I read your article this morning and debated about sharing my experience...but you both are so brave to share yours, thank you. I was pregnant with twin girls. I learned at 13 weeks into my pregnancy that one of the girls had Turners Syndrome, a severe chromosomal defect. She would not survive. My other girl was healthy. It was a sad horrible and very stressful time for me and my husband but we had wonderful support from our doctors and the freedom to make any decisions we wanted to that would both protect the health of the 2 unborn girls as well as me. I can’t imagine going through all that we did with the added burden of government intervention.
For me, the girls died at 20 weeks, and I was sent to the delivery ward, checked in, was induced and delivered the girls. The love and care I received from the health professionals was so necessary in my healing and moving on with my life. At every step of our sad journey we knew that we could choose our path, and the doctors would help. I hope the women in Ireland can have that freedom too.
9
I am Roman Catholic, married and have two children.
I am not pro-abortion, but I do believe that this is such a personal decision - with so many nuanced and variable circumstances, medical, emotional and religious - that I would never force a woman or girl into any decision that was not her own.
Two reasons I have come to this perspective:
When I was pregnant with my second child, a priest told me, very matter-of-factly, that if anything went wrong during the pregnancy, Catholics would try save the baby instead of me - even if the fetus wasn’t viable - because “the baby was “the more innocent life.” He seemed completely unconcerned that both of us dying would leave my first child motherless - he had his tidy academic explanation, completely divorced from familial reality. Decades ago, but I am still shocked by his callousness.
In the second instance, I recently visited my diocese’s respect life office to get some information and I learned that they are teaching fake and incorrect science about family planning and pregnancy to support their claims. Shocked again. And angered.
The misinformation, misogyny and guilt need to end.
26
So why do you continue to associate with such a mendacious organization? You know they lie to and manipulate people - the most vulnerable people, in fact. I'll never understand the hold religious groups have over people who can use reason.
11
Because the clergy are not the faith - far from it. And I stay inside to be a voice for truth and reform.
9
Close friends of mine are a young married couple living in the UK.
They very much wanted a baby. A few months after the wife got pregnant she went in for a routine scan. They were told the brain had not developed and if carried to term the baby would be still born.
They were advised to have a termination and did so.
They held their baby in their arms and it was properly buried.
They have gone on to have two beautiful children but still regard the lost baby as their first child.
How wicked to force that young lady to carry that baby to term based on YOUR religious beliefs.
11
Politicizing images of the unborn and plastering pictures of fetuses all over the country is sickening. I visited Ireland recently and also found the shock tactics of the anti-abortion campaigners distasteful.
As a teenager at Catholic schools, we were brainwashed with anti-abortion propaganda and shown shocking images of dismembered fetuses, all with the aim of inculcating us with shame around our bodies as girls. These images came drifting back to me eight years ago when I had a missed miscarriage myself and miscarried naturally, without a D&C. It was very upsetting to have the original trauma from seeing those images come back to me at a difficult time.
For people who claim to be Christian, anti-abortion activists seem to be remarkably lacking in compassion or imaginative empathy.
18
What I will never accept are pro lifers who still use modern medicine and all the choices and pitfalls that come with it. If you want to live a primitive lifestyle and not be confronted with an unviable birth than avoid all medical testing. Stay in your 14th century world and leave the rest of modernity alone.
15
In acupuncture, there is a point called the “gate of life”. This point has many names, one being “stop child”. How can this point have such contradictory opposite names? Women have been “stopping child” for millenia. A woman’s body = her choice.
8
If it is any comfort, I think people avoid publicly mourning the loss of an unborn child not out of a lack of sympathy, but out of fear. Specifically, a fear of making other pregnant women fearful, and how that worry might affect them. SO MUCH can go wrong in pregnancy, and so little of it is within our control. Better not to think about the possibility of bad outcomes and focus on the positive. Or so the thinking goes.
3
"Mourning" our daughter by killing her .... a bizarre logic.
1
I have to stop reading the comments wrongly interpreting this message as pro life (although there's indeed a whiff of it) because they are giving me a heart attack.
5
Thank you for acknowledging that other families may make a differerent, legitimate choice. You have highlighted the additional trauma suffered by women who as the law stands, must leave home and comfort to terminate a pregnancy that is never going to result in a child. To force a woman to continue a pregnancy under these circumstances could be considered torture for some, despite it being the right choice for you.
16
Having experienced the situation of an unexpected pregnancy after my children were teenagers, it was time for mutual decision arrived at by both me and my husband. We were the only arbiters who had any rights in this matter. The catholic church has difficulty accepting morality does not reside in following bad and restrictive mandate, but in the decisions made by people who have a choice, Our son was born, our three teens were his godparents, and life continued.
3
Years ago, a friend of mine lost her baby in utero. My friends husband, a performer canceled his appearance to mourn with his wife. The producer of the event seemed perplexed that my friend needed time to mourn. Even after my explanation, he said "they can have other children".
3
I'm sorry, authors, but I must confess to a certain doubt that no one sympathizes with your grief over your baby's death.
I've never heard of such a reaction. It seems to me common & accepted for people to view the loss of someone's desired pregnancy as a bereavement -- maybe not carrying quite the pain of losing a born child, but still seen as a traumatizing loss for the prospective parents. The later, the worse, of course, because you've been accustomed longer to think of the fetus as the child it would have become.
You seem almost to be trying to prove to others that you saw your pregnancy as a child by naming her etc -- which sounds odd, because as far as I know, all pregnant women choose baby names.
Yes, I must confess that your assertion carries a whiff of the pro-life straw man.
40
If you've "never heard of such a reaction," you have clearly never been there. And "all pregnant women" are not alike. Your dismissive comments are insulting to women and rude to anyone who has lost a much-loved pregnancy. I honor the truth in this article: that no one should decide for the other.
30
wow, kind of a harsh toke A.H.
A life inside you is a life , and it is highly personal and noone can disctate to another person how to react ot feel about something other than the person it's happening too.
I sense a "whiff" of lack of empathy AH.
This was a life lost ,one that is no different from any other baby.
15
kat
You're pretending that my comment is dismissive & rude to one who has lost a pregnancy?
You are lying outright.
What I said is **precisely** the opposite: that everyone knows that the pain of losing an unborn child is similar to that of losing a born child, which is WHY others customarily feel the same sort of sympathy for the mother who has lost a pregnancy as for a mother who has lost a child. People understand that it is a bereavement.
That's what I WROTE.
What I questioned is the authors' claim that people in general do NOT view it as a bereavement, & don't feel much sympathy.
To say what you did -- that my comment was "dismissive...& insulting to women" is a twisted -- yes, a positively creepy lie.
Very peculiar.
I don't know what the heck you think you are saying by "I honor the truth in this article, that no one should decide for the other", but you certainly don't honor the truth in my comment.
I suspect you're not really at all big on truth-honoring in general.
1
The Catholic Church’s teaching (“ideology”?) on the unborn is grossly misrepresented in this story. The catechism makes clear that those who die in the womb are not excluded from God’s mercy, and have a place in heaven, regardless of baptism.
My wife and I suffered a similarly tragic and heartbreaking miscarriage. Mourning our lost child wasn't “taboo” in our Catholic community. Our parish family was there with prayer, food, and emotional support throughout. Our pastor and the Catholic hospital chaplain visited the hospital to pray and comfort us in our grief.
As much as I sympathize with the writer of this story, it seems clear that much of the Eighth Amendment appeal movement is driven by anti-Catholic animus.
It can fairly be argued that the Church hierarchy has committed grave sins in its handling of the sexual abuse scandals around the world, and that this betrayal of the faith has severely undermined their moral authority.
But for long-time enemies of the Church in Ireland to use this moment of political weakness to imperil the unborn by dismantling the only legal protection they have against an increasingly cynical and self-absorbed culture is downright evil.
2
Every Catholic should be allowed to be a Catholic on their own own terms and not be ostracized because of Church ideology. The Catholic Church has become punitive, exclusive determining lives and their fates by rigid dogma, way different from the teachings of their Prophet, Jesus Christ. I hope, the real Catholics vote a yes to end the Eighth Amendment. They should'nt have to look over their shoulders in fear of reprisal, for doing something which they must or have no choice, the life of a mother, a human being, above all else including a few cells or a dead fetus. The insensitivity and cruelty displayed for the living humans shows the Church's utter hypocrisy. So please, the 'yes' Irish flood the polls on Friday.
9
When I was a little girl in the 1960's, my mother (not a prejudiced bone in her body) took my sister an I aside and told us if we were ever pregnant, NEVER go to Ireland, or any Catholic hospital. They are mandated to "bring a new soul into the world", even at the cost of the mother's life. I would no more visit Ireland than Saudi Arabia, or any other backwards theocracy where women are second class citizens by decree of some deity.
22
Dear Aoife and Davin,
Your story of your unique and precious journey shows us how individual is the arc of each family. And how impossible it is to legislate such journeys.
Bless you a thousand times for your pain and sorrow, and for your courage in sharing both. Only you could have made the choices you did - no one else.
Thank you, Cara, for teaching us that the womb is an intensely private place, where laws do not belong.
66
Each woman and every couple are different and that's why choice is so important. You can't tell me whether or not to carry a fetus and allow it to grow into a life, just like I can't tell you what to do with your body unless you are getting ready to use it against me and harm me in some way. Otherwise, my body = my choice. And it's preposterous for men to oppose women's freedom to decide; if we can't tell you what to do with your twigs and berries, you can't tell us what to do with our bodies.
8
Thank you for your touching story. It’s so unfortunate when parents who want and love their potential child so very much don’t get to raise her. Thank you for advocating for reproductive choice even after your sad personal experience. There are so many people who become pregnant even though they aren’t prepared to love and nurture a child, and the population is so big already. It’s so important for us as a world to welcome babies intelligently and intentionally. Most importantly, it’s kids that suffer most when women aren’t allowed to make their own reproductive decisions. I’m in the Pro-QUALITY-OF-life movement, and I can’t believe so many people oppose it.
8
Thank you for your sharing your heart and your sanity and Cara with us.
5
That was a touching story. The bottom line though is all woman should have a choice, not just those who can afford to leave one nation or one state to another. To deny a woman that choice is to enslave her. Slavery is wrong, support choice.
129
Our first baby had been born alive and well. Our second baby, due to be born in April 1993, was stillborn. At 38 weeks gestation, we were informed that our baby's heart was not beating.
In the ten anguishing days preceeding our daughter's natural birth, we cried, prayed, reflected, waited... and planned for our daughter's funeral. It seemed a very surreal time, with many late-into-the-night discussions, and many philosophical questions.
Being non-denominational Christians, we didn't have to kow-tow to any unbiblical religious mandates about baby baptism or funeral liturgies. We were able to fashion our own type of funeral. No prelate, priest, or politician, had anything to do with that unique farewell church service.
My wife's "letter" and my poem to our dead daughter were read out. We had hymns, an uplifting sermon, and exit music by a composer-friend.
Days before that funeral, my almost-four-year old son asked me: "When Jesus comes back, the baby will be alive. Isn't that right, daddy?" That innocent-but-accurate observation made me cry. We had taught our boy bible stories - but not such mature biblical concepts!
After eleven more months we went on to have a second son.
Twenty one years after our stillbirth I produced a "graphic-novel" video short, in our daughter's memory. It became a dvd extra on the first ever stillbirth movie, RETURN TO ZERO.
NYT readers may be interested my positive memorial video, GOODBYE, AU REVOIR, SLAN
https://vimeo.com/77928404
3
I suffered from infertility for a dozen years. Finally blessed with a wonderful baby boy through adoption almost 22 years ago. I really know the value of a human life. I cried with the arrival of every menstrual period; I writhed in pain with multiple very early miscarriages; I was sad when IVF did not result in viable pregnancies; I mourned my tubal pregnancy when it was gone. Never once did I think that my pain and longing should determine the fate of other women. My life belonged to me, theirs belonged to them. Neither of us owed the state nor any church, insurance company or hospital, nor any other human being-- any explanation of our choices or our fates. I hope Ireland makes the modern choice.
29
Thank you for acknowledging that this issue ought to be a matter of choice. Laws should reflect that right and not be dictated by arcane hypocritical religious views.
91
You say women should have a choice, then you ridicule the choice most women make!
Guttmacher reports that 80% of pregnancies end in birth, not abortion. To boot, your insult about the pro-life choice (“arcane hypocritical religious”) isn’t even remotely accurate.
“Arcane”? Gallop poll in May 2017 said 49% of people believe abortion is immoral. Not exactly an “arcane” view.
“Hypocritical”? Nice insult, but based on what proof?
“Religious”? Not for organizations like Humanists for Life, Feminists for Life, Athiests for Life, and other secular pro-life organizations. They all use scientific definitions of life to rightly assert that a fetus is a living human being and to terminate it is to kill it.
Do you favor the right to choose as a general principal, or just the right to choose the choices you agree with?
5
I am strongly pro-choice and always will be.
But I hate having to deny the humanity of the fetus. I know why the pro-choice "side" is forced to do this; if we don’t, our admission that the fetus is a human, a pre-baby if you will, will instantly be used against us as a legal argument why abortion should not be allowed. But I love babies, and I know fetuses grow into babies. The truth is, I don’t like abortion and I feel bad about it, but I believe with all my heart, it is necessary.
Women give birth to babies, in blood and in pain. Through the millennia, legions of women have met their death in childbirth or other pregnancy complications. And through those same millennia, women have borne the burden of raising the children they bore. Raising a child is a sacred responsibility, a profound commitment, involving the whole of a woman’s life.
Abortion MUST be a choice women can make, for any reason. It is a fair and necessary trade-off to allow the killing (yes, killing) of a tiny creature in a rudimentary stage of neurological development over shackling a woman to a life-long commitment she is not prepared to carry out. If you don’t agree with that, I assume you will never have an abortion. There are many things we have to do in life that involve difficult, emotionally and ethically fraught choices, but we do them. The decision belongs to the woman who carries the life within her, no one else.
26
My mother miscarried well into a pregnancy we welcomed. She named the baby, we put an obituary in the paper, and we arranged a proper burial. There is no doubt that John was a member of our family, and the loss of him was painful.
I had the same feelings before their birth for all three of my own children.
Criminal law now often punishes as murder the killing of a fetus by crime against the mother.
Emotionally and legally, I am in entire agreement on the humanity of a fetus.
As this article makes clear, that does not really provide the answer for abortion. That humanity remains so dependent, so tied to the mother, and subject to so much medical challenge, that it requires a more complex answer seeing more possibilities that simply don't apply after birth.
4
You base your decision on one sorrowful family experience. I can understand that, however...
...I suggest you read accounts of what happens to women and girls who are forced to term. You might change your mind. Or read my other comments on this article for examples of what I mean. Thank you.
3
I am personally uncomfortable with abortion, and I absolutely see the point of view of the folks who want it banned in the US (and keep it banned in Ireland).
However, I know a number of women who have had abortions - and can say with certainty that not a single one of them did it casually or frivolously. It was a gut-wrenching decision forced on them, mostly because of health reasons. Each and every one of these women suffered greatly because of their decision, both before and after the procedure - and I take exception to the point of view that is bandied about (mostly by men) that women do it on a whim or just because having a baby is inconvenient.
At the end of the day, I believe there is absolutely no need to ban abortions - abortions are (and always will be) self-regulated by the women who have to make the decision.
20
Thank you for sharing your perspective, as it's one we rarely see in this polarized setting.
Anyone who reads this wishes peace to the both of you, and to those who share your lives. Our most sincere condolences.
Cara would have had wonderful parents. She would have been blessed.
In respect for you, and for her, I choose NOT to politicize this response. Your piece was illuminating. I hope the public answers to you remain so as well, and that you continue to find comfort, whether you discuss your choices or not.
2
If abortion had been a legal and readily available option in New York in 1961, I would almost certainly not be here today. And yet I’m pro-choice.
Like the authors of this article, I am able through lived experience to acknowledge the emotional and moral complexity of abortion while staunchly defending the right of all women to choose that option for themselves.
Besides the question of my own existence, I could also talk about the sorrow I still feel over the decision an ex-girlfriend of mine made to terminate her pregnancy with our child, or talk about the two childbirths at which I assisted, the experience of which convinced me that fetuses are indeed living beings. These are the kind of emotional button-pushing stories anti-abortionists regularly use to push their agenda. But I am proof that one can live through these things and still fervently believe in universal access to abortion with no qualifiers. My moral queasiness should not have the force of law. The only people entitled to make decisions about abortions are pregnant women and obstetricians. (And please don’t bring up taxpayers; if I have to pay for drone strikes I morally object to, you have to pay for abortions.)
This article is also a reminder that the reason abortion was legalized in the U.S. was to SAVE lives. Before Roe 5,000 women a year died from botched illegal (“back-alley”) procedures. If you truly care about life, then you should care about the bearers of life, women, and support their choices.
26
Terribly sad story, and sadly typical of the struggle of women to choose what's right for herself and the embryo implanted within her.
To me, the "right to life" should be extended to the life of the woman. It should be her choice, not the choice of mostly male legislators, whether or not to carry an unwanted embryo through the stages of growth within her body. It's not a case of one side being "pro life" and the other being "pro death" - it should be a private "choice" made between the woman and her doctor. The Catholic church, governed by men, should clearly NOT be involved. It has not earned the moral authority to determine what is right and wrong in this area of a woman's life.
16
Why is it that the same people who go on and on about the rights of the unborn to be born have no qualms taking rights away from living, breathing, thinking women?
41
Because those people only see women as objects for two purposes: 1. A thing to do sex to (because "having sex with" implies that each partner should enjoy sex, and it doesn't matter to them if women enjoy it. And women most certainly better only have sex with one person ever!) 2. As incubators for birth. Forced birth in particular, as we are seeing the world over.
The Pro-Forced Birthers (because to call them "pro-life" is hypocritical) make up just one part of the systemically oppressive structure that is misogyny. And I feel it worth noting that it's women who can be the fiercest perpetrators of misogyny, perfectly willing to betray other women for the sake of a few crumbs under the system of patriarchy, while failing to see that the system is bad for everyone (including men). Wealthy/upper class, educated, white women are especially guilty of this type of betrayal.
14
I am Irish and will be travelling home to vote this Friday in favour of repealing the 8th amendment to liberalise our laws related to abortion. This is one of many, many stories I´ve read about the suffering of thousands of women in Ireland over the years because of our oppressive, hyprocritical, cruel and inhuman laws regarding abortion and I am so angry and so exhausted by it all (and I don´t even live in Ireland anymore). Women in my country have been treated like second class citizens for far too long and I am so grateful to all the women and men who worked tirelessly to bring this referendum about. It has been a long and hard battle for them and hopefully this Friday their efforts will not be in vain.
If you´re interested in reading more stories like this one, you can read them on this Facebook account:
https://www.facebook.com/RepealTheEighth/
How anyone can listen to these women´s stories and vote "no" is beyond me. "Pro-life" my backside!
28
Something like 95% of abortions have no bearing on the health of mother or child. So who is exploiting the unborn disabled?
4
What bearing does forcing a woman to remain pregnant against her will have on her health do you think?
10
Hunt,
Please provide statistics from a valid peer-reviewed medical journal to support your claim.
12
Human society will not be fully evolved, fully democratic, until religion is seen strictly as a private practice, much as sex and bodily functions are (or ought to be).
126
citizennotconsumer,
Abortion is not about religion. It is about life, and that is not a private matter. Perhaps, you haven't noticed that sex and bodily functions, the latter thanks to the pharmaceutical industry and the media, are not "private". They haven't been for a long time.
2
"Life at conception" whether you are religious or not, is a religious idea. The use of your body for another being, be it potential in the womb or realized as a separate person, is limited to your desire to share your body or not, and you have the right to determine that at every point in your life. It is that simple.
2
The decision what to do with the fetus should be that of the mother.
19
Why is it considered to be an "abortion" if the fetus is not alive? Nothing is being aborted manually by a physician or procedure, because the abortion has already occurred.
11
Susan,
Abortion is the expulsion of products of conception, spontaneously or deliberately.
If spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) occurs early in an in-utero (uterus-womb) pregnancy the procedure is a D&C with removal of products of conception. If the pregnancy is ex-utero, outside the uterus, it requires surgical removal of the fetus. Examples of this include tubal pregnancy and embryos that implant outside the uterus. I’ve seen all these types.
A few years ago a young woman died from septicemia because she was denied a D&C following a spontaneous abortion. It took almost a week for her to die. Doctors were more concerned with the possibility the fetus might be alive than they were with the living woman they were treating. This was in Ireland however some states here in the US have recently passed draconian abortion laws that could lead to this travesty happening here.
10
I remember that case in Ireland that you mention. To add to the horror of the story the poor young woman was not Irish and was unable to return to her home country because of the late stage pregnancy. Most likely the law to allow abortions in Ireland will be voted in - for too many years Irish women and girls have had to go 'across the sea' to get abortions - unless of course they were wealthy with the right connections to doctors - then they could have the 'procedure' done in the safety of the doctor's office. I do not know how I would react to an unwanted pregnancy but I do know it is the right of every woman, not a man's decision, to decide for herself.
Aoife and Davin, your story is a heartbreaking one and I am sorry for both of you and for the loss of Cara. I hope your story changes the rule of a fetus not being allowed to be properly buried and valued as a child - truly hypocritical thinking on the part of the Church when it is the Church that states a fetus is a human being - but then we Irish are used to our Church being hypocrites in all things to do with children. I know in some parts of Georgia parents are allowed to mourn, name and bury their fetus/child and that is the way it should be all over the world. Thank you, Aoife and Davin for your account of your lovely girl and in her name maybe we will have change in Ireland.
1
Your point is what? That your choice should be the enforced route for others? I'm a man but I kind of doubt that lots of women would be grateful for the opportunity to give birth to a dead baby.
6
No. Her point is that this was the right choice for her, and that other women should be able to make their own choices.
10
That's not the point at all. The writer supports choice, not government mandated enforcement. I suggest you read it again.
11
Fred, did you read the article to the end? The author states that their choice is not for everyone, and that everyone should be able to make the choice that is best for them without shame or stigma.
9
We lost a first trimester pregnancy. We have two adult daughters, one born before and one following the failed pregnancy. We are fortunate. Many others are not and never get the child they hope for. We had not mentioned the pregnancy. My MD wife, always cautious, says you never talk about it until the second trimester. We were surprised afterwards, when the subject did come up, how often others had experienced the same loss.
We never knew what went wrong - it was too early to have amniocentesis- and we never had to decide whether to continue a doomed pregnancy or bring into the world a child who would suffer as the result of all of things that can go wrong during fetal development. Any of those decisions would have been intensely personal and clearly would have been nobody’s business but our own.
So why does our nation continue to debate whether random third parties can demand the right to make that decision for others? What arrogance! And what cruelty to demand that right and then reject any sense of societal responsibility for the consequences.
24
I also lost my only baby due to severe birth defects. I wanted her more than anything but found out at 20 weeks that she was severely deformed and did not even have a brain. The doctor informed me that she would die soon but it was impossible to predict when. That meant, that I could continue on with the pregnancy. Every day I could wake up, and wonder if my baby was still alive. I could go about my day, while strangers cooed over my growing stomach, ignorant that they are congratulating me on a baby who will die at any moment. And once that moment came, I would have to go through the full labor and delivery process, knowing that my baby has already passed away.
I was given the information that I may terminate my pregnancy. My insurance informed me that my procedure would not be covered, since they considered it to be “elective”. I did not elect to be in this position. I did not elect to be pregnant with a baby who had no chance to survive. But yes, I did elect to end her suffering.
My baby died on December 4, 2017. In the months since her death, I grieve quietly and alone. I’ve learned it is not possible to predict who will support the decision I've made. It’s not possible to predict who will condemn me or refer to my deceased child as a “clump of cells”. It’s not possible to know who would declare they would have made a different choice. As if there is some superior choice that can be made when told your baby is dying, and I just failed to see it.
22
The mark of shame belongs on the insurance companies who truly had no standing in this case, and failed to pay for a medical procedure. I guess they could also claim hat removing a benign cyst is elective. Shame on THEM.
I share your sorrow from afar. I hope one day soon you will be holding a healthy baby.
8
Ms. Fitzgerald,
It may be insulting even to respond to your post, and my status as a stranger weighs heavily on me, so if I am guilty of gross insensitivity, I apologize, but your loss and subsequent grief are so poignant as to compel a response. My sincere, earnest, heartfelt condolences, and I applaud your bravery in sharing your suffering. I cannot imagine anyone who would condemn your decision, and anyone who does so deserves a punch in the face. And, of course, it's every bit as callous to refer to your child as a clump of cells. Again, you are a model of bravery to disclose your tragedy-- a horrific scenario in which there were no good choices whatsoever, although the decision you made was obviously reasoned, compassionate and wise. If it matters, I will remember you in my prayers, and I wish you comfort and peace. My beliefs dictate that I need not worry as to your daughter's fate, as I am convinced she is in the best hands imaginable, loved and safe. But we should all worry about situations such as yours and the people left grieving quietly in their wake. I certainly will be.
4
Thomas - Your kindness and empathy mean more to me than you know. Thank you for taking the time to write this and share such comforting words.
1
Thank you for this. My husband and I lost a baby last September at 18 weeks. I was visibly pregnant, our parish priest knew we were expecting. But afterward, we had no outreach from him or any of the deacons, just from some other families in our parish who reached out in support. But there is no 'funeral' for miscarried pregnancies in the Catholic Church. A very odd hypocrisy for an institution that insists life begins at conception. I'm sorry for your loss - it is a unique kind of sorrow.
27
It's 100% valid that this couple feels this way, and their experience is important, but this is exactly why I'm pro-choice. Their beliefs and feelings are rooted in their religion, and are not the same as everyone else's. Honestly in reading their words all I can think in my head is that this fetus Cara is a creation of the two parent's minds that helped them grapple with the reality that they were not going to become parents, not a person in it's own right. My feelings have NO bearing on their experience, or their feelings, and theirs have no bearing on mine.
13
The story related by this couple like others I've known illustrates how intensely personal and private these experiences are. Intensely personal, as in each one of us has a different emotional set and a different set of internal moral guidance about how to handle these difficult situations. Private, as in it is therefore no one else's business - especially not the government's! The "end all abortions" crowd has to think carefully about what they ask for - they can never end all abortions. They can only end all SAFE abortions. And that means going back to a dark, ugly time when too many women died in back alleys and $6-an-hour motel rooms.
18
This piece is an artful dodge of the central issue. If and when abortion becomes legalised in any jurisdiction then it will become, inevitably, more widespread. Which means that more unborn lives will be terminated, as that is the whole object of abortion. It is a lie to pretend otherwise. There is no especially "compassionate" way to end the life of another and it is a lie to oneself to pretend that there is, especially given the horrific nature of abortion procedures. Those who are Irish are voting on whether to make the unborn - which all of us were at one early stage of our lives - that much easier to kill. There may be utilitarian and majoritarian cases to be made for making abortion more accessible but that is all such an argument can ever be. But please do not pretend to make a moral argument out of the ethics of Molech. You only insult your readers and delude yourself.
4
I think it is you who are evading the issue.
Forcing a woman to go through with an unwanted pregnancy is slavery. There is no less harsh word for it.
If the number of abortions increase, it's because women have more freedom to control their own lives and plan their families.
A fertilized egg that has not grown into a human being is no more a person than are the individual sperm and egg that united together. A woman, however, is a living, breathing person.
That's the issue.
31
I am Irish and live in The Netherlands, a country with the lowest rates of abortion in Europe but with the most liberal abortion laws. Why? Because they invest in proper sex education at schools from a young age and make effective contraception freely available.
If what you said it true, surely it should be Ireland where abortion is effectively illegal.
My sex education at state school in Ireland in the 90s was a grizzly video tape of an abortion being performed and a short chat about the rhythm method and funnily enough, Ireland has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in Europe.
Abortion rates have dropped dramatically in most developed countries as availability of contraception has increased and proper sex education is given in schools and any shame surrounding sex is depelled.
Banning abortion doesn´t prevent abortion procedures from happening, it only prevents safe abortions where women´s lives and mental well-being are put in danger.
13
Rupprecht,
You couldn’t be more wrong. Banning abortion does not stop abortion. Banning abortion increases dangerous backalley abortions. Banning abortion kills women, leaves children without mothers, and spouses without partners.
Birth control freely available and free decreases abortion. Mandatory sex education decreases abortions. If you are serious about decreasing abortion rates then support and mandate age appropriate sex-ed in grades K-12. Talking to kids about sexual matters and responsibilities not only decreases abortion but promotes well being and self respect. Sticking your head in the sand protects no one but the person too afraid to engage in meaningful conversation.
2
The Catholic Church has been around for about 2,000 years and only made fetuses "persons" in the mid-80's?
Why didn't the Church do that when it legally ruled half of the world?
That is where this discussion should have stated: In the many and changing definitions the Church has put on women, men and fetuses.
For almost 2,000 years, slavery was fine for the Church.
It is still perfectly happy that females are NOT legally and Constitutionally equal.
It still maintains that the souls of women are slower, stupider and lazier than men's. Thomas Aquinas said so and that is that.
The fetus-photos are nothing new. They have been waved around at Planned Parenthood clinics - where abortions are NOT performed - for the last 50 years.
Somehow I'm supposed to feel worse for an aborted fetus than I am for a poor woman who does NOT have the $1,000 for an abortion because , in this land where abortion IS legal, the laws state that poor women are the only segment of this society that may never receive a cent of public tax money to put limits to her choice.
We can give $1.5 TRILLION dollars away to the Top One Percenters..... we can up that military budget to a whopping $756.9 BILLION DOLLARS.......
But no poor woman gets even one cent to exercise a LEGAL choice.
I have to wonder: How many already wealthy women made out like bandits on that "TAX CUT"? I know that for the lowest "tax bracket" that THEIR tax change went UP 20%.
And where's the Church?
Putting up posters.
25
Very sad. Cara is undoubtedly in a good place.
3
Ms. Walsh, Mr. O'Dwyer and Cara
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Your compassion for understanding I hope permeates the conversations. I also hope that those that decide to write comments do not exploit the narrative as those posters on lampposts did to those who are pictured.
To those that have lost a child (born or unborn) my deepest sympathies are extended. To those that have not please take a moment to reflect. To both please take a few quiet moments.
As one who truly believes in science, God and unfortunately not so much in my Catholic faith anymore let us all try to the appreciate the article about three people. With them we learn of their daughter Cara and their loss. We also learn of their desire to have the laws in their country changed.
As your comments will come let them know who we are and that we all have love, concern and with a great deal of effort try to understand.
Ms Walsh and Mr. O'Dwyer you are good parents.
12
Aoife and Davin, I’m so sorry for the loss of your sweet Cara. I am sorry that it was too difficult for you to access the abortion care that you originally sought. And I appreciate that, even though you ultimately found peace and meaning in carrying the pregnancy, that you support the rights of those who would choose differently.
I was in similar shoes, receiving a fatal prenatal diagnosis, just over two years ago. My husband and I chose to terminate the pregnancy rather than our baby suffering if he made it to birth, and I was fortunate that my health insurance covered the abortion care in a hospital setting.
Only afterward, upon joining a an online support group, did I realize HOW fortunate I was, and that denial of coverage is now the norm, rather than the exception, even for heartbreaking cases like ours. So many women are now denied coverage for terminating a pregnancy for catastrophic fetal anomaly, either because they are government employees (nearly all federal and military, plus some state employees are denied coverage), or because they live in a state that prohibits even private insurers from providing abortion services. I have even heard stories from women who were denied coverage for medical services if they suffered complications after abortion.
All of this adds to the shame and stigma of abortion, when as parents we are already grieving the loss of a wanted pregnancy. And the burden on women with fewer means is even larger.
33
What your comment further does is illustrate the frightening speed with which the USA is becoming a theocracy. Our first amendment is first for a host of good reasons; among them, that we do not have and will not have an established religion. The restrictions you describe prove how endangered the first is.
8
In 1983, Ireland gave the unborn the right to life in a Constitutional Amendment #8, therefore protecting that life and the child who might be born. This in contrast the US ' Roe v Wade which became law in 1973 stripping the unborn of any rights.
4 years before R v W, my daughter was born and died from a complex and major set of CHD anomalies. She lived just short of 4 mos. Medically her heart and lungs were 'incompatible with life'. In January of 1974 my son was prematurely born at 26 wks. gestational age.
In 1969 there was no scanning available, yet others knew my daughter's precarious positon, but did not confide in me, her Had I know mother. in late summer 1973 by amniocentesis I knew what genes my unborn child did not inherit, but not whether the baby would be compatible or incompatible with life. Before the amniocentesis I was for state-sanctioned abortion. After receiving the results, and anguishing over a decision, I chose to continue the pregnancy and my baby's life. Had I known my daughter's pre-natal condition, I would have chosen to do the same.
Why? Because I have no right to end the life of a developing child any more than I have the right to end the life of any human. My children had the right to life. Death was not in my hands, nor should it have been.
My son was born with multiple medical problems, but he has given me a grandson and has a life he choses with those he chooses at age 44.
I leave you with: For what crimes are these children killed?
3
Way to take a heartbreaking story and try to make it about you. It's not about you. That being said, why would you deny other women the choice you had the luxury of making? Whether you chose to carry to term a child with severe defects or not, all the pro-choice movement is seeking is to provide all women with that choice. What crime did a mother commit to be forced to carry a child that will die long before its time to be born? Why should a mother be forced to risk her own life to carry a dead child?
23
gazelledz,
I’m sorry for your losses. To experience so many must have been exceedingly difficult.
What was right for you is not right for everyone. Women die from pregnancy related causes. When they die they possibly leave behind children without a mother and a spouse without a partner.
In countries with strict abortion laws women die horrible prolonged deaths due to incomplete spontaneous abortion associated septicemia, or because their bodies are too underdeveloped to support a pregnancy. What crimes have they committed? If you’re able, please read my post on some of the complications of pregnancy that may result in the death of women and girls.
7
In 1969 you had no choice. That you would choose to go the route you did even if you had a choice is exactly that, your choice. Why would you presume to enforce your choice on another mother? Another woman might feel that it was very selfish to require that the doomed baby endure 4 months of pain and constant medical intervention and that be the entirety of her existence before a blessed death. That woman might feel that it was her right to force you to terminate in the name of compassion. Is that any better than you forcing your choice on her? Every woman has the right and the obligation to do what she feels is right, not to be forced in either direction by others.
11
Being pro-choice and Catholic is compatible with the Catholic belief of Free Will.
Pregnancy is dangerous. Draconian abortion laws not only deny women medically safe abortions, they deny women medical treatment when pregnancy results in anything other than live birth.
Without access to medical abortion woman die of septicemia if denied surgery for incomplete miscarriage or an embryo implanting anywhere but the uterus. Women die from medical emergencies such as preeclampsia and malignant hypertension. Clotting diseases associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus may require daily heparin injections to help prevent miscarriage and maternal death. Young girls, often the victims of rape or incest, who have reached menarche but are not fully developed have died from being physically torn apart by the pregnancy and birth in countries that deny abortion. These events are not uncommon. This list is not exhaustive.
Government has no business seeking to control and dictate women’s health care. Abortion is a personal issue. Lawmakers do not belong in any woman’s uterus, not in Ireland nor the US.
51
It is a sad tale here. But it especially highlights how the thinking of the unborn as persons is a far more complicated matter than is presented by the Catholic Church. It is also something that those who favor abortion rights are afraid to do.
Why can't we admit that as soon as a women knows she is pregnant, she has complicated feelings and that sometimes it is decided to end the pregnancy. Pregnancies have been ended before time throughout the history of man. It is always a difficult matter.
10
Complicated, maybe. "always difficult"? Nope.
To sentient beings, abortion is a sacred matter, regardless of religious affiliation, belief or practice. It has to do with the right to life, the perpetuation of the species, with suffering, responsibiltiy, and with the human capacity to choose.
In a democracy, as opposed to a dictatorship or a theocracy, the right to choose is also sacred.
Whether or not to have an abortion is an individual decision.
in the making of which individuals can rely upon their moral compass or their soul's intercourse with their god; they may look to religion, history, science,philosophy, and the collective sentiments of culture; and for support and guidance they may turn to secular or religious counsel, family, friends, and community.
The right to abortion, as opposed to the regulation of abortion, is not the province of church or government or any other agency.
Ground zero here is THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE. If and only if that right is being abused in pracice, the law can and will step in.
True to life, or not true to life?
Just wondering....
5
For millennia men have called the shots and made the rules. A hundred and fifty years ago women could not own property. Men seem to want to keep their nukes, women should have control over their own reproductive health. Nothing is perfect but men have mainly failed this poor earth.
16
Sorry that you had this very troubling experience, and I don't doubt your pain and suffering. But think for a moment: you made conscious, deliberate plans to terminate the pregnancy, to prevent a developing fetus from being born. While making all these elaborate plans, you were not considering this as killing your living daughter. Later you changed your mind: you made a different choice. This is the essence of the abortion debate: is the developing entity before birth and life outside the uterus a human being or not? This couple, at different times, answered in both ways. Without an ironclad, universal definition, the decision must be a personal one.
8
I recall an article in the Times about a woman who was raped & decided to have the baby.I couldn’t believe that anyone would want to live with the memories of this horrid event. I took this to my Rabbi, & was shocked to find out that he sympathized with the woman & applauded her decision. His reasoning was when a woman conceives, she instantly falls in love with the fetus.I was not satisfied with the Rabbi’s answer, so I asked my Catholic Daughter in Law, who agreed with the Rabbi,& said we don’t have the right to judge her, which put me in my place. I am not for abortion, but I believe in Women’s choice, which is the real issue, we just don’t have the right to judge anyone, especially when it comes to abortion, it is a painful decision, whether your for or against it.
4
Your friends are also speaking only from a position of their own feelings. Not all women fall in love the second they conceive, and it's not a painful decision for all women. We are all different and have different experiences and feelings, which is exactly why I'm pro-choice.
12
"His reasoning was when a woman conceives, she instantly falls in love with the fetus."
Yeah.... that must be the governing principle on the continuation of war-rape. All that "love".
Every day I am so thankful that I am an atheist.
We may not have all the answers, but, at least we aren't astonishingly intellectually challenged.
7
I am 100 percent pro life but I want to make it very clear that I would never judge a woman who has had an abortion. What I think is tragic is when a perfectly healthy fetus/baby is aborted and not given a chance at life. That has occurred a majority of times for the 60 million fetuses/babies that have lost their lives to abortion in the US. These aborted fetuses could have had a rich life and made a generous contribution to society. They may have been doctors, scientists, nurses, etc. but we will never know.
I am proud that Ireland is taking up the pro life cause as those of us who are pro life here do not want to see healthy fetuses/babies discarded when they should be allowed to live. They could also make a worthwhile contribution to Ireland and choose professional careers that make a difference to the whole world.
Life is precious and let's give those fetuses/babies a chance to experience it. We should not play God and decide who lives and dies. I am grateful to the woman and men of Ireland who are taking up the pro life cause and wish them much success in this very important cause. Thank you pro lifers and I hope you win.
6
Correction : it should be women : I am grateful to the Irish women and men who are taking up the pro life cause and wish them much success in this very important cause.
There are many women who are involved in the pro life movement in Ireland.
2
No mention of the women and girls harmed by your proposed forced births. What consideration did you give the young woman in Ireland who died of septicemia because she was denied a medically necessary abortion? Her death was horrific. Denying women/girls the right to make reproductive medical decisions for themselves is playing God, and does determine if some women/girls die.
Draconian laws like Ireland’s are being passed in this country. I have never heard or read of one pro-birth proponent to ever consider the life of the woman or girl.
8
Sure. A fetus could grow up to become a doctor that cures cancer or a scientist that discovers the meaning of life. It could also grow up to abuse others, to be a mass murderer or to simply be a not-that-great member of society. The potential of a life is not the same thing as the already established life of a grown woman. Such as you have the right to determine if you will donate blood, bone marrow, livers, kidneys, skin grafts, etc, even if they could save another life, so to does the woman have the right to determine if her body shall be used to keep another alive or not. You do not get to have the right of that for yourself and deny that to others. We all have the right to bodily autonomy.
4
May I offer my sincere sympathy for both the tragic loss of your daughter as well as the grief caused by the lack of compassion which you have been forced to endure.
No one who has not experienced such tragedy has any right to determine the best course of action, and for a male dominated religion, one of many, to pronounce "God's" will is both a joke and a travesty.
I am hoping for a win for sanity this week.
Siochain
13
A very sad and touching story. Here in the USA it is also about the fetus. In America, abortion opponents proclaim they are Pro Life. What they really mean is that they are Pro Fetus. Once that fetus becomes a child and enters this universe the Protect Lifers walk away from any responsibilities to protect THAT life.
They are silent about access to health care and efforts to restrict good health services to children and their mothers. They are silent about their elected leaders cutting food stamps and access to healthy nutrition. They are silent about the pollution that will infect those new baby lungs. They are silent about the schools who poorly pay the teachers of those young children. They are silent about inadequate supply of good affordable housing in which those children will eat, sleep and grow. In reality, The Pro Lifers are silent about every issue that affects those who have left the uterus. It is time to call the movement what it really is:Hypocritical!
57
It's beyond hypocritical. The Anti-Abortion movement is really an Anti-Life movement. And it increases the number of abortions.
11
That blanket statement is just not true. There are many like me who are pro-life but otherwise politically progressive. I think it is entirely consistent to provide a strong safety net of social programs to assist the struggling poor. I am appalled at the lack of adequate funding of our schools and low teacher pay. I am worried that we are not addressing climate change and pollution. I believe that our justice system needs radical reform. Our country will benefit from a more rational and benevolent immigration policy. But I also know that we will as a nation some day be judged for the way we slaughtered millions of innocent unborn human beings. Unplanned pregnancies may be inconvenient but the solution is not to kill our offspring. Please know that in the case of real danger to the life of the mother - that is another story. However, that is rare. But I would never want to impose penalties on women who secure abortions. This is a matter of conscience for a woman and for a doctor. It should neither be encouraged and celebrated as often seems to be the case - nor criminalized. However, there should be no taxpayer money funding abortion. By the way, I regularly contribute to an organization that assists women with unplanned pregnancies to secure medical help, baby clothing and equipment, nutrition and other assistance. There are many people who are available to counsel and refer these women to the ongoing services they will need.
2
It's true that there are many politicians who are prolife when it comes to abortion but don't actually care about mothers and children; HOWEVER, there are also legitimate arguments to be made about the best way to achieve better care for mothers and children. Some families want to use health-sharing programs rather than insurance, just as one example.
You can't hold this out as a bargaining chip, like "until the programs I want are properly funded, we're entitled to keep having abortions." It's also not accurate to say prolifers in general are "silent" about all these issues that protect life -- have you never noticed Catholic Relief Services programs for the poor, or heard the United States bishops' criticisms of Republicans' health care proposals, or read anything Pope Francis has ever said about the environment or refugees??
2
We know that a fetus has a distinct heartbeat starting just after 3 weeks, electric brain activity just after 5 weeks, and an entirely independent immune system. And, yet it is in a singularly unique interface with another human being, the mother, for its survival - completely dependant on her for shelter, protection, and nutrition.
This status has strong and relevant parallels with that of a neonate or an infant also completely dependent on the mother/another human being for survival and decision making on its behalf.
And, the society already grants a full authority (an inherent, explicit power of attorney) to the mother/parent(s) to make such decisions as a fiduciary or a trustee.
Only if the society extends such authority to the mother also in case of a fetus - to make the best fiduciary judgement possible in the given varied circumstances, we would get away from extreme ideological ( and political) positions of allowing abortions on demand, no questions asked, to completely banning them regardless of the risk to the health of the mother or any other circumstances.
5
Not true. After three weeks the collection of cells has a primitive nervous system, akin to an amoeba, not a heartbeat.
4
Abortion on demand is not an "extreme ideological position."
That's dehumanizing terminology to decry the right of a woman to control her own body.
Civil rights should be considered the norm, not the extreme.
6
I guess in this perspective there is no difference between removing a uterine tumor and removing a fetus.
I don't understand what this article is saying. The writer doesn't explain what happened after the birth of his child and why it is shameful to talk about his dead child. And I don't understand how the referendum will change that.
3
"Cara" would have become a human person after birth when you showed your love and care by creating that person. That there was no person unless you did is something I am as sure of as I am of anything.
How do I know this? Because I know when I became me, which was long after birth. My family and others provided a developing brain with the experiences it needed to make the integrated connections of self-consciousness. When that connection occurred a human person with self-awareness, memory and all of the concomitant mental abilities of what it is to be a person began telling her life story.
As loving people I hope you will get a chance to fulfill your dream to have a child and create a person, biologically related or not.
5
I am sad about your experience. Bringing new life into the world is the most important task of society, and termination of life a great sorrow. Most often, Nature spontaneously aborts fetuses which cannot have meaningful life. But sometimes this decision becomes the burden of the pregnant woman. Of course a mother must have the right to decide whether to abort, because otherwise females can be made legal reproductive slaves of men who rape us. Or our lives endangered by pregnancy. Unconscionable. Rather than this endless hostile debate, let us work to make society supportive and welcoming of new life when the mother wishes to bring it into the world.
20
l had two pregnancies in which the baby died in utero during the second trimester. No funerals, no mentions. I wasn't even told the sex of my babies. My heart aches alongside yours
71
The abortion debate has not begun yet; we are still waiting for the pro-choicers to show up:
Abortion kills an innocent human being. Whatever you want to say, abortion kills an innocent human being. It cannot be avoided that abortion kills an innocent human being. It is an incontrovertible metaphysical reality that abortion kills an innocent human being. It is scientifically verified a hundred times over that abortion kills an innocent human being. If you personally want abortion to be legal, you want it to be legal to kill an innocent human being. Just say that you want it to be legal to kill an innocent human being. Stop dressing up the desire for it to be legal to kill an innocent human being in emotions, extreme cases, and personal liberties. Just come out an say that you want it to be legal to kill an innocent human being so that we can actually talk about whether or not that's a good idea.
Even if it is a "innocent human being," so what? Does that make you think you win that argument by saying that? Whether or not you think it is a "good idea" is irrelevant because the majority of people in this World disagree with you. All humans die. It's called nature. Some of those deaths are caused by other humans. Sometimes those deaths are legal; sometimes they aren't. A fetus doesn't have some sort of special status -- it actually has LESS status because it can't live in a non-parasitic manner. Abortion is widely accepted as legal and morally appropriate. It's time for Ireland to catch up with the rest of the world.
9
I disagree. Abortion kills a human fetus. A human being is a breathing person that lives outside of a woman's womb.
8
Fetuses are not "innocent". Zygotes, blastocysts, embryos, and fetuses lack the capacity for innocence. The capacity for innocence must include the capacity for guilt to be valid and present. When a pregnant woman is killed by the health conditions caused by the pregnancy itself, no rational person would hold the product of conception to be "guilty". Therefore, products of conception are incapable of "innocence", just as they are incapable of guilt. Stop bringing up the desire for it to be legal to enshrine a product of conception with false "innocence" and "personhood", and to endow it with "rights" that exceed that of the ACTUAL person with rights - the living, breathing, innocent WOMAN. Just come out and say that you want it to be legal to strip an innocent woman of her inalienable civil, human and legal rights at the instant of conception, so we can actually talk about whether or not it's a good idea to strip innocent citizens of their inalienable rights solely due to their gender.
6
The "unborn" is a shamefully deceptive term for the fetus, which is the prospect of a child. Would you use "undead" to describe a living human being?
There are several moral issues regarding a pregnancy. Conceiving and bearing an unwanted child is immoral, and imposes a burden on society. Carrying to term a fetus that is known to be seriously defective is immoral. Terminating a viable fetus is immoral.
Who should make moral decisions regarding a pregnancy? Why not the person who is morally responsible, the pregnant woman? She could consult her sex partner, her parents, and her spiritual adviser, but she should not have to contend with interference from lawyers, politicians, celibate priests, voters, and busy-body old women past child-bearing age.
Let's hope Irish voters can shake off yet another vestige of their tragic rule by the Catholic Church.
21
Ms. Walsh and Mr. O'Dwyer share an intimate story about a miscarriage. I am sorry that Ms. Walsh suffered a miscarriage, and it is also a fairly common event.
A fetus is not a child, it is a fetus. That is a plain fact and does not diminish or dismiss the emotional distress of experiencing a miscarriage.
I do object to attempts at emotional manipulation, which is the motivation for posting pictures of fetuses on public spaces and is also the motivation for this op-ed.
I hope that, upon reflection, they will recognize their error.
8
A touching piece. But in the US, where abortion is legal, a fetus is not a legal human being. If they were there could not be abortions as that would constitute homicide.
On the Tuam situation. While unfortunate, it's nothing that is that unusual in those times. Many places around the world abandoned children were sheltered but considered to be subhuman.
2
The Tuam children were not "abandoned". They were forcefully taken from their unwed mothers by the Catholic Church. They were then abused and mistreated and many of them died as a result. They were thrown into septic tanks rather than being properly buried. Nothing about their treatment was normal for the 1900s in a First World Country.
11
Forcefully? Really? I read the piece when it came out and there was no mention of guns to the head or knives to the throat or court orders. So they were not forcefully taken. Abused and mistreated? Under whose standards? Catholic institutions were notorious for discipline, especially when nuns were involved. But nothing in that article indicates anything purely malicious. And Ireland was hardly a first world country during the majority of the time the institution was open. I guarantee you there are plenty more places in the world where similar things happened.
A terrible loss, but what comes through clearly is your recognition that your daughter was, in fact, your daughter and was a human being and not just a collection of cells. The joy felt, and it was joy, was the goal of all parents and this is lost on those seeking general acceptance of abortion. May the Irish think hard about this and vote to maintain their laws against killing innocent lives.
17
They felt they were parents of a child, and that's their right. But they aren't suggesting their opinion should be forced on everyone else. I had numerous miscarriages before the birth of my son, and while I was heartbroken over those, I never felt I was mourning the loss of a child, but rather the loss of the chance to have a child at that time. And that's my right too. The authors weren't suggesting other women should be denied the right to make their own choices about their pregnancies.
55
Don't twist her words to make your point. That's not at all what she was writing about. She's arguing that it's reasonable to view fetuses as human beings, but that it's absurd to make people sneak off to other countries to follow through on a personal choice.
You're in the category of people that she considered to be exploiting the issue.
52
Greg,
Like so many with your view, you do not understand.
When abortions are denied they are denied for all.
15
Thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts.
I am terribly sorry for your loss and it must be very painful. You did share some time with your daughter, Cara and were able to give her a lovely name. You will be left with these fond memories for a lifetime. I am sure you will think of her often and be able to speak of her to your future children.
Someone very close to me years ago lost two baby girls shortly after birth but never forgot about her children. She also named them and they were fortunate enough to be baptized and had burials appropriate for babies. She said she never regretted knowing these babies even if only for a few weeks and could remember little things about them even many years later. She said she never could have ever conceived of having an abortion even if it had been available at the time. Her Catholic faith would not allow it but it also sustained her at her lowest points in her life. It was her rock. She did have other children whom she cherished but not one day went by that she did not think about her two daughters. She never got over their deaths but she has now joined them in heaven.
11
Faith is fine for those for whom it is meaningful. But this decision for many women is absolutely NOT about faith, but about doing what is right for them, their families, other children, etc. These are two separate issues and should remain so. Do NOT make your faith my burden.
23
"Do NOT make your faith my burden." Life is a responsibility, not a burden. Abortion rights for many reflects the unwillingness to be responsible even in choosing abortion. "My body, my life" is the most narcissistic slogan among many on the pro-abortion side.
Chrystin Pleasants,
Obviously you did not read the section of this article that mentioned the Roman Catholic Church. It was very prominent and I would recommend you go back and read this.
I am not forcing my faith on you or anyone else and my Catholic faith is anything but a burden. I am a religious person and do not apologize to anyone. It has helped me in good times and in bad.
The woman I am referring to in this article who is now deceased was a close relative and a wonderfully Catholic religious human being. You could say she was the salt of the earth. Her faith also sustained her during her highs and lows. Before you judge me or anyone else of faith you need to examine yourself.
I have never forced my religious beliefs on anyone but neither will I tolerate religious bigotry. By the way, I am an Irish Catholic whose relatives came to this wonderful country from Ireland.
I do hope the Irish women and men do the right thing and do not make abortion legal. It would be a tragedy to kill those beautiful Irish babies.
2
Thank you, Aoife and Davin, for your compassion. I am sorry for your loss.
There are two issues here. One is--should those who believe abortion is murder impose their views on society? This is the fundamental impasse. As a believer in reproductive choice, I believe that that belief cannot be forced on others. Americans show too great a diversity in their views. Legal abortion does not force anyone to have one. It merely makes opponents accept that other people do not agree with them.
The second is that many pro life campaigners talk about babies, but use them as symbols. The debate over abortion in Ireland hasn't extended to exploring the shame and stigma surrounding sex, pregnancy, and loss. Whatever decisions women make and why, they are left to suffer in silence. Abortion has been dealt with by sending women quietly across the Irish Sea to handle the problem out of sight. The legacy of Ann Lovett, who gave birth alone and died of shock, of the women sent to the Magdalen laundries--it hasn't left Ireland.
14
Ms. Walsh and Mr. O'Dwyer, I greatly, *greatly* appreciated your piece; for the courageous sharing of your painful experience, and even more for your clear acknowledgment that there is more than one valid, honorable belief involved in this question. I pray for a gentle journey through your grief.
34
Twenty years ago my wife and partner became pregnant but shortly thereafter began experiencing extreme pain. Neither of us had never heard of ectopic pregnancy but that was the source of her suffering. Her egg had been fertilized in her fallopian and had set up the process that was only supposed to take place in her uterus. The place that the fetus was anchored to was never going to provide a place for a baby of any sort to gestate. On top of the prospect of losing the fetus, which we wanted to develop into a baby, she had the very strong chance of death at the age of twenty six. Under current "right to life" doctrine my wife would have died. We lived in a rural area of the state and no doctors would terminate her pregnancy for fear of bring down the wrath of a small group of very active compulsory pregnancy organization members. We had to drive 120 miles to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic which could arrange the abdominal surgery to save her life. Today the hospital where she had her operation has been acquired by the Church of Rome and no longer allows abortion on their grounds or will not certify any doctor to practice medicine there if abortion was part of his practice. We can't be the only couple that has had this experience and are both bitter with those priests and politicians who promote this immoral system.
186
No government, no church should make the decision about whether to keep a fetus. The decision should be solely that of the mother, and if involved, the father, who produced the fetus. I stand with Planned Parenthood, and with the ability of women to choose. Get the government out of my body.
83
I cried for you, Aoife and Davin. I am so sorry for your loss. I am so sorry for all the losses of all parents everywhere. I strongly feel that a woman must decide how to proceed when faced with a crisis. I am glad you had this time with your baby because it comforted you and your husband. But forcing women to accept your evaluation as theirs will continue to force women to seek illegal means to terminate pregnancy. That, to me, is unconscionable.
20
What this article shows is that no one can make a choice for anyone else. There are many sad decisions and much grief all around, but every family and every woman must be free to make their own decision. My condolences on your loss of Cara. You made the decision which you felt was was right for you given the tragic circumstances.
37
"We decided not to go to England, and it was the right choice for us. We are grateful for the time we had with Cara, and we are proud to be her parents. But it isn’t the right choice for everyone in that situation — other parents, acting out of a sincere love and concern for their child, might make a very different decision."
I am always a bit homeless as a Catholic pro-life Democrat. Republicans love to talk-the-talk, but show their true colors when it comes to voting (or paying for their mistress' abortions). Democrats do what they can for the poor and marginalized, but their worship of Planned Parenthood and moral blindness when it comes to abortion reminds me of Republicans' relationship with the NRA. I hope and pray for a world where men and women and children are supported and protected from conception till natural neath.
I have nothing but sympathy for the authors and their grief, but I am disappointed that this column ended in such a shallow manner. The deliberate killing of a human being is different from death by natural causes or some medical abnormality, regardless of whether that person is inside or outside the womb.
We could have a difficult debate about what this might entail, and I had high hopes that this column would provide it. Instead, they shrug their shoulders and say, "Live and let live!"
Every human being has inalienable rights. Nobody should be killed without just cause, even by those acting out of a "sincere love and concern."
10
"...I have nothing but sympathy for the authors and their grief, but I am disappointed that this column ended in such a shallow manner. "
Please re-examine your definitions. Declining to force their opinion on others, respecting the right of others to make different choices, and recognizing that this is a complicated and difficult question best left to the conscience of each individual, is about as far from "shallow" as one can get.
38
A fetus is not a human being. That is why we have different words such as zygote, blastocoel and fetus to describe the different stages in the development of a human being. To call any of these stages a person is neither a medical nor scientific concept, but a religious one, and therefore the state should not be able to impose it on all women.
18
"Every human being has inalienable rights." This includes pregnant women. The beauty of pro-choice is that everyone gets to make their own moral choices for themselves. God could have destroyed Satan on Day1- yet he chose not to. God wants us all to choose between good and evil. God is pro-choice.
7
I am against abortion. I am a man. I have stated my position.
As a man in a free society I have the right to voice my opinion, but beyond that I have no right, none whatsoever, to make any decision which in any way impinges on any woman's right to the control of her body.
96
Well then I certainly hope you vote accordingly.
If you vote against abortion, you vote against a woman's right to control her body.
Too many men let their 'opinions' slip into the voting booth not his issue.
11
Anna,
I voice my opinion period. I do not nor would I ever stand in the way of a woman who chooses for whatever reason to abort. Her body and her mind are hers, my body and my mind are mine.
Anti-abortion laws are not "anti-women". RICH women can go anywhere for their procedures with no consequences other than the cost. POOR women and POOR families are the ones who are punished. Government for the Rich by the Rich.
51
Its tragic when religion influences laws to such an extent in a country that even the medical establishment is afraid to undertake humanitarian medical procedures. What happened to your daughter is so tragic and sorrowful. And as parents you should not have gone through that. Equally, tragic is what happened to Savita Halappanavar, where a mother's life was endangered leading to her tragic death, to protect a stillborn fetus, basically because the law influenced by religion tied the hands of the medical establishment even as she was pleading for her life. Its as if women's lives and well being are inconsequential to law and religion.
54
When I was growing up, I heard rumors in my Irish Catholic family that my aunt was forced to carry her dead baby to term. The doctors told her that giving birth to it at the end of the gestational period would be the best thing for her physically. But I thought this was unimaginably cruel. The doctors and the Church seemed to be punishing my aunt for not carrying a healthy living baby to term. My aunt is nearly 90 now, and this part of her story happened a long time ago.
When I found out during my second ultrasound that the baby I wanted and loved was no longer alive, I was told that I could allow things to happen slowly and naturally. But I opted for an abortion, and I'm so grateful that I had that opportunity and that the doctors who helped me were compassionate and experienced.
Thank you for telling us your story about Cara. It's beautiful and so sad, but it's also a reminder that there is not just one answer for all of us. That's why we want a choice.
126
My mother, at age 40, had a missed abortion. The fetus died around five months gestation and she stopped growing, but they refused to do a D&C because they couldn't "prove" that it had died. So she carried a dead baby until she went into labor around her due date. But she became septic and had to be hospitalized for a long time.
Then she suffered a nervous breakdown and had shock treatments for months, leaving me and my three siblings basically without a mother for years.
I've always blamed this on the Catholic Church. If she hadn't been Catholic she would have been able to have the D&C. I left the church mainly because of this.
219
I am so very sorry for your loss - of your mother, your sibling, your childhood. Please know that others mourn with you. Enough with old men wearing prom dresses telling us how to live.
2
The issue of abortion in Ireland begins in the sad morass of sexual ignorance and alcohol-fueled crudeness, as recently exposed in the Belfast rape trial, and on through the historic perversity of sexual attitudes and practices in Irish marriages, dominated by male arrogance and church prescript. A growing immigrant population, a burgeoning feminist movement and a tsunami of social media interactions have changed the cultural and political landscape. Politicians have been slow to react to the challenge of dealing with both the traditional and new-found root causes of inconvenient, unwanted, unaffordable and dangerous pregnancies, and we now find ourselves faced with the prospect of literally throwing the baby out with the bath water. The ‘hard cases’ as represented in this article can be legislated for within a revised constitutional provision, but a hard-pressed, almost dysfunctional, national health system will find it difficult - or morally unacceptable - to cope with giving care to anything other than a traumatic pregnancy, and Irish society may take some time to come to grips with the fallout from the loss of a valuable aspect of the present ‘last resort’ reliance on Britain - anonymity.
5
What memories did you have with your daughter that are distinguishable from any memories you had with just each other? I'm sorry for your loss, and the potential life of your daughter... but what life did your daughter actually have? She didn't draw breath, let alone respond to the sight or sound of her parents.
Do you equate the potential life of your potential daughter with the real life of the mother? Because equating those two - the potential for life and the actual life - is exactly what the Catholic Church would have you believe.
I have also suffered a miscarriage, and a live birth. The loss of my potential child is 100% different from the actual gain from the live birth of my son.
33
I agree with Mary. Reading this article I thought at first an actual living human being died at five months old -- not that a fetus was miscarried halfway through a pregnancy. Very misleading.
6
This is one of the most cruel and closed minded comments I've ever seen on any article. A pro-choice position values foremost the rights of all women to make decisions for themselves and their families and it emphasizes the respect we should have for women to make their own choices and form their own opinions. To negate the authors' personal experience and connection to the fetus she was carrying and deny her the right to experience that being as a life worthy of mourning, naming, and loving, is selfish, ignorant, and diametrically opposed to the pro-choice position you so vehemently purport to believe in.
The authors' position does not attempt to equate different levels of life and, in fact, states unequivocally that a woman/couple should have the right to make her/their own choices with respect to termination. Is your viewpoint really so myopic that you can't allow for a pro-choice position that also believes in or even feels a connection to a life inside her own womb? I hope you reevaluate and consider the irony that you are doing the same thing as your anti-abortion enemies--being presumptuous enough to think that your experience and beliefs should be required of everyone.
3
Thank you for taking the time and having the courage to write your story. I am so sorry for the pain that the two of you have had.
Sadly, the champions of the "Right to Life" movement show the same disregard for children that are born into poverty and unwanted homes as they have for your child. Lack of social services for families prevails.
In time I hope that your family will heal and grow.
23
At the core of this story, which I, and no doubt many others, have experienced, is the ability of each and every one of us to make the decision that is best for us.
Take that away, as the Eight Amendment did in Ireland, and we all become pawns of a nanny-state.
26
I think the critique of a religious culture that, on one hand, exalts the personhood of the unborn and, on the other, does not give space for mourning or burying them is needed. So thank you for that.
But regardless of whether pro-lifers are being pro-life in the right way (perhaps they are largely not), they are correct on the urgent question we are debating. The unborn are our children, and we should not kill them. A peaceful society cannot tolerate violence against its innocent young.
3
A thougtful, compassionate, reasoned response free of ideological posturing--thank you. The authors here concede the personhood of their poor child, and that draws the discussion to a close for me. A fetus is a human being at a particular point in our life cycle, and abortion is necessarily, as you put it, violence against the innocent young. I cannot countenance the 8th Amendment's ban on abortion in all cases except a threat to the mother's life; surely no mother should be forced to bear a child borne of rape or incest, and surely cases of severe fetal abnormality or death in utero should be the prerogative of the parents in question. Maternal incapacitation--a coma due to accident, stroke, injury, etc.--or perhpas even mental fitness, with respect to psychiatric illness, also seem to me reasonable scenarios under which abortion should be an option. But we shoild always remember that any abortion is, even under the most sympathetic of circumstances, the deliberate taking of a human life. Yes, life must be nurtured and supported after birth, as well, by loving parents and public policy, but the reality of abortion seems to me inescapable.
1
The so-called "pro-lifers" in Ireland are adhering to religious dogma, which has only relatively recently been the dictum of the Catholic Church.
It has little to do with compassion for the unborn, but rather what the church interprets as a command from god.
It's an authoritarian position that strips the civil rights of women, with no justification even from the Bible, which states that life begins with the drawing of breath.
What society should not tolerate is the enslavement of women to the debasement of breeder vessels.
3
I'm so sorry for your loss. It has happened to me, and we are not alone, which both helps to know, and doesn't. You will always be her parents.
In Japan, there is a way to mourn this form of loss, to parent and to recognize families as such. It's called mizuko kuyo. You may have heard of it?
7
We lost two babies at about six months about 55 years ago. We didn't elevate them in our minds to anything more than a very bad experience and quickly moved on with our lives. No soul involved; no lost memories; no names; no burial. Behaving as men and women have throughout the ages, until the last several decades. Somehow mankind survived and so did we.
29
Parents grieve differently and to praise your experience in comparison to others is unfair. I served as a lay bereavement counselor for 28 years with the National Council of Jewish Women's Pregnancy Loss Support Program and helped many grieving parents, who felt their losses more keenly than you did, to express and accept their grief. I also visited Catalhoyuk, Turkey, a community that flourished around 7,000 B.C.E., where I saw the tear drop shaped bracelets parents placed on the wrists of tiny babies who died and were buried. If parents thousands of years ago believed that the death of a baby, no matter how long it survived in the womb, deserved special rituals and honors, how can you be so dismissive of all parents who desire to acknowledge their sorrow just because you felt nothing?
20
As you note people grieve differently.
2
I wonder if your wife would characterize this the same way. You might read this article together and ask her. Did she elevate it to a bad experience and quickly move on? Or was that just you?
4
As an embryologist, I have had the privelege to witness the beginning of life in Petri dishes and assist in helping tens of thousands of babies come into this world. And as a mom, I have had two of my own. To me, life begins at birth when parents are ready to give the love and nurturing life into this world. All those embryos, without a mom, are not viable, they are a group of cells, with potential. As scientists, we can coax stem cells on their own to create the start of a beating heart, but that is not what makes us a person. Your choice, is YOUR choice, why impose that on others? What separates humans from other animals is our knowledge, our science as well as our art. We have the ability to test embryos before implantation for genetic disease and chromosomal errors that are not compatible with life. We also can determine, as was done in your case, that a pregnancy is non-viable. You made your choice, but others, with the same knowledge, would like to make another choice, to terminate so that they might try again to bring home a viable baby. Or when a pregnancy was not planned and the pregnancy is not desired, to terminate so that a baby can be brought into the best most loving situation possible. Choice for Ireland!
142
I'm concerned with the logic of the following statements: "As an embryologist, I have had the privelege to witness the beginning of life in Petri dishes and assist in helping tens of thousands of babies come into this world. And as a mom, I have had two of my own. To me, life begins at birth when parents are ready to give the love and nurturing life into this world." Which is it? Abortion is the legalized procedure of terminating "something" that is alive and giving that choice to the woman. How each of us responds to that law is open for discussion and debate.
Brian,
The logic becomes clear in the totality of the post.
Scientists can be excited at the creation of life and be pro-choice at the same time.
I see no contradiction.
9
Jerry,
I still see a contradiction in the statements. After reading the post for a third time I see the author making bold decisions regarding creation and destruction. That is legally acceptable. It's not my choice, but it's not my body either. Therefore I will accept there are choices that result in the termination of life.
This article stands on its own as a beautifully written articulation of one family's unique experience. What I am drawing from it and the comments is "one size does not fit all". For those of us coming out of a Catholic or Evangelical background but aghast at what the debate has become in America under Trump, we value this sensitive real life portrayal. I am reminded of end of life issues. Twice in my neighbourhood recently elderly women whose death was inevitable and imminent, nevertheless laid in their homes with family keeping vigil for five days after feeding and other life giving support was removed. There are times when death playing out is not the right course.
28
When women are forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, there is a far greater likelyhood of the child being subject to neglect and abuse. When those children enter their late teens and twenties, they are far more likely to unleash their rage on society for the neglect and abuse that they have suffered.
There is a reason crime rates dropped precipitously across the United States in the early 1990s, approximately 20 years after Roe v. Wade. New York's murder rate went from about 2,200 annually to a little over 300 today (and no, Rudy Giuliani's "broken windows" policies had very little to do with it).
If we want to keep society safe, women must be able to make their own decisions about their bodies and their pregnancies.
62
As much as I agree with what you're saying another major contributor to the reduction in crime was getting the lead out of gasoline. Both are compelling reasons for the huge reduction in crime.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-america...
To Aoife and Davin, thank you for this. Abortion is a hard issue. But in my view, women's rights take precedence. We are alive and in a changing world, The world has always changed, but it seems that current changes are different--population growth, biosphere degradation... The past is dead. Let the dead bury their dead, and let the living get on with solving the problems we face today. Didn't someone say "a mind is a terrible thing to waste?" And here we are when many still insist on sidelining the minds of half the population. Unsustainable,
25
I say and say again that a woman ought to have the right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term. The pro-choice stance is actually a position that protects the rights of women to have a baby because if the state has the power to force a woman to have a baby, it also has the power to force a woman NOT to have a baby.
We the People of the United States ought to stop electing people who pass laws that give much too much power to the state to control what ought to be private personal and family decisions. The United States Constitution reserves the powers not given to the federal government to the states and to the people. Women ought to insist on the power over our own bodies.
115
Your comment about the government's power to take away the right to have a baby reminds me of the forced sterilization policies of the early 20th century, most of which took place in states that today have strong anti choice movements. They are both sides of the same coin.
22
Huh? In England where women have the right to an abortion Alfie Evan's parents were forbidden by the state to try to save their child. You have it backwards.
It makes me terribly sad that the tragic case of Alfie Evans has been distorted like this by the media and various pressure groups that seem more interested in their own agenda than in the suffering of Alfie's family. The first thing to understand is that unfortunately Alfie's brain had been irreversibly destroyed and he had no hope of a cure or long term survival. Several independent experts appointed by the parents agreed that this was true. The Italian hospital was only proposing prolonging his death by continuing ventilation a little longer. Also, the court system in the UK is separate from the government. Every developed country (including the US) has legislation in place that addresses what happens when parents' wishes appear to be in conflict with the child's best interests (I'm sure you can see why it would generally be bad for child protection if parents could always do what they liked to their children). I would advise you to read the court's decision on the case, which is freely available online (a lawyer tweeting under the name Secret Barrister has also prepared a useful short summary of the legal aspects). Please also listen to the many NHS doctors who have written thoughtfully about the medical aspects of what happened and why they feel Alfie was badly served by the media frenzy (Rachel Clarke for instance). Rhetoric like this led to death threats being sent to paediatricians and a mob threatening to force evacuation of a children's hospital. It is dangerous.
The most important message here is not the feelings of this couple; it's the choice this woman got to make. For other people, the choice is different and that's appropriate too.
I have three adult children. I know that pregnancy is a weird thing with hormonal changes that prepare you for motherhood. There are also health issues that go along with being pregnant.
The reality is that, even after a live birth, you may not feel joy about that baby. Postpartum depression is real, but even if you don't suffer from it, the demands of a baby can be overwhelming. Exhaustion and more changes in body chemistry take a toll.
People who believe that everything that happens is God's will see pregnancy through that lens. Men, particularly, romanticize pregnancy even as they fear it. It gets really complicated.
Looking at Irish attitudes can be a way to better understand our own.
35
The prenatal formation of the human body and mind is complex. The ethical principles informing the medical treatment of embryos and fetuses--the unborn--have become nearly as complex as more information about the developing body becomes available earlier in gestation, and more potential early interventions are introduced.
I would strongly argue against a one-size-fits-all rhetorical response to all questions involving prenatal medical treatment. I would also strongly argue that termination should always be discussed in this intellectual context, as a form of medical treatment of the unborn. This way its implications in each case, including its potential for severe medical harm when misapplied, can be weighed objectively, in the same way that would be done for any other alternative procedure.
I remain profoundly distressed that the prevailing view among Times readers is that "abortion" is a political topic subject primarily to a "group interests" analysis. Particularly since the actual needs of groups like "women," "religious people," and "men" are so multifaceted and undefined in reality that they are subject to near-infinite self-interested distortion in the media.
15
"I remain profoundly distressed that the prevailing view among Times readers is that "X" is a political topic..."
James, have you not noticed that the Right has turned everything into a political topic? The roles of parties in the western world have traditionally pitted the poor against the wealthy, who generally take the poor for granted and exploit them at will. In America, that politic is still evolving while the shadow of slavery and racism continue to cloud the issues. In that climate, the right wing prioritizes freedom from government regulation and taxation, while hiding their real agenda by allowing government interference in reproductive rights--the so-called hot-button issues. Churches aid and abet Caesar in these matters. What has the American Catholic Church done for the poor other than insist that they go on breeding?
37
Generalization is not your friend. This is not a political football, but something that has real-life impact. That politicians and political lobbies have cynically adopted it as an issue to leverage power among single issue voters, never distracts us from the fact that this is about women's bodies and the power that is assumed, given, and taken away.
20
But the pro choice movement is not one choice fits all. It gives women the right to decide what is right in their particular circumstances. Efforts to restrict or ban abortion are one size fits all.
27
"Our heartbreaking experience taught us that such decisions should not be shrouded in shame and stigma.."
Nor should they be made by the government. Ultimately, the decision is made by the woman carrying the fetus.
I am actually not a fan of abortion - my faith teaches me it is immoral, and I can't quite make the leap to believe it otherwise. But that is *my* faith and not a universal truth. It isn't my body, or my health, or my life, or my family on the line. It shouldn't be my opinion that matters. It should be the decision of the woman who has to live with the consequences, who can make her own moral choices and decisions.
For those of us who'd like to see fewer abortions, it would behoove us to find ways to give more effort to preventing pregnancy and to making having children anything other than a financial catastrophe for some people. We may not get people on board with our own beliefs but we could reduce harm. Give alternatives, rather than take away agency.
208
Why do you believe abortion is immoral?
The reason I ask is that most people who believe abortion is immoral believe that because they think it is violence. And if it's violence, why should it be permitted? On the other hand, if abortion isn't violence, why would it be immoral?
3
No one is a "fan" of abortion. This kind of rhetoric comes from the same kind of people who translate any kind of gun control into "they're coming for all our guns".
Still, I appreciate that you differentiate between your personal beliefs and those many wish imposed on others.
The unfortunate thing with religion is that it is so often contrarian - no sex ed, limit access to contraception, and make abortion illegal again. It sounds like a natural resource management program for those afraid of extinction. Which sounds just about right.
19
if you don't believe your faith to be a universal truth then you're not doing a very good job of lying to yourself
1
I am so sorry for your loss. Thank you for such an honest, and wrenching, look at your perspective.
41
The referendum in Ireland has so much relevance here in the US as the Republican Congress and Trump move the US backwards to the current reality which is Ireland. As we watch old white men in one Republican-controlled state after another pass increasingly restrictive laws about a legal medical procedure which has significant health implications for pregnant women, we can look to nations such as Ireland for the social damage done.
We can look at the US voters who vote for representatives at every level of government hoping that their decisions will provide economic benefits, healthy communities and functional government. A minority of voters with strong voices and supporting the out of mainstream religious ideology will vote for only men and women who want to ban abortion and contraception as a primary goal.
I applaud those who are supporting change in Ireland. In some states such as Texas, the US is already like Ireland in abortion policies and has moved on to ban access to contraception. In the next decade or so, the US will need to fight the fight Ireland's women are fighting now to win back rights.
The authors' moving story tells what can happen when families must work with religious-based government intrusion into pregnancy decisions. No abortion for a fetus/unborn baby dead in the womb, but no grieving or full burial for the unbaptized unborn. Man-made theology exacts a high cost.
How much more like Ireland does the US want its abortion policies to be?
68
The ban against contraception and abortion has very sound political and economic reasons:
1) Every woman should bear at least three soldiers to defend the Republic
2) Those soldiers are also Consumers and Tax Payers benefiting the economy for all.
So...
...you can see how simple logic (not religion as some claim) persuades for the case against abortion and contraception.
2
Ms. Walsh and Mr. O’Dwyer, my heartfelt condolences for the loss of your daughter; my respect for your decision; my admiration for your love, compassion and enlightenment.
"[S]uch a decision should never be shrouded in shame and stigma," nor should it be the business of the state. Such a decision is personal; so personal that it is the mother - the person who is pregnant - who must have the full and free right to make the decision, without shame and stigma, without state intrusion, no matter what the decision.
Any shame and stigma belongs to the church which teaches life is precocious while it shames a woman for her pregnancy if it doesn't meet with church approved marriage and stigmatizes a child born outside of marriage.
Beyond shame and stigma, states which legislate away the right of a woman's control over her own body, are usurping the natural private rights of a person. Governments are contracts with the governed. They were not charged or empowered to make intrusions into our private lives and give control over our bodies to a legislative body.
May Cara rest in peace, may her parents teach others that some decisions are not the realm of outsiders, may the church and states learn to restrain their unwelcome intrusions, stop shaming and stigmatizing the decisions which are the personal, inviolable natural right of a woman.
55
This is a poignant story of a families "Choice", that is the end of the debate. It should never be our right to interfere in that decision. This family clearly loved the child.
This debate should never be in the legal system in the first place. She clearly articulates that it is personal. Church and State should not have a say (either decision)
41
I understand the pain and anguish as we went through the same, albeit we only learnt about the abnormality from an autopsy when we lost the baby at 5 months. It is also a deeply personal matter and I just wonder what this has to do with the abortion debate and what difference another regime would have made?. In our case, we were living in a country that permits terminations but the fact was that nature had simply and painfully taken its own course. This was the reaction of our doctor and midwife and had the effect of reconciling us to what was a very sad reality. After the delivery, I had spoken to my priest who was of the view that we not have a ceremony or name the child. Why? Because it was a non viable pregnancy, which was never going to term. The other reason was, I believe, the need to accept what the Lord (or Nature depending on your views) had decided. Indeed, this gave us strength to plan for another baby and thankfully the spiritual joy that has come from this. I hope that in your case, this can also be true.
5
Wow. This is a very insightful piece. Haven't heard this perspective before, or at least so well articulated.Thank you.
44
''The reality is that with or without the Eighth Amendment, women in Ireland already have access to abortion, just not on our soil.''
No.
The reality is that there is a physical ( having to travel ), financial ( the cost to do so ) and emotional ( having the state and the proponents thereof advocating for the pregnancy ) barrier to Irish women getting reproductive health care that they must overcome.
Even if Irish women do overcome all that ( which a lot of them do), there are the ones that do not and might take alternative ways that may lead to their harm and/or death.
Let's be transparent and clear if we are to have any discussion at all, and let's also be consistent with the facts and rhetoric there of.
170
Recent experiences of my own have illuminated the complexity -and importance- of a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy.
Consider the yearly number of prenatally-diagnosed severe birth defects - those incompatible with life. It is compassionate to allow women to choose when the pregnancy ends; it is incredibly cruel to render a woman powerless over her body by mandating that she continue the unviable pregnancy to term... at increasing risks to her own health. It is also cruel to prevent a woman from accessing a termination when that would prevent significant distress and suffering for the fetus/baby.
This article illuminates the importance of extending compassion and choice to women so they can decide what is right in their circumstances.
125
I do believe in choice, and I hope in the whole is caring enough to allow women the right to choose. I am sorry for you loss and thank you for the article.
56
Well put, but access to "proper" Reproductive Health for women (including termination of pregnancy) will never come in Ireland. The Catholic Church will not allow it!
11
Wait and see. I'm Irish but living in London and just spent a week at home. The place is like a war zone over women's bodies but there is a big push back against the abortion laws as they are today. And Irish women are talking about their abortions - that's new.
1
I'm so sorry for your loss. I think I understand. I'm grateful to have given birth to one healthy baby girl, but lost two after that. I remember the ultrasound, the lack of a heartbeat, a tiny shape that looked like a tadpole lying completely still on the bottom of my womb.
We'd prepared -- emotionally, mentally, physically -- to welcome a little person into the world. That little zygote, which couldn't sustain life, was already a person in our hearts and minds -- THAT is the loss.
When a pregnant woman is unprepared and unable to support and raise a child, who is anyone to say it's not an act of compassion to abort? Who can say that that woman feels nothing at all? Children deserve love, food and shelter. There's no compassion, no spirituality, in forcing a woman who can't support a child to give birth to one, especially when both will receive no support once the baby is born.
216
Your story is a beautiful one, and your devotion to Cara on her journey in your womb is both heartfelt and humbling. Regardless of words or scientific nomenclature, she was your baby and your daughter and she was deeply loved. I personally conceived a child out of wedlock almost 30 years ago, and found that I could not choose to end the pregnancy, even though I am pro-choice and do not judge any woman for the decision she makes to either have a baby or to end a pregnancy. Both take tremendous courage and soul-searching to know if the baby will be loved and welcome in her world. Only a woman who has conceived can understand this through the experience. Giving a woman the choice over her body and her future with our without a baby is her choice alone. Cara lived briefly inside her loving mother; she undoubtedly sensed the passion for her life from her parents!
70
Suzy Smith's two books, "The Book of James and Ghost
Writers in the Sky," were received from William James,
the American philosopher and psychologist, from the
other side. In them, he gives some insight regarding
miscarriages, abortion and early childhood death.
A priest friend, while visiting one of our era's great
mediums, was told by his parents on the other side
that he had a sister, Elizabeth, and that she was
a very enlightened woman. He had no such sister on
this side but his mother had had a miscarriage.
Those who die young, are raised by loving ones on the
other side per James' information. We are not to be
so troubled. We live in a wonderful universe.
3
I'll never know if I was really pregnant, because I couldn't afford a medical visit at the time. I did imagine that I was, and the life of the child to be and my new life as a mother were very real to me when I thought about them. My experience should have nothing to do with long overdue legislation that recognizes that living girls and women must assert and retain control their bodies all their lives. Whether my pregnancy was imaginary or not, I didn't give birth; that "child" never existed in real life.
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Thank you for sharing your very difficult journey. I am sorry for all that you have been through.
Your arguments are very well made.
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I see no contradiction. Of course a fetus is human life. The end of every life can be mourned. But the status of human life should not condemn a living thing to lifelong agony. Unwanted children go to foster care, where they are many times more likely to suffer physical and sexual abuse, substance abuse, and to die by suicide. I say in all honesty that, if I had been unwanted, I would have preferred to not be born. There are worse things than not being born, and they all happen to unwanted children. I have recently been taught to look to love as my moral guide. Love urges us to prevent suffering. The safest, most love - based policy, is to let the mothers decide what must be done. It is wrong for a government to force its decision on thoughtful, caring families like this one.
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Perhaps to love is to realize that every woman has her own religious or other value system. She has been influenced directly and indirectly by the wise elders she listens to, the experiences of her friends and relatives, even the art and music and literature of her culture speak to her.
She has seen the muscle of the Catholic Church or it’s equivalent, seen what is valued and what is thrown away. She hears the official policy positions in government as well as the spin, not to mention the exceptions.
Many groups have compelling & competing arguments, some religions have long traditions dealing with unwanted pregnancy. There are tribes in Papua New Guinea that allow abortion, they know which plants have this medical consequence. The culture also demands a couple be celibate for 6 months after. There are many schools of thought, many long-standing traditions making rules.
Our Irishwoman must make her decision with her own health and future in mind, accepting all of the moral, cultural, medical, work-related, educational, traditional,religious, familial and personal risks and benefits.
Do we love her? How can we best love her?
If we really love her...will we trust her?
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Please allow me to share my experience with an "unwanted" child.
My child was "unwanted": she was born in the slums of India and taken to an orphanage at a very early age. She is blind, autistic, and severely mentally-retarded, yet, despite these limitations, she has significantly enriched my life and the lives of those around her. She is an innocent, loving, and sweet human being, who, unlike much of humankind, has never committed any hateful act. The world is a better place because she is here.
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I think the point is that your daughter is a very, very fortunate exception to have been adopted and have a loved and loving life. How many children did you leave behind in India who will not experience that?
Dear Ones, I am terribly sorry for your loss.
My sons were born alive but could not breathe for long, at 25 and 29 weeks. My experience reflects yours: I was supposed to suffer my grief in silence. My husband told me I had grieved enough, no more tears now, two weeks after the first baby died.
There is nothing more contextual than sexuality and pregnancy. The same experiences can be rapture or torture, depending on context. What is the right course of action for one woman, for one family, is not necessarily the right course of action for another.
How dare politicians and religious figures dictate these most personal of decisions to us! How dare they, particularly in light of the rampant hypocrisy we see everywhere around us: one set of rules of the monied elites and quite another set of rules for the hoi polloi.
We had our little ones cremated and they rest on holy ground. It was a comfort to celebrate their brief existences with ritual, but then, our religious traditions allow such a thing. How can anyone deny grieving parents this crumb of comfort?
Deeply personal medical decisions need to be made by the persons whose bodies and fates are at stake. People denied the personhood of my two dead sons, told me to snap out of my grief, said my sons never lived...it was horrendously painful.
However , the pain of losing two advanced pregnancies is nothing to the lifelong pain of pregnancy and childbirth enforced by the state in a milieu of modern medicine.
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I empathize with the author and realize this experience must have been incredibly painful. However, a fetus who was never born and could not have sustained life on its own, is not the same as a child. I find it disconcerting to refer to a fetus that was never born this way. Just because technology allows us to track pregnancies in a way like never before, it doesn't mean that an unborn fetus is a child.
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The issue I have is with how the personhood of the fetus changes based on the convenience of the mother. If she wants the baby, then it's a baby and everyone else refers to it as a baby. If this would-be child is unwanted and unloved, it is stripped of its personhood as a fetus -- dehumanized, degraded.
If the life growing inside a woman's body is a person, then it's a person. When newspapers, podcasts, and regular people talk about pregnancy, we should be consistent.
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It doesn't depend on the "convenience" of the "mother." And it shouldn't.
People who believe that life begins at conception seemingly can't comprehend that it's not a fact. It's a belief.
I don't believe that a cluster of cells has "personhood." As the fetus develops, I believe it gets to a point where it does become a "person" capable of separate existence. At that point, I believe there is reason to regulate abortion, but please do it wisely to avoid tragedies where women suffer and even die.
I've borne three children. Based on that experience, I want to tell you that there is not necessarily a sense of the "personhood" of whatever it is in your womb even late in pregnancy when it's thrashing around and giving you heartburn. And all our children were wanted and loved after birth.
5
A fetus is a child, though it is not a baby. My children are still children of mine at every stage of life.
3
This is a tragic tale and I feel a lot of sympathy for the parents.
However, it has nothing to do with the choice facing voters. The vast majority of Irish women who fly to the UK for an abortion do so for one reason: They don't want to be pregnant. Perhaps it's the wrong time in their life, perhaps they don't have a supportive partner, perhaps they can't afford childcare.
The thing is, our bodies, our choices. Not the church's choices, not the choices of politicians. No scurrying away to back alley docs (my mother) or to the UK (my sister). Just the legal right to terminate a pregnancy in Ireland. As I, an Irish woman, did in Texas in my very early 20s.
We've seen what the Magdalen Laundries did to poor pregnant unmarried Irish girls and women.
Let's give Irish women the right to choose what happens to their body in Ireland.
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Thank you! I'm tired of seeing abortion availability being tied to cases of rape or birth abnormality.
Am also tired of seeing all the men preaching about something that they'll never experience.
My body, my decision.
I was lucky to be living in London when I had my abortion. Never regretted it once.
Another Irish woman.
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I notice it's women, women, women... Don't you think men bear a bit of responsibility here too?
1
And let's not lose it in America.
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I empathize with the author, and have suffered similar misfortunes myself.
However I'm troubled reading about "A child who died at 20 weeks" who was never born. A twenty week old child is about the age of my daughter now. Her age is counted from her birthday. Throughout history people have lost pregnancies but they were not named and mourned this way. I believe a fair amount of distance is useful and healthy in such situations, and has made countless lost fetuses more bearable. Birthdays are precious for a reason.
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@jboone: So you are highlighting the problem that the authors point out-- that these is some sort of stigma in mourning the death of a child who did not live to birth. What works for you is not necessarily the right thing for everyone. You believe in keeping distant, they believed in loving Cara. Nothing more needs to be said.
6
Most maternity wards in US hospitals have a bereavement service attached. They give memento's to the parents and most of the time have services once a year to honor these births/deaths. There are counselors for the parents. Any length of time of mourning is the right one for each individual parent. It seems as though women have a rougher time. Counseling helps the father to help the mother.
a Retired OB RN
8
How brave to tell this story of loss and grief.
Those fetal images you speak of are designed to inspire a visceral response - but of course, they don't tell the whole story.
A billboard alone can't tell the viewer of abnormalities that will preclude a viable pregnancy or healthy life.
A billboard alone can't tell the viewer of desperation a pregnant woman feels about her unwanted state.
A billboard alone can't tell the viewer the lengths a woman will go to and the risks she will face if determined to end an unwanted pregnancy.
For that is all personal information about what should be a personal decision. The most private elements of peoples' lives are just that.
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Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry for your loss.
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Thank you so much for being vulnerable and sharing your story and heart. I was pregnant with a much wanted little girl I had already named Aislynd, but when I went for my 4 month ultrasound, there was no heartbeat. Living in Texas, I had to wait over 2 weeks to have treatment because of the stigma around a D&C procedure and lack of doctors willing to perform one,
It was the worst 2 weeks of my life.
I was grieving and at a health risk as well. I even had fellow church members (Evangelical) tell me that God could work a miracle and caused me to feel shame about a necessary medical procedure, it still haunts me to this day, and I have such empathy for any woman who has to deal with such a tragedy. No one should be able to legislate what you can or cannot do in such a sensitive situation or even shame you. My tears are with you, I still have a prenatal recording of her heartbeat and her little baby clothes stored in a beautiful box to this day, but I cannot bear to revisit them.
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I am so sorry, Ms Anne
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Thank you for sharing. Many people who say they care about life like to ignore your life. They are wrong and cruel and not pro life at all or Christian for that matter
24
Your comment is as beautiful and sad as the article itself. Everyone should support a woman in this situation, regardless of their belief system - religious, political or otherwise.
No one should shame a woman or even question her decision in this situation.
Some people...(shaking my head)
10
Many "pro-choice" arguments look away from the wonder of developing life, speaking, for example, of a woman's right to "reproduce," as if she split down the middle à la mitosis. Some pro-choicers use the word "fetus" almost until the end of pregnancy, afraid to admit that at a certain point, yes, there is indeed a baby in there.
But this beautiful essay shows how a pro-choice position can be compatible with -- indeed, how may be vital to -- a compassionate approach to the unborn. And the essay demonstrates how so-called "pro-life" policies can be myopic and cruel.
This is what smart writing from the heart looks like. More of this, please!
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Pro-choice centers women over fetuses, it's true. We do that because women are always, unquestionably people who have the right to decide who uses their body, how, and when. It's that simple.
Fetuses are potential people. Their deaths aren't something to celebrate, but how much they are mourned is something each person decides for themselves. The loss of a wanted pregnancy is heartbreaking and tragic. The ending of an unwanted pregnancy is neither heartbreaking nor tragic, because the needs of the pregnant person are just that much more important than any potential person.
Calling "the unborn" a zygote, an embryo, a fetus- that isn't dehumanizing. Those are the correct terms for those stages of development. Once born, you have a baby, who goes through the infant, toddler, child, preteen, teenager, and adult (split into young, middle-aged, and elder subcategories). It makes no sense to call a fetus a baby, just like it makes no sense to call a 10 year old an adult. Words have meaning.
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M, I agree that in the first weeks of pregnancy, "zygote," "embryo," and "fetus" are, as you say, "the correct terms for those stages of development." But your very next sentence may prove my point. You write, "Once born, you have a baby..." No. You have a baby somewhere in the latter stages of pregnancy. A compassionate society will give this entity some sort of (perhaps limited) personhood rights, placing restrictions on mid- and especially late-term abortions, as I believe all Western societies do. The rights of the woman carrying that baby and nourishing it must not be supplanted by concern for the unborn. If, for example, a woman in mid-term pregnancy found out that, should she continue to carry the child, she could become sterile, I would support abortion as an option. Even, perhaps, in late term. Her right to her own body's continued health trumps the state's concern for another body -- her unborn child -- in my view. Yet I can't help but think that your "it's not a baby until we can see it and the cord is cut" position is absurd, extreme, and risks the loss of abortion rights for all American women.
4
All of these developmental stages that have separate terms are stages along a continuum of HUMAN development. We don't simply become human at some point. More general terms like baby, child, and adult go on top of these specific terms. Therefore it does make sense to call a fetus and an infant a baby, just as it makes sense to call a 40-year-old and an 80-year-old an adult. This is important because calling an unborn baby a fetus is a way to desensitize ourselves from the reality -- and the reason the desensitization is required is that we all know deep down that this is a human being who the mother wants to legally kill.
Thank you so much for sharing your heartache and wisdom with us. Your dear daughter had such wonderful parents.
52
Just lovely. The voice of actual experience, and pain.
Best wishes.
49
An absolutely elegant essay, touching on the so-difficult choices that only parents , and not governments or churches, should be able to make.
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Brilliantly, she unties the Gordian knot. First, pro-life people must admit that "pro-choice" people are not blindly pro-abortion. Real lives and deep personal struggle must surely be involved. Pro-life people must stop calling such mothers "murderers," and look at them with love and compassion. Secondly, pro-choice people must stop assuming that pro-life is only about the domination of women. Most pro-life people are thinking about the fate of the weakest of all human persons, and their instinct is to defend it.
From her place in God's arms, Cara must look at her parents with deep love. She knows the place she had in their hearts.
5
Ironic, isn't it, though, that the pro-lifer's "instinct to defend the weakest of all human persons" doesn't seem to extend beyond pregnancy.
It is the pro-choice crowd who by and large is also fighting for maternal and infant care parental leave, clean air and water, the banning of agricultural toxins, car and gun safety regulations, equitable education, affordable day care, a living wage..
1
Beautiful and generous of you both. There are no words for your profound loss, but your kind gift of helping others in your situation is most gracious and needed now. No one, absolutely no one, can, with any certainty, say what they would do in your situation. Let us all hope that Ireland gives them the chance to make the choice that works best for them on the 25th. You honor your daughter this way. I thank you.
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