Now the world must step up for women who did not abort
Standing in front of my baby, who looked like an astronaut with all the tubing and monitors glued to her tiny purple body, I remember being filled with fear and anguish. I’d just learned her diagnosis.
When she was in utero, the doctors had been concerned about her small size, chronic anemia and lack of movement; she had a high chance of being born with complications. At the time, I was given a choice: to continue the pregnancy, or to end it right there and then.
Now that she was born, their worst fears were confirmed. My daughter, the doctors told me, was estimated to have one year to live.
“You know what this means, right?” a nurse asked me. I still remember those words as if I heard them yesterday, rather than 17 years ago as I was entering the newborn intensive care unit to feed my newborn daughter.
Oh yes, I knew what this meant, if perhaps not fully. The kind-hearted nurse who asked me this question had my wellbeing in mind. She was concerned about me having more children who could be born with the same severe and incurable chromosome deletion, a rare genetic disorder that would affect their circulatory, digestive, neurological and immune systems. She thought about my other two children, about me being an immigrant in a country where I had no family to help me out. She thought about the expenses that my husband and I would have to incur as a result of all the medical procedures and devices our daughter would need. She thought of my shattered dreams, of my future, of my happiness.
Maybe she thought that if I had known the outcome of this pregnancy, I would have reversed it. What she didn’t know is that, a little more than a year before, I’d been marching in the
bitter cold of Washington, D.C., for the sanctity of life. The prolife signs which came to my memory, as well as the many rosaries I prayed in front of abortion clinics as a college student, made me shudder as I realized it was time to put into practice what I had so fervently preached.
What does this mean, that I had chosen life over death?
It meant that I would have to kill the idea I had of my perfect little family and be born again into a new me: a different one, a braver one. I had a choice, but my choice wasn’t about my daughter living or dying, the true choice was about me. My daughter’s life was not for me to give or take, it was already there. Her life was a fact, a fact as true and real as my own life. Her tears were no less tears than mine and her pain was no less pain than mine. Even if I would have chosen abortion over life, her life would still have existed. She would always be present in my life.
It was the kind of life she would have that would be my choice; because I could make her thrive in love and care, or I could neglect and forget her. This choice was what I had been preparing for all my life. This made the thousands of words I had read about abortion become very real to me.
When I heard Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land, I cried tears of joy. I went to Mass to thank God. Now, not only will millions of women have the opportunity to show the world how truly strong they are, but the world will get the chance to show what it means to step up for women. Because to overcome adversity, poverty, abuse, loneliness and fear in order to give life to an innocent child, it takes a village.
In the days leading up to this Supreme Court decision, as I followed the debate and read about the pregnancy centers that have been vandalized and threatened, the churches that have been desecrated by protesters disrupting Eucharistic celebrations, I remembered my own debate and my own drama. I too struggled with the fear of my decision; I too felt vulnerable and lost and angry. However, being stuck in the rage and disbelief at the challenges we face is not truly what makes us grow. It is not through violence that a woman will be empowered, it is not through hate that compassion will arise, and it is not through fear that we can advance. It is through love. Love can change many things. Love hurts, but it also heals. Love can help us help others, and it can make us reach heights we never knew we could.
As I write these words, the feeding pump in my daughter’s room begins to beep, and I must get up and check her diaper and her feeding button, change her position in the bed and make sure she gets her medicines on time so she doesn’t get any seizures today. She, my wonderful 17-year-old girl once given 12 months to live, welcomes me with a big toothy smile and hugs me as if it was the first time she had seen me in her life. She follows me with her beautiful eyes as I move around her room and play the “Brave” movie she likes to watch, the story of a mother and a daughter who challenge fate. I chuckle as I listen to Merida, the red-headed heroine in it, say: “There are those who say fate is something beyond our command. That destiny is not our own. But I know better. Our fate lives within us. You only have to be brave enough to see it.”
Am I saying that by loving a woman who feels lost because she is pregnant, the world could be saved? Absolutely. What women need is not a vandalized pregnancy center. What women need is a person who will support and accompany her when all others have abandoned her. What a woman needs is not a voice telling her she is not able to care for a disabled child because it’s hard. She needs help when she feels tired and lonely and overwhelmed. What a woman needs is not fear and shame because she has a baby in her womb. Instead she needs support, understanding and kindness when she’s struggling to make ends meet. She needs better health insurance coverage, for her and her child. She needs more pregnancy centers that are accessible and beautiful. She needs the support of her family so that she can go on with her studies and work. She needs her school to be supportive of her. She needs lots of generosity and her church to give her company and encouragement, not judgment and shame. She needs to know her full set of options — she needs to know she can do this, but we need to make sure she’s not alone.
What we all need is a change of mind. And heart. A baby is not a threat. However inconvenient, sick, weak, deformed or complicated she may be, she is still as human as you and me. So, now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, we will have to step up and be there for so many women who will need us. We will be there when they stand at the NICU doors. We will be there as they wonder about the meaning of this new life that is not their own. Our hearts, our time, our wallets and our homes will be ready to give them what they need. And we will be there because we know that love can change the world.