Abortion. Here's why...
Two blogs that I follow (one that I started reading several months ago, and one that I just started reading this past week) are written by women who have each been pregnant with a child with rare, SERIOUS health problems. I don't remember exactly the condition of each baby, but they were truly serious conditions (not, as I understand, conditions that were completely incompatible with life, but conditions that would undoubtedly lead to a very long journey of pain, suffering, numerous operations, perhaps life support, huge handicaps, etc...and perhaps, in the end, death for the infant). Both of these women chose to abort her baby, and their reason was because of love--love for their baby, desire for him to not have to suffer, compassion, etc. Both of these women also have some level of faith in God--belief in Him, belief in His love and goodness, belief in heaven, etc.
When I read the first woman's story, it filled me with anger, disbelief (that someone who professed to believe in God could come to that decision), and deep sorrow. I could not understand her point of view at all and disagreed intensely with her decision.
To give some background on myself, I have always been staunchly pro-life, even to the point of, as a teenager, standing on the streets of our town holding a sign to protest abortion...and going to the Rally for Life in Washington, D.C., to stand up for the rights of the unborn. Of course, while I was doing all of this, I had never actually met a real woman who had chosen to have an abortion, so I had no context for understanding how a woman could get to the point of making that choice. I don't regret taking the stand that I did--that's where I was at in life--but I do see how a protester could come across as harsh and out of touch with reality...and if I was a woman who was pregnant and scared, I wouldn't run to the nearest protester for help--in fact, I'd run the opposite direction. I do realize that compassion is not really the point of a protest though. Protests are for voicing public opinion so the powers-that-be will realize that a large segment of the population holds a certain opinion and will (hopefully) change the laws to reflect that viewpoint. I also realize that many of the people who protest abortion do live out their opinions in other ways and show compassion for real women in extremely difficult situations--i.e. through volunteering at a pregnancy center, etc.
In any case, my judgment as I read this particular blog was based on my own background, of course. And I have to mention, too, that I have never walked in the shoes of the woman who wrote the blog. Besides my miscarriage in December (which seems extremely mild in comparison to the struggles of this blogger), I've never dealt with tragedy in that area, and I am keenly aware of how that affects my opinion, too.
When I was pregnant with David in Israel, I discovered that Israel places a very high level of importance on prenatal testing--higher than here in the States. I suppose I can understand why, since certain diseases that afflict the Jews in particular are obviously genetically based. In our situation, we declined a lot of the prenatal testing that was offered/encouraged/mandated; but we did have a very thorough ultrasound at about 20 or 22 weeks (I can't remember for sure)--right before the cut-off for legal abortions in Israel. After the ultrasound (which was simply fascinating for us as we watched David cavort in utero), the doctor said to us, "Well, I've checked everything except for one ear (the way David was lying made it impossible to see that ear), and I can guarantee that everything is perfect." I wanted to make it clear to the doctor that even if everything wasn't perfect, we still wanted this baby!!! But I realized that doctor didn't really care and was just doing his job.
That experience though made me think about how society operates when there are "less-than-perfect" individuals in it. I think society loses something vitally important when the handicapped are eliminated. Within a family, think how much growth happens in the character of a mother or father or siblings when a handicapped child is born...or rather, think about how much potential for growth there is...I understand that each family's reaction will determine whether the positive growth occurs or not. Within a workplace, think how much richer the lives of all the workers can be when there is a handicapped person working there. Within society in general, think how much compassion and understanding and grace can be developed as we look beyond the surface of a person to see their soul and as we realize how vastly imperfect we all are. Who defines perfection anyway???
So with these thoughts in mind, I felt extremely condemning of this blogger's decision to "play God" and end the life of her unborn son. It seemed to me that she was saying that she was wiser than God and more loving and merciful than Him. God might have let her son be born and suffer, but she wanted to send him peacefully to heaven and spare him the suffering. But how could she know better than God what the future would hold and how to best treat her son?
However, my thoughts haven't ended there. I realized that in SO MANY WAYS we "play God" with modern medicine now--and for the most part, I am all in favor of that! Coming from a medical family, I hear stories of the "good old days" and how medicine used to be practiced...and I'm eternally grateful that I live now in this day and age!
In these situations with the extremely ill babies, if they were born 100 years ago, they almost certainly would have died. And yet now, with our modern technology, we can prolong life so long that it's almost unbelievable. When is enough enough? How can we say that we won't play God by ending life before it's time, but yet we play God by continuing life way past the point where it would "naturally" end? As for me, I don't want to play God in either of these situations! Yet I realize that real life sometimes intrudes so violently that choices like this must be made, and no one in these situations asked to be there.
One night as I was mulling over all these thoughts, I had the opportunity to talk with my dad about all of this; and that was helpful. He told me about some specific situations that he had known about/been involved in. One was an unborn baby who was developing without a significant portion of the brain. It was a situation completely incompatible with life--there was absolutely no chance for the baby to live; and so in a case like that, I can definitely see how an abortion would be "allowed." My dad also told me, however, that in certain cases, even if the mother knows her baby will die when born, she can carry it to term so that certain of the organs can be harvested and used as transplants to give others life. That was a new thought to me, but how amazing would that be! What a sacrifice for that mother to make to continue with the pregnancy, knowing that she would not be bringing a baby home with her in the end, but also knowing that others would benefit enormously from her sacrifice. Wow!
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts recently. I certainly don't have it all figured out, but I'm striving to understand another's point of view first before making a snap judgment. It's much easier to judge first--and much more difficult to take time to empathize!
Oh, one other thing...I am well aware that only a tiny percentage of abortions that happen now are done in situations like these women faced. In general, I am as staunchly pro-life as ever before, and I wish so much that more women facing abortion could see their way clear to choose to either keep their baby or to let them be adopted. I'm a huge fan of adoption, as anyone who knows our family can imagine. :) And it's mind-boggling how many couples are desperately longing and waiting for a child to adopt--babies, that if not aborted, could be filling the void that so many people feel.
I thought of something else...one of my biggest reasons for being anti-abortion now is that, now that I actually know some women who had abortions, I see the damage that can be done to them through an abortion. I think in so many cases, there are emotional and spiritual consequences that literally last a lifetime. So as much as my heart hurts for the unborn victims of abortion, I ache even more for the grown women and men who are also affected by it.
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4 comments:
Wow, Davene. What a thought-provoking post. I am about as un-invasive as it gets with medical issues...though I'm not above having bones set or necessary surgeries or antibiotics on occasion. My family has also been blessed with robust health. We have never had to make a difficult treatment decision. I can't even speak to that.
During each of my pregnancies I have struggled with the "what-ifs" and have had to cling to the ultimate accepting of God's will. The "knit me together in secret" passages were a comfort, but even then, I worried about possible complications with the baby. (I prefer to have no ultrasounds unless my midwife decides it is medically necessary.)
Sometimes we can have too much information. Sometimes God works a miracle. Sometimes He chooses not to. I have known two women who carried Trisomy babies to term, knowing that their baby girls would die, but cherishing the time that they had life in the womb. That has to be one of the hardest things to do. I can't imagine it, but I would hope for God's grace if the situation arose. Both of these women are beautiful examples of that grace.
We have a Downs syndrome family member. She adds much to our life and the lives of our children. She is their aunt, and they love to color and do puzzles with her.
We also have to remember to speak the truth in love and to genuinely care for women in difficult situations. That is what is wonderful about HPC. The caring.
We are all at different places in our walk, and I agree with you that until you have to make one of those hard decisions, it's easy to have the "right" answers.
Thanks again for the thought-provoking post!
I think two questions are really being posed... not just when to abort, but also when to pull the plug on life support.
Jeff, you're right about it really being two questions...and I don't have the answer for either of them!
Julie, thanks so much for your comments. What you said about sometimes having too much information reminds me of another example that I meant to write about, but forgot. A woman who is very dear to me was pregnant with her second child, and a marker for Downs came up positive during her pregnancy. After further testing, everything was determined to be fine; and sure enough, when her baby was born, he was completely "normal." This particular woman would not have aborted even if he had truly had Downs, but I know some women would...yet the first information was not correct. Even one of the bloggers that I wrote about mentioned that depending on how some of the tests are done, there can be completely different results. With some of the prenatal testing, it's hard to know if it's accurate...and in matters of life and death, accuracy matters!
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