupted life to promote the direct and intentional killing of any and all preborn babies for any reason in Arizona.
The state’s ballot measure, Proposition 139, would make it so “each individual has a fundamental right” to abortion, and the state cannot “interfere” with that right before “fetal viability” – unless justified by a “compelling state interest.”
As previously explained by Live Action News, ‘viability’ is an arbitrary marker in pregnancy that is usually considered to be around 24 weeks, though babies have survived premature birth as early as 21 weeks. Abortionists have admitted that to them ‘viability’ is a meaningless and subjective standard and that it is not just gestational age that an abortionist would use to determine if a child would be able to survive outside the womb.
In addition, the amendment would ultimately allow abortion through 40 weeks as it allows the ‘right to abortion’ after fetal viability to protect the mother’s life, physical health, or mental health at the judgment of a treating medical professional.
So even when a baby can survive outside the womb, Arizona would allow him or her to be intentionally killed in the womb rather than delivered alive to save the life of the mother who is said to want this baby. And Gambardella’s baby’s life and death are being exploited to promote this.
