|
|
|
|
After Online Polling, Couple Says They
Will Not Abort Part Two of Four By Dave Andrusko With a helpless unborn baby's life apparently at stake, it was obligatory to alert our readers to what admittedly is the bizarre story of Pete and Alisha Arnold. Judging by the response to earlier posts, most of you were aware that the Apple Valley, Minnesota, couple had created a website where they allowed readers to vote up or down on whether Alisha Arnold should abort their baby whom they had already nicknamed "Baby Wiggles." On Friday, they announced that the vote was strongly in favor of having the baby and that they had already decided in October not to abort. (I'll explain that momentarily.) If you remember, earlier last week, the not-have-the-baby vote was ostensibly several times the have-the-baby vote, which never made any sense. Sure enough after pruning duplicates, the real tally was 74% in favor of having the baby to 26% voting for an abortion. In that Friday post Pete and Alisha Arnold each offered an explanation for why they did what they did, which you can read at www.birthornot.com. Between the lines (and long before they explicitly announced it), it was clear that he was not in favor and she was leaning in the direction of having an abortion--and that in some sense the online plebiscite was a way of soliciting additional input to their disagreement. Mrs. Arnold had suffered through two miscarriages prior to becoming pregnant for a third time. While she told USA Today that abortion "was on the table for me at first," she also told Oren Dorell that by mid-October, "I realized I had become attached and couldn't go through with." That was the point at which she'd gone into the emergency room, fearing she would have another miscarriage. Who knows all that went into her decision. However, it is noteworthy, is it not, that said "Comments on the site from women who had had complicated pregnancies and went on to have healthy babies 'gave me the courage to make the right decision.'" The Arnolds came under a barrage of criticism for putting the fate of the unborn baby to the vagaries of an online poll. She told USA Today they continued to collect votes even after she had decided to continue the pregnancy "rather than give in to the negative response," while he said, "They also wanted to promote a thoughtful debate." At the end of the day, Alisha Arnold still believes in abortion and offered an elaborate explanation why in her final post. Pete Arnold used his last entry to trash what he called the "hypocrisy" of the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" "labels." Whatever….Baby Wiggles is safe, not so much because of the votes (helpful as that might have been), but because it would appear that women wrote to offer Mrs. Arnold encouragement that she could make it through a difficult pregnancy. Thanks! Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |