My Pro-Life Story: Postscript(!)

Thanks for reading my little pro-life story; thanks very much for emailing your thoughts and comments.

And you’re right; I left some things out. What about rape? What about saving the life of the mother? What about the fact that women with unwanted pregnancies have always found ways of terminating them, sometimes with unsafe or even tragic results?

Yes, what about those cases? They are nightmare scenarios, to be sure. I used to think that these kinds of scenarios were so awful that even the possibility that they might occur made it necessary for abortion to be legal across the board. But once I realized that pre-born babies are, in fact, human beings, it gave me a different perspective on these scenarios. No longer did an abortion seem like a satisfactory solution—ever.

See, I just don’t think that it’s okay to kill a human being, ever. Once you open the option of one group—say, doctors—judging the potential quality of life for another—say, a pre-born baby who may or may not be born less than perfectly—and therefore determine whether they should live or die, you start down a slippery slope that doesn’t lead anywhere good.

I clearly remember my dear friend Leslie’s voice on the phone, years ago, when she told me the results of her routine ultrasound with her second pregnancy. “Kim, there are some problems,” she said, and I could hear her tears. Her son had some kind of developmental problem that involved his bones not solidifying. She said that in the many ultrasounds that followed that first one, they could see the baby’s bones curving and spiking at odd, curving angles. Because his bones were so fragile, he would never survive delivery, they said. He would never be able to walk or move or—well, live, they said. Of course they encouraged her to “terminate” him. She didn't.

Although Leslie and John expected the worst—their pastor was on hand for delivery, ready to bless the baby as he died—her son was born with no problems. He’s now a healthy teenager with no significant health problems.

There are countless stories of doomsday prenatal diagnoses like Leslie’s, which turn out to be wrong. How many of these stories end differently, with heartbroken parents and an empty place at the family’s table? Even if a parent could decide that it was actually merciful to spare their child the pain of being born for just a short life, or a life of disability, how could they ever, ever be sure enough of the diagnosis?

There are also many stories of parents who gratefully count their few minutes or hours holding their newborn before he died as some of the most precious time they could have imagined. And most parents of babies born with Down’s syndrome seem to say that their children have taught them profound depths of joy in life that they never could have imagined. Did you know that over 90% of Down’s babies are now aborted? Who are we—who are the doctors—who is anyone to say that these babies’ lives are not worth living?

But what about rape? Could anything be more ghastly than having to carry your rapist’s child? Of course not—but how does condemning the baby to death for his father’s crime help? I can’t imagine that it would erase the horror of the rape. In fact, many abortion survivors experience their abortions as an act of violence against their bodies. Of course in the case of a rape, this would make things worse, not better. It turns out that for many rape victims, giving their children life helps them to overcome their horror and reclaim their strength following the violence they survived.

Incest is actually different from rape as it relates to abortion, because abortion actually enables the criminal in many of these cases. An obvious pregnancy would shine a light on the darkness of incest in some situations; conversely, incest often can continue, hidden, due to the ease of procuring an abortion.

What could be more heart-wrenching than facing a pregnancy that might threaten your life, or even deprive your older children of their mother? I can’t even imagine having to face that situation. But which of us, as moms, would not give her life for her child? Of course we would. And killing a baby to save his mother requires that judgment again—which life is more valuable.

St. Gianna Molla gives us such a beautiful example for this; her clear instructions to her husband were “If it is a choice between my life and the baby’s, do not hesitate. Save the baby.” No doubt, her older children missed their mother very much, following her death from hemorrhaging a couple of weeks after giving birth to their little sister. No doubt, they are happy, healthy adults now, secure in the knowledge that their mother is a real-life saint.

What about the argument that women will find a way to abort their babies one way or another, so we should keep it legal in an effort to keep it safe? A couple of thoughts here: First, even though it’s legal, abortion is often still unsafe. And should we legalize all criminal activity because it will occur whether it is legal or not?

All human activity is the result of personal choice; government may limit or attempt to influence those choices for the good of society. The argument that people face difficult circumstances and tough choices so we should make this easier for them because they will do it anyway just isn’t logical. Poor people face difficult circumstances and choose to commit armed robbery to get cash to buy food; should we also legalize armed robbery?

In the case of these nightmare scenarios related to abortion, I'm not sure what the legality of the whole thing should be, to tell you the truth. But a whole lot of abortions happen that have nothing to do with rape, incest, or the life of the mother, and it seems obvious to me that laws in fact do help shape the morality of society, for better or worse.

Each year, in the United States alone, over 1.3 million babies are aborted. 99% of these abortions are not the result of rape, incest, or danger to maternal or fetal life. Yet those who favor abortion in our country often use these rare cases as the argument for keeping abortion legal and widely available. That’s a lot of collateral damage, don’t you think? Imagine the outcry if the U.S. were engaged in a military operation that had 99% collateral damage; could anyone defend the action regardless of the reason?

Once I realized that a person’s life truly does begin at conception, I realized that protecting a “woman’s right to choose” really does infringe on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for 1.3 million American boys and girls per year. Since 1973, that’s about a third of a generation of Americans. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but to me, this doesn’t feel like something I can ignore.

Speaking of hurting feelings, I want to say clearly that I certainly don’t think that women who have abortions are criminals, at all. I think they are victims. I want to do anything I can possibly do to help them—before, during, after, or many years after they are pregnant. Abortion is a gravely evil lie that our society spins and sells quite effectively; men and women should be saved from it, not judged for becoming its victim. I wholeheartedly believe that we must do everything possible to eliminate the circumstances that lead to unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Maybe that can be the topic for my next six-part post!

Just kidding--now back to posting family photos…

My Pro-Life Story: Conclusion

The background for this post is in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Although God never causes suffering, sadness, or evil, He does allow them in the world, and He brings forth beauty and glory and good from them. He’s outside of time, and He sees the big picture—the whole of history, all in one exquisite tapestry—all at once. This is why we can think of Him having a perfect and divine plan, of which any one of us is a tiny, vital, part.

When it comes to discerning God’s plan for my life, I tend to be quite obtuse. It is often necessary for Him to hit me over the head (or shove me to my knees, as the ever wise and insightful Rebecca says) before I get my head out of the sand. My three miscarriages, at progressively later gestation dates, surrounded by many smaller encounters and exposures with thoughts and issues related to life, got me on board the pro-life ship in a big way. (He showed me His thoughts on birth control, too, in a similar manner, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Science clearly shows us that life begins at conception. It’s not a matter of opinion at all; it’s the truth. In 1973, when Roe v. Wade passed, they didn’t have the ultrasound technology that we have now to see the little hands and feet, the tiny thumb-sucking, the tiny—but strong—heart beating. As another ever-wise-and-insightful dear friend put it, following her first baby’s birth, “Go ahead, have your ‘choice,’ but just recognize what it is you’re choosing to do.”

It’s tempting to view abortion as a way to simply turn back the clock on an unwanted pregnancy. But empirical evidence shows us that it almost never works out that way. It’s always tragic and life-altering for everyone involved. The only exception—and one could certainly argue that it’s a tragedy for them too—may be those with an ugly, profit-driven agenda behind abortion. Abortion is a billion-dollar industry, after all, which enjoys the support of very influential people in very high places. Of course those whose livelihood depends on abortion are hard-selling the myth that abortion is a simple commodity with no moral fallout.

If you don’t agree, and you’ve bought their spin that “reproductive freedom” is a good thing for women, then you may not be aware of the statistics on the percentage of cases that involve women being coerced or threatened into terminating their baby’s life. Or perhaps you haven’t considered that having the easy option to just “take care of it” tends to make the pregnancy the woman’s responsibility alone, when it actually isn’t.

If you think, as I used to, that a baby in his mother’s womb isn’t fully a human baby, because he’s connected to his mom and dependent upon her, then perhaps you haven’t considered the fact that this same argument applies to a three-day-old, three-month-old, or three-month-old nursing newborn.

As Jen Fulwiler points out here, in one of my favorite abortion-related articles of all time, identifying a specific group of people (African-Americans in the 18th century, Jews in the 20th century, baby girls in ancient Greece) as something other than human has led to atrocities throughout the course of history. Abortion is the atrocity-related issue of our time, which is exactly why it is so divisive.

Nobody wants to offend their friends by talking about a tragic, horrifying topic that we can hardly even bear to think about. But that’s just what the abortion industry wants us to do: Keep it hush-hush. Don’t think too much about what is really going on.

Nobody wants unsafe, back-alley abortions. Nobody wants babies to come into the world unloved or uncared for. Nobody wants the government—God forbid—telling us what to do with our bodies. No one is against freedom. But laws, after all, exist to protect the weakest members of society; do they not? Certainly in a country founded upon the principles of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the right to life includes everyone?

People need to understand what science is telling us about the miracle of human life. It’s far more amazing and beautiful than our society acknowledges. Society would have us settle for a demeaned self-concept that enshrines transient physical pleasure and short-term convenience as the highest accomplishments we can hope for. We deserve better.

The story continues, here.

My Pro-Life Story, Part 4

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3.

The next month, there was another baby on the way, and her little brother came two years later. By age 38, I had my four children. Along the way, though, I’d noticed that my own plans about having babies (in which month I’d prefer their birthdays; no summer pregnancies, please; not too close of a birthday to their siblings'; and that under-35 strategy) never worked out the way I’d expected. The miscarriages had made me realize what miracles babies actually are, of course—and that, clearly, I wasn’t in charge.

In the meantime, I’d learned a lot more about my Catholic Church’s teaching on family planning. That’s a topic for another post, but I’ll just say that it’s not simply a matter of “the more little Catholics, the better,” which is what I’d always assumed. When I researched the Church’s life-affirming position, I was surprised to find it spot on. Not only that, but when I considered the shocking concept of having a fifth child at the ripe old age of 40 it seemed selfish not to, given the many blessings that we have to share with another sweet baby soul.

And so, another fast forward, and I’m 40 and pregnant with #5. The baby was a girl, due in June. That February, when I was 18 weeks pregnant, my doctor failed to find her heartbeat at a routine appointment. My doctor held my hand as I cried while we tried and tried to find my baby's heartbeat; a few minutes later, "fetal demise" was confirmed by ultrasound.

My doctor told me that due to my baby's advanced gestational age, it would be necessary to induce labor and deliver the baby.

"Why," I sobbed, "can't I just be 'put under' and have a D&C," like the prior two miscarriages? I was fixated on the idea of being unconscious for the whole thing, as you can imagine.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't want that," my obstetrician said, referring to a 'Dilatation and Curettage' procedure at 18 weeks. "It would be too horrible. They would have to take the baby out in pieces."

Two days later, I went to Labor & Delivery at the hospital, where the staff induced labor and I delivered my baby girl, Margaret Grace. She was very tiny, very red (since at that age a baby's skin is still transparent), and very much no longer alive. The staff encouraged us to hold her, take pictures, grieve, and say goodbye. They had a tiny baby blanket and hat for her. We cried, and prayed, and a priest came to give her a blessing. We loved her, and we still miss her. Her brothers and sisters cried, and never got to meet her (they still talk about her--especially KLD who feels quite ripped off that she didn't get that baby sister). Not once did anyone ever suggest that Margaret was anything other than a baby, of course.

Imagine my horror when it occurred to me that this exact same experience could be re-enacted in another mother's life, with the chilling difference that the baby's heart was still beating when the whole procedure began.

"Oh, no, you wouldn't want that. It would be too horrible. They would have to take the baby out in pieces."

Imagine the horror of anyone doing that to a tiny baby--on purpose.

Click here for the story conclusion.

My Pro-Life Story, Part 3

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2:

I became pregnant for the fourth time at age 34. With two successful deliveries behind me, my biggest concern was how I would manage three children aged three and under. I’d always wanted four children, you see, and I wanted to have them all before I was 35, because at the time, the prevailing wisdom held that moms over 35 were statistically much more likely to have a baby with Down’s Syndrome. Also, I didn’t really know anyone who’d had children after 35--at least not on purpose.

Moms who have lost a child to miscarriage are especially nervous during the first trimester; since my first loss it has always been hard to believe that my baby will really be safely born. Passing that 12-week mark is huge. And statistically, once you make it past 12 weeks, you’re pretty much in the clear, especially once the baby’s heartbeat has clearly been established.

I was 14 weeks pregnant and had already seen that tiny beating heart twice when, at an office visit, they couldn’t find my baby's heartbeat with the Doppler.

“Don’t worry,” they said. “Let’s just take a peek on the ultrasound to see what’s going on.”

I kept the printout from that ultrasound. The clearest thing—besides the tiny little ribcage, which was very, very still—was a miniature hand, raised in a goodbye wave, floating as if in space. That was 2001, and sometimes I still cry when I think about that little hand. And the ultrasound tech, with a really bad look on her face: "Oh, Kimberly, I'm so sorry." At such times, sometimes it's actually helpful to have a toddler in the room with you; Mommy responsibility keeps you from completely falling apart.

This time, I knew better than to try to stay at home for the whole thing. We’d moved by then, too, and our first little house was only about 10 minutes from the hospital.

I waited too long. I had the baby in my bathroom. It was tragic, and startling, mostly because—it was a baby. My 14-week-old fetus was shaped exactly like a tiny little human, complete with arms, legs, fingers, toes. I’d never imagined that a miscarriage would produce anything but blobs of tissue—that’s all they ever talk about, after all. My sweet husband (Remember that ‘wise and wonderful’ colleague from the beginning of this story? It’s him.) wrapped up the baby’s body and brought it with us to the ER.

I’d thought that no miscarriage could be harder than that first one. After all, I had two kids already, and as an experienced miscarry-er, I was tough. Right? Wrong. I fell apart. Good thing for the profuse amount of pictures of my two toddlers that summer, because I don’t remember much of it. We were moving, of course. And then came the 9/11 attacks, which rocked everyone's world. Of course, I was desperate to become pregnant again—and hysterical when two whole months (!) of trying went by with no baby on the way.

Part 4 is here.

My Pro-Life Story, Part 2

Continued from Part 1, which is here.

Fast forward again, this time to my 31-year-old self (now Catholic by the way), crying in the bathroom of my Chicago apartment with the heartbreak of miscarrying my first child. At 11 weeks gestation, my precious, already-beloved baby had no heartbeat, and suffered a “spontaneous abortion.” (I hate that they call it that on the forms—like a knife in my stomach in more ways than one.) I had no idea what to expect, and no idea what was going on in my abdomen at that point. My OB/Gyn (a lesbian abortionist when not at her day job, about which I was, of course, oblivious—well, not the lesbian part) recommended that I “let my body expel the tissue naturally,” or something like that, which basically meant crying and hurting and bleeding all weekend, wondering when it would be over.

The doctor had given me a prescription for some kind of something that would help my uterus contract and settle down when the whole thing was over.

“Take it after several large pieces of tissue are expelled,” the nurse instructed me.
“What do you mean?” I said, “How big?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” she said.

Well, I didn’t know. I got it wrong and took the medicine too soon, which resulted in a horrible trip to the ER in the middle of the night (does anyone ever go to the ER in the daytime, I wonder?) and an overnight stay in the hospital. I can still picture my doctor’s gentle, comforting smile early the next morning when she came to check on me; she did make me feel better that morning. Despite the bad call about the do-it-yourself miscarriage, she was a skilled physician who went on to deliver my first- and second-born children in the two years following that first heart-wrenching loss.

Not many people talk about miscarriages. (When you have one, you find out that they are actually quite common.) For some reason, it can feel embarrassing, like the whole pregnancy was more of a misdiagnosis than an actual child who died. This denial, I think, makes it harder to process your grief over the loss. Nowadays, I know people who would have had a funeral for that baby, and I wonder if doing so would have helped me grieve.

Part 3 is here.

My Pro-Life Story, Part 1

Once upon a time, I was pro-choice. I need to tell you the story of how I changed that point of view. (I promise, I tried to edit it down as short as I could, but it's still too long for one post, so I'll post it in parts.)

Like most 20-year-olds who can't imagine facing an unwanted pregnancy, and whose moral values primarily consisted of which fork to use at a formal dinner (okay, I wasn't quite that bad), I was mostly pro-choice, based on my understanding of the issues gleaned from extensive reading of Glamour magazine. I never thought much about it, of course; I guess I was one of those people who thought "I would never have an abortion myself, but it’s my body, and so it should be my choice." (Ugh.)

Fast forward to my 25-year-old self, chatting with a wise and wonderful colleague one afternoon at the office. We often discussed various current events and issues, and his thoughts on abortion went something like this:

“I used to think that as a man, I had no right to an opinion on this issue, because I could never fully understand it. But after a while that seemed pretty much of a cop-out, and I decided that it really all boils down to one’s definition of when life begins. Either life begins at conception, or not, and everything else logically follows from that.

“If you determine that life begins at conception, then abortion must actually involve taking away someone’s life. And it happens over 3,000 times per day in our country. If that were in fact happening, how could you remain silent about that? Wouldn’t that be like living in Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s, and looking away from the atrocities going on around you? Of course, you’d want to do anything you could to stop it, right?”

Well, that made some sense, I thought. Around that time I had another dear friend who was Catholic, had five younger siblings (which seemed quite amazing to me at the time), had a pro-life bumper sticker on his sporty little car, and who did things like attend pro-life demonstrations on the weekend.

"Interesting," I thought. "Let's go get some margaritas." (We were in San Antonio during this part of the story.) And that was about it, when I was 25. The whole thing didn't affect me much, and although I thought it was an interesting topic in an abstract and academic way, I was just going along, trying to be careful not to offend anyone or talk about anything too personal or controversial. Of course.

Continue reading here.