Decided not to abort

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=3751878
Rogersville teen puts face on abortion debate
Published 04/18/2007 By JEFF BOBO  

ROGERSVILLE - Doctors advised Lori Vance in 1991 that her unborn child Donna Joy should be aborted in the seventh month due to no fewer than five major brain defects being detected.

The most serious was holoprosencephaly caused by a failure of the embryo's forebrain to divide to form bilateral cerebral hemispheres - the left and right halves of the brain.

Any one of the five defects would likely have prompted the same advice from a doctor, but Vance made the choice not to follow that advice and see the pregnancy through.

Today Donna Joy is a 15-year-old eighth-grader at Rogersville Middle School who despite her disabilities is enjoying a happy childhood. She and her family have lived in Rogersville for two years.

In 1991 Vance was given a choice - complete the pregnancy or follow the doctors' advice and agree to a procedure commonly called a "partial birth abortion." From now on the government will be making that decision for pregnant women.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 in favor of upholding the constitutionality of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Vance said the Supreme Court decision is cause for celebration.

"I chose not to go through with the late-term abortion because Donna Joy's life doesn't really belong to me, it belongs to God, so it's only his for the taking," Vance told the Times-News Wednesday. "I wasn't going to be a part of killing my own child. I knew that she could have awful handicaps, but it didn't matter to me because I still loved her. She was still my child."

For the past decade she and Donna Joy have crusaded for the partial birth abortion ban, addressing Congress and appearing in the national media.

Donna Joy, the girl who lived, became a poster child for the partial birth abortion ban cause.

"When I was pregnant with my daughter, doctors said that she had a fatal brain disorder and was completely incompatible with life," Vance said. "Every doctor I went to told me that I had to have a late-term abortion, and when they described it, it's obviously what's known as partial birth abortion. I refused it, and I had her, and when she turned 5 she became the oldest survivor that we knew of at the time of her group of brain disorders.

"Now she's about to turn sweet 16. She has friends. She sings in the church choir. She took the blue ribbon in the Special Olympics for bowling. That's quite a feat considering she does have cerebral palsy and peripheral blindness. She's beautiful, and she's a little bit of a ham."

Vance was watching a debate on the issue on television in 1997 and heard some of the people involved in the debate say that children with the same brain defects as Donna Joy could not be saved.

Donna Joy was 5 at the time, and Vance yelled at the TV, "That's not true!"

In 1997 Vance lived in Maryland and called her congressman, Roscoe Bartlett. It was Bartlett who put Vance in touch with Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who sponsored the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Her name was Lori Watts at that time, and Donna Joy Watts gained national attention. Since then Vance has remarried and moved to Rogersville, and both she and Donna Joy now have the last name Vance.

"Senator Santorum's people called me and asked me to come to Washington, D.C., to speak to Congress, and I told my story there," Vance said. "There was a big (controversy) on Capitol Hill for a couple of days because Sen. Barbara Boxer from California had Donna Joy ejected from the Senate chamber. (Boxer) said that since Donna was not yet 6 years of age and because it was an exploitive use of a child that she must be kept from the Senate chamber during the proceedings, and that really made me mad.

"In the end I think more people heard our story because of what Senator Boxer did than would have if she just would have left us alone."

Following her appearance before Congress, Vance and Donna Joy went on the talk show circuit, appearing on programs such as the Rush Limbaugh radio show and the Phil Donahue TV show.

Vance said she was heartbroken while on the Donahue show sitting beside a mother who listened to the advice of her doctor and went through with a late-term abortion.

"I really and truly felt for her, and I could tell in the green room when she looked at my daughter it was very difficult for her," Vance said. "She made that choice herself. She's still the mother of a dead child. I have nothing but love and sympathy for women who make that decision."

In 2003, Vance and Donna Joy were invited back to Washington, D.C., to watch President Bush sign the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act into law.

Vance said Wednesday's Supreme Court decision upholding that bill is a great victory.

"I don't think there's a word in the English language for the emotions I'm feeling right now," Vance said. "Relief. Happiness. And I'm relieved for the children that won't have to die in such a terrible way as of noon today."

Donna Joy won't say much about the issue, but her mother says she has a real understanding of it.

She will see pro-abortion advocates on TV and say, "They don't like me. They wish I was dead," Vance said.