McCain Mocks Other People's Tragedies

A 28 year old woman is at home, talking with her husband, when she starts slurring her words. He notices it first, and asks her what is happening. Before she can answer, she collapses. He calls 911 and she is taken to the hospital, unconscious. She has been absolutely healthy her entire life. In the ambulance the paramedic discovers that her blood pressure is dangerously high. From the ER she is rushed to the CT scanner, and a scan of her brain shows that she is having a hemorrhagic stroke - she is bleeding into the brain tissue itself. Attempts to lower her blood pressure are not successful, and it is clear that the bleeding will continue, and she will die, if her blood pressure isn't brought down. Since medications aren't working, the doctors know that there is only one thing that will lower her blood pressure. She is still comatose, and her husband listens carefully to the doctor's explanation of the situation, as well as the one treatment that is still untried and is truly the only chance to save her life. He gives the doctor the permission to perform the life-saving procedure. Her 4 month old fetus is aborted. In the 24 hours following the procedure, her blood pressure falls to safe levels, and she regains consciousness a few days later. She is left with speech difficulty, as well as weakness in one leg that will require the use of a walker, probably for the rest of her life.

But she is alive.

Terminating a pregnancy for the health of the mother is no joke. No one takes the decision lightly, not the woman, the father, the doctor - no one. And for John McCain to trivialize the tragic true story that I just described tells me two things about him. First of all, he has never been that woman's husband, or father, or brother. And secondly, John McCain is incapable of compassion for his fellow human beings. If he were to have declared that he could not morally condone abortion even to save the life of the mother, but acknowledged that a circumstance in which that decision would have to be made was clearly painful and difficult for all involved, he would have at least shown that he was capable of human decency. But instead he chose to mock those women and men who must face one of the most terrible events of their lives. And I will never trust my country to a man who makes a mockery out of other people's pain.