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Micaela Marini Higgs is a senior at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, Texas. As a Youth Leadership Council member for Texas Freedom Network in conjunction with Advocates for Youth, Micaela focuses primarily on reproductive rights and promoting comprehensive sex education.
It was in a Boston hospital after extensive testing where Aaron Gouveia and his wife found out that the baby she was expecting, their second child together, suffered from Sirenomelia. An extremely rare congenital deformity that effects 1 in every 100,000 pregnancies Sirenomelia is also known as "Mermaid Syndrome" and results to both legs being fused together. Beyond that, the couple was told by doctors that there was no chance of their baby's survival since they would develop neither a bladder or kidneys.
With zero chance of their child's survival, the couple decided to get an abortion.
Outside the clinic they were yelled at by protestors, one woman holding an image of Jesus as they screamed and shamed the women walking in. In response, Gouveia walked out and confronted them, camera phone in hand, telling them that they had no right to judge or shame or yell at people going through the worst day of their lives.
For me he also brings up an interesting point when the women ask him if he knows how many women commit suicide after having an abortion and he comments that their shaming and humiliation of these women during a fragile and terrible time probably contributes to that number.
As a supporter of a woman's choice I applaud this man for standing up and exercising his free speech equally, asking questions even though one of the women refuses to make statements on camera after screaming for hours at women entering the clinic. My friends and even teachers have watched this video and also agreed they find his actions rather extraordinary.
