So, ever since Santorum did well at the Iowa caucuses, I've been hearing a lot about the loss of his son during his wife's pregnancy. (For non-US folk out there, basically a potential candidate for presidency who is very anti-abortion and his wife lost their baby in a way which is being deemed an abortion by some and not by others.)

I don't want to start a political debate or an abortion debate, but I guess I wonder what other people out there are thinking about it. I'm right around the same point in pregnancy his wife was when this all happened with their son, so I've been doing a lot of soul searching about what I would do in their position. My anatomy scan isn't scheduled until I'm 22 weeks, but what if they find something?

I know I wouldn't have a deliberate abortion, just because I would not be able to do that with my personal moral beliefs. But their situation was not quite that. From what I've read, they found out during their anatomy screening that their child had an abnormality that would most likely kill it. In an effort to save the baby, they had surgery performed on the child while it was still in the womb. During the surgery, there was an infection, and the mother got sick. Doctors told her that she needed antibiotics or she could go into septic shock, so she did. She went into early labor (as either a result of the antibiotics or her body trying to reject the fetus, which was now the source of infection- there seem to be varying accounts on this.) There are also varying accounts on whether or not they used pitocin to help progress the labor to deliver the child. Since the child was born so prematurely (19-20 weeks), it did not survive.

The argument is basically, they could have rejected the antibiotics and both mother and child would have died, and that by choosing the antibiotics, and effectively to deliver before viability, it was an abortion. (This is a big issue because Santorum is said to be against abortion even in cases of rape, incest, and maternal death.)

Anyway, like I said, I'm not really interested in arguing if abortion is right or wrong, or whether Republicans or Democrats are worse, but more about the actual story itself. I think I would have opted against any intervention, including the original surgery that caused the infection that led to early labor. But what a tough choice! Incredibly risky surgery that MIGHT save the baby, or do nothing and just hope for the best.

I'm just going to hope my baby is a-ok and I never have to make those kinds of tough choices.