By Liz Townsend
Lori and Don Watts listened in growing indignation early in 1997 when pro-abortionists declared that partial-birth abortions were "necessary" when the "fetus" has severe disabilities. When they realized that these disabilities included ones that their five-year-old daughter Donna Joy was battling, the couple decided they had to speak out.
They contacted their congressman and eventually their senator, and joined the fight to ban the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure. Their work and the work of so many other pro-life champions culminated in a joyous ceremony November 5, when President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act into law.
The Wattses and their now 12-year-old daughter Donna Joy, who live in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, were in the audience that day. "It was a moment of vindication," Lori Watts told NRL News. "It was so exciting." President Bush even waved at Donna Joy, who "shot a big smile up at him," Watts said.
The family's struggles began in September 1991, when a sonogram showed that Mrs. Watts's seven-month-old unborn baby had serious brain injuries. The baby had hydrocephaly (water on the brain) and holoprosencephaly (HPE), which means that "some of the brain sensors are missing, and one side of the brain doesn't communicate with the other," Watts said.
Every doctor they saw advised them to have an abortion. "They said she was 'incompatible with life,'" according to Watts. "There was no way she would survive outside of the womb."
The Wattses, however, would not give up on their baby insisting on giving her a chance to prove the doctors wrong. They also relied on their strong pro-life beliefs. "We're against abortion and always have been," Lori Watts said.
After four hospitals refused to admit her and care for her baby, she threatened one with a lawsuit unless it would help her deliver the baby.
Donna Joy was born on November 26, 1991, in a Caesarean section, six weeks before her due date. But the family's battles continued, as they fought for weeks to force the hospital to feed their baby, give her surgery to relieve the fluid pressure on her brain, and help her when an infection raged.
Mrs. Watts said she even tracked down the hospital's president to get treatment for Donna Joy. "I dragged him to her bedside and told him my baby was dying in his hospital," Watts remembered. "Two hours later, they started to give her IV antibiotics."
The family continued to fight for Donna Joy's life, through eight brain surgeries and a near-fatal bout of infection when she was 18 months old. But she survived all these challenges, and is now a happy and beautiful 12-year-old who runs, plays, and even does volunteer work by sending care packages to Romanian orphans and to battered women's shelters.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told Donna Joy's story on the floor of the U.S. Senate during debate on the partial-birth abortion ban in 1997. The family made national news on May 14 of that year, when Santorum asked that the senators allow Donna Joy to remain in the Senate gallery to listen to the debate even though she was only five and a half years old. (Senate rules only allow those over six to be present.)
Pro-abortion Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), however, refused to allow her to stay, calling the request "exploitive." "My husband and Donna Joy were removed by security," Lori Watts told NRL News. "The guards even took away her teddy bear - - a red, white, and blue bear named Liberty - - saying it was a 'security threat.' But Rick Santorum actually left the Senate floor and made them give Liberty back."
Despite President Clinton's veto of the bill that year, the Wattses continued to speak on radio shows, in newspapers, and in personal appearances, telling their story and encouraging everyone to keep in touch with their congressmen and push for the passage of the ban.
Now that the ban has become law, Lori Watts said they would be happy to testify on its behalf as it is challenged in court by pro-abortionists. The family is also focusing on encouraging states to pass laws "to make it a crime to withhold care from disabled people, especially newborns," Lori Watts said.
The main message the family wants to send is that a severe disability "is not necessarily a death sentence," Watts said. She has already been in touch with other mothers facing such challenges, and will continue to pursue public speaking engagements and other ways to spread the message of hope.
"I know why God gave is Donna Joy," she said. "Once people meet her, she touches their hearts. Many people have been turned around on the issue just by seeing her."
Lori Watts encourages parents facing brain-injury diagnoses or others who want her to share her story with a group to contact her by e-mail at lifenurse@earthlink.net.