Parents Against MS 26

There are many stories out there of brave women and their families who had tragic, heartbreaking and inspirational experiences that could had been seriously affected if amendment 26 was in place. My story is simple and not nearly as tragic, heartbreaking or inspirational.

Before I had my son, I had two pregnancies that ended in miscarriage. With my first pregnancy I was 9 weeks when I saw the doctor. Instead of a 9 week fetus there were 2 yolk sacs and no heartbeat. My physician, wonderful and one of the most optimistic people I have ever meet, said maybe I wasn’t as far along as I thought and we would monitor my hCG levels. However I was having problems and knew something wasn’t right. So when my hCG levels dropped and I was diagnosed with a miscarriage I was not surprised.

My second pregnancy followed a similar pattern. I began having similar symptoms and suspected another miscarriage. At my doctor visit at 6 weeks a heartbeat was detected on the sonogram, but it was very slow. We monitored my hCG levels and they were falling, so I was diagnosed with a second miscarriage.

In each case my physician presented me with 3 options: allow the miscarriage to proceed naturally which can take days to weeks, have a D&C performed or have a medication administered that would facilitate the miscarriage. In both cases I chose treatment with the medicine. I wanted to get through the experience and begin the healing process and I had no desire to undergo a surgical event if it was not completely necessary. In both cases the medicine worked and within a couple days I had completed the miscarriage.

After my second miscarriage I was referred to Dr. Randall Hines to begin testing to try to determine if there was a reason for the miscarriages. Surprisingly I discovered I was pregnant before much testing was conducted. Dr. Hines managed my pregnancy for several weeks before I returned to seeing my physician. Thankfully I had a healthy pregnancy with no complications. I now have an amazing, beautiful 21 month old son and we are expecting our second child April. I was fortunate not need Dr. Hines’s assistance to have a child, but my experience working with him gave me a great respect for him as a physician and a person. He has publicly spoken out against 26 and his concerns on how it will affect the treatment of infertility.

A miscarriage is an emotional event for a woman and her family to go through. I was lucky to have an amazing, caring physician to help me make a decision that was best for me and a wonderful, supportive husband and family. If amendment 26 passes how will this affect the treatment of miscarriage? If my failing pregnancy had full rights of personhood, would I have had to wait out the miscarriage and suffer through unnecessary physical and emotional distress?

I have read every bit of information I can find on this amendment. I have read information from the supporting side as well as the opposition. I have yet to hear any logical information addressing the many concerns raised. Instead of providing answers, I have seen supporters of this amendment personally attack oppossers (who they obviously don’t know) and accuse the opposition of using scare tactics. From the opposition I have only seen legitimate questions that are not being answered. And the truth is that the supporters of 26 cannot answer the questions. There is no way because the amendment is simply a modification to the MS Constitution granting personhood and all the rights implied at the moment of fertilization. It will be left the MS legislature and judical system to inact laws to protect the rights of unborn persons.

Will every miscarriage be investigated? I hope not. The thought seems absurd. But what about an expectant mother who continues to smoke? What about an expectant mother who drinks caffeine? Both are know to increase the risk of miscarriage. Would a miscarriage then be considered manslaughter if an expectant mother engaged behavior known to increase risk? And if so then wouldn’t every miscarriage require an investigation?

It is known that IVF will be affected if 26 is passed. Birth control will be affected. Personhood USA has admitted to this. Personally I believe if passed that this will create numerous legal battles that will clog our court system and cost our state money we don’t have.

The implications are just too broad. I believe that every woman should have access to the birth control that is best for her and her family. I believe that every woman should be able to make health care decision with her physician that are best for her and her family. I believe that every couple who needs assistance with conceiving should be have access to assistance. I believe that every woman should have access to an abortion when she needs it for her physical, mental and/or emotional health.

I don’t believe in telling people what they should believe or how they should vote, but I implore everyone to please educate yourself before you vote. Make sure that you understand what amendment 26 says. I have heard that even if passed this amendment will not get past the courts. I hope that is true. But even more I hope that the people of Mississippi will show on November 8th that we are an educated people who can look logically at this amendment and say “No thank you”.

My name is Lydonia. I am currently expecting my first and very possiblly only child. I had my routine blood work done during my second trimester and thought everything was fine for the down’s syndrome test until the following Monday morning when I received that horrible phone call.

The doctor called and said I needed to have some additional test ran due to one of my blood levels being higher than normal range and that they need to see if a neural tube defect is present (the most common being spina bifida). I go to the specialist and discuss everything with him and have the amniocentesis I discovered that my baby is healthy and no worries for now at least.

However, had that test resulted in anything less negative then abortion would have had to become an option, I wouldn’t want to be selfless and cause my child a lifetime of hardship because of something that I actually could have made a decision to prevent. I’m not saying that it’s what I would’ve wanted to do but sometimes you have to make those choices.

I’m thankful everyday that God didn’t make me decide, however, I am still enduring a high risk pregnancy and still birth is still on my list of things that could happen, I always want the option, for myself, and if I have a daughter, she will need to have the option too.

Trey and I were so excited to see finally a picture of our baby at 20 weeks. However, as the technician and my wonderful doctor, Dr. Will Locke, looked on in silence, we knew something was not right. Dr. Locke was not exactly sure what was wrong, but said we needed to go to UMC in Jackson to see what was causing our baby to have a massive amount of fluid build-up in her abdomen, which, Dr. Locke told us, was probably due to a heart defect. To put it simply: Her heart could pump blood in, but not out. She was slowly dying inside of me.

In Jackson, we saw a wonderful man, who was doing an externship from a northern state. He was so kind and compassionate to us, a young married couple who were dealing with a very grown-up, very serious situation for which we were not quite ready. It still brings tears to my eyes as I write this — it is still so raw and painful. By the time I was 24 weeks pregnant, our doctors in Jackson told us we had a choice: I could be induced into labor and the baby (whom we named Meredith Anne) would die naturally in the birthing process or we could wait and have the baby die inside of me. I would then go into labor because of her death. Her heart rate was decreasing daily, and there was a chance she would be dead before labor was induced. The idea of carrying our dead child for weeks while being visibly pregnant was unthinkable. After consultation with our doctors in Jackson, Dr. Locke in Starkville, and our ministers, and after much prayer, we decided to allow Meredith Anne to leave this world of sickness and enter into the arms of God. It was not a choice we made lightly, and it was the hardest thing either of us has ever been through. However, it was our choice, made in consultation with compassionate doctors and ministers — not the government. Initiative 26 will take that choice away. It will take compassion away.

Roughly five yeas later, I began having pains in my abdomen that, as the week wore on, became more and more intense. Finally, Trey took me to the emergency room because I could not stand the pain anymore. After several hours, they determined I had an ectopic pregnancy, which is where the fertilized egg implants in your fallopian tube and not in the uterus, which is essential for a baby to develop. This clump of cells was not a baby, but something that could have killed me had it not been surgically removed. After a trip back to the doctor for follow-up, I learned that sometimes all the cells are not removed and an oral drug, methotrexate, might have to be taken in order for the rest of the cells to expel from the body. Fortunately in my case, all the cells were gone, and that treatment was unnecessary. Initiative 26 could take away choices of treatment in these cases and cases of molar pregnancies, which are even more harmful to the mother.

It is because of these two issues, Trey and I are voting NO on Initiative 26. Passing this initiative will take away your choice as a parent and patient for necessary treatments. It lacks compassion for the mother and father. It is a cold, unfeeling initiative that would be detrimental to the treatment of problems in certain pregnancies.

My name is Tony Giachelli. I am an attorney in Ridgeland, Mississippi. I am a Christian, I am a husband, I am a father, I am a Republican, I am Pro-Life, and I am afraid.

I am afraid that this letter was not written soon enough, afraid that it won’t be read by enough people, afraid that those who read it will be undeterred by the plea of just one man, afraid of what this Initiative will do to our state.

I have been hesitant to involve myself in such a fray. I have never been one to get too involved in politics. I was content that the masses would ultimately do the right thing and doubtful that I could actually make a difference. However, in 2010 my life changed forever, and my perspective of life changed with it.

My beautiful wife Claire and I learned in 2009 that having our own child would be a difficult endeavor. We tried on our own, to no avail, and were placed in the good hands of Dr. John Isaacs and his staff at the Mississippi Fertility Institute in the summer of 2009. Unexplained infertility was the diagnosis, and assisted reproduction was our only option. We ultimately decided to try in-vitro fertilization after exhausting various other methods of conception. We followed all of the steps and produced 4 viable embryos, 2 of which were transferred to Claire and 2 of which were cryo-preserved. We thought that our dream was complete when we learned that 1 of the 2 transferred embryos had implanted and Claire was pregnant in October 2009. Then we were hit with another surprise. On a routine visit, the ultrasound technician found what appeared to be an ectopic pregnancy in one of Claire’s fallopian tubes. While one of the embryos had implanted in the uterus, it appeared that the other would threaten Claire’s life. Emergency surgery was next, and we were relieved to find that it was not an ectopic pregnancy, but an extremely large and growing cyst that would have likely caused similar damage to her reproductive system. The cyst was safely removed and we moved forward, hopeful that the viable embryo in Claire’s uterus would thrive. Unfortunately, that was not the case. We had a miscarriage shortly thereafter.

We were rocked. Doubt crept back. We felt a sadness that we had never known, but leaning on each other we picked ourselves up and looked to our other two embryos. We clung to God and clung to hope. We now cling to the most beautiful little girl in the world, Layla Elizabeth Giachelli, who turned 1 year old on October 8, 2011.

Without in-vitro, without the autonomy of our doctors, without the ability to preserve those 2 embryos, there would be no Layla. In our journey, we lost 3 out of the 4 embryos. In reality, we lost them in a way no different from the way millions of families have lost their unborn children. There is no fair explanation for miscarriage, only the comfort that God’s plan is perfect and that He will provide. In our story, perfection came in the form of a 6lb 15oz angel on earth.

Initiative 26 is a flawed proposal. It is short sighted, vague and ambiguous. It has been thrust upon the people of Mississippi by those that hope we are not smart enough to recognize its fatal flaws. It has been thrust upon the people of Mississippi by those that hope we are just conservative enough to ignore the pitfalls it would create. I am not going to guarantee you that Initiative 26 will result in women being thrown in jail for miscarriage, that it will ban certain types of birth control, that it will end in-vitro, or that it would value the life of an embryo over that of a woman in a life or death situation. This Initiative is so impossibly vague that I can’t honestly answer those questions, and I find it hilarious that various “experts” are assuring the public that it won’t do these things. The truth is that it could. The truth is that Initiative 26 is so broad and ambiguous that we don’t know, and that is a scary truth. This truth was acknowledged by our Governor today, one of the most conservative Republicans in the nation, who expressed the same fears. If passed, it will cost our state millions in court battles and it will wear on the emotions of Mississippians. Its breadth will result in numerous unintended consequences. It will hinder the autonomy of physicians, and especially reproductive specialists. To what extent, we cannot pretend to know, but it is likely that assisted reproduction will be severely limited and forever changed. It directly and severely threatens the continued practice of cryopreservation, meaning another family’s Layla could be an impossibility.

I personally do not believe in abortion. It would warm my heart to know that every baby has been given a chance at life. However, Initiative 26 is not the answer. To outline all of the unintended consequences and legal implications of this Initiative would transform this letter from an emotional plea to a legal treatise. We just don’t have time for that, do we?

Though I sit with my own fear that I have not done enough to help, I am asking anyone that receives this letter to not be afraid. Do not be afraid that opposing 26 offends your Christian beliefs. It does not. Do not be afraid that opposing 26 means that you support abortion. It does not. You might have never considered what it would be like to deal with an ectopic pregnancy. You might have never considered what it would be like to seek the assistance of an endocrinologist to bring a life into this world. I was that person at one time and my perspective has changed. Please help me ensure that tomorrow’s prospective parents have the same opportunities that we had by voting No on Initiative 26 and please feel free to share this note with your friends.

My sister and I were brought up in an idyllic situation. Parents that loved us, led by example, and went above and beyond to provide the perfect Christian home for the daughters they adopted from the Mississippi Children’s Home. My father is an attorney, he was beginning his career, but he always came home for lunch, dinner and breakfast with our family at the table, even if he was at the office at midnight. At least twice at week it was lunch with the grandparents…we even lived next door to them. I know that a birth mother couldn’t be happier with the way we grew up because we all went to meet my sister’s.

My sister and my mother got photos together of every birthday, every cotillion, her debutante ball, her wedding, graduations from preschool on…we all loaded up and away we went. When we met Carrie’s birth mother. She had a picture my mother had never seen from when my sister was only a week old that she had kept in her wallet. She also brought Carrie a figurine with a numeral one on it that she had purchased on her first birthday. As the birth mother looked through the photos, she paused to look up at us. With tears streaming down her face, she said, “This is what I dreamed that your life was like when I wondered if I did the right thing. I know that I did.”

Fast forward 15 years, I have met the most wonderful man in the world. We desperately want to have children, but he understands when we marry that it is a long shot. We are referred to Dr. Randy Hines. After an IUI, one unsuccessful IVF where three embryos (not fertilized eggs) were transferred, we had a successful cycle. In that cycle we had ONE embryo grow to a blastocyst. His name is Andrew, and we cannot imagine a world without him. We have since tried IVF again, and lost that baby after two ultrasounds. That is a VERY difficult thing to do.

Sam and I waited excitedly everyday for the nurse to call us to let us know which of our “chics” had made it through the night in the lab. We grieved everyone single one. I am crying now. If it could not survive in that ideal environment, it wouldn’t have survived any other way. Those were our children, but only emotionally. Physically they were not sustainable. Do not let your emotions overrule your good sense. Amendment 26 can take us back to a very dangerous place, and set a very frightening precedent.