I am Pro-Life and Pro-Choice.
I know this is a confusing statement for many, but I’m of the opinion that we should save as many babies as we can, while also allowing for the fact that some women need medical terminations or abortions to save their own lives, to prevent their baby from suffering a horrible death and/or life, or perhaps to prevent their own suffering.
In my first blog, I wrote about a woman whose baby would have died a painful death if it was born into our world. In this blog, I am sharing the story of a mother who would have died if the baby within her had continued to grow. Both of these mothers had medical terminations in order to prevent or cut short suffering and death. Both are Christians. These women are very brave souls who had to make tough decisions in situations where there is no possibility of a happy ending.
How Abortion Saved a Woman’s Life:
A 35yr old mother of five fell pregnant with baby number six. She loved being a mum and was happy to have another child, but there was one small problem. Her fifth child had been delivered via caesarean section and the next baby’s placenta was pushing against the scar tissue and prying open the surgical wound as the baby and the placenta grew.
At 10 weeks gestation, the mother started bleeding. She presented to the hospital and upon initial examination the doctor said she would likely have a miscarriage. She was told to come back in a week if she hadn’t miscarried and was still bleeding. It was lucky she came back a week later, because the results of the next ultrasound were much more serious. It was only a matter of time before this woman’s placenta would rupture and she would bleed to death, killing both her and the baby.
This woman was advised to have an emergency hysterectomy. In fact, unless she refused to continue medical care, there would be no leaving that hospital without one, because that’s what the doctors deemed necessary to save her life. Of course, having a hysterectomy while pregnant means forfeiting that baby’s life. The baby, the placenta, and the entire uterus all had to be removed to save this mother from the brink of death. A mother of five children. Five children who desperately needed her to stay alive. But even if there were no other children, this woman would still deserve and have the right to live.
This was one of those impossibly tragic situations where there is no saving the baby without saving the mother but there is no saving the mother without letting go of the baby. This poor woman didn’t even have time to process what was happening. She barely had a decision to make because there were no alternatives, except death. This was a no-brainer for the doctors involved.
But for the mother, it was the hellish process of going from carrying a perfectly healthy baby one minute, to not only losing that baby, but also losing the possibility of any future babies:
“They operated on me that morning. Hysterectomy at 35. Healthy baby gone. They didn’t find out for me if the baby was a girl or a boy. No offer of counselling. No walk through of aftercare except a print out on an A4 sheet. I was put in the ward for women whose hysterectomies were due to cervical cancer. They were happy to have theirs. I was just numb about it for a while. Sad to have lost a healthy baby, but the choice was out of my hands.”
How devastating to be offered no support after a medical termination, which is technically a form of abortion. This was a loss, a grief, a death, and yet no one seemed to treat it this way. Being judged for it—as though you have done something wrong—only adds salt to the wound. And yet broad-sweeping generalisations about abortion being wrong, mean this woman has to hide or experience other people’s judgement.
I want to live in a world where women are free to talk about medical terminations, abortions, miscarriages, still birth and so on. There has been too much silence, judgment and a lack of support for too long. Let’s be the change.
Share this blog, and let the women in your life know that you are willing to listen without judging them. Offer your support. I would also love the opportunity to hear from anyone who wants to share their story.
Email me at: elissaanne.author@gmail.com
For further support in Australia contact:
www.pregnancyhelpaustralia.org.au
Phone – 1300 139 313
For further support in America contact:
https://exhaleprovoice.org/
Phone – 857 728 1318
Text – 617 749 2948
Tag: pro-life
Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Blog#1
Pro-life or pro-choice?
I am both.
I want to launch back into blog writing by starting a series of discussions about abortion. As a child I was taught that abortion was murder and murder was a sin, therefore, abortion was also wrong. I didn’t begin to question this until adulthood when I heard about some of the reasons for medical terminations and realised that abortion is not a black and white issue. Abortion is not always right or always wrong and ultimately, I do not believe we should ever judge the woman who has had an abortion because we have not lived their lives or walked in their shoes. I want to share some of their stories in order to broaden our views about this sensitive issue.
Sometimes there are medical reasons for having an abortion. This is better known as a medical termination. For my first blog in the series, I would like to share the story of a mother who walked this difficult path:
A woman in her early thirties who had had one miscarriage and two subsequent children, was trying to conceive another child. She underwent fertility treatments and conceived after a year. While she was pregnant she discovered that her baby had a large cystic hygroma. This is a growth on the head or neck that contains cysts that continue to multiply. The baby’s lymphatic vascular system did not develop normally. Her lungs had fluid in them and were not developing in a way that sustains life after birth. Her heart and other organs were also surrounded by fluid.
Multiple specialists gave this baby a poor prognosis. In other words, they told the mother that her baby was going to die one way or another. They said that if the baby made it to full term, they could put the baby on life support through a very complicated procedure while still in the womb. The baby’s life would be sustained by medical equipment after birth, only to die a very slow and painful death outside of the womb.
This woman and her husband made the agonising decision to have a medical termination at 15 weeks gestation. This was not an unplanned pregnancy or an unloved baby. This was a baby who was very much loved and longed for by parents who had to undergo treatment just to conceive in the first place. This was a hopeless situation in which the baby girl’s parents had to make an excruciating decision to end her life in order to spare her more pain.
So, at 15 weeks this baby was induced and born into the world to minimise her suffering as she died. Her parents held her tiny lifeform in their arms and grieved the loss of their darling daughter. They were so grateful just to meet her and have the memory of holding her. Even though they experience some guilt and, at times, a lack of support for their decision, they are convinced it was the right decision for their circumstances.
“Do what is right for your baby. Don’t listen to others who think they understand … they don’t. You cannot know how it feels until you are
faced with a choice that really isn’t a choice. You may think you
would never make the decision to terminate, but will find you change when you are presented with all the information from multiple specialists.”
The mother of this precious baby joined support groups to process all that she had gone through. She later had another healthy baby.
