Mother of Handicapped Daughter Who Spent Decade Seeking Ban on Partial Birth Abortion Celebrates Ruling

Times-News Staff/TN : Apr 20, 2007
Kingsport Times-News

Though she chose not to abort her own baby at 7 months, despite doctor's recommendations, mother says of others who did: "I have nothing but love and sympathy for women who make that decision."

In 1991, Lori Vance—7 months pregnant—was told that her unborn child should be aborted due to no fewer than five major brain defects supposedly detected by doctors. She did not follow the doctor's advice.

Said Vance: "I chose not to go through with the late-term abortion because...life doesn't really belong to me; it belongs to God, so it's only His for the taking. 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."

Today, that child—Donna Joy—is a 15-year-old eighth-grader at Rogersville Middle School in Tennessee who, despite her disabilities, is reportedly enjoying a happy childhood.

Of Donna, her mother says: "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."

According to a Kingsport Times-News report, Vance—who with her daughter has spent the last ten years crusading for the ban on partial birth abortion—is quoted as saying the Supreme Court decision this week upholding the ban on partial birth abortion is cause for celebration.

On a particularly poignant note, Vance added that 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."