HuffPost recently published “A Letter To My 1-Year-Old Son About His Abortion,” by Matt Tente. In the article, Tente speaks of the gratitude he has for the pro-abortion law that allowed his first child to be killed in the womb, and that allowed him to consider aborting his second child (now one-year-old) as well.
The first abortion
“Son, one day you’ll ask us what it was like when you came into this world and for years, we will lie. We will say it was joyful and wonderful and beautiful and all the other –fuls we can think of, because the truth won’t be easy to tell,” wrote Tente. “That the story began nearly two years before you were born, when your mom’s obstetrician confirmed she was pregnant.”
But, explained Tente, that baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, also known as Edward’s syndrome; as a result, that child was killed by abortion at 15 weeks and three days old.
“I won’t tell you how your mom woke up every morning knowing that if she continued that pregnancy, it was almost certain to end in a miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death. That if it had been taken to term, the resulting complications might have made your conception impossible,” he wrote.
This isn’t accurate. While there are some increased risks for the mother, such as increased blood pressure and gestational diabetes, there is no known risk of future infertility specifically after carrying a child with Trisomy 18 to term. In addition, Trisomy 18 is no longer considered “incompatible with life,” but rather is a “life-limiting” condition because children with T-18 are now able to live longer lives, thanks to the dedication of parents and medical teams.
While children with the condition face a higher risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, those who do survive are seeing improved outcomes.
Research from the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital revealed that by “taking an aggressive approach to treatment, 90% of babies born with Edwards syndrome can go home from the hospital, and their five-year survival rate can reach close to 77%.”
The second abortion
Tente and his wife were happy to find out they were pregnant a second time, but at 10 weeks, a doctor told them with “75% certainty” that this second baby did not have a skull. It’s a condition known as anencephaly, and based on this information, the couple scheduled an abortion for the day after their next planned appointment.
Tente wrote to his son, “We won’t tell you the obvious — that that condition is fatal — or how we scheduled another abortion for the day after the 12-week follow-up to confirm the diagnosis, because it would be barbaric to make your mom live one more day waiting to lose a pregnancy that was already lost.”
Is it “barbaric” to carry a child who is still living, or is it “barbaric” to intentionally kill a human being by suction, dismemberment, or poison? Those who choose abortion frequently either think only of how they may feel or deal with grief, or comfort themselves with the idea that abortion (often, dismemberment while the baby still lives) is the more “merciful” thing to do, to spare their child suffering.
Tente has admitted that he was fully determined to kill a second child — if he hadn’t passed the follow-up test.
Thankfully, Tente and his wife did further testing, proving the earlier tests inaccurate. And now, he has a son — one to whom he can proselytize about how wonderful it was to have the option to kill him before he was born.
As the New York Times has revealed, non-invasive prenatal screening tests (NIPT) are wildly inaccurate. Certain prenatal genetic tests have been shown to be wrong up to 93% of the time and additional, more thorough testing should always be carried out. (It must be said, however, that any and all prenatal testing should not be carried out with the intent to kill but with the intent to treat and heal.)
Sadly, some doctors instill so much fear with negative prognoses that parents rush to abort. This was the case for one family in Ireland when a test result indicated that a baby had a genetic health condition. The parents quickly chose to abort, but after they had done, another test result indicated that the child they had just killed was actually healthy.
Another mother, Stacie Chapman, told The Boston Globe in 2014 that her preborn son had a “positive” test result for Trisomy 18 through the MaterniT21 PLUS test, which is marketed as having a 99% detection rate. Her doctor offered additional testing but Chapman refused it and wanted an abortion immediately. She found an abortionist the next day, but thankfully, her doctor called her again, urging her to have further testing carried out. That testing revealed that her baby was, in fact, healthy, and Chapman did not go through with the abortion.
A Trisomy 18 mom responds
In a video on Instagram, Jessie, the founder of Born Abel, shared a response to Tente’s article in a message for her own one-year-old son, whose twin brother Abel was diagnosed in the womb with Trisomy 18. Though doctors pressured the family to abort Abel, Jessie refused, and welcomed him and cared for him until his death.
“They told us to reduce, to terminate your brother next to you… while you grew right next to him,” she wrote. “They told us he would be a burden.. and someday I’ll teach you about chromosomes… But what I’ll tell you now is that an extra chromosome doesn’t mean that someone has less purpose. I don’t want you to think that people who are different are disposable, have less purpose, a burden because your brother showed us otherwise.”
She continued, “And we got memories, time, relationship. And his life was full of love and unbelievable purpose. And you will always have these pictures and memories. And although he’s not here anymore… he’s always with us and his legacy is teaching others that no matter the duration of our life we are all Born Abel.”
