This is a hard one to write, my friends. If I offend you, I ask for your forgiveness.
A recent article in the New York Times, The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy, talks about pregnancy reduction–i.e. aborting one or more fetus out of multiples. It began as a way to make a pregnancy safer, especially after fertility treatments that can create quintuplets or more. It’s become eugenics: to avoid having a disabled child, to have one child instead of twins, even to select sex.
“Parents who abort for an anomaly just don’t want that life for themselves, and it’s their prerogative to fashion their lives how they want,” said Dr. Naomi Bloomfield.
The article stated, “Many studies show the vast majority of patients abort fetuses after prenatal tests reveal genetic conditions like Down syndrome that are not life-threatening. What drives that decision is not just concern over the quality of life for the future child but also the emotional, financial or social difficulty for parents of having a child with extra needs. As with reducing two healthy fetuses to one, the underlying premise is the same: this is not what I want for my life.”
But. We don’t get to construct the lives we want in any other sense, to pick and choose what we want to deal with. We can’t gerrymander the parameters of reality. We can’t say, “No, actually, I don’t want to deal with heart disease or squirrels today, make them go away.” Well, we can, but it implies a strong disconnect with reality.
And perhaps that’s the problem. People are disconnected from the reality of their actions and the results that will follow. They are disconnected from the world as a whole, they see only their own wishes versus their circumstances. God? Consequences? Souls?
“The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control,” said one mother, whose pregnancy involved egg donation, in vitro fertilization and other artificial options. Having one child instead of two? Fill out the paperwork, make an appointment.
How is that any different from aborting a child who would have been born with CF? Brittle-bones? Mental retardation? They’re just doing what’s best for themselves and their family, making wise personal choices. Right? Right?
The article states, “As science allows us to intervene more than ever at the beginning and the end of life, it outruns our ability to reach a new moral equilibrium. We still have to work out just how far we’re willing to go to construct the lives we want.”
There’s one fundamental thing missing in their so-called moral discussions: the lives aren’t ours to take for our convenience.
We cannot end a life because it was inconvenient, to pick and choose what we want to deal with–that isn’t how the world works in any sphere of living. Not because there’s two and they wanted one, not because they don’t want the social stigma of Downs, it’s selfishness.
Life has been created. Whether it’s by “artificial” means of fertility treatments and turkey basters, whether by unprotected sex or by intercourse with the pill and a spermicidal condom, nevertheless some action was taken to create a child.
Someone pointed out that pregnancy reductions are often taken by people whose fertility treatments involved multiple embryos being put into their womb on the gamble that some would die. That’s an irresponsible risk to take, if you do not want to raise twins or quadruplets or however many.
Of course, many women got pregnant through other means, such as fertility pills or just luck of the draw. But sex is also an irresponsible risk, if you do not intend to raise a child.
Even if the child was conceived through abuse, there is now a child. It’s not the mother’s fault (a child is never someone’s fault), and she shouldn’t be forced to do anything, but any decision must be made with the acknowledgment that there is a living child within her.
There’s more than one life to consider in a decision like this. I know many people with over-large families, with severe disabilities, adopted, with major illnesses, raised by a single parent. They’re unquestionably better off alive than not. And their communities are blessed to have them.
In the US, according to 2007 data from the Center for Disease control, just 13% of abortions were for medical reasons. There were 231 abortions for every 1,000 live births–827,609 were reported total. In one year.
According to The Center for Bioethical Reform, there are approximately 115,000 abortions performed per day worldwide. One percent of abortions are because of rape or incest, and six percent because of potential health issues for mother or child. (Their numbers come from the Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood, which the CDC says are more thorough than their own.)
Bioethicist Josephine Johnson was quoted as saying, “In an environment where you can have so many choices, you own the outcome in a way that you wouldn’t have, had the choices not existed. If reduction didn’t exist, women wouldn’t worry that by not reducing, they’re at fault for making life more difficult for their existing kids. In an odd way, having more choices actually places a much greater burden on women, because we become the creators of our circumstance, whereas, before, we were the recipients of them. I’m not saying we should have less choices; I’m saying choices are not always as liberating and empowering as we hope they will be.”
Liberating. Empowering. There’s a person who isn’t, because of a choice made.
They are not. They are not on earth, they do not run or cook or shout or play violin or practice medicine or chuckle at passersby. They could have, but they don’t. They won’t tomorrow. Whatever they would have been or done or had is null and void. The world is forever missing them. They’re not nonexistent, they’re absent, dead. Dead before beginning.
Their life was not ours to take.
Yes, I meant ours.
If we as a society supported pregnant women more effectively and condemned them less, and were also more supportive of mothers–especially the young, inexperienced, or those having a bad day in public–maybe things would be different.
52% of abortions are by mothers under age 25. 47% of abortions are performed on women who have had abortions before.
If there were free, excellent medical care for mothers and kids, if WIC etc were a more functional system, if women carrying a child in order to adopt them out had the encouragement of the people around them instead of snide glances. If maternity leave never got anyone fired.
93% of abortions are because the child is unwanted or inconvenient. An estimated 43% of women will have an abortion before they turn 45.
With kids in the Church, I see a very it-takes-a-village approach. Non-parents will correct and praise kids when needed, and support but not blame mothers. A wide range of people are willing to help out, both in the moment and in the more scheduled I’m-bringing-food-Tuesday sense.
So many of the mothers in this article were afraid of a hectic, chaotic life. With a supportive community of family and friends to lift some of the burden (bringing over a meal, babysitting for a day or an hour, cleaning parties, an extra pair of eyes in public) that wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
But there’s this cultural attitude I see that blames women if they can’t handle being pregnant or mothers. The mom in the grocery store whose tired two-year-old is melting down, the nineteen-year-old new mom who has no idea that cheap formula is giving her baby colic, the working mom whose kid is both spoiled and ignored. Classic stereotypes, but I see women being condemned for those and more all the time. It’s so easy to see the “right” answer from the outside.
“Why didn’t she read a book?” “Who lets their kid act like that? I wouldn’t stand for it!” “If she just did X she wouldn’t have this problem.”
So much of today’s society revolves around being liked by one’s friends and peers. It affects job advancement, social standing, reputation, self-worth. It’s no wonder people end lives at the thought of being put in a situation they can’t handle alone. If they’re in a situation they can’t handle, their friends will criticize–and if their struggles alienate their friends, they’ll really be alone.
That isn’t how it has to be. A Russian priest, Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, went to a Moscow maternity clinic and offered to adopt any of the children of the women present. Every woman claimed financial challenges had driven her decision. Archpriest Dimitry guaranteed that he would help them. “But my own biggest problem,” he said, “was that not a single woman turned for help to me.”
One kind soul willing to help doesn’t outweigh the condemnation, subtle or obvious, of an entire society.
One of the best mothers I know recently told me how, when their first child was born, her husband couldn’t understand what she did with her days. She left him alone in charge of the baby for a day, and he never again asked why the laundry wasn’t done or the dishes washed. He got it. He could support her more effectively then, because he knew what she was going through. There was no longer a need for blame or argument.
Compassion is the only thing that will end abortion. Compassion for the mothers, compassion for the children.
The only way for these kids to live is if we, as a community, as a society, step up and create a place for them. If every child conceived has a home to go to, biological or not. If all medical problems are treated, paid for or not. If prenatal visits are provided, if she won’t lose her job for maternity leave, if her friends and even strangers stand by her, if adoption is a sure way to find a safe family home for her child. If and only if.
No problem affects just one person.
If a woman is pregnant and unprepared, if a child is born with an illness, if someone needs a home, that ends up affecting everyone. All this talk about socialism etc is ridiculous. We live in one world. We share ONE world. So someone with a mental illness who’s begging on a streetcorner instead of being cared for somewhere safe and warm is our problem. A kid who’s born with no one prepared to raise him is our problem. And a young mother-to-be who’s not ready to raise a child, either on her own or at all, is our problem.
A young woman having sex when she shouldn’t be is a problem, but it’s not the problem. Our lack of support for her, our disregard for her physical and emotional and mental and spiritual health? That’s the problem.
I look around me, everywhere, and I see these tiny people–children–becoming. Becoming bigger, becoming more skillful, becoming whatever-they-will-be, one step at a time. I don’t know what they’ll end up. K’s got a mechanical mind, she takes delight in figuring things out. B’s very particular, he knows what he wants, and he’s quite articulate about asking for it. N’s such a smiley itty bitty thing, so observant, so talkative even without words.
I don’t know what they’ll be, but it’s obvious they’ll be Something, they’ll make the world beautiful. This world will not be the same, because they are in it. They are already contributing, changing the lives of those around them for the better.
I wonder about the children who are not. What would they have done? If they’d have lived, how would they have affected the world?
“In the interest of full disclosure,” as a favorite college professor used to say, one of my most beloved friends lost two children this year–one to abortion, one to miscarriage. And every day I think of them, and wonder–if only.
and am quite happy she told me. I’ve felt mellow lately, when my feelings make sense at all. The Everybodyfields and mellow moods get along quite well. They’ve got a touch of similarity to The Weepies.
