+
upworthy
More

A mom's moving story perfectly illustrates why a 20-week abortion ban is a bad idea.

This is why a 20-week ban won't work.

April Salazar has a story to tell, and you really should hear it.

It's about her abortion, which took place after she learned there was no chance of survival for the child she so desperately wanted.

After years of trying to get pregnant, she and her husband finally succeeded. But later, they got some sobering news.

April and her husband would have to wait longer than expected to bring a child home with them. Doctors told them that the baby had what's called lethal skeletal dysplasia. Essentially, this meant that just moments after birth, her newborn son would suffocate and die.



April was faced with a painful decision: She could have an abortion, or she could carry the fetus to term, knowing it wouldn't survive for more than a few painful minutes. At 21-weeks pregnant, April chose to have an abortion.

"If I had been forced to carry my pregnancy to term, my life would be very different now."

How might her life have changed if she gave birth to a son with no chance of survival? How would things be different?

"I can't imagine giving birth and watching my son suffer," she says.

This was June 2013.

In January 2014, April was once again pregnant. Later that year, she gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

Had she not terminated her earlier pregnancy, her daughter would almost certainly have never been born.

It's because she chose to end her pregnancy in 2013 that she was able to be in a place, both emotionally and physically, that she and her husband felt comfortable trying again, and as the result, she's now proud mother.

Like April, many women who have abortions do want children, but as is the case in life, sometimes things just don't go according to plan. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not zero-sum. Many of these women will go on to have children at some other point in their lives.

A 2008 Guttmacher Institute study found that more than 60% of people seeking abortions already have one or more children. Others will go on to have children afterward.

Nearly 90% of abortions happen within the first 12 weeks. For some, like April, it's later.

April terminated her pregnancy at 21 weeks. It wasn't until the 20-week mark that she was able to confirm that her fetus had lethal skeletal dysplasia, and of course, she didn't want to make the decision to abort without being sure.

Just 1.2% of abortions happen from 21 weeks onward.

But some politicians are pushing for a 20-week abortion ban, under which April would have been denied access.

Luckily, for April, her husband, and her daughter, that's not the law.

"Having charge of your own reproductive health means you can control your destiny, and that's so important for me," says April about her hope for her daughter's future. "I want her to grow up knowing the sky is the limit."

Tell your lawmaker that you support women like April and oppose a 20-week abortion ban here.

The gaze of the approving Boomer.

Over the past few years, Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964) have been getting a lot of grief from the generations that came after them, Gen X (1965 to 1980), Millenials (1981 to 1996), and now, Gen Z (1997 to 2012). Their grievances include environmental destruction, wealth hoarding, political polarization, and being judgemental when they don’t understand how hard it is for younger people to make it in America these days.

Every Baby Boomer is different, so it's wrong to paint them all with a broad brush. But it’s undeniable that each generation shares common values, and some are bound to come into conflict.

However, life in 2023 isn’t without its annoyances. Many that came about after the technological revolution put a phone in everyone’s hands and brought a whole new host of problems. Add the younger generations' hands-on approach to child rearing and penchant for outrage, and a lot of moden life has become insufferanble.

Keep ReadingShow less

Klein Kwagga understood the assignment at his sister's concert.

Some kids are too shy to ever want to get on a stage, some will spend most of a performance staring awkwardly at their shoes, and some kids love the opportunity to show off what they've practiced in front of an audience.

And then there are the kids were simply born for the spotlight. You know them when you see them.

When Dirkco Jansen van Nieuwenhuizen hopped on stage with all of the other brothers and sisters of the dance students at René’s Art of Dance in South Africa, no one expected a viral sensation. According to Capetown Etc, it was the school's year-end concert, and siblings were invited to come up and dance to Bernice West’s Lyfie—a popular song in Afrikaans. And Dirkco, who goes by Klein Kwagga, took the assignment and ran with it.

Keep ReadingShow less

Prepare to get Thatcherized.

It seems that Adele is going viral once again.

Perhaps you’ve seen the image in question previously (it seems to make the rounds every couple of years). But in case you missed it—it’s Adele’s face. Normal, just upside down.

Only it’s not normal. In fact, when you turn Adele’s face right side up, what you notice is that her eyes and mouth were actually right-side up THE ENTIRE TIME, even though the entire head was upside down. So when you turn the head right side up, the eyes and mouth are now UPSIDE-DOWN—and you can’t unsee it. Do you feel like you're Alice in Wonderland yet?

Keep ReadingShow less
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

People share the most practical ways to support new parents

There's a lot of preparation that goes into having a child well before they're even born. First there are the physical changes your body makes to clear up some space for a tiny human roughly the size of a watermelon. Then there's preparing the nursery, buying lots of extremely small clothes, diapers and an expected understanding that while sleep may be your friend, you won't be getting any of it for about a year.

Lots of people give plenty of advice to help you cope in the early days but after the baby arrives, the focus shifts to solely the baby. It's obviously not a deliberate shift. Babies are just more shiny and new that the parents. But not everyone forgets about the parents once baby makes their grand entrance–some go out of their way to make sure the parents feel supported.

Upworthy asked its audience, "what was the best non-baby related gift you received as a new parent," and the answers were a masterclass on how to care for new parents.

Keep ReadingShow less
Family

A mom seeks doctor's help for postpartum depression and instead gets a visit from the cops

Too many women lose out on much needed support because of unwarranted stigma.

Canva

Postpartum depression is very common, and treatable.

Jessica Porten recently visited her doctor four months after giving birth to her daughter, Kira. She wasn't feeling quite like herself.

She had been dealing with overwhelming sadness and fits of anger, which she knew was likely stemming from a case of postpartum depression.

In a Facebook post, Porten recounts the story of that appointment.

Keep ReadingShow less
Identity

Formerly enslaved man's response to his 'master' wanting him back is a literary masterpiece

"I would rather stay here and starve — and die, if it come to that — than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters."

A photo of Jordan Anderson.

In 1825, at the approximate age of 8, Jordan Anderson (sometimes spelled "Jordon") was sold into slavery and would live as a servant of the Anderson family for 39 years. In 1864, the Union Army camped out on the Anderson plantation and he and his wife, Amanda, were liberated. The couple eventually made it safely to Dayton, Ohio, where, in July 1865, Jordan received a letter from his former owner, Colonel P.H. Anderson. The letter kindly asked Jordan to return to work on the plantation because it had fallen into disarray during the war.

On Aug. 7, 1865, Jordan dictated his response through his new boss, Valentine Winters, and it was published in the Cincinnati Commercial. The letter, entitled "Letter from a Freedman to His Old Master," was not only hilarious, but it showed compassion, defiance, and dignity. That year, the letter would be republished in theNew York Daily Tribune and Lydia Marie Child's "The Freedman's Book."

The letter mentions a "Miss Mary" (Col. Anderson's Wife), "Martha" (Col. Anderson's daughter), Henry (most likely Col. Anderson's son), and George Carter (a local carpenter).

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Keep ReadingShow less