Michelle and Pedro Armesto
Nearly 1000 at the Kansans for Life 2009 Valentine Banquet on Thursday night in Overland Park heard a shocking story about a forced, late-term abortion at Dr. Tiller’s clinic in Wichita in 2003.
A brave couple, Michelle and Pedro Armesto, told how Michelle’s parents pressured her into a late-term abortion in 2003 at Dr. Tiller’s Clinic days before her graduation at K-State. But that incident wasn’t enough to breakup their strong relationship, and they are now married with children.
Critics contend laws in Kansas about late-term abortions are not being enforced because of the refusal of Kansas courts, and especially the Kansas Supreme Court, to follow existing laws.
Michelle started her talk at the KFL banquet:
I was reading the articles about Dr. Tiller and how he was going to be charged, and I started looking at the year he was going to be charged for … and the records they were looking at. I always remembered in my case that I hadn’t signed the consent form until after the procedure was done. So, I always … wondered in my mind if there was some way to bring this to light …
Michelle gave her testimony to a special legislative committee investigating late-term abortions in Kansas in late Summer 2007. Her abortion occurred one month before the statute of limitations was lengthened for prosecution of such abortions. Michelle’s testimony is the subject of an open complaint to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts.
An April 7, 2008 press conference by KFL at the Capitol featured Michelle and prompted passage by both chambers of a Comprehensive Abortion Review Act, which was later vetoed by Gov. Sebelius.
From the April 2008 press release:
Michelle Armesto-Berge had a coerced, post-viable abortion at Tiller’s in 2003. (Healthy unborn children over 21 weeks of age are considered viable under Kansas law.) Michelle’s unborn child was 26 weeks gestation.
In 2007, Michelle heard media reports that indicated that one could not have a post-viability abortion in Kansas unless a second doctor, unaffiliated with the abortionist, agreed with the abortionist’s determination that the woman’s situation warranted an exception to the Kansas post-viable abortion ban. (Exceptions to the ban are limited to when continuing the pregnancy would lead to death or be a “substantial and irreversible” threat to the woman’s bodily or mental function.
Michelle knew her unborn child had been viable (it was past 21 weeks old and no one ever claimed it was not healthy) and she didn’t remember talking to a second doctor prior to her abortion. Michelle then ordered up her own medical records from tiller’s clinic and was shocked by what she discovered.
Her records indicated that her healthy, 24 to 26 week unborn child was reported as being “non-viable” by Tiller’s clinic, thus avoiding the legal requirement for her to see a second doctor.
The Topeka Capital-Journal in Sept. 2007 gave these details:
Armesto said her parents pressured her into having the abortion. She said her mother drove her to the clinic, and she told the clinic staff the abortion was “murder.”
“There was no time to say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do this,”‘ she said.
She said clinic personnel gave her fetus two lethal injections. Two days later, after clinic personnel induced labor, she delivered the stillborn child onto a restroom floor at the clinic. She said she relived the experience when her two children were born and remains haunted by the memories.
Michelle described the sonogram she received at Dr. Tiller’s Clinic to determine the age of her unborn child. She wanted to see that sonogram of her child but Dr. Tiller’s staff refused to let her. This is part of the reason behind the new pre-abortion sonogram bill introduced by State Rep. Lance Kinzer from Olathe.
Michelle’s story touched the KFL audience, as did her husband’s story. Pedro had fought desperately to find Michelle in Wichita as he tried to stop the death of their child. Sadly, Pedro found Michelle only after the lethal injections had been administered, so it was impossible at that point to save their child. Pedro read a letter and poem he wrote to Michelle as he desperately tried to reconnect with her at the time of her graduation.
The Armesto’s touching love story left the next speaker, Vicki Tiahrt, momentarily speechless about what to say.
Vicki Tiahrt
I had prepared remarks … but somehow in the reality of this moment my remarks don’t seem appropriate. … Thank you to Pedro and Michelle for the reality of what too many women and men endure. I think we don’t do a very good job of facing reality sometimes.
Vicki, who is the wife of Congressman Todd Tiahrt from Wichita, regained her composure and talked about how she and Todd had always been active in embracing the Culture of Life in the Wichita area.
Congressman Tiahrt was unable to attend the banquet, since he was in Washington for the “Stimulus” vote, but earlier in the program was seen in a KFL video of the March for Life rally in Washington, DC from Jan 22, 2009. Mrs. Tiahrt also spoke at a KFL banquet in Wichita on Friday night.
Movie of March for Life 2008 with Congressman Todd Tiahrt Addressing DC Crowd
Another March for Life 2009 video by Jack Cashill, “Thine Eyes,” which will soon be available, showed that approximately 300,000 marched to support life in DC last month, but the press reported much smaller numbers.
On the same day as the March in Washington, January 22 — the anniversary of Roe v. Wade –1,500 rallied outside the Kansas Supreme Court at an event organized by Kansans for Life.
KFL executive director, Mary Kay Culp, commented, “The numbers we are seeing this year at events is unprecedented in our 36 year history and are the direct result of disgust over the corruption of the rule of law as it applies to abortion in Kansas and the actions of new President Obama in Washington.”
Related:
- Testimony of Michelle Armesto, Kansas Special Committee on Federal, State Affairs, courtesy of Kansans for Life.
- Topeka Rally for Life: “Free Judge Anderson”, Kansas Meadowlark, Jan 22, 2009.
- The Shame of Kansas, Kansas Meadowlark, Nov 13, 2006 (with various updates).
Tags: Culture of Life, Dr. George Tiller, Kansans for Life, Late-Term Abortions, Thine Eyes, Todd Tiahrt, Vicki Tiahrt
