During the 20+ years of my neonatal practice, I have encountered many courageous women who battled through incredibly difficult pregnancies. Committed to giving their babies every possible chance to live, they endured multiple hospitalizations, endless periods of bed rest, and persistent bouts of nausea and vomiting. I have also met many women who tried every known infertility treatment in order to have a baby but after becoming pregnant ended up delivering prematurely. The struggle to have a child moved from the womb to the hospital room. In each and every case, despite all the difficulties, the pregnancy and birth were considered a blessing and not a burden.
Surprisingly, outside of the neonatal unit I am confronted by a contingent of people who treat pregnancy like a sexually transmitted disease. Passionate about eradicating it, they enlist the help of a medical profession whose motto is ironically, “primum non nocere – first, do no harm.” In order to make it a part of the healing arts, they have to establish that abortion is a key component of women’s health, but then fail to make the case that pregnancy is pathology. Pregnancy is a normal physiological phenomenon and not a social disease acquired from a dirty cultural toilet seat. Ending a pregnancy, therefore, is malpractice not therapy. As a physician, I find it odd that those who promote abortion recommend a surgical procedure for a non-disease condition. If abortion is women’s health care then pregnancy is a disease. Explain that to your children!
The once noble role of the obstetrician as the head of the human welcoming committee has been restructured to include stints as an immigration officer restricting fetal entrance into the land of the living. The once irrevocable passport into the world of equal opportunity has been reissued as an organ donor card. The first parental act of comparing the baby’s fingers, eyes and toes to their siblings is replaced by the calculated cataloguing of fetal body parts for a purchase order. Planned Parenthood treats birth as if it were a form of illegal human immigration and then builds an insurmountable wall guarded by armed medical personnel. Sadly this wall is not paid for by another country, but rather our own taxpayer dollars.
Pregnancy is either a burden or a blessing. A fetus is either an oppressor trying to take away the inalienable right to have unprotected sex, or a fountain of youth from which flows the next great generation of movers and shakers. So which is it, a reproductive disaster or procreative miracle? You can’t have it both ways.
The social conditions and desires of the woman may change her life situation, but they do not change the life status of the unborn. When another life is at stake, we cannot base our decision on the inalienable right to choose but on the inalienable right of the one chosen.
We cannot just condemn the deception of abortion, but we must also grieve with the women who have been deceived. We cannot just criticize the lack of informed consent given to those who undergo the procedure, but we must also educate those who have been misled. We cannot just disapprove of the culture of death but must also be willing to walk the difficult path with those who choose life.
Tabloid journalists go out of their way to get pictures of pregnant celebrities because they know that it sells magazines. So the next time you see a highly anticipated picture of a pregnant celebrity you need to ask yourself if she is sad because she has been afflicted with a tumor of inconvenience, or happy because she has been blessed with a baby bump of possibility.
Photo by Devon Divine on Unsplash
