California Man Symbolically 'Adopts' Wife's Two Aborted Fetuses

A California man has signed papers to symbolically "adopt" and give his last name to his wife's two aborted fetuses.

Stan Musil said he filed the posthumous "adoption" on Monday as a way to support his wife, Lisa, and help her heal from the pain of having those abortions, Lisa Musil told FOXNews.com.

"He told me 'I love you and you are a part of me. Your babies are a part of you, and so that makes them a part of me also,'" she said.

Musil, now 45, had her first abortion at 19 because she was too frightened to admit her pregnancy to anyone — including her then live-in boyfriend, the Assist News Service reported.

But terminating the pregnancy caused her so much pain that she tried to cover it with "drugs, alcohol, partying and a promiscuous lifestyle," she told radio host Rich Buhler in an interview with KBRT AM-740.

That lifestyle led to her second pregnancy — and subsequent abortion — just before she was due to serve a jail sentence for a drunken driving conviction, ANS reported.

"The world tells me that it was only a blob of tissue, but my heart tells me otherwise," Musil told FOXNews.com by e-mail. "The grief often times was more than I could bear."

To try to cope with that pain, Lisa Musil turned her efforts to honoring those who have gone through abortions.

"It’s been a desire of mine to establish a memorial where post-abortive women can go to have the names of their aborted children engraved to honor their remembrance," she said. "As this is coming to fruition, I was wondering what last name I would put on this memorial, and my sweet husband asked if we could find some way he could legally adopt my babies and then they could take his name."

Upon hearing about Stan's idea, Buhler put the Musil's in contact with adoption law expert and NightLite Christian Adoptions Executive Director Rod Stoddart.

"I explained that it's not possible from a legal standpoint, because there's no birth certificate and no child living now to be adopted," Stoddart told FOXNews.com. "But from an emotional standpoint, there's no reason why we could not do an agreement between them where he would adopt those children and give them his name."

Stoddart drafted paperwork that reflected the Musils' desire for the adoption before each other, God and witnesses, which the couple signed on Buhler's radio show.

Stoddart said he's since received several requests from other couples looking to do the same.

"I feel it's given them a lot of comfort. It's something they're in together now," Stoddart said.

When the intended memorial is erected at Pierce Brothers Crestlawn Memorial Park in Riverside, Calif., it will include the names the Musils gave the aborted fetuses — Alicia Anne Musil and Vincent Matthew Musil.

FoxNew Online, Thursday , April 23, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517503,00.html