Jessa Duggar revealed tragic news a few days ago, this is not up for debate.
The former reality star posted a 19-minute long video in which she explained that she suffered a miscarriage late last year.
“I was just in complete shock,” Jessa told followers upon learning the news.
“I didn’t even have words. I just immediately started crying… [husband] Ben was there, and he put his arms around me.”
It’s a sad situation, but it’s also turned into a controversial one.
Why?
Because Duggar went on to say that she went to the hospital after being told about the miscarriage in order to have a a dilation and curettage procedure (D&C) to remove the fetus from her womb.
This is the same procedure women undergo who wish to have an abortion.
It was unclear to observers whether or not Jessa’s baby had a heartbeat at the time of this operation — but abortion-rights advocates and many in the medical community are emphasizing the following fact:
Whether or not a woman is seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy or undergoing a D&C for health concerns as described by Jessa on YouTube, the result is the same.
The woman is ending her pregnancy. This is an abortion.
The Duggars, meanwhile, have been openly pro-life ever since they entered the spotlight.
About a decade ago, both Jessa and her mother even compared abortion to the Holocaust.
“A couple of weeks after we went to the Holocaust Museum, it dawned on us that there is a holocaust taking place right here in America!” the matriarch of the Duggar family wrote in March of 2013, for example.
“More than 56 million lives have been destroyed in our country!
“That is over 4,000 babies being killed and 4,000 women being wounded each day!”
Jessa, for her part, is aware of the uproar her decision has created.
“Women have D&Cs for many reasons, not all of which involve killing a living human being,” the mother of four wrote this week on social meida.
“The ultrasound revealed that I had a mis miscarriage.
“My baby’s heart had stopped beating 3 weeks before I had a D&C.”
She continued:
“Each person is created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27) and to purposefully destroy a baby in the womb is an affront to the God who created that life.
“There’s a world of difference between someone dying and someone being killed. To quote one to the other — and to a mother grieving the loss of her baby no less — is severely distasteful.
“There is a world of difference between a mortician and a murderer.
“Even a child understand the difference between the two.”
No other Duggar family member has commented on Jessa’s miscarriage or this abortion debate since Jessa went public with her sad news.
We’ll update this story if anyone does go on record.
And we send our condolences at this time to Jessa, her husband and their children.
Jessa Duggar Defends Abortion: I’m Still Pro-Life! I’m Not a Hypocrite! was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.