ABORTION, PRO-LIFE AND PRO-CHOICE

As I was thinking of an example of how one could be pro-life, anti-abortion, and pro-choice all at the same time, a memory of one of my clients from long ago drifted into my consciousness.

I was in my early twenties and working as a mental health technician at Dallas County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center. My responsibility was to counsel parents who wanted to place their children in a state institution for those with mental retardation. I was to find community resources for them and, when that failed, to process an application for admission into the state school. It was, in essence, a life sentence to institutional living without ever committing a crime. I was green as they came, especially since I had only recently arrived in the big city of Dallas after growing up in the sparsely-populated Panhandle of Texas. My confidence exceeded my abilities because I had worked in a psychiatric hospital for several years and thought I'd seen everything. I still haven't.

One day, a young couple arrived with the woman's parents to inquire about state school placement. The young woman had recently given birth to a baby. The physician had recommended immediate placement into an institution. The baby was diagnosed with anencephaly and was missing most of her brain but still had a brain stem. Most babies born with this condition only live for a few days or months. In rare cases, they have lived as long as 3 years. They are usually born blind, deaf, unaware of their surroundings, and unable to feel pain.

There were many tears shed in my office that morning. Although I had been trained to behave "professionally" (unemotionally) while working with clients, it was all I could do to hold it together during that hour. The couple had been dating for a while when she discovered that she was pregnant late in her pregnancy. They described trips on a motorcycle and broke down as they wondered if this had caused their baby to be born without a brain. It was apparent that this young couple had an overwhelming amount of life that was thrown at them all at once––an unplanned pregnancy, a hurried wedding, and the expectation and planning for a baby in a short time. Then, the birth and subsequent devastating diagnosis. This was one of the many times to come that I laid my head down on my desk and wept for a long time after someone left my office.

I visited the baby in the hospital. It's been over four decades, but I still remember the precious baby lying motionless and without a whimper in the bassinet. She looked absolutely perfect and angelic. When I read the neurologist's report, it was stated that light would go through to the other end when a flashlight was shone on one side of her head.

It wasn't my decision to make about state school placement, and I continued to see the couple as they sorted out what to do. Ultimately, they decided to take the baby home, give her all the love they could, and be with her until she died. The baby lived for another few months. While I wasn't supposed to get attached to the couple and their baby, I admit that I did and rejoiced in their decision to care for the baby until she took her last breath. I instinctively knew that this was best for the couple and the baby. The thought of the baby lying in a crib in an institution with hundreds of other babies and too few attendants was horrifying. I've been in those institutions throughout this country. The warehousing of human beings is not something you will ever forget. In a later professional capacity, it was part of my responsibilities to close those institutions and develop group homes for people who could not be cared for by relatives.

Had she known earlier about her pregnancy and the fetus's condition, the mother of this baby might have had an abortion. She would have been well within her rights to do so. She could have chosen to institutionalize the baby but did not. There are millions of stories like hers, along with stories of women who have abortions because the fetuses have conditions that aren't survivable. There are many other reasons women choose to terminate pregnancies. When they do not, and the baby is born in this condition, they are often shuttled to institutions. Yet, those demanding that women not have abortions aren't willing to care for babies born with deformities or severe developmental disabilities. I wouldn't consider those with that opinion pro-life, but instead, anti-abortion.

It's a complicated issue that's better left to the pregnant one. It's abhorrent to even think of the possibility that my daughter or my grandchildren had been aborted, and, in that sense, makes me anti-abortion. But if abortion is outlawed, desperate women, as they've done since the beginning of time, will seek an abortion. Many will lose their lives as a result. To force them into that position is not pro-life. Call it what it is––imposing an anti-abortion position onto another human being without a thought as to what might happen to the baby after the baby is born or the woman who dies performing an abortion on herself.

Yes, it is possible to be pro-choice, anti-abortion, and pro-life, all simultaneously. It's even possible to not be so stuck in one position that you close your mind and heart to why others make choices that are counter to yours. I call it "living in the grey zone."