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Body Politic

Jill

Via Shakesville I find this incredibly powerful post about one man having to make a decision that most men will never face: Whether or not to end a very wanted pregnancy.

Obviously his wife was the pregnant one, but she was unconscious when the decision had to be made — and so it was on him. And it’s what shook him out of being passively pro-choice to standing strongly for a woman’s right to make her own private reproductive decisions.

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I’m handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I’d ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die. The doctors did not say at this point that it was absolutely necessary. Maybe more blood could be transfused in. Maybe she wasn’t dilated – they hadn’t figured it out yet. Still too much blood. So then there I was, facing the sort of choice that you usually see only in hypotheticals in ethics and philosophy classes. Only it was real. It was my wife. And I didn’t have exactly a lot of time to think about it. It was just me and the clipboard. An empty line there, marked for my signature. My wife bleeding right next to me. The ultrasound of my baby, and its heartbeat, fresh in my mind from minutes before. I cannot begin to describe how I felt at that moment. One cannot know until you are in it. I won’t even try. I hope I never feel that way again.

Read the whole thing. It’s incredibly raw and powerful, and I can’t recommend it enough.

26 thoughts on Body Politic

  1. Wow, good/sad story. Some asshat pro-lifer left a snooty comment about how he’d never take a babies life over ‘his’ own and how ‘what’s more pwecious than a new born baby? What’s more innocent?’ ‘they deserve life more’ and even had the audacity to congratulate him on letting his wife nearly die before aborting. Fucking A.

    But still, good post.

  2. One of the commenters had something to say about the differing reactions to when women share abortion experiences as compared to when men share abortion experiences. I wasn’t sure how to react to that one. I’m still not. But it’s got me thinking about quite a few things.

    Much credit to DBB in any case. Sharing that personal an experience in the way that he did isn’t easy for anyone.

    And, many thanks to you, Jill, for posting the link. It was a Hel of a post, and on skimming back through some of DBB’s older posts, I think I may have to add him to my “daily reading” bookmarks.

  3. That was an amazing story… I can’t even imagine what he must have been going through. Thanks for pointing it out Jill.

  4. I had to stop reading the comments, but there seems to be this chorus of “Do you really think that us pro-lifers want your wife to die?”

    I suppose that they will never understand that every time they restrict abortion for the “wrong” reasons, they inevitably restrict it for the “right” ones too. *sigh*

  5. These stories are necessary as a part of getting people to understand that there are repercussions to the antiabortion laws, but their precedent really bothers me as well.

    It feeds the morality slip that our social system enjoys in dividing the deserving from the undeserving. Pro lifers, aside from the Neanderthal set, have a hard time sticking to their line in the face of such stories.

    Pro lifers know that talk of unmarried women having sex without repercussions starts the fire of mysoginy flaming like throwing gasoline on a barbecue. And guess who gets thrown on the fire?

    The uterus determined and still does in many societies, the wealth and health of a family, so therefore its production was limited or encouraged, but said production lay in the hands of that who controlled the capital and land.

    Now that women have control over their uterus and its production, they can limit it to embark on becoming part of the ownership class themselves. Now the former owners must share or compete. Scary stuff. In my mind, pro-lifers represent the fear and panic of the ownership class and the vigilant efforts to hold onto to their entitlement.

    Therefore, the issue means nothing as a measure of the weight of tragedy, but simply as one of giving women agency. This man’s struggle gave him a personal closeness to the power grab that the pro-life movement is attempting to make. But it misdirects to the man’s wrenching decision and has a heaping qualifier of proper class/social cues to trigger an exercise of splitting his experience from that of the individual, healthy woman exercising free agency.

  6. Yeah, those comments bothered me a lot. It’s like, no, I don’t think too many people think that pro-lifers want women to die. We just don’t see much reason to believe, based on their actions, votes, stances, and legislation, that pro-lifers care whether women die.

    And, seriously, having your medical decisions made for you, in blanket form, by people who don’t care if you survive to the point that they don’t even bother to educate themselves on the subject first? Not fun.

  7. Half the comments in that thread are so disgusting. Fuck them all. Just.. just fuck them.

    Anyway, that was a beautiful post of his.

  8. I skimmed the comments and most turned my stomach.

    One anti-choice commenter suggested that a woman who decides to have an abortion because she cannot afford to have a child should, instead, carry to term and give the child up for adoption.

    But, I have a genuine question for whoever can answer (because I truly do not know):

    Doesn’t a woman decides to carry to term and give the child up for adoption, pay her own medical expenses if the adoption is not private?

  9. I hate to leave such a giant comment, but I felt the need to call attention to what I found to be the most disturbing comment (by Anonymous, of course):

    I’m glad your wife is doing well and I’m sorry for the loss of your baby.
    As a father of a 1 yr old baby girl, I value the life of my baby more than anything else on Earth. She is the most important thing there is, I would have to say equal to my own wife.. my baby is a part of me, she is my own blood, my offspring, she is genetically closer to me than my own wife. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.. the love between a daughter and father is, in my opinion, greater than between a husband and wife. Agree with me or not, that is my opinion.. and my baby girl is only 1 yr old. All she can say is “da da”, but I know she loves me and I love her infinitely so.. my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be, but I will always love my baby girl infinitely. When my wife found out she was pregnant, which was an accident, her instant reaction was that she wanted an abortion. There we were in the bathroom with the home pregnancy test kit in hand reading positive for pregnancy and she gets all histerical, crying and raving on and on about how her life is now ruined and how she can’t go through with being pregnant, etc.. I told her it’s her choice, but if she kills my baby (has an abortion) that I would divorce her in a heartbeat and I would never speak to her again. I thank God that I was able to sway her foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking, and she decided not to kill our baby girl. We are still married to this day and my wife and I both love our baby girl more than anything. In fact, if we did not have our baby (if my wife never got pregnant), I am pretty sure we would not still be married… having the baby has brought my wife and I closer in our marriage and has given us something greater than our love for each other (which is very strong), but now we are a family and we mutually love our daughter. If I had allowed my wife to abort our baby or I had not cared enough to take a firm moral stand based on what I believe is right, then today (1 yr and 9 months later) I would have been robbed of the single greatest joy I have ever known in my entire life. My baby girl is the most beautiful gift God has ever given me and the one thing I am most thankful for. I would give my life in a heartbeat to save my baby girl and how any mother would hesitate to even think otherwise is beyond me. I would not only give my own life to save my baby girl but I would kill or spend the rest of my life in prison if I had to, or pay any price no matter how high, to protect the life and safety of my innocent child.

    I strongly disagree with your view that the loss of your unborn baby is any different than your already born baby. I don’t see the difference. It’s just a matter of a time shift. What if someone had gone back in time and killed your baby girl while she was still in the womb, knowing what you know today? Knowing the joy of your born child? Why is it any different for one child than another? You are just trying to make an excuse so you don’t have to suffer as badly emotionally, you are trying to rationalize it. I don’t mean to be rude or harsh, but I think you are bending your thinking in your own favor just to make it easier to get over this loss. The fact is that born or unborn, you still lost a child and I don’t believe that it should be viewed as any less of a loss either way.

    Fortunately you still have your wife and one child. It’s probably too risky for you and your wife to ever try having another child naturally, but there are so many children you can adopt, so there is no shortage of that option.

    I am strongly pro-life (of the baby). I would always choose the life of my child over my own life or anyone else’s life, including my wife. Harsh? Think about it. What’s more precious, an innocent life of a child who has their entire life ahead of them or a grown adult who has had a fair opportunity to live their life and have whatever experiences they have been blessed to have?

    In your case there was no way to save the baby, they tried, they did everything they could but because of the dilation it was an inevitable loss and I’m terribly sorry for that. But I congratulate you on your efforts to do everything within your power to at least try to save your baby, even to the point of losing your wife. And I applaud you for hesitating as to whether or not to abort.

    I am not against aborting if there is no possible alternative to saving the mother.. but if the child can be saved at the loss of the mother then I would choose the child. There is no logic to losing both, but it’s a risk worth taking, to take it as far as you took it should happen in every case, in my opinion.

    What I am strongly against is pro-choice people arguing that a woman can get pregnant (accidentally, by being careless and irresponsible) and have the simple option of going down to the abortion clinic and in essence, “making the problem go away.” This is murder in my belief. I feel that once there is a heartbeat, then that is a life. Killing a fetus with a heartbeat is murder, plain and simple. It should not be a choice any girl or woman can simply make without a very good reason (their own life is in danger). Even in the case of rape. Two wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, adding the killing of a baby (abortion) in addition to the horror of a raped woman only makes the overall tragedy even worse.

    I don’t see your connection between the laws and being pro-choice. If the law says “every effort must be made in every case to save the life of the unborn fetus, and only in the case of the certain death of the mother would an abortion be permissible.” Then what is wrong with such a law? It would hopefully prevent at least some portion of the constant murder of unborn babies in this country.

    It’s not a choice to murder an unborn baby for no reason at all, it’s a crime.

    How much would it suck to be this guy’s wife. He basically admits that he doesn’t really love her and that he sees her as selfish and illogical and wouldn’t think twice about seeing her debilitated if it meant that there was a greater chance that the pregnancy would survive. Scary.

  10. Unless she’s poor enough to qualify for state assistance or fortunate enough to be underwritten by a charity, yes. It’s generally only a solution if someone’s arguing in bad faith or woefully ignorant as to the risks run by a woman who receives no medical care during pregnancy, the costs pregnant women incur by seeking that care, or both.

  11. Preying Mantis:

    Thank you! I thought that was the case, but wanted to make sure. Adoptions are so very complicated and is, unfortunately, something I am not well versed in.

  14. “Adoptions are so very complicated and is, unfortunately, something I am not well versed in.”

    Yeah, adoption as a whole is a minefield, especially if you’re turning to it out of financial hardship. You can’t legally buy children, so there’s the need to mind one’s Ps and Qs when it comes to birth mothers being compensated for medical bills, maternity clothes, etc., even when the adoption is private. There’s a lot of potential for a woman to wind up royally screwed even with a well-intentioned private agency; fetal abnormality, complications necessitating a late-term abortion, or lingering post-birth health problems can throw a huge monkey wrench into the gears when it comes to “just putting it up for adoption.”

  15. Amanda, not only do they have to cover the costs of medical care, but they get stuck with unpaid leave to recover from birth (and let’s not kid ourselves, even the best birth requires some recovery – your body has had a major organ (the placenta) removed and has gone through a major event) and any time off for doctor’s appointments.

    They also get to deal with the very public scorn as “the woman who gave away her baby”. It’s possible she will be fired for no reason other than the way her employer feels about her (at will states offer very little protection) and if not fired, will likely lose any chance at promotion. If she lives in a small town, she will most likely have to move away to escape the rumors and actually have a life.

    Meanwhile, the father of this baby gets off scott-free. No one judges him at all. He faces no societal scorn.

  16. Pingback: Feministe » Sacrificing Women at the Altar of Fetus Fetishism

  17. Who wants to bet that “Anonymous’s” wife is now absofuckinglutely religious about her birth control, and if she ever thinks she’s pregnant again the next time she won’t take the urine test while he’s in the house?

  18. Another aspect of adoption: It more or less inevitably leaves the birth mother depressed and quite often ruins her life. As in, leaves her with a profound depression that can not be alleviated with current treatment options. Basically, adoption is pretty much just another way of destroying the mother, with the added benefit that since she “consented” to it she can feel guilty for beingthe cause of her own destruction. And destroying women is part of the pro-life agenda, deny it as they may.

  19. My mom was adopted.

    I cannot imagine giving a child up for adoption. It doesn’t solve the fundamental problem, which is unwanted *pregnancy*. Pregnancy is sheer unadulterated hell that physically transforms you forever. The *only* possible reason to endure pregnancy is the joy of the baby in your arms at the end. A stillbirth, a late-term abortion for the mother’s health or birth defects in the child, a late term miscarriage… and giving a child up for adoption. They are all absolutely horrifying to me because you work so hard and go through so much to be pregnant and then to have it all come to nothing, to have the child die or be sent away… god. I want to kick the lawmakers who forbade “partial birth abortion” in the nuts (and for those who are women, I want them to get a sudden post-menopausal pregnancy, since they’re probably all past menopause, and be told that due to their advanced maternal age if they don’t get an abortion they will die or have their health permanently destroyed. Actually I wish this could happen to the men too, but biology doesn’t work like that. And then when they have the abortion to save their own selfish lives I want there to be paparazzi taking pictures of them and plastering their pictures on the front of the New York Post the next day.)

    I would not forbid adoption because it is a valid choice for a woman to make. But it destroys lives *far* more than abortion does. My mother had an abortion as a teen and seems to have no regrets about it at all — it was the result of a rape, and had she not aborted, the children she *did* want, me and my brothers, wouldn’t be here. She was offered the choice of abortion when pregnant with me, and she chose me… which means unlike a lot of these freaked-out pro-lifers who fear that Mom might have aborted them if it had been legal then, I *know* my mother wanted me. *I* was chosen, I was wanted. On the other hand my mother suffered her whole life in the belief that she *wasn’t* wanted, and after finding her birth mother’s family (her birth mother is dead), she learned that her birth mother seemed to experience some sort of sadness and distance from her family her whole life.

    So it needs to be an option. There are women it’s a valid choice for. But we need to stop pressuring women into it, and for god’s sake, it is *not* an alternative to abortion. Putting your baby in an artificial womb would be an alternative to abortion. When I see pro-lifers actively supporting such technology I might actually believe they care about women’s lives and not about punishing sluts for sex.

  20. I was 18. I had linked up with a prolife group because I had become pregnant and was looking for options. I was too naieve at first to realize that the only thing they wanted me to do was to birth the baby, and not what was best for my health. I had found a family to adopt the baby through a mutual friend.

    I miscarried. It nearly cost me my own life. I won’t go into details.

    The prolife group called me up to check on my pregnancy. I told them about the miscarriage.

    They Never Called Me Back.

    I told the family, specifically the father, about it because I had been making arrangements with him. He held me and let me cry about it.

    Years later, I was confronted by some door to door missionairy jerks (would you believe they were women?) who heard that I was scheduled for a surgery. They asked what it was for and I told them truthfully it was a D&C. The two of them started attacking me about “killing my baby” and that I was a murderer in front of a child that was later adopted out. She was 15 months at the time. I had had enough. I told them off. That this was my body and that I wasn’t murdering my baby and was in fact trying to fix a problem with my fertility so that I could have more children and how DARE they accuse me when they don’t even know my health situation.

    I then tore into them about what a spontaneous abortion was and that I had had one several years earlier and if I had instead had the medicalized abortion instead, I would never had put my life at risk bring a child into the world. All because the prolife group couldn’t see me as anything other than a walking incumbator. I let a huge amount of rage out that day…

    I never heard from them again.

    Ask a prolifer if people who have “spontaneous abortions” murderers. If they say yes, they are illeducated. Because that means that God is a murderer. After all, “spontaneous abortions” is the medical term for “miscarriage.”

  21. (came here via “Sacrificing…”post linked via Pandagon’s anti-choicer bomb post)

    Awww, so the creep posted using Anon? Is there an IP address though? Let’s hope that he didn’t use a public terminal, it might be possible to find out his ID if he posted using his real name also using that IP, it could be his work/home IP, if he talk about his wife, search for her name, maybe she has a blog or whatever. (Recent Pandagon post, comments mention that sometimes the Internet is the only contact some abused women have with the rest of the world)

    I think those that have the means to should definitely ensures that she does read that comment instead of ‘hoping’.

    – MG

  22. I used to think that if I became pregnant and wasn’t in a position to care for the child, I’d give it up for adoption — “I’m pro-choice, I’d just never have an abortion myself”.

    I realise now that in the intervening nine months, I’d go batshit crazy and very possibly hurt myself and the fetus in the process. Adoption is a solution to an unwanted child, it is not a solution to an unwanted pregnancy. There are a large number of reasons why someone would not want or be able to cope with pregnancy, and mental health is one of them. I am now of the opinion that if my birth control fails, I will have an abortion. Or at the least, it will take radical, radical measures for me to be in an environment where I can deal with pregnancy even if the intended outcome is adoption, such that my stance upon learning I am pregnant will be biased toward abortion. I can barely take care of myself right now, and the added stresses of pregnancy…wow, that is not a fun thing to imagine. I would not be safe.

  23. …and then, there is, what happened to the child after it’s adopted out?

    As a cynic, I believe that politicians don’t care for the children, they care for the children’s parents’ vote, so orphans are regarded as NOTHING, not enough funding for social services, not enough safe guards set and enforced, inapt screening and fail-safes result in children getting neglected and sexually abused in horror-show orphanages, in foster homes, or at the very least for the majority of them, not knowing the sense of belonging.

    …and note how the anti-choicers at large wave about ‘adoption’ as an alternative ‘choice’, instead of increased funding for financially struggling parents, support systems, etc. Oh wait, she needs to be punished for having sex, I keep forgetting about that.

    I think, the next time those anti-choicer show up on my campus and wave their graphic photos of (miscarried!) fetuses, I’m going to have a wall lined with articles of what happens to orphans, especially the autopsies of children killed by the fundies who adopts a handful of them for money and their own sick use.

    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/07/21/youthday_protest020721.html

    – MG

  24. So it needs to be an option. There are women it’s a valid choice for. But we need to stop pressuring women into it, and for god’s sake, it is *not* an alternative to abortion.

    Exactly. If a woman chooses, understanding her options and the risks she is taking, to carry a pregnancy to term and let the baby be adopted, good for her, I only hope the choice isn’t as painful for her as it is for many women. It’s the pressure to make that choice and the lies about what it entails that seem to me to be most destructive. Talk to someone in a crisis pregnancy center and they’ll make it sound like adoption is the easy, low risk alternative, when, in fact, it is neither. And they know that. Or if they don’t then they are ignorant of the basic facts about the issues they are supposed to be counseling on. Either way, they are worse than useless. They are destructive.

  25. DDay: I agree with you on that anonymous comment. Scary and vaguely medieval.

    I imagine Anonymous’ wife was getting all ‘histerical’ about her pregnancy because she realized she would be stuck with that asshole. Who wants to bet than in ten years, he’ll be sneaking into their daughter’s room at night to express his ‘infinite’ love for her?

  26. That’s actually a good point, palinode. I mean, I don’t think we have any evidence to suggest that this guy is a pedophile, but he’s certainly putting a lot of pressure on a little infant who never asked for it. Basically, he’s saying, “My wife may turn out to be a lying whore, but this precious little fruit-of-my-loins will love me forever and ever and ever and ever and will look up at me adoringly with big brown eyes and call me Daddy, and whatever else is wrong in my life, my relationship with her will always be perfect and emotionally fulfilling.” And then when the kid grows up to be a human being, this guy won’t know how to handle it.

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