Proof of life

A Valley mother is on a mission.

Just in the last few days, the topic has become a huge issue for a presidential candidate.

But the story begins in Arizona with a woman who was determined to fight the system.

She said it's a fight for grieving parents everywhere.

"I had nowhere to turn so I just carried it around all of these years," Jeanette Wilson said. "I blamed myself for the longest time."

Back in 1984, Wilson delivered a stillborn baby named Joseph.

Two years later Wilson got pregnant again, another boy, who she planned to name Peter.

But fate was cruel to Wilson. Peter was also delivered stillborn.

"I lost my two beautiful boys -- Joseph and Peter," she said.

No birth certificates were ever issued. Only death certificates.

"Nobody wants to acknowledge that she had a baby. You live with that inside of you and I've learned this by watching my wife listening to her, watching her cry."

Joanne Cacciatore is a professor at Arizona State University and the founder of the MISS Foundation.

"I think women have been shamed," she said.

MISS started as a support group for grieving parents and over the last 10 years has morphed into an advocacy organization with 50,000 members nationwide.

"It's for so many women who, like me, who will be sitting on the closet floor at 3 in the morning feeling they have to end their lives, like they can't go on," Wilson said.

Cacciatore knows how that feels. In 1994, she delivered a stillborn baby named Cheyenne.

"She died just minutes before she was born," Cacciatore said. "She was 8 pounds 22 ounces.

"They went on to say you had a fetus... and the fetus died and you will not get a birth certificate ... and I said then how can you give me a death certificate? How can she die if she never was?"

It's a controversial issue that cuts to the heart of the abortion debate. Cacciatore said her mission was about dignity for her daughter.

"She was here briefly, but she was here and even in death people can continue to matter," she said.

Cacciatore took her case to the state Legislature.

She wrote letters and lobbied then-Gov. Jane Hull.

"This isn't about me. This is about a social movement that needs to happen," she said.

In 2001, Cacciatore got the law changed here in Arizona so that parents could receive stillbirth certificates.

"As many babies in the U.S. are still born as there are women who die of breast cancer or people who die of AIDS. Why are we not talking about this?" she said.

Recently, People magazine wrote an article about this crusader from Arizona and the article received an overwhelming response.

Grieving parents from all over the United States started calling and writing parents like Wilson.

She wanted to know if it was too late to get birth certificates for her two boys.

Cacciatore and Wilson met today at the Vital Records Office in Phoenix.

Wilson feels the birth of her babies is finally validated after all of these years and for Cacciatore the journey continues.

"It's the most genuine life you can lead to help others in their darkest days," she said.

New Mexico would have been the 20th state to pass this bill that recognizes and records the birth of a stillborn baby. It's called the Missing Angels bill.

Last month, it passed in the New Mexico Legislature with unanimous support, however, Gov. and presidential hopeful Bill Richardson just vetoed the bill.

Right now, the bill is pending in eight other states.