Tom Coburn: “I understand and respect those who disagree with my opinion on this procedure. They have my respect. I disagree with…”

“I understand and respect those who disagree with my opinion on this procedure. They have my respect. I disagree with them. But I wanted to describe an alternative to this. There is not a fetal malformation that this is required for. ACOG says that. Their words are ``may.'' It is not ``must.'' I want to tell my colleagues about patients that I have delivered who have had these tremendous malformations of their children. And I want my colleagues to decide, is it easier to kill a baby four-fifths of the way out of the mother and lie to her about the real consequences of the procedure, or is it better to encourage her to carry her baby to term even though it is not going to live and give her the opportunity and the husband, the mother and her husband and the father, an opportunity to hold and to love and to care for part of us? I want to tell my colleagues about Jakey. Jakey had a courageous mom and dad. Jakey was a patient of mine. Jakey did not have all of his brain. His mother and father could have chosen to go to Kansas or lots of other places and have a termination. But what they chose was life. Maybe a very short life, but they chose life. They chose 4 rac{1}{2} hours of life for Jakey. They chose 4 rac{1}{2} hours where they could hold what God had given them and say, we will deal with this. We will not run away from it. We will not put it out as a convenience. We will deal with the fact that life sometimes brings us things other than perfect and we will face that.”