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Despite the abstract pseudonym, Guest of Feminist Mormon Housewives is not an abstract symbol.

Earlier this year I had my first child. He was born at 28 weeks because my life was in danger. It turned out that I had HELLP syndrome, which is basically preeclampsia turned up to 11. My blood pressure was 186/110, my organs were failing, my red blood cells were disintegrating, and my platelet count was dropping making it so that my blood wouldn’t clot. If I could manage to function with my organs failing, and if I could have avoided having a stroke or heart attack, I would have bled to death in childbirth.

After three months in the hospital, my son is fine. He’s a miracle and I would do it all over again. In fact, if I can manage to get pregnant again, I will do it again. But I will do it understanding exactly what the risks are. The odds are that I may have to lose a baby late in a pregnancy. My son was able to gestate as long as he did because, looking back, I was ignoring a lot of symptoms and I got lucky. Now that I know what I’m facing, I won’t be ignoring anything, and that may mean that I would have to terminate a pregnancy.

Please reserve your judgements here. For the sake of expediency I am skimming over all the prayers and tears and blessings and agonizing over our family planning. Please don’t think I take any of this lightly or that I still don’t sit up nights wondering what the best course of action is, and please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t anyone say, “Why don’t you just adopt?” We’ve been trying to get our family for eight years. We’re well aware of what the options are. It’s not guaranteed that I would develop this condition again, and if I did develop this condition again, that does not mean automatic abortion. However, there is a possibilty.

And as someone who needs to be able to rely on abortion existing for the sake of my very life, I cannot describe the venomous rage that overcame me when I saw McCain use those air quotes. The condescension and contempt it showed for me…the obliviousness to women’s health issues….even now it makes me sputter with incoherence.

She said this and more here.

You can unpack her story all day long for nuggets for this side, gotchas for that, for insights into wisdom, for awe and fear and admiration for such determination. In those short paragraphs there’s room for everything… except any doubt that we… any of us… can be fully-vested, grown human beings when denied our capacity to exercise choice.