Why I'm Pro-Life

In the last post I talked about my stance on some issues, so today I wanted to talk about why I'm pro-life.  I guess there are actually numerous reasons, such as being catholic, believing life starts at conception (and ends at natural death) and should be respected, caring for the well-being of women and children, and believing that no one should be killed just because they have a trait considered undesirable to their biological parents, whether that be an illness, their sex, or having the wrong eye color.  I could go on and on.  But there is one reason that is deeply personal to me and my pro-life stance.

Around 27 years ago or so, a teenager got pregnant.  She was a pretty smart girl who had gone to college early, and had a boyfriend who was a bit older.  I don't know much about the situation, but I can be sure she wasn't planning to get pregnant.  Well, although that girl was probably scared and had no idea what to do at first, she didn't choose abortion.  No, instead she decided to find a couple to raise her child, to give that child a better chance.

As is probably pretty obvious, that couple was my parents, and that child was me.  I was conceived in a situation that leads to so many abortions, being conceived unexpectedly by a young mother.  But I wasn't aborted, I was given a chance to live.  My birth mother made an extremely difficult and selfless choice, and by doing so gave me the greatest gift she could have.

I consider  my being adopted the single greatest blessing in my life. I say that because every other blessing in my life flows from that.  If it weren't for my adoption, I might not have my faith, my family, and my Hubs, or any of the other countless blessings in my life.

I was adopted by my wonderful parents and joined the family God clearly intended me to be in.  My parents are the most generous, loving, and faithful people, that worked tirelessly to give me and my siblings the best upbringing they could, and the best opportunities in life. I have been blessed to have a sister only a year older than me a brother six months younger than me, both also adopted, all thanks to selfless choices of biological parents and my parents.

They too are reasons that I'm pro-life.  They also came from situations where they could have been aborted, but their birth parents chose life.  My life, and family, would be incomplete without them (as much as they can drive me crazy sometimes).  It hurts my heart to think of how many other families have been destroyed, or kept from even starting, by abortion.

Because of that, I cannot be anything other than pro-life.  How could I say that I deserve to live but others from the same situation deserve to die? How could I stand for an institution that could've killed my siblings? No, I cannot.  I know that the true choices lie in being pro-life.  It seems like pro-choice institutions ironically revolve around only one.  Have you seen the numbers?  Planned parenthood, for example, performs almost 150 abortions for every 1 adoption referral, you can see it on their own report, and that's not counting the abortions that are performed by the millions of contraceptives and "emergency contraception kits" provided by planned parenthood a year. So I cannot stand for an institution that appears would much rather have me not exist.

And that is why, at my core, I am pro-life.  I wish I could be marching along side the around half a million in DC today.  The two years I was there before were truly amazing experiences.  Unfortunately I cannot be there in person, but I stand with them in spirit, and here. 

The Culture of Death & Infertility

This week is the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that originally made abortion legal in the US.  There are many pro-life events going on around the country, which has gotten me thinking that I'd like to add my two cents.  You might ask, what does abortion have to do with infertility?  A little more than you might think at first, both directly, and in the broader cultural sense.

I first got thinking about all of this after a couple conversations with some coworkers last week.  It started with some coworkers asking me more about my medical treatment.  I usually give people at work a heads up about my being on meds that make me crazy (its a small office of 5 people, I feel like they deserve a warning, lol).  Other than that though, I usually don't talk in much detail about my treatment.  So, today a couple of them started asking me about my treatments, and PCOS, and all of  that fun stuff.

One of them asked me (again) why I won't just use IVF.  Before, I've just given her a short answer, that its against my morals.  In that conversation (possibly because the meds are kicking in and I'm losing my filter) I answered a little differently. I told her I didn't want to be involved in that killing.  She asked me what killing?  And I explained to her how first a whole bunch of embryos are created, who are then tested, and then the genetically "undesirable" embryos are "discarded".  Then some are selected to attempt to implant, and the rest are either frozen, or "discarded" as well.  Some may implant, some may not. If too many implant, the "excess" embryos are "selectively terminated."  All that nice and clean language to cover up the reality of all the killing.  That is a business I don't want to be involved in.  Its so sad, so heartbreaking to me.

One of the hardest parts of it for me to understand is that, I would guess in the majority of IVF situations, its people dealing with infertility that are undergoing these procedures.  People who have likely struggled for years hoping for a child, for a new life.  Then, once they are given those lives, they just discard so many of them?  Those of us with infertility should be the most sensitive to, and the most protective of life.  We shouldn't be leading to the senseless destruction of it.  I guess you could argue that there are different beliefs as to when life begins, or that people aren't educated, or instructed.  Maybe in some cases there is true ignorance?  Or  maybe its just the shiny promises of IVF, the promise of a perfect healthy child, after all the struggling, they just close their eyes and don't think of the actions required to reach that end? I don't know. But I think those mindsets are what led to the situation in the next conversation.

My coworker went on to tell me an awful story about some people she knows.  An infertile couple went to great lengths to secure a surrogate, an then have the surrogate become pregnant with their child. Around 36 weeks they discovered that something might be wrong with the baby, not even full confirmation that something was, but just that something might.  The couple had the child surrendered at the hospital when he or she was born.  They didn't want him or her solely because of the possibility of something was wrong, and so they abandoned the poor child.  Not that I believe there is any difference between the life of an embryo and a baby that has been born, but I mean, regardless of any one's religious, moral, political, or any other views, there is no question to the life of a child at 36 weeks, or that has been born.  There is no possible shade of gray there.  And yet, the same people who went to such great lengths to bring this life into being, had the child abandoned, without even so much arranging for his or her medical care.  It breaks my heart.  And it broke my heart that my coworker didn't think to tell me about this situation while it was occurring, I so would've wanted to help that baby if I could have. And I know this is not a singular occurrence, we've all heard similar stories in the news, like the Australian couple who left a twin with down syndrome in Taiwan with the surrogate, while taking the "healthy" twin home.  How devastating.

When I started writing this post, I really couldn't understand how our culture has created an environment where these things are considered okay.  I couldn't understand how we, as a culture, could really be that self-serving and heartless?

But it dawned on me, exactly where it comes from. It comes from the same root of abortion, the belief that we, humans, have the ability to decide what is life and what isn't.  That we have the right to decide and choose to create or end lives that we think we do or do not deserve, when they are or aren't convenient for us.  The very view that someone "deserves" to have a child, a perfect child, that leads to IVF, is the same view that leads to the abandoning a child that you brought into existence because you think he or she is not perfect enough.  When children are viewed as commodities rather than the gifts that they are, it is a dangerous, slippery slope. (Which has of course been said by the church many times, much more eloquently than I am saying here, such as in the Catechism 2372-2393, and in Donum Vitae).

I think those of us with infertility have the ability to make a difference.  We are faced with so much darkness, so much pain.  We can choose to let it drag us down below our own dignity, and to deny the dignity, and right to exist, of other human beings.  Or we have the chance to witness to the true dignity and preciousness of life, to treat it with the care and reverence it deserves.

What that means to each couple facing infertility might be different.  Whether it means to seek out treatment that does not violate other humans, to adopt or foster, to accept the journey of infertility wherever it might lead, that is up to them to discern. What it does not mean is to be complicit in the devaluation and destruction of life.

For my part, I'm so glad there is NaPro.  I'm so glad I have options that don't cross these moral boundaries, and for doctors that don't push me to make such decisions.  I only wish more people knew about it.  Maybe if they did, less people would feel backed into choices that require such disregard for the very thing they are trying to create.  All I know is that I'm trying to do my part, one person (and post) at a time.