I am a pro-choice liberal. I hope that every commenter here will remember that your comments are directed at another human being. A human being who is in pain. I know and don't care that she wrote the piece. It isn't helpful to the pro-choice argument to seem insensitive and a lot of comments here are that. Compassion and empathy will always win the day.
250
@Lauren Not sure to whom this is directed but I can't imagine anyone would attack someone for their loss.
23
@Reader And, they haven't. I've read every comment thus far and some have valid opinions about reproductive choices in the current environment. Meghan has expressed hers alongside her grief (for her they are one and the same, as they are for those who are less 'conservative); everyone else is free to share theirs alongside their personal feelings/emotions, too. No one has attacked her. I think that's important to say. "Strong opinions," or even asking Meghan to consider what this means regarding choice, is fine. It's perhaps not what Meghan would want, but it's still okay. She's told us what she wants.
67
@Lauren
Not that I disagree with your thoughts that this may not be the piece to use to remind people that Meghan McCain is a vociferous pro-life Republican who supports a party that has been busy passing laws in some states that would subject women who've undergone miscarriages to intrusive investigations into whether they'd "killed their babies" , but . . . . "Compassion and empathy will always win the day"? You have any recent evidence from the American political scene to back that up?
184
At a time of advancing ecological devastation around the world, the LAST thing we need is an endorsement of more women having more children.
This is the height of irresponsibility.
24
The key take away here is she mourns for the loss of her "baby." Not her fetus. Not for a glob of cells. Her b-a-b-y. Abortion is the killing of a helpless innocent baby wrenched from the safe space of their mother's womb, by a cold surgical vacuum. The left cannot bear to suffer these words because they have no response, indeed no defense, This is a reality they do not want to hear, indeed they cannot even bear to read. It makes them feel guilty...as well they are. This was self evident until the fiction of Roe v Wade was invented by Harry Blackmun with 5 other unelected old white guys in black robes in 1972 under a fake right to privacy in another person's body that does not exist. The result...a mass genocide that has taken much of this nation's soul.
11
Dear Meghan,
Thank you for your op ed. I am so sorry for your loss. You have eloquently expressed the grief that so many share in miscarriage.
You are brave and honest, and I am sure that many women will benefit from your experience.
I have grown to love your commentary on “The View”. I don’t often agree with you, but I appreciate your perspective. Please know that you have a strong community of women who applaud and support you.
A Democrat who has become a fan.
99
I'm sorry Ms. McCain miscarried and I hope that she is able to conceive again but this is a clickbait article.
35
To imagine an embryo or a fetus as a "child" only adds to the pain of a woman who suffers a spontaneous abortion. To anti-abortion propagandists, that's probably a bonus.
30
I do not fault Megan for defining an embryo or fetus as a child. I do fault the NYTs for publishing this political ad.
59
Now imagine if u were in Alabama when this devastating g loss happened and u were prosecuted for ...
45
This is called politics
38
While anyone can feel badly for someone else's loss, I wonder how this editorial made it into the NYT. It reeks of one of those "Chicken Soup for the..." feel-better-books.
Truly only 20-30% of this is newsworthy and newsworthy only because the author is on TV; the rest is too personal with basic thoughts that merely glance the peripheries of pregnancy and miscarriage in a world that already has three times too many humans.
I am truly sorry for your personal loss, Ms. McCain, but this editorial is really for you and your cronies (perhaps the viewers of the View) but a waste of space in the NYT.
31
Megan McCain is a household name because her father was a national figure who served his coutry well. What has Megan done on her own that warrants her being a natiuonal figure whose miscarriage and aftermath are worrhy of NYT coverage? I would prefer to know what an average woman learned from her miscarraige, if that is a subject the NYT feels complled to write about.
29
You could have had your private grief, had you not decided to exploit your experience of miscarriage to create pro-life propaganda.
49
You did not have a "baby".
45
Why has the New York Times selected Meghan McCain of all people to write an Op-Ed about miscarriages? Perhaps someone who isn't a cultural warrior would have been a better choice for this message. Or maybe, say, a doctor?
27
May I ask what is happening at the New York Times? Does anyone of my fellow readers have a clue?
Certainly, it is an important issue to write about miscarriage. Could they not find a less controversial author for this? Are there no other women competent to write about this traumatic issue than the Republican celebrity politician daughter of a deceased right wing politician, who himself has been sanctified despite 9/10th if his political life being just 2 degrees less dangerous than the current PotUS?
Why is the NYT in ever less subtle ways pushing Republican politicians and its flag bearers in stories disguised as life style and human interest stories? It’s distressing and loading this issue with a column by such a divisive person makes the paper look really pathetic and me distrust its overall integrity. How much longer can I support this?
37
Thank you for publishing this
2
Here’s hoping Meghan McCain can show that same love to the children jailed at the border
46
And her beloved party of fascists wants to criminalize her miscarriage as an abortion and jail her and her doctor.
34
They're fetuses, not babies!
24
My cousin just lost twins at 20 weeks. Nobody told her “sorry you lost your zygotes”, or “that’s terrible about the two fetuses”. They were babies, and even the most liberal people in my family know that. They were human life. Very sorry, Ms. McCain, for the loss of your child.
49
I am curious about whether Ms. McCain found herself in need of a d&c, otherwise known as an abortion. I suspect she had to have had one, given that she was far enough along in her pregnancy to know the baby’s sex. If so, I hope she’ll admit to that and show her appreciation for the procedure instead of using her position on tv and in the media to advocate an anti-choice agenda.
23
I am so sorry about your miscarriage. I had two myself, and I occasionally think in milestones of what might have been. But these two losses are not my children - my four live births are my children.
Many of my friends and colleagues had miscarriages. They did not feel shame or shamed. I realize that you are probably trying to make yourself appear warmer in the light of the recent stories about you. I watch The View every day, and you always talk about how strong and resilient you are. It sucks that you had to have a photo shoot on the day you learned you would miscarry. Many working women have a similar, it not so high profile, experience.
The overwrought language in this essay negates the good will that you could have gotten. Even so, I've been where you are right now, and I truly do hope you feel better as time passes.
23
You need to get pregnant again, soon.
4
I honestly never knew that shame and stigma are generally heaped on women who miscarry. Maybe because I've always lived and worked in a big multicultural city, just my feeble guess. I think we have become more open and better at acknowledging the sorrow and grief and offering sympathy and support. All that said, I know the grief of such loss often spawns a vortex of emotional hell. We're lucky if we have our own local panel of supporters to help us through it.
Wishing you happier times, Ms McCain.
2
OK, people: this isn’t the time to question Ms. McCain’s feelings towards her pregnancy, whether the child she carried could or could not actually be considered a baby developmentally, whether she has a privileged life or not, or whether or not she got her job because of her family and their political clout. All of this has been suggested in these comments. Let’s put on our humanity pants for five minutes and acknowledge that Ms. McCain is a woman sharing a painful loss with the world. There is only one sentiment worth expressing: condolence. Everything else can be saved for another day.
Ms. McCain has my sympathies. She has had a terrible year, and now this. I hope she finds peace.
123
@Lindsay K. If she were my non-famous Republican neighbor, I would agree with you 100%. But, instead, I agree with you ~50%. Ms. McCain has written an opinion piece for an international newspaper in which she has _voluntarily_ shared this very personal experience with the entire world. And she has used this experience to argue a political point. It is not appropriate to think that a person can write such a piece and not receive feedback - from "both sides".
111
@B - Yet she’s not asking other women, by virtue of this piece, to view their miscarriages the way she views hers. She’s just stating how she feels about this personal event in her life. Republicans’ ability to force others to live by their standards is not at all what this piece was about. I didn’t come away with that anyway, and I’m about as Democratic and pro-choice as you can get.
Ms. McCain may not be your non-famous Republican neighbor, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t worthy of your compassion. You don’t have to give it to her, but I guess I’m tired of everyone in this country, Republicans and Democrats alike, being so cheap with their sympathies. Let’s take a page out of her late father’s book and reach across the aisle to one another.
12
@Lindsay K
After reading many chillingly cold posts, I had to come back and laud you for the kind message you sent to Ms. McCain. It is no exaggeration that women who write dispassionate op-eds about elective late-term abortions of babies with developmental disorders get exponentially more sympathy from most people who comment here than Ms. McCain is receiving.
12
So Meghan McCain is now using her own miscarriage as a political weapon to attack abortion rights. Classy.
The way McCain uses her own personal tragedy and appeals to our sympathetic nature as a sugar coating for authoritarian Christian fundamentalism in this article is stomach turning.
20
Animals give birth every day, lose their young for 1 reason or another. Live in a "bicoque"on bank of Middle River, and time to time a mother duck will jump into the water followed by her brood, ducklings who follow her automatically into the water, but 1 knows that within a short period of time some will be dead, that most of them will not survive for long.But is Megan McCain the only woman to have had a "fausse couche"in the history of the world?There is an air of elitism about this article when the author reminds us of her importance as a co host of The VIEW.I say to the author to suppress her ego, go to the local animal shelter, find an aging kid whom no one else wants, adopt him or her and that "pive" will be your" pote" for life, a true and loyal friend. In 2011 returned to ZIguinchor to retrieve a pet I had left behind. Found her tied up tight alongside a water bowl empty of both food and water. 5 P..M on a Saturday afternoon. She felt despair. "Tout d'un coup"I show up, tail wags, we return to the resort cabin, she feeds on Laughing Cow cheese , corned beef, and realizes she found a home and 2 folks who loved her.Within a week she was in P.W. and remained with me for the next 3 and a half years until her untimely demise in 2014. But those were good years for her. Advice to Ms. McCain. Sublimate your disappointment, adopt a pet who needs a home and u may find that having a child of ur own may not be the most important thing in the world after all.
3
Dear Ms. McCain,
You have my deepest codolances. I wish I had words for you to soothe any of this pain, but I don't know any. Time will heal. some. People will offer to do what you want. Be sure you tell them. They won't always be asking.
My late, first, wife, Lori, had three miscarriages when we were trying to start a family. Her first OB/GYN declined to assist after the cramping and bleeding and blood tests agreeed the pregnancy had ended. The doctor didn't want a palitive D & C to be mistaken for an abortion. So Lori spent a week in pain, bleeding, cramping, expelling the failed pregnancy bit by by. We changed doctors, but it colors my response to "pro life" vs "anti abortion"
We didn't tell anyone about the 2nd conception, for a while. I charted the exponentially increasing hormones, tried to be a good spouse and home-maker. The 2nd miscarriage started with the abrupt end to the hormone signals. At least the OB/GYN would do a D & C, shortening the worst.
Lupis-like symptoms followed both miscarriages, we were "high risk". Blood clots swelled Lori's feet and hands. With preconception hormones, she added asparin as a blood thinner. 3rd conception. It was working, I had an ultrasound picture. But all was not well, 1 percentile size at 20 wks. Lori was pre-eclampsic. The child-to-be didn't have enough lungs to survive, she couldn't survive until it did. She was too sick for any procedure, induced labor produced a still birth. Lori died of complications 6 weeks later.
11
Meaghan, please don’t put any stock in the callous or combative comments. Pain is pain, and Ford someone who hasn’t held a life inside them to minimize it is just wrong. Does the writer have a different view than you?. But
I reject this column as genuinely being about her miscarriage. It feels very much like anti-choice propaganda wrapped in a sad tale and somehow published in a pro-choice newspaper. And she skipped over the details, but if she was far enough along to know the baby was a girl, she almost certainly would have needed a d&c, which is also known as an abortion, to have the fetus removed. How is that for irony? Someone who probably just had an abortion wrote an anti-choice op-Ed.
21
Is the following meant to be an anti-abortion banner: “ They were conceived, and they lived, fully human and fully ours — and then they died.“
7
As I was reading her account, I was amazed by how little she knew about biology, pregnancy, and miscarriage. But moreover, I felt how a woman with so much privilege deals with real life experiences. The reference to fetus as a baby has caused many women who had miscarriage to be jailed in some countries. I’m sorry that @NYT has even published it. I guess, you can write an opinion if you’re famous regardless of the content of the piece.
22
My mother miscarried in 1952. Then she had me in 1953. My mother never felt sorry for herslef or wrote an opinion piece in the Times. I was her second and last child. But for her miscarraige, I would probably not be here almsot 66 years alter. Although miscarraige is a tragedy, I expect Ms. McCain will likely have other children. Life goes on. I do not belive there is a stigma assocaied with miscarraige. My mother soldiered on until her death in 2008. She never talked about the miscarriage unless it came up in convesration, which it almost enver did. My mother was strong and she hardly had all the priveleges that Ms. McCain enjoys.
15
Um...Ms McCain, you are strongly a conservative; it's rude and callous to raise the question, but someone who lives and breather radical conservatism, there's a question that must be asked of you.
In some radically conservative and religiously extreme parts of the country, you could be arrested and convicted for miscarrying and thus 'causing the death of your child'. Now that you have had this misfortune, how do you feel and think about that aspect of radical conservatism and extreme state enforced religious mandates?
13
Are we supposed to get all worked up about one very early miscarriage when the policies Ms. McCain and her party promote are destroying the lives of thousand, innocent, and very much alive children. Is her case any different because she is white? because she is a celebrity?? Really???
22
and now comes megan mccain, begging for sympathy of others, when she has none for anyone
19
"These children, shockingly small, shockingly helpless, entirely the work of our love and our humanity, are children."
Incorrect. They are fetuses.
20
As a purveyor of conservative thought, you have callously spread ideas and opinions that hurt many more people than were ever harmed during your personal struggles. I am happy for your miscarriage and your sorrow. As long as you are a conservative you deserve many more.
5
Your pain and loss is apparent and yours. Now, imagine that you are a poor Woman, even a poor white Woman, in a State entirely controlled by Republicans. Now, somehow a striving young male policeman or prosecutor hears of your miscarriage, and develops
“ suspicions “. Do you take Drugs ? Did you take any over the counter drugs ? Did you spend time with people that smoke ? Drink ? Could you have possibly had even a single alcoholic drink before you realized you were pregnant ? What about you Diet ? What did you eat, and how much ? Exercise? Too strenuous? Too risky ? None ? Did you keep every Doctors appointment, and follow all instructions to the letter ? If not, why not ??? Clearly, you did something wrong.
Do you understand where I’m going with this, Ms. McCain ?
GOD, or Mother Nature is the Great Abortionist. But your Party is determined to punish Women for every transgression, real or imagined. Wealthy Women can escape their clutches, but poor Women, and most especially Women of Color, cannot. They are absolutely at the mercy of strangers, intent on blame and punishment. You are lucky, you just don’t acknowledge that fact, and most likely never will. Money changes EVERYTHING.
22
Your party advocates criminal investigations for miscarriages
I was a Republican at one time, but after the last 3 years, I will vote Democrat until the courts rectify this madness
22
So sorry for your loss Meghan. I've too had miscarriages so I know the pain you feel right now..Though some things I disagree with you...you are a child of God just like me. I want to send you prayers for you and your husband..I hope you can feel whole again since a part of you is lost..see you on the View..take care...God bless
1
This shallow analysis on the loss of a desired pregnancy demonstrates Ms McCain's incapacity for profound deliberation. It's clear she had an editor, but galoompfingly awkward phrases such as "the sisterhood of motherhood" mark this piece as uniquely hers.
While it's certainly a pity McCain suffered a miscarriage of a pregnancy she wanted, her own political party would throw her in jail as a result. Yet she makes no comment about that--a glaring omission.
When will we hear from other members of Ms McCain's GOP about this? When will McCain's GOP accuse her of "depraved heart murder" or of taking an abortion-inducing drug? When will they prosecute her?
12
Meaghan, please don’t put any stock in the callous comments. You are in a sisterhood of women who have weathered and survived loss, across every political persuasion. Pain is personal, and you deserve to uhav
It's rather callous on my fellow commenters' part to use this as an opportunity to make a point about abortion.
2
Bravery and strength run through your veins. Your baby couldn't have asked for a better mama.
You were born with a silver spoon, obviously. That all of could be! It would be nothing less than paradise to be doing nothing more than contemplating dozens of names, the perfect colors of the nursery, baby shower after baby shower. Oh to be worried that when you tell your boss you're pregnant he chooses not to 'find' a reason to fire you. BTW, You can thank Barbara Walters for her part of making that a reality for TV's Female Celebrities.
I am sorry that you lost a pregnancy to miscarriage. I've lost 4. ... Life is precious, but one question please. When is life not precious? everything on this living planet is either alive or not alive. when this plane is no longer alive everything that could have been alive will be no more, regardless of what color you painted the west wall of your baby's nursery.
Your political party is doing more to cause this world to die and until that happens, your political party is doing more to deprive people of a living wage, health care, education, and hope, than any other political party on earth at this time. Using God's name is not going to get you more gold stars from him.
Your Father was a good man. He brought people together. exactly what have you ever done to merit the respect he earned by walking a mile in someone else's shoes. I'm afraid it looks more like you walk the talk and talk the walk. Do worry. there are millions of other pseudo-Christians standing shoulder to shoulder with you. But God's kingdom isn't ademocrocy
7
A beautiful testimony Meghan. I suppose it is asking too much in our hyper partisan world that people could get over their ideology for one minute and just soak up the love, pain, and humanity found in this article. I am one who admires and applauds MS. McCain as a conservative woman who speaks with dignity, intelligence, and humanity in both standing up for her principles; denouncing the moron in the White House when he profanes an American hero and father; and debates honestly on the VIEW without getting in the gutter like so many Republicans do. Meghan is a bright light in a very dark time; and the fact she has shared this painful personal experience in trying to help so many other women who have gone through the same ordeal in their lives is worthy of respect and admiration. Bravo; and know their are many "liberals" such as myself who share your beliefs and moral principles. I wish you peace. GOD may indeed work in mysterious ways; but true Christians know HIS LOVE; and I respect you so much!
Loss is loss and it changes us all, mostly for the better, if im being honest.
Get back on the horse Meghan.
This is where you get stronger, wiser, and hopefully more compassionate and broad-minded.
We experienced many failed pregnancies in four years before we actually bore a live, healthy baby. One required a D&C because, frankly, nature and God can’t prevent infection.
Be grateful that you have health insurance and that you live in a state that allows you to control your body and your choices. It took us four years and a lot of grit and compassion. It also made us less narcissistic and myopic, both handy skill sets when our embryo grew into an actual baby who is now a person.
We wish you the best.
48
so sorry ms mccain.
'Good Christians' who would ostracize someone for having an abortion are often completely insensitive and even cruel when it comes to miscarriage. As though 'God's will' is a comfort. God's will also includes letting murderers and rapists roam the earth, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
4
A miscarriage is always a shock to the system. However the shock is rather dependent upon the timing of the miscarriage--was is 12 weeks in or was it after you felt the baby moving? Was it two days after the positive test or was it so far along that you could already feel the personality of the individual awakening. In addition it is an extraordinarily private occurrence in a woman's life. a time to withdraw and grieve but to move on. I am sorry for Meghan, but not every woman has the ability to withdraw from work to cope, or to grieve the potential child. And not once did it occur to this woman that there are states in our own country who are trying to make every miscarriage questionable. To charge the woman with murder or manslaughter until she can prove she played no part in the incident. Was she told to stay off her feet or not use salt? Were there doctor's orders she didn't follow? Did she go skiing, hiking, play golf? What, exactly, did she do to cause the miscarriage? These states blame the woman--they criminalize the event making it something she brought on and not something that happened to her. It is fortunate that Ms McCain lives in a state in which those laws don't exist, although with her entitled life she could easily afford the legal cost of defending herself. It's time she started to think broadly--consider the impact of this type of event on the woman who cleans her toilet! She needs to use this as a life lesson and use it to open her mind.
12
How moving is this story of pain, and later, glory in dreams. Those babies who were meant to be born, and sadly died first. Meghan McCain writes on:
"Yet for all its horrors, it [miscarriage] is distressingly common. Estimates range from one in 10 to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriages. That’s about three million lost children in America each year." Tragic statistic.
A tragic number made greater, as a million more are aborted each year by mothers who do not want their own child-to-be-born.
Such a disparity between humankind wanted and humankind not.
What's missing here: A fully committed love by mothers for the child in their womb, no matter what.
2
Thank you, and bless you, Meghan McCain.
1
I can't believe this was unsolicited. Perhaps NYTimes can post an editorial from the woman who was unable to obtain an abortion because of enacted laws and the sense of relief she felt by having a miscarriage?
10
Sorry for your loss. But do you know states are voting to send women to jail for having miscarriages. Alabama wanted to arrest a women who lost her baby after being shot. You live in a privileged environment. You can pay someone off so you wouldn’t go to jail. The vast majority of women don’t have those connections or the fund to do such. I’d rather hear from them than you. Not only would they lose their baby they live in fear of their own existence to be free.
10
Ms. McCain is distraught because her infertility treatments did not result in a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. It's simply melodramatic and childish to say she "loved her baby." She has no idea what loving a child is all about. She has no idea what losing a child who has been alive for two months, two years, twenty two years, or even forty two years feels like.
A miscarriage is nature's (or God's if you are religious) way to prevent an ongoing pregnancy that would be dangerous to the health of the woman and/or the health of the fetus/baby when born. Women should be grateful to nature (or God) for knowing when a miscarriage is meant to be.
Ms. McCain's pregnancy was not meant to be. She can try again. Or not. Her grief is for herself, not for the fetus/baby.
11
When we come to fully appreciate the natural world that we inhibit and begin to give-up our need for superstition belief only then does the planet’s ongoing survival have a chance.
2
Please Ms. McCain, find a good therapist. I had two miscarriages and they are incredibly painful. I've lost both of my parents. My husband and I had a child who was murdered. But I do not write editorials in the NYT or elsewhere. The NYT editorial section, The View, etc. do not exist for your theraputic benefit.
Miscarriages happen, scientists believe, because their is a genetic anomaly with the fetus. As painful as that is, it's not God being cruel to YOU. On the other hand, parents who have lost their children to senseless gun violence resulting from policies that you and your husband happily promote are the people who should have the editorial space to publicly mourn. And demand action.
20
It takes real courage to publish this. May your love see you through the torrent of hate to which you will be subjected.
1
Some women suffer the tragedy of losing their fertility. They mourn the future children they might have had and they mourn their loss of choice. But no actual babies die. Only potential future ones. Like a miscarriage.
9
I am sorry for her loss but what if she was in one of the southern states? Maybe she ate the wrong thing, maybe she forgot her seat belt, who knows? But in those states she could be charged with a crime. She might not be so condescending now.
4
Of course in the coming days of doom, women who have a miscarriage will be accused of aborting their fetus. No time to mourn, she will be too busy looking for an attorney.
6
It's a good thing Meghan McCain didn't suffer this miscarriage in Ecuador where women have been convicted of the crime of abortion and sentenced to prison for 2 to 22 years under these exact conditions, as documented in this very newspaper. Why is this salient? Because what you're reading is an anti-abortion opinion piece from Meghan McCain, an avowed anti-abortion activist framing the loss of her early pregnancy as the loss a child for the express purpose of pushing an anti-choice agenda in the opinion pages of the New York Times. The anti-choice strategy is to consistently reframe even the earliest stages of conception as fully endowed with personhood to recast abortion at any stage as murder. Draconian anti-abortion laws such as those now existing in Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, Utah, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and especially Alabama could pave the way for prison terms in those states for women having abortions as well as the millions of women in Meghan's situation and the medical staff who provide reproductive care. Just as Meghan chose this moment of loss to simultaneously push her anti-abortion agenda, I simultaneously avow great sympathy for her loss and I demand that she keep her laws off MY body.
16
you have said it all for those who have lost thankyou
2
After 35 years in the field of genetics, I certainly learned that "God" makes a lot of mistakes. Many of the "monsters" of Greek mythology are nothing but abnormal human embryos.
Oh I am so sorry to learn of this painful situation! When all was said and done, I ended up having 3 miscarriages before finally being able to keep a baby...(w the help of Horrible Progesterone shots the size of a two inch needle).
You will get the baby that is meant for you! It might not be via your own genes, which is hard to accept in the beginning, but whatever happens, I promise you will get the baby that is meant for you!
Pamper yourself and take care of yourself!
1
To imagine an embryo or a fetus as a "child" only adds to the pain of women who suffer spontaneous abortions, but don't expect anti-abortion propagandists to care about that. Probably a bonus from their point of view.
4
I'm so sorry to hear this. Of course, it's not your fault. God makes those decisions. Please keep trying. You'll be a great mother.
24
There are plenty of children who need homes. For heaven's sake ADOPT.(or foster!) and stop feeling sorry for yourselves, ladies.
Hubris is a sin! in fact the root of the other sins. (Medieval theology.)
4
While reading through the many responses on this site I was reminded, as a woman, why some women never share their most private experiences of loss or fear or shame. Ms. McCain's revelation -- in which she never mentioned politics once -- brought out the political furies because it does not comply with how women are supposed to view their pregnancies.
You do not even know how she feels about some issues surrounding abortion -- as a Democrat I do not adhere to the party line on several items. But it is my party overall. The micro personal does not always translate into the macro political. Nowhere does she talk of what YOU should do or not do.
I can consider (not agree with, but consider) all viewpoints on most matters without becoming an exercised harpy: I know how I feel on all topics in life, but also know that no topic will have full agreement. Using a woman's loss to scold her makes me shudder.
12
I am very sorry for your loss. I appreciate that, because of your religious views, you feel that you lost a living child. Your grief is real.
For many of your fellow citizens, however, a fetus is a potential child, not a living one. Our believes, and our choices, differ from yours.
The miscarriage was not your fault. We don’t fully understand our biology, but that much we know. I think that readers also understand that, because of your religious beliefs, your grief is intensified.
Meghan, that is you, and we are us. You cannot force your religious views on a whole nation, regardless of how strongly you believe them. We offer you our condolences, but not our constitutional rights.
228
@RCT
If some of her ilk had their way, she would be arrested.
33
@RCT And that is the intelligent, mature, emotionally balanced response that should be given.
You are actually putting yourself in her shoes. Acknowledging that her life experience and perspective, while different from yours, is still valid and not an opportunity for shame and castigation.
Our current politics would not be so tribal and dysfunctional if more people did that. That used to be what liberalism meant. Thank you.
30
@RCT Perfect comment!
17
My wife had a miscarriage, the embryo never even had a pulse and the doctors called it a blighted ovum. Her next pregnancy was immediately after the miscarriage and it produced our lovely daughter. The feelings we had over the first one seem quite silly in retrospect. If it weren’t for modern medicine and science we wouldn’t even have been sure what had happened because her symptoms were mild.
I think people definitely need to be more aware of how high that first trimester miscarriage rate is. If you think of that embryo as a fully developed baby and invest your emotions accordingly you’re setting yourself up for an emotional punch in the gut 25% of the time. It’s better to treat the first trimester with emotional caution and just try again if the pregnancy fails. As long as you’re still fertile and in a healthy relationship, getting pregnant again will most likely be pretty easy.
15
Thank you for sharing this so bravely and poignantly, Ms. McCain. Miscarriages should not be stigmatized at all. In the vast majority of cases, they are simply the result of genetic factor, and not the mother's behavior. Still, the pain of loss is real and should be acknowledged.
And to those of you who use this as a chance to start political fights, Hades has a hot corner waiting for you.
4
Thank you Ms. McCain for sharing this terrible experience. Your father- a great hero with whom I disagreed politically- would be proud of your courage.
Honest question: why no mention of the feelings of baby's dad? My wife and I were lucky not to experience something like this, but does the father grieve etc as well? I think I would be heartbroken, but not sure.
Note: a number of comments on this thread shaming Ms. McCain and mocking her grief are cruel and inappropriate for any decent publication: enough to make a body ashamed of the human race. I'm stunned the NYT allows them through.
5
"I am posed for the camera, looking stern and strong." You said of your Time Magazine cover. Dear Meghan, again even in this seemingly vulnerable NYT article you are posing looking stern and "strong."
I would have found it much stronger if you had shown instead the vulnerability of sadness - ah now that would be true strength, modeling to girls and women everywhere that traditional male dominated stoic strength can and must be challenged.
3
Your father would hold you and your husband in his arms and tell you he loves you both. Your pain was, and always will be, his pain as well. Thanks for your honesty in what feels like private agony.
4
So sorry for you loss. Hopefully you will learn from your experience to show some compassion to the many women who are fighting for the choice to make decisions for their own bodies. You proudly claim to be Pro-Life(Pro birth, actually) and Pro NRA, so I am very doubtful.
8
Your loss is very real, but please don’t blame yourself. The vast majority of pregnancy losses involve severe chromosome abnormalities—caused by nature, not by you. In my 40 years as a gynecologist I counseled hundreds of women. You certainly should mourn your loss, but please don’t feel guilty.
9
In modern English in all its many variants, it's common to use the term 'miscarriage' and the term 'to miscarry' as euphemisms for spontaneous abortion and to abort spontaneously.
Spontaneous is merely the adjective. An equivalent adjective is 'involuntary' as opposed to 'voluntary'. The key terms are 'abortion' and 'to abort'.
In all the fury and indignation expressed by Trump's supporters within the organised religions, amongst Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists alike, these inconvenient facts of life are conveniently ignored in the pursuit of political power.
All fecund female mammals including fecund female humans will abort spontaneously their fertilised egg, their embryo, or their foetus if there's a problem.
This is Nature's way. This is the universe that God the Creator has ordained. Accept it.
Conservatives and members of the organised religions need to stop telling any woman or any girl she cannot abort her embryo or foetus if she so chooses.
5
I am so sorry for the loss you have suffered. I am even sorrier your essay has compelled some people to respond with mean and judgmental comments.
One does not have to agree with a person's opinion to acknowledge their pain and see it as an opportunity to criticize them.
3
I’m so sorry ... and I care. It was a gift and a privilege reading your words and receiving the enrichment of seeing how your faith informed your loss. Miscarriages and stillbirths have occurred in my family. On July 29, the baby boy my mother brought into the world stillborn would have been 70 years of age. Like Meghan, I hope to one day meet [him] in the hereafter. Like Meghan, my belief is that these little ones deserve acknowledgment, appreciation and symbolic cradling arms. Thank you.
“Though the first moment of loss is eternity, other eternities remain.” - Emily Dickinson
22
There's a difference between loving a person and loving a thought bubble - for many of us.
28
I am sorry about Ms. McCain’s pain. But I am afraid that this essay is part of the cultural wave that tries to convince us, contrary to science and common sense, that a fetus is a person and that the loss of a pregnancy is the same thing as the loss of a child. Well, no, it’s not. In my first pregnancy, there was a moment I was afraid I was miscarrying. I was naturally upset. But my fear was nothing compared with the sickening horror I felt when my son was hit by a car at the age of eight. He broke his leg that eventually healed all right. But I would have gladly suffered ten miscarriages to prevent this from happening. Ms. McCain may feel any way she wants about her imaginary child but she cannot dictate to the rest of us how we feel. Even less so can her emotions contravene science. A fetus has no personality or self-awareness. A child does. A fetus is a mass of developing tissue. A child is a person. A miscarriage is a loss. A child’s death is the ultimate tragedy.
435
@Mor
That's your belief; it is not Meghan's. Also, one experience of grief cannot be compared to another. Grief is just grief. There is no hierarchy, no competition. Just grief.
36
@hotGumption
Grief is grief.
But in this piece Ms. McCain is not just grieving but publishing a piece--in a widely circulated and read newspaper and website-- in which she cites statistics about miscarriages and then calls the undeveloped fetuses "children" and says "they lived, fully human." That is a political, not a biological, statement.
she is entitled to her grief and her belief.
but she is not entitled to bogusly and unchallenged claim a moral high ground as part of a movement to force her beliefs on other women through very real policies and laws that will bring needlessly bring pain and suffering to actual, born and living, fully human women, girls and their families.
140
@ehr
Thank you ehr, you nailed it.
42
It would have been helpful for Ms. McCain to mention that men, fathers, also can be wounded, and deeply grieve, the loss of a pregnancy.
4
I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks between the births of my two living children and, to be honest, I felt none of this. I was sad for a few days (and the experience itself was less than pleasant and pretty painful) but once it was behind me, I forgot about it. I never felt like I had lost a child because that's not what a 10-week pregnancy represents in my mind. In fact, since I never really wanted to have more than two kids, I look at my second one now and think she never would have come into my life had it not been for my earlier miscarriage.
Obviously this topic is intensely personal, and I appreciate Ms. McCain sharing her perspective, but for me it is a good reminder that we ALL experience pregnancy and loss very differently. Her experience is FAR from universal despite how common miscarriage is.
442
That’s your story, but every woman is different. You choose to forget the third child. For me I will never forget my first angel.
12
@Emily G - I had three miscarriages before my son was born. By the time I had the third one, I had started fertility treatments, all of which failed. I began to feel that I would never become a biological parent and needed to reconsider my feelings about becoming a parent. It all felt like a massive failure and it also felt very, very unfair. I had a fourth miscarriage after my son was born. That one was also sad, but not nearly the same as the three earlier ones.
5
@Emily G My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and, yes, of course it was sad. But once my son was born a year or so later I really never thought about it again. And if I had carried that first pregnancy to term, my son wouldn't be here, and that is something I cannot accept!!! That's life I guess.
52
The pain is unbearable even 42 years later. My precious daughter died at 8 months in womb and my body carried her two more months. I grieve every Easter - the day she died. I now have grandchildren and hope my daughter in law never goes through this. That said the new laws in the South making this death a murder charge to the mother is worse. Women who lose babies will be and some are currently labeled murderers. How fortunate we are to be wealthy enough to not bear that extra burden.
350
@Marna
If the pain is truly unbearable nearly half a century later I really think you might want to consider grief counseling - it can help. It will help you process your loss and get some of your life back.
25
@Marna. A woman who miscarries is only a murderer if she is poor and/or a woman of color. Someone of Ms McCain's status is by default virtuous, and she would NEVER EVER EVER be charged with murder in this circumstance. Money and/or status = virtue.
16
@Marna
I cannot imagine much worse than knowing that when birth occurred the child would be dead.
11
Although I have a great deal of empathy for Meghan McCain, I believe this essay unintentionally lends itself to the anti-abortion movement. This is very unfortunate at a time when abortion rights are fast disappearing from America. In our politicized environment, we need to imagine how our words and our pain may be misconstrued and used by people who aren't really pro-choice or pro-family but only pro-birth. Once the child is born, they lose both interest and support.
9
@RR
"ends itself to the anti-abortion movement"
it may, but on the other hand, it shouldn't.
On top of the trauma and pain McCain describes, would she like to have to defend herself in a criminal investigation as to whether her actions caused this, if abortion were illegal?
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a27454956/what-does-georgias-abortion-law-mean-women-who-miscarry/
1
@RR. Not so sure it was unintentional, especially given the author.
6
I also had a miscarriage, and it was emotionally devastating. I still wonder what he or she or she would have been like, and it's been 15 years. As you said, we don't understand the mysteries of why some pregnancies are lost. I do know that it was not my fault, just as you were not to blame for your loss. Please tell your Republican friends to not criminalize women who have miscarriages. They grieve as much as you or me, and they certainly don't deserve to go to jail.
483
While I am sorry for your loss, you have health care and options.
It was your choice to share what you went through.
However you and your political party are actively trying to take away options of other women, and ignoring the fact that many, many women are not as privileged as you, who do not have the resources you do.
The choices you are making and your public advocacy of taking away choices of other women, can be seen as an egregious lack of empathy, while you are asking publicly for that very thing.
It is sad you've lost your pregnancy.
What about the many others, those who are suffering the same thing, but are at risk for some unconscionable legal consequences, which you publicly advocate for, who are without the resources available that you are so fortunate to have?
15
You have chosen to share your experience. Women who choose to terminate their pregnancy may experience similar feelings of loss, but do not wish to share or justify their decision. They deserve equal respect.
731
Although I have the upmost sympathy and respect for McCain’s loss, I think it’s fair game to point out the disconnect, when it comes to ignoring her party’s mission to intrude on woman’s private physical autonomy. The state left her alone in peace to experience this journey, which is more than we can say for the young woman in Alabama.
22
As a male, and a father, I can only read this as another concerned human being, sorry about her difficult experience. As to its perspective and politics and religious orientation, however, I interpret it as a pro-life statement. And wonder why it received air time.
13
@SGK. Please do not use the term pro-life to describe the anti-choice movement. I am pro-life, anti-abortion and pro-choice.
3
My 10 week miscarriage proved to me that I was not carrying a baby. I'm going to be graphic here. The clump of blood and tissue that emerged was not recognizable. It was not human yet, in any definable way. I felt terrible because I desperately wanted a baby. But I didn't mourn for the loss of a child. To conflate a miscarriage with a stillbirth or death of a child is inappropriate.
34
@Cary Mom. Same here. While I was at 14 weeks when I miscarried, I mourned the loss of the potential the fetus represented but did not consider it a baby or child.
12
After reading many of these comments I can understand why many on the right hate those on the left. Megan’s story was not a political statement. It was a deeply personal account of her grief and one that, frankly, touched me. In her mind she lost a child. She is entitled since it was her child, no one else’s. It did not change any of my political views but I shared a little bit of her grief.
5
@Robert Kramer Sir - many people, if not most, resort to cope with tragedy with allusions to their deep beliefs about life, death, choice and God. So has Mrs McCain. But she has chosen to be a public figure - to attempt to influence our culture and law. So when she, specifically, mentions the way her beliefs help her cope she is also attempting to advocate her ways. She chose to share her painful experience with all of us, not just with her family, friends, pastor, therapist - in private.
8
@Robert Kramer I was ready to read it as a personal statement until she wrote " Estimates range from one in 10 to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriages. That’s about three million lost children in America each year." The comments make clear that there are three million tragedies, but not three million lost children.
18
@Robert Kramer We had such different reactions to this piece, I wanted to reach out to you. I read this piece as being, on the surface, about Meghan McCain's grief over her miscarriage; however, it is clear to me, from her language, tone, and points she brings up, that the intent of this piece is to push an anti-abortion maximalist position. Her claim that miscarriages result in millions of children dying each year and claim that a fetus is a small, fragile, child (in italics, no less) are political arguments couched as emotional appeals. Don't be fooled or played by this emotional manipulation. McCain is using her personal pain and personal beliefs about her own miscarriage to try to cement a universal narrative that fetus=child and therefore abortion=murder. I say this as a mother of 2 and someone who miscarried before having my first son.
I am sorry that McCain had to go through this experience. I am also sorry that she chose to use this experience to try to strip me and every other woman of childbearing age of our constitutional rights and bodily autonomy.
14
Blessings on you, your husband and all who love you and would have loved your child.
2
What I learned from my miscarriage:
That I was indeed able to become pregnant, and to keep trying. Three children later, I feel an occasional mild sadness.
9
Condolences to you. May your love of this baby support you through such a difficult time. and may there be many babies to follow. Peace to you.
7
I'm sorry that your lost your pregnancy. I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks before I had my current children, and what my miscarriage and subsequent two children taught me is that there is all the difference in the world between a fetus and a living child. I know my miscarriage happened sometime in spring, but I couldn't tell you exactly when, at this point. I know, down to the minute, exactly when my children were born. I think of my miscarriage every now and then, but I'll go many months in between. I think of my children every day, hundreds of time a day. I was sad when my pregnancy ended, but it was absolutely nothing (NOTHING!) compared to what would happen to me if I lost one of my actual children now. Being a mom has made me more committed than I ever thought I could be to abortion and contraceptive rights for women. A fetus isn't the same as a child - certainly not in my experience.
Again, I'm sorry for your loss, but by trying to make our laws reflect YOUR personal or religious beliefs that a fetus is the same as a child, you are endangering my freedom and your own as well. I don't want the abortion police investigating any future miscarriage I might have, and I suspect you wouldn't want them investigating yours. Unfortunately, your chosen political home in the GOP is advocating for those kinds of policies, trying to turn America into Gilead - with your help. And I will fight with you will all the energy I have. For myself, and for my children.
50
@AMinNC
You say "A fetus isn't the same as a child - certainly not in my experience." This is true -- in your experience. Not in the experience of everyone who is pregnant.
Very kind words you have for a woman who shared her grief. If she had been a Democrat/liberal what would you have used to denounce her feelings of deep loss?
And there are Democrats/liberals who feel as Meghan does, but I'm sure they'd not reveal that to you.
1
My daughter miscarried last year, at about 8 weeks. She was sad, but she didn't feel any stigma. Within months, she got pregnant again and now has a healthy son. He would not have been conceived if she hadn't miscarried. We need to remember that millions of people are alive today because their mother lost a pregnancy that allowed her to become pregnant again with a child she carried to term. This is not to make light of the very real pain of miscarriage. It's just to state a biological fact.
24
@Robin
My entire extended family, including my two beautiful kids, exists because my grandmother miscarried before she had my mother.
7
Well done. A needed article for all woman who have had the same experience. Thank you.
2
I had 7 miscarriages and continued to try again and again and again. I lost a tube due to an ectopic pregnancy. I was certain I would never be a mother, and I was heartbroken. All miscarriages involved DNCs in the hospital which adds insult to injury. People kept telling me being "child-free" was not a bad fate. To me it was devastating. My cousin who also had many miscarriages called me to tell me she also had an ectopic pregnancy and lost an ovary on the same side of her good tube, and she got pregnant, so she was the national case that THAT can happen. You can get pregnant when the world seems against you. After 12 years of trying, and in the 13th year when I gave up, I was pregnant. A day before my 40th birthday I had a baby boy. NEVER SAY NEVER. Love to you and God bless your father. Jean Heffernan
8
I had four miscarriages and am profoundly grateful for our two children who actually made it to birth. I almost never remember those four sad experiences unless I read a piece like this or someone tells me about her own miscarriage, nor can I say that I love those children whom I never knew except as hopes and dreams. I hope Ms. McCain will eventually have a healthy, happy child or children and that her own sad miscarriage experience will fade to a bittersweet memory that emerges only rarely.
15
I hope she appreciates the fact that the government didn't add to her misery by arresting her and accusing her of murder. Others aren't so lucky.
I also hope she appreciates the fact that the less Planned Parenthood clinics there are, the less access low income women have to pre-natal care, the more likely miscarriage and infant mortality is.
And, while she may be right that there is not a lot of public discussion about this, it isn't the big secret she seems to think it is. I don't have children, so I've never hung out with moms, yet I know several women who have had miscarriages, some more than one. The possibility of miscarriage shadows every single pregnancy, which is why people generally don't announce it until after the third trimester.
I am sorry that Ms. McCain had to experience this. I am glad she wants to put this subject on a more public level. Like her, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but, on the other hand, this is typical of people who don't have empathy for others until they find themselves in the exact same situation, like, for example, a politician who is anti-gay until his own child comes out. Better to change your tune about gays than to condemn your own child, but every single gay person on the planet is someone's child. Why is it so impossible to put oneself in someone else's shoes?
49
What a beautifully written commentary. Thank you.
4
I wish you had used this terrible opportunity to speak out against the growing trend of prosecuting women for manslaughter for a miscarriage, or for behaviors that laws passed by men have started criminalizing in women who are already in pain from losing their fetuses. There are plenty of those laws out there, and more to come, with an ideology-driven reactionary Supreme Court.
40
"The surprise of learning I was pregnant, many months ago now, swiftly turned to joy. With that joy came all the questions, plans and aspirations that every mother knows."
This was not a planned pregnancy, a pregnancy that was hard fought for, nor one of many lost. The loss of a dream is is painful but really mourning the loss of a fertilized egg. With all the craziness of medical intervention in pregnancy we will shortly realize 50% of fertilized eggs do not lead to a live birth. Let's all stop being such snowflakes and mourn the horrible life of so many living children in this word.
20
I had a miscarriage too. I put that out there right up front because it seems to be the entry ticket to this conversation. It was hard, it was sad. It was not the same as losing a child. I have dear friends whose children have died. I know the difference. Many miscarriages take place because the developing fetus is flawed and would not survive. It is a natural part of the very hard road that is life for all of us. I can empathize with Ms. McCain's loss while being alarmed and frankly appalled at how blatantly she plays the anti-choice violin here. Especially the "I wish I could keep this loss private" lament before the "millions of dead babies" screed. You can in fact keep this private, which is what I did for decades. It's easy. You just don't talk about it.
72
So sorry for your loss!
1
Most miscarriages occur within the first 12 weeks.
You have time to love the idea of a child, the hopes and dreams, and grieve the loss of those if you miscarry that early. It is painful.
But the truth of life is that if you have other children, their lives mostly blot out the loss of lives that barely started.
8
What will be will be. I have never known a woman to look upon miscarriage as a source of shame, because it isn’t. The women I know talk about it whenever they need to, and look at it as a set-back but not a catastrophe.
I’m sorry that anyone’s religion would be the source of such pain when it could be a great comfort.
25
As a woman who has been pregnant 4 times, delivered of 3 babies, and then lost a 12 year old son, you didn’t lose a child Ms McCain. You lost a pregnancy- you lost the dream and hope of a child.
You’re sad, I get it. It’s a sad time. I hope you have lots of support and love to help you in your sadness. I also hope you are able to have a child, a real human child, then you will learn the difference between a child and a pregnancy.
74
Second part...
The opportunistic tone of this piece makes me uncomfortable that this difficult event os used subliminally to capitalize on a pro-life opinion. And the “oh poor me” continually used to characterize your life is above the pale. You act as if you HAD to share this with the world, which is a bit narcissistic. You have choices, many women do not. You are privileged to be able to make the choices you make...share, not share, get pregnant, have children if you want and if you can. Many women are having their choices taken away by members of your party. Amid your grief, you are fortunate to have health insurance and the means to pay any other needed expenses, just as many women do not. Just like you said, it is sad when grief strikes; as mothers and future mothers we would do anything to protect born children and unborn fetuses, just like the people at the border are trying to do with their children. Instead, we, The United States of America cage the children...those alive and able to live on their own-we separate them from their mothers and fathers. I have grief for them too.
52
After five years of fertility treatments, I had a short pregnancy ending in a miscarriage at 12 weeks many years ago. I am sorry to say that I recognize none of my feelings in today’s article about McCain’s miscarriage. It’s like she’s talking about something else. I wish people would go back to keeping their business to themselves if this type of writing is what comes of “baring all.”
16
I wonder of Meghan McCain knows that this article will be used as anti-abortion PR. How could any woman terminate her pregnancy while Meghan McCain suffers so painfully the loss of hers?
My wife had at least one miscarriage while we were trying to start a family, and we were both devastated, fearing that we might never have children. For her there was a deeper sense of loss that I will never understand. But our sadness was not motivated by superstition and we did not invent an imaginary baby waiting for us in heaven to dull our pain.
Now we have two beautiful kids, one just starting her career and the other in college. We could not be happier with them. They are exactly what we had hoped for. When my son calls and says, “What’s up, old man?” or my daughter introduces herself with “Hey!” it’s the best moment of my day.
In her freshman year of college my future wife had a first-trimester abortion. She was unmarried and unprepared to have a family. If she had taken the pregnancy to term she never would have realized her ambitions, never would have met me and never would have brought our children into the world. Fortunately, she was not hindered by superstition from doing what was right for her.
So I wish Meghan McCain, who I respect for her integrity and unwavering defense of her father’s memory, would not use her voice to spread evidence-free fairy tales that conservative lawmakers use to justify controlling women's bodies.
49
@Norwester Meghan McCain is proudly anti-choice. She *wants* this piece to be used as anti-choice PR.
As for me, I am sorry for her loss. She's entitled to her feelings - that she lost a child, not a pregnancy - but G-d for bid she should have (and lose) an actual living, breathing child, she'll get some perspective on the feelings of loss she describes here. Many, (if not most) of us have had miscarriages; it's painful but it fades in time. I hope Ms McCain never learn the truth: a miss is nothing compared to watching your child die.
4
@Norwester
Wow... "But our sadness was not motivated by superstition and we did not invent an imaginary baby waiting for us in heaven to dull our pain." Harsh.
1
You're going to be the best mom on the block.
2
I found her op-ed insensitive to those of us who have lost actual children. Last year my 17 year-old son, my only child, died. Her equating her miscarriage to losing an actual child is immature and self pitying. A miscarriage is very sad, but it's the loss of an idea and hopes/dreams, not an actual person with a personality and dreams of their own. As with the death of her 80 year-old father, she seems to be very self pitying for attention and profit. She needs to grow up.
54
When John McCain died, did the dear readers of the New York Times feel like saying to his family, "sorry for your loss, but you should really be ashamed of yourself for your politics, and you should take this opportunity to change how you think"? I didn't think so.
So why do people feel comfortable saying "sorry, but not sorry" to a grieving woman who just lost her beloved child?
As a child neurologist, I believe that every woman has the lone authority to decide whether she wants a child or not. I believe that parents will make the correct choice when deciding whether to bring a fetus to term who is predicted to have severe disabilities. This has nothing to do with what I would choose for myself. Ms McCain's miscarriage had nothing to do with your opinion.
Meghan, you only deserve our warmth and kindness. The world sure can use more of it.
7
@Jule - Well said. Thank you!
1
@Jule Sorry, Jule, as much as I'd like to agree that sympathy is the only acceptable reaction, Meghan is an anti-abortion activist casting her early pregnancy as a fully endowed child for the express purpose of influencing public opinion and carving out her political career. Surely you're aware that this tactic is a cornerstone of every early abortion ban now on the books in multiple states across the US and paves the way for criminal prosecution for women and providers alike. Had you chosen a different speciality you might have been in the position of choosing whether or not to provide those abortion services to women carrying a severely disabled fetus vs caring for them after they are born- a speciality that would put you in the line of fire for criminal prosecution as abortion law moves heavily right. Meghan McCain chose to share her story in a manner that simultaneously pushes an intrusive political agenda and I simultaneously respond with heartfelt sympathy AND a demand that she keep her laws off my body.
12
I’m still not clear what McCain ‘learned’ from her miscarriage.
19
"I knew I was pregnant before I formally knew I was pregnant. My body told me in all the ways women are familiar with. It told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying."
This speaks to my experience of miscarrying my first pregnancy.
While meditating daily during my first pregnancy, my mind started to spontaneously picture me as a mother watching over a cradle in a womb-like, softly lit underground cave. In that cradle, I knew, was a sick baby. I had no earthly reason to think my growing baby would not make it at that point, but somehow deep down I had the knowledge in my body. I was holding watch and protecting the child I somehow knew I would shortly miscarry. Our bodies are full of wisdom we cannot yet understand.
Thanks, Meghan, for speaking openly about pregnancy loss. It is a normal, human experience. Only by speaking about it can we break the stigma and heal together.
5
There is no rhyme or reason to a miscarriage. Two of my sisters-in-law had miscarriages some years ago. One shared this with the rest of us, one did not until many years later. There is no correct path to dealing with the aftermath of such a loss, because no two of us are alike.
4
I miscarried twice and the second time the doctor said, "This is nature's way of correcting her mistakes." I went on to have a successful pregnancy, giving birth to my wonderful daughter. You will too, Meghan. God bless.
3
Thank you Ms. McCain, for sharing your sorrow. I know this sharing was hard for you, and I hope you find some comfort in knowing the validation you brought to thousands, even millions of women and their families.
1
Miscarriages happen for many reasons, but the most common of them is that there's a problem with the fetus that makes it unviable. The elegant system of reproduction deletes that error so the host body (mother) can try to reproduce again as soon as possible.
I have had three miscarriages. I fully understand Ms. McCain's disappointment of dashed dreams. I hadn't done anything to threaten my pregnancies, and I was tested and tested and tested and there was no problem on my end of the bargain (note, then husband did not submit to testing.) Nature sensed an error and corrected it.
How much better to have had a miscarriage earlier in my pregnancy than to discover later that the fetus inside me had a problem that would cause it to die either late in term or soon after birth. Consider that at that time there could be no option but to make a hard decision and grieve even more intensely, no matter what the decision.
Make no mistake, I would have wanted those fetuses to grow and kick and enter this world as my babies. But it wasn't meant to be. (Sometimes in thinking back, I am even thankful that I did not have a child with "then husband", and that maybe Nature knew something that I was too hopeful to notice.)
In the end, Nature (or God if that's your construct) always knows best about what to bring forward into the world.
7
What I learned from my four miscarriages is that everyone deals differently. There is no one way or right way . In the majority community of women, globally, I hope that the one thing we can agree on is that each of us is entitled to our own feelings. I don't need to feel like any other woman who experiences this, nor they like me. So don't chastise me because I didn't grieve, or cry. I was disappointed, and just started again. That was right for me. It doesn't make me callous or unfeeling. And now 27 year later when I make breakfast for my daughter, I am content. I hope you all get what you need from all your life experiences.
8
I had 3 miscarriages in 1 year. Truly devastating. I now have 2 healthy children. Most women go on to have successful pregnancies after miscarriage.
I also terminated a pregnancy many years ago for reasons I do not have to explain. I can feel the pain of losing the babies I passionately wanted and yet honor a woman's right to choose and have the feelings that come with that, be it grief, guilt, shame, relief, nothing.
My heart breaks for Ms. McCain. My condolences on your loss.
11
My heart goes out to Ms. McCain who is grief is palapable and who was brave enough to share it publicly in the hopes that more people can have a conversation about something that still considered "taboo". In part, I think it is a taboo - because we as a culture do not like to hear about death, nor allow people to mourn publicly or take time to mourn. I believe the conventional wisdom is not to mention one's pregnancy until after the 3rd month - and why is that? and what is that saying?
1
It's been over 20 years since I miscarried a much-wanted baby. I later had other children, whom I love for who they are. Who was the person the miscarried embryo might have become? I don't know. So, how can I love someone I never knew? My 'baby' was nothing more than a bundle of hopes. Hopes get disappointed all the time, clinging to disappointed hopes in the long term is not healthy.
14
i don't want to minimize the shock of miscarriage. It is very common, and we are all entitled to grieve as we see fit. But, this article wreaks of pro-life rhetoric. Shame on you Meghan, for politicizing your experience.
735
@Steve Pomerantz
I think we have to be careful in what we characterize as other people "politicizing" their experiences. Perhaps, this reaction says more about our values and experiences than the person we are responding to. You are right that these discussions regarding the definition of life and protection of life are timely, yet, I am grateful that Meghan shared what she just went through. Just yesterday, I heard a friend for 10 minutes share the very real and raw emotions of her own miscarriage, even 10 years after the fact. It is important than women and couples trying to have children know they are not alone. Many people close to me have experienced the emotional trauma of miscarriage. Shaming is never the appropriate response to someone who has just recently dealt with this degree of anguish and suffering. Especially, public shaming if I may add. Best wishes.
35
@Steve Pomerantz, may I suggest that “anti-choice” more accurately describes those who oppose a woman’s right to choose. I am pro-the-people-who-are-alive. I wish Ms. McCain’s political party felt as strongly about born children who live in poverty and without adequate food, health care, and education. That would truly be “pro-life”.
108
That is a very unkind sentiment.
9
No, miscarriages (which as was pointed out, are extremely common and always have been) are not millions of lost "children". They're millions of lost pregnancies. Very sad in many cases, and often not even noticed. I'm not sure that claiming that miscarriage carries a "stigma" is accurate. Sure, its not a popular topic of conversation, but it has about as much stigma as, say, menstruating. But yes, lack of knowledge, for sure. Take the pro-life crowd and their histrionics around abortions. I wonder why they never seem to consider how often nature does the terminating and consider that not every fetus is meant to make it to term. There are lots of reasons why they don't, and none of them are the business of anyone but a woman and her doctor.
1008
To many women a miscarried fetus is a lost child. We who experience this have held the fetus in our minds and hearts as a potential child in spite of knowing that early on it is just a collection of cells.
Rational women may call this sentimental foolishness. Maybe we know that. It is not helpful to tell us that we are mourning nothing. We are mourning a lost life. Even pro-choice women who choose termination can feel profound sadness.
Please do not make light of the grief by saying that there is nothing to grieve.
51
Kathleen didn't say it's nothing, but it's emphatically not the same as losing a child. We had two miscarriages and it is sad; a future closes off and life takes a different path. We have two other children and it is NOT the same as losing a child.
This is important to state, not out of a wish to diminish the genuine grief of people who suffer miscarriage, but because Meghan McCain is quite cynically trying to create a false equivalence here in order to win the abortion argument.
285
@KATHLEEN. Indiana has a law that requires, however impractically, that every miscarried fetus must receive burial or cremation. Such laws, intended to discourage abortion by the harshest possible means, cruelly inflict more suffering on women who are already suffering physical and emotional pain.
85
Why is it that Republicans feel someone else's pain only when it happens to them?
85
@Texas
Today I was talking to a woman while waiting for an appointment and mentioned exactly what you asked. For some reason, many Republicans lack natural empathy. This has some serious consequences for our citizens. One example: A Senator who was against stem cell transplant until he developed cancer; after his diagnosis he was all for it. The list of examples could go on forever.
71
@mary barter, one came immediately to mind... John Boehner who was vehemently anti-marijuana laws until he realized how much money he could make.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/us/politics/john-boehner-marijuana-cannabis.html
5
@Texas
This is the biggest truth in all these comments. Conservatives are apparently genetically unable to feel empathy. It must get in the way of hoarding money. Dick Cheney stopped supporting anti-gay legislation only after his daughter came out. Too bad marrying a string of immigrants didn't change Trump's tune on immigration. Some conservatives are too thick-skulled to ever evolve past their selfishness.
11
It's interesting how adult daughters of patriarchs, even benevolent ones like McCain, become the pillars of the system. Meghan McCain and Ivanka Trump are two sides of the same coin that believe fervently in the "meritocracy" their fathers dominated. 2019 and still, of course, the adult daughters- of course successful, educated, blonde, thin, and beautiful-wish to provide their men a first born son. The "sisterhood" of motherhood may be wise to include actual women within it.
48
@Callie There is no comparison between them , as John McCain's daughter Megan has followed her father's sense of honesty and out -spoken mien ; Ivanka is just like her father , vain , shallow , and egocentric . As far as meritocracy , as you put it , well it might apply to the latter ; sounds more like sour grapes to me .
1
@sm
Yes there is comparison. Megan's father was a nicer man who worked hard all his life, however his daughter seems to feel the same entitlement as Ivanka. Both of them need to get out and help other women who do not have their advantages and keep their own lives to themselves. NYT needs to do stories on women who matter on their own.
4
@Callie Not sure what your message is here, Callie.
Imagine working at a low paying job, miscarrying at work and not being able to take a break or go to a doctor for fear of losing your job? Must have been nice to take those days away from work to mourn! I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m inclined to feel more sorrow for the women working in warehouses though. The ones your political party don’t care about
84
@Jaylee
There must also have been some level of comfort for her to have had access to a D&C if she needed one, and not be criminalized or have her doctor arrested if she went for help. Or not having to carry a fetus that was not viable for 9 months and deliver normally.
17
@Jaylee Amen. And imagine the grief of a woman whose child is taken away from her at the border.
6
I was initially going to say, sarcastically, “Wow, what a beautifully instrumentalized form of grief.” But then I thought of the parents of gunned down children in this country who rightly use their trauma and grief as a platform for important (but as of yet absurdly unrealized) political change. They justly “instrumentalize” their tragedy; so, it would be hypocritical of me to fault the writer for essentially trying to do the same thing.
Then again, those parents had actual children torn from them (in large part thanks to some of those same “conservative” views this writer proudly represents), not hyper-sentimentalized, quasi-developed representations of children. The plain truth, then, is that I disagree with the writer about her views on abortion and thus resent what I see as the use of a very real grief—a friend of mine suffered a miscarriage and was temporarily devastated by it—to further a political agenda I find abhorrent. At the end of the day, all griefs are not equal. You attached real hopes, dreams, and desires to your unborn child, naturally; but their loss does not equate to the loss of a true, realized human being. You deserve sympathy: your miscarriage is unfortunate and sad, and I’m truly sorry you had to go through it. You don’t deserve the political change you desire on the basis of that misfortune, however: abortion is still very much a moral choice that should be defended tooth and nail.
227
@Mike I don’t know Mikey, I had two Miscarriages a few years ago and I found this incredibly comforting. Live and let live
5
Are we as a society going to have the police investigate McCain's miscarriage as a potential murder? Will she be arrested and be required to post bail if there's a reasonable suspicion she terminated her own pregnancy? While she is grieving for her lost pregnancy will she be subjected to physical investigation and questions about her intimate life? Are we going to monitor her period in case of pregnancy? Are we going to imprison mothers who don't want more children while their living children are motherless? These things are insane and a huge breach of privacy and humanity. I hope she knows this is the logical conclusion of anti-abortion...she may think shes a 'good' woman, but she is still going to suffer if these policies are carried out.
131
@Not optimistic
I couldn't agree with you more.
How about a few state sanctioned, required and medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds, a la Virginia?
She is a woman with money and access - and a platform to share her pain and give voice to her agenda. This OpEd is political. She chooses to make it so. Her pain is real, but so is the pain of women forced to go to term against their desire, wishes and will.
I am sorry for her miscarriage, but her platform is just another kind of miscarriage - of justice women who want the right to choose.
12
I have never held an acorn and called it a tree.
I have never planted a seed and called it a flower.
Never called a caterpillar a butterfly.
A tadpole is not a frog.
A zygote is not a baby.
That this is a difficult concept for some people baffles me. It's an elementary concept - like, elementary school.
479
So well articulated. I never thought of those analogies; they are spot on. Thank you.
67
@Liz
This analogy is not only cruel, it is scientifically incorrect. A zygote is the union of two cells that may have begun to divide but has not even implanted in the uterus. Ms. McCain does not indicate at what gestational age her miscarriage occurred but it had to be well after the zygote stage. When a embryo or fetus becomes a human being, a baby, is a philosophical question that will never be resolved. Early in my career I had the occasion to hold an eighteen week fetus in my hand and witness the profound grief of the mother who had miscarried.
If this writer is baffled by such grief, and is unable to to express compassion but instead expresses cruel criticism, that is sad indeed.
It's unfortunate that commentators had to immediately pounce on abortion politics instead of responding to Ms. McCain's grief. I sincerely hope Ms.McCain does not read these comments that will only amplify her grief.
27
@Liz You know, if Meghan McCain does intend this column as pro-life propaganda, you couldn't do a better job of helping her case. Liberal New York Times readers so focused on political subtext that they lose all empathy for a woman in pain - this is exactly what the pro-lifers want the world to see.
10
I have no doubt that Ms McCain suffered with the loss of her pregnancy.
And I’m sorry for that. I, too, suffered a miscarriage a few years ago. I felt some sorrow and disappointment, but no, I did not find it devastating. I did not lose a child, I lost a fetus.
She is using her personal pain to make a political point. And so can I.
36
I am so sorry for your loss, really many losses in one, Ms. McCain. As a parent I do feel for you and your family. Miscarriage is a horrible experience, as I know from too many friends and family and acquaintances.
But one thing you wrote struck me as disrespectful, though perhaps it was ignorance, of other of our sisters' experience of pregnancy loss. You said that all of the babies lost were "fully human." There are large populations of women -- including mothers -- and men who do not agree that a zygote, embryo, or even undelivered fetus is "fully human" and many of those people are fine, caring, decent people following their culture, their religion, their scientific understanding, or their gut.
You are free to mourn and grieve your baby as you would a "fully human" individual, but that is you. Please refrain, despite your grief and the touches of anger it may naturally inspire at times, from claiming your experience is that of all women who suffered a loss such as yours, and from adding the the burden of shame and terrible, terrible grief they are suffering or suffered already only to have those wounds re-opened or inflamed by insisting, directly or by implication, that their centuries- or millennia-old religion or cultural norms must be wrong because they differ from yours.
May you find comfort and healing in supportive, loving community, Ms. McCain. May joy return in its time, and if you wish for it, may the blessing of new light glow and grow w/in you again.
113
Ms. McCain:
My condolences on the loss of your pregnancy. I was saddened but not surprised that you chose to couch this personal loss in divisive political language. Few individuals have the platform you do and your failure to recognize the variety of experience that a loss of a wanted pregnancy may engender is unfortunate. I wish you a happy healthy future with as many children as you want and a growing understanding of the experience of women living with poverty, abuse, racism and other of society's ills.
226
I am stunned by the many comments politicizing Ms. McCain’s essay in the context of abortion laws.
I am emphatically pro-choice, but I read Ms. McCain’s account of her miscarriage as a courageous effort to bring such events out of the shadows.
Most miscarriages are the loss of a much-wanted child. Those who have experienced miscarriages deserve our frank sympathies rather than an embarrassed averting of the eyes.
Kudos to Ms. McCain for reflecting publicly on her own painful miscarriage in an effort to help others.
99
@ANetliner
I smell a secondary reason for this article, penned by a high-profile entertainer in the public eye. She couches her grief in the dog-whistle language of the anti-choice right while seducing us for sympathy. Sympathy for both her situation and, by extension, her politics of misogyny. She may have help some women with this op-ed piece, but she could us her visibility to help so many more by denouncing the politics of feminine slavery she currently espouses.
45
@ANetliner
These types of events are not in the shadows - as seen from the many comments that note a miscarriage. The reactions are that this was self-serving with political overtones. And most of the comments express sorrow for Ms. McCain's loss.
9
@ANetliner
She contends miscarriage carries "stigma" and is "taboo." Not in any circles I intersect. I completely disagree with that, and I have been around for a long, long time.
The invoking of god is also a dog whistle. But I will not expound on why it is. It is just too obvious.
22
I think that individual women probably experience a miscarriage differently, depending on their individual views. Ms. McCain has shared her feelings about her miscarriage with us and I have nothing but compassion for her loss. My sister had to deliver a full-term baby after learning a few days before that her son no longer had a heartbeat and she was devasted, but she was also devasted after she miscarried another baby after just a few weeks. I don't understand why many of the commenters here are trying to politicize Ms. McCain's pain and turn her experience into some kind of statement about the abortion debate. It is cruel, unnecessary, and also self-righteous to belittle her feelings in that way.
8
I'm so sorry for Ms. McCain's loss. For some couples, miscarriage is a true horror and a devastation. But Ms. McCain's lens is a narrow one: every pregnancy is different, every loss is different. Not all couples think of every pregnancy as Ms. McCain does whose language is clearly biased to an anti-choice rhetoric: "These children, shockingly small, shockingly helpless, entirely the work of our love and our humanity, are children." We must all recognize that a woman's relationship to and investment in her pregnancy should be determined by her and by her alone. We must be honest and open about the myriad reactions women have to pregnancy loss, including abortion. Ms. McCain and many others have experienced terrible loss, but that does not mean all women and all couples feel the same way about every pregnancy.
14
I do not watch the View.
I remember Meagan to be a vocal young republican during the pre election years of Obama when her dad was running for office with Palin.
Her opinions are not those of a majority of women on many subjects but at least she isn’t a raving cult trumpite.
Idk why she decided to write this editorial about her miscarriage.
But I do know taking away a woman’s right to her own body and forcing her to endure an unwanted pregnancy will not ease the pain in her psyche about her loss.
IMHO she unfortunately had the ulterior motive of subtle rejection of pro choice women who have miscarriages too and are also devastated.
So Megan I am sorry for this pall of sadness over your spontaneous miscarriage. I hope you are fruitful and soon with child again if you wish that esteemed important challenge in your fortunate life.
13
By sheer numbers, there’s no dispute that an interventionist God, if you believe there is one, is the largest abortionist of all. Of course that begs the question of why? Of course the answer would be unknowable except for those who pretend to know God’s mind. Of course “mysterious ways” is the ever handy answer except when it comes to things that believers do want to claim as knowing what God wants, then suddenly it’s not so mysterious. When will humans face up to reality? My sympathies do go out to her for her loss nevertheless since we all are deeply emotional animals and I have experienced loss also. I just don’t mistake my deep and profound emotional states for the supernatural. This is a superstition we have to get over no matter how much false comfort it provides. It will lead to our destruction as a species.
7
For those who say losing a pregnancy is "devastating," what words are left to describe losing a living child?
26
That was a beautiful picture of the two of them together. Sorry for your losses.
I’m amazed that some women think that this is the time and the place to broadcast their pro-choice sentiments after hearing Megan’s grief about her miscarriage. I am pro-choice as well, but that fact shouldn’t make anyone intolerant of other people’s religious beliefs or their attachment to their unborn fetus, baby — whatever they choose to call it.
7
@McFife
You are correct. I am sympathetic to Megan's loss. However, the tolerance for women's personal situations and choices should go both ways.
4
As many commenters have pointed out, Ms. McCain's op-ed reeks of using emotionally-loaded language to push a political agenda. Her reference to the "stigma" of miscarriage is a red herring, designed to shame anyone who questions the propriety of imposing a purely private grief on an audience of strangers. The reason few women speak about their miscarriages in a public setting is the desire to keep the personal, personal. By exploiting her personal tragedy for political mileage, Ms. McCain has cheapened her own experience. And if she had a bit more of the Christian virtue of compassion, she might give some thought to the idea that other women might experience pregnancy and miscarriage differently than she has, and that their responses are just as valid and deserve as much honor as hers.
23
Is anything made more clear than these responses to Megan McClain than that pregnancy and childbirth are at their very heart women's issues? That men even attempt to legislate about all of this is truly the height of hubris.
15
I am sorry for your loss, as it is a loss. It is very difficult to have a loss such as this, or worse, the loss of a child at any age. My son was 29 when he died of a congenital heart defect. I will never be the same, but I cherish every moment we had together. It will take time to feel even partly whole again and no one knows another’s pain.
However, with all due respect, you can feel however you want to feel about a miscarriage. Yes, many women experience miscarriages and are quiet, others speak up. That’s a decision each woman faces and she deserves the privacy that she wants or needs. As far as “stigma” goes, I’ve been around a long time and an adult for 50+ years and I’ve never heard or seen a stigma attached to a miscarriage except for hardline crazies who want to prosecute some women who have miscarriages and some states that are forcing women to bury their fetuses. That said, at the end of the day, it makes me extremely uncomfortable that you are sharing your miscarriage, spinning it to your point of view; what is “a baby”. How many times did you have to say “baby, child”, etc. Biologically, it is not a baby if it is in the womb, it is a fetus or before that, a zygote. But you have every right to call the fetus a baby, if you choose. Child, child, child, baby, baby, baby, our children...enough!
See below...
15
What a caring way to remind us that MANY are walking around with scars unseen. I’m very sorry for your loss.
2
I am so sorry for your loss, Ms McCain. Women who miscarry should not have to hide their tragedies, and it is brave of you to speak publicly.
I personally believe a child is not a child until it is a viable human being. A fetus has an amazing spark of life, the potential of being. But to me, your story is proof of the fact that a fetus is a tenuous hope until it grows and is healthy enough to be born into the world.
And I hope you are not using your tragedy and belief in God’s will to tell other women and mothers how to manage their pregnancies and sparks of life inside them. Sometimes they are not meant to be - not by God’s will, but because the woman carrying the fetus cannot bear having a child at that time.
I hope you find comfort in your family and prayer.
11
So sorry for your loss. A miscarriage is a horrible experience, particularly if a planned and desired pregnancy. However, to articulate this miscarriage in the context of life since conception is dangerous. I share McCain’s pain and the need to talk more on the normalcy of miscarriage so we can understand is no one’s fault, I cannot agree to give a miscarriage child a sense of personhood outside from its parents hopes.
15
The miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy is painful. I'm truly sorry for her loss. I am not impressed by her attempt to turn this personal tragedy into a broader message about how other women should feel and what reproductive choices other women should make. I want children desperately. I have for over 20 years. For a number of reasons I don't have any. Every year the prospects of having my own child grow more slim. It is exceedingly painful for me. I can share that experience with others. I cannot use it to dictate other women's choices.
26
I'm sorry for the loss and pain Ms.McCain has gone through, but am thankful that she was able to express it so publicly, and perhaps help the many other women (and fathers) who have gone through this heartbreaking situation.
3
Let's separate two things.
One cannot read Ms. McCain's story without feeling her great pain, and she has done a great service to those to whom society should certainly extend sympathy and understanding. Miscarriage can be a significant loss when one can manage a pregnancy and motherhood, to any degree, without losing oneself entirely - either literally (long-term survival), or figuratively (mental stability) -- and if one can imagine ways that the child, at least, will experience joy which could become their own in some way. The loss of that opportunity is great, indeed, and that is the loss we all feel whenever we lose someone we have loved. It may also be that no one can experience the premature end of pregnancy without feeling the emotional weight of a sudden shift in one's trajectory, including the significant physical toll of a hormonal sea change. It is certainly true that pregnancy changes a person beyond their control.
But, in extending due sympathy to those who have experienced miscarriage, we should not leave behind compassion for those who experience pregnancy as a threat to their own precious life - literally or figuratively, and do not experience pregnancy the way the well-supported Ms. McCain must have experienced it. It would be just as heartless to deny them our support, in the decisions they must make, and are entitled to make, for the sake of life.
36
A miscarriage is a horrible experience. I had one and i know many women who had one but if it happens in the first trimester it is not the loss of a child. It’s the loss of an idea — a dream. That’s also painful but let’s be clear, once we adopt the rhetoric that an eight week old fetus is a child we are not very far away from telling women they can’t abort their “children” once a heart beat is detected. My miscarriage clarified that a 9 week old fetus is not a child. It was a clump of cells that came
out of my body and it made me even more sure of the fact that we need to stop treating fetuses as if they are fully formed human beings.
The pain of a miscarriage is awful and real, but let me put it this way— it is possible to get over a miscarriage in the first weeks of pregnancy esp when a viable pregnancy follows. I don’t think it is possible to ever recover from the death of a living, breathing child no matter what age.
56
@Michaela Soyer
This is beautifully stated.
1
While I'm sorry for Ms. McCain's loss and I appreciate her contributions to political discourse in this country, I simply cannot equate the loss of an early pregnancy with the loss of a "baby." It is unclear when Ms. McCain lost her pregnancy but presumably it was only a few weeks after conception when the fetus was about the size of a pea - or smaller. If you truly believe that life "begins at conception" and that a totipotent stem cell is the same thing as a "child," then you must mourn the loss of 100 embryos in an IVF clinic fire the way you would if 100 children died in a school fire. Would anyone do that?
110
Dear Meghan,
I am sorry that you lost your pregnancy. That is painful. No matter what my circumstance, I cannot fully understand your unique pain. I sincerely mean that.
However, I do understand what it is like to lose a pregnancy. I have lost so many pregnancies that I honestly lost count. During fertility treatments, countless embryos were placed in my uterus, countless “positives” were documented, yet no baby. Not even one.
There is quite a bit of rhetoric on both sides of the abortion debate, but one thing I can say for certain is that I am not the mother of dead “babies”. I am simply a woman who has experienced many failed attempts at pregnancy. To suggest that I was ever a mother of dead “babies” would be disrespectful to me, and also to parents who have actually lost real children. I have friends and family who have lost real children, and I mourn alongside them. But that mourning is different from the mourning that I experience for my potential family that never was. My mourning is not over actual people; I mourn over potential.
Before I began fertility treatments, I was on the fence about the morality of abortion. After experiencing Mother Nature’s abortions countless times, I realize that abortion is common, natural and normal. If it is indeed common, natural and normal - AND IT REALLY TRULY IS - why not let a woman have some say? It is her body after all.
Good luck to you and your family, Ms. McCain. I truly wish the GOP had your father's direction right now.
194
This is a short but powerful piece that every man should read. It brings to mind several somewhat similar insights into the twists and turns of a person's life and circumstances where people just don't talk about "things". I'm reminded of how prostate cancer or the early treatments weren't talked about. I'm reminded of how as a Vietnam Vet my close friends didn't want to even acknowledge that I'd been there when I returned. However, that pales in comparison to what she describes as only a woman can know. There is much to be learned by what she tells. Well done, Meghan, thank you for sharing.
2
I am so sorry for your loss and I do appreciate you thoughtful narrative. It is time we talk about miscarriage and the mothers whom are mourning. You are in my prayers. Vicki
1
I miscarried late, at 18 weeks, and it was heartbreaking. It was a planned pregnancy and we were devastated. However, I never thought my loss had anything to do with another woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy. Megan's beautiful expression of her loss was ruined by her thinly disguised moralizing.
43
I am sorry for her loss.
At the same time, I think this is an example of a much larger problem in our society in the way that we talk about pregnancy, marriage, and motherhood.
As a society our rhetoric about marriage, pregnancy and motherhood is grotesquely sentimental. A first trimester embryo is a "baby" that parents begin to project all their dreams upon without a thought to the realistic chances of the outcome. We announce everything on Facebook for likes. Motherhood is expected to be a beautiful and wonderful experience, and mothers uncomplicated and loving at all times. Marriage is over-romanticized. And all of it is politicized.
This does damage to women when their expectations do not meet the reality.
Conservative religious ideology turns this sentimentality up to 11, and it is the recipe for a lot of grief when pregnancies - and over idealized marriages (see Joshua Harris) - fail.
Pregnancy is a complex and messy biological process. It frequently does not go well. We need to talk about this honestly. We need to talk about the first trimester in a way that reflects the reality of its precariousness and the actual unformed state of the embryo / fetus, and we need to talk about miscarriage as a natural part of the body sorting out viable from non viable pregnancies.
We can do this while ALSO dealing with the grief and disappointment of miscarriage, which is a real grief, though not remotely close to that of a stillbirth or the loss of a born child.
36
First. let me offer my heartfelt condolences to Ms. McCain and her husband. Everything she wrote resonated with me and touched my heart. In my experience as a pastor and NICU hospital chaplain and I think in my personal life I have learned that suffering either opens our hearts or closes us down. Either hearts get larger with more compassion, empathy and understanding or they get smaller, closed in with bitterness, resentment and self-pity. When I miscarried my first pregnancy over 40 years ago, the very tired hospital intern held out one of those small brown paper towels and said, "See, here's the embryo." I looked at that little blob and thought "No, that's my child." And I grieved that loss, that child and-- as a dear friend whose wife had just miscarried put it--the possibilities. But in time I also realized that that little piece of creation was not the same thing as a child fully formed. We are losing the ability to differentiate, and to appreciate the complications of our situations--and those of others-- in the heated rhetoric of our political wars. We dismiss, minimize, and distance ourselves from the pain of others, whether it's the pain of a miscarriage experienced by a conservative commentator like Ms. McCain or a child separated from her parents in the name of border security and political agendas. So my prayers are with Ms. McCain and her family in this difficult time and I applaud her honesty and sincerity.
22
I was very sorry to read of Meghan’s loss. Her pain is palpable in what she writes. And perhaps sharing the deeply personal experience of her miscarriage will help other women in similar circumstances and with similar views. Meghan is a pretty savvy person, so I assume that she won’t be surprised by some of the comments she’s getting here. I’ve watched her on The View, where she’s loudly and strongly voiced her opinions against abortion. In this op-ed piece, her anti-choice stance (I won’t say pro-life, because that implies some of us are anti-life) is evident every time she calls a fetus a baby and talks about miscarriages resulting in lost children. But that’s ok. Meghan is certainly entitled to her own religious philosophy of when life begins. I have a different point of view. Would Meghan accept that we can have our differences on this issue, or would she demand that her beliefs trump mine, and should in fact be written into law. I think we all know the answer to that.
47
I just wanted to commend Meghan for this wonderful and sensitive article. Also wanted to underline her comment about her father and her baby. I really loved the way she wisely expressed her faith and vision of the future. I think it is not just beautiful, it is REAL, it is encouraging and spiritually revealing! "Our Creator is talking to you!"
6
@World Class To you but not to me :)
Intellectually we know our pregnancy wasn't viable for a number of reasons, but soothing words to that effect as Ms McCain has discovered are anything but comforting.
When you learn you are pregnant and/or suffer that loss the world is suddenly filled with pregnant women and babies.
I suffered an illness in my eighth month with my second child, and was hospitalized in Canada where because of a bed shortage I shared a room with three other pregnant women, two lost their babies while I was there.
Worst- our room was down the hall from the nursery,
I remember the sounds of that ward, feeling alone and out of place where I'd given birth three years before.
I couldn't imagine not ever experiencing that joy or the dreaded loss, the uncertainty alone was heartbreaking.
Years later when I did have a miscarriage I thought again of those poor women, and hoped they went on to fulfill their hopes and dreams of motherhood.
It's not called a miracle for nothing, don't lose hope!
3
Miscarriages are indeed more common than many realize or acknowledge. And they are significantly emotional. We suffered multiples. But it was at times hard to hear those messages over all the anti-choice dog whistling in this piece.
92
I,too, am sorry for Meghan McCain’s loss and any loss of a wanted pregnancy or child. Now imagine if you are arrested because you miscarried; That is a reality with these new anti-abortion laws. And, as she wrote up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriages.
If one is truly pro-pregnancy and pro-child—there would be good pre-natal health care, health care, education, childcare, nutrition, living wages, adequate housing etc. ( and there would be no children in cages).
So spare me the “pro-life” line—if you are truly pro-life it is for all...
5
A miscarriage is a loss. The loss of the beginnings of a life, a fetus not a child. But a woman is allowed to grieve in her own way. It’s so personal.
Imagine women in some right wing South American countries are jailed for having a miscarriage. They are punished for the loss and often taken from their living children.That happens because the state interferes with a woman’s body.
68
@M T W
A foetus is a child.
I am so sorry for your loss, and I hope you find healing at this time. I recently went through very early pregnancy loss after a failed IVF and three years of infertility (still with no kid to show for it). We got to see our two embryos under the microscope, and as people who believe that life begins at conception, we viewed them as our children and gave them names. Then the pregnancy only lasted a few days. The hard part is that our society doesn’t recognize them as real losses because they don’t look like babies or anything. As soon as I had my miscarriage, the first things close family said were, “You can try again,” or “It is not God’s will.” Would anyone say that if they lost their child after birth? The only solace I found at that time was having a short memorial service for our embies, since our faith tradition as an express religious services for those who miscarry. At least my faith still sees them as humans worthy of dignity and respect, and I wish our secular society would do so too.
3
Sorry, while we had the same experience (although my fertility produced-pregnancy lasted 12 weeks), I never thought of the fetus as a person. It was, at its demise, some blobs of mostly undifferentiated tissue.
49
I experienced 2 miscarriages and 3 years of infertility. Heartbreaking beyond belief. I empathize with any woman who has experienced miscarriage, but I do not agree with the rhetoric in this essay. A couple’s dream of a child is not a child. Despite the flowery words in her piece, Ms. McCain’s pregnancy did not actually “draw breath”.
Wholeheartedly agree with the commentators who worry that women grieving a miscarriage would be subject to criminal investigation under some Republican laws.
Also, refugees who are forcibly separated from their children at our border? Children who have died in border custody? Some tragedies seem to resonate more than others. Wonder why......
92
@K N
Clear difference between a miscarriage and an abortion (a directly willed action to kill the child in the womb.)
It's an insult to the intelligence to suggest any wrongful incrimination of women.
A miscarriage is a loss. The loss of the beginnings of a life, a fetus not a child. But a woman is allowed to grieve in her own way. It’s so personal.
Imagine women in some right wing South American countries are jailed for having a miscarriage. They are punished for the loss and often taken from their living children.That happens because the state interferes with a woman’s body.
12
I wonder if Ms. McCain's doctor recommended a D&C, the most common procedure performed to stop bleeding and prevent infection after a miscarriage? If abortion is made illegal, will doctors no longer be able to treat women suffering from miscarriages for fear of prosecution?
82
If she was having a miscarriage in one of those states that passed restrictive laws and contracted sepsis, but the fetus (not a child!) still had a 'heartbeat', she would just have died. Or if she survived, according to some of those laws Republicans want to pass, she could have been prosecuted for miscarrying. Imagine being persecuted for murder for having a miscarriage and trying to prove you didn't bring it about by having a glass of wine or by being reckless for falling over while wearing high heeled shoes. Funny she has nothing to say about that.
6
@M
The doctor writes up his notes identifying evidence of miscarriage then does the D&C for health reasons for the mother.
To suggest anything else is blatant scare mongering.
1
What a touchingly eloquent & moving description of a vastly under-reported life loss. My deepest condolences for the loss of your cherished dream; may you experience the parental role as often as you wish! It’s truly the most meaningful one in life!
5
It is one of the delusions of our times that baby-making is going to be easy, reliable, joyful. Scientific medicine contributes to the delusion, notably by leading women to think that reproduction can be controlled with contraceptives, but many of the factors that have opened up careers for women, good health for women, long lives for women, also lead women (and men) to think it's all going to go like a well-made car.
Nope. As MMcC cites, a huge percentage of pregnancies spontaneously abort -- usually silently. Biology, Biology! It is a little experiment each time, and many fail. Be glad that the miracle succeeds as often as it does.
15
I wish the ‘success’ rate were much lower. We’re at 7 billion and counting.
19
No death is as tough as the death of dreams.
It matters not a jot that miscarriages are often not viable pregnancies, sometimes a clump of damaged cells. For the vast majority of moms who miscarriage, they lost their very own Gerber baby. And that is heartbreaking.
13
Megan,
I am so sorry for the loss of your baby. I loved how you said your Dad was holding his granddaughter. Maybe it was a grandson. He only knows for now. I suffered two miscarriages. One early and one later and it didn’t matter they were both devastating. The doctor said when that usually happens it’s your body saying something is wrong. Your body takes care of it. It was no more comforting to me then, as when I told my own daughter that same thing when she lost a long awaited baby. Then I said in a few months you can try again. I hated when they said that to me as if this baby did not count. It counts my Dear. People say stupid things when they are trying to help,mine was out of love for my daughter and she was on the phone in a different state just crying. You are brave and strong and you grieve all you want. I did. Sending love from me to you and yours. ❤️
13
Dear Megan,
I watch you every day on The View, and live in Phoenix, so you and your family have been well known to us. I am a liberal who enjoys listening to your wise comments as to being careful to underestimate the man in the White House. I know you research all the topics and are the conservative voice at the table.
I am so sorry to hear of yet another loss within the year. Your eloquent essay is one I shall always remember. Thank you for sharing your loss and your feelings with the world.
Sincerely
Lucinda Martin
7
Meghan McCain, I am profoundly sorry for your loss, even as I applaud your courage and sensitivity in sharing the experience of your miscarriage with the many who have gone before you.
Thank you for your candor. You have helped many by sharing your story.
6
Dear Megan, I'm so sorry for the loss of your baby. My beloved Aunt had 3 miscarriages and one she almost died from the miscarriage. She only survived because my uncle's quick thinking and locating a hospital on their trip from Michigan to Illinois. My body wasn't made for children. After 3 years of getting everything scrapped off my female organs 2x a year it came to an end with a hysterectomy at the age of 24. I too grieve for all the babies I wanted to have. You will be a mother yet and a good one. God bless you and your family DMM
5
There are many commenters here who are pro-choice, but also express sympathy for Ms McCain. They disagree with her, but they are still saddened by her pain. That is called "empathy". The world could use more of it.
77
My heart goes out to you on the loss of your child. You will have more children and there will always be a special place in your heart for your first. Bless you.
3
I have to agree with the commentators who see prolife rhetoric. I too suffered a miscarriage of my first pregnancy. It was devastating. It was physically painful. It was a huge loss. But I must admit that the exhaustive, intense, passionate grieving that Ms. McCain describes sounds much different than how I felt. It was a first trimester miscarriage. And frankly I wondered why McCain did not share exactly how many weeks she was pregnant when this happened. Of course one cannot be a “little bit” pregnant, but now having had a full term pregnancy I can state that losing a child early on was not at all as terrible as I can imagine it would have been had I lost my daughter much later. I did not daydream about what house we’d live in, etc. that she describes when I learned I was pregnant. Frankly, as sad as I was, I was more disappointed about why and when would I ultimately have a successful pregnancy. So I do not buy that this extreme grief over a “baby” who is mere weeks old is typical of all women and therefore an example of why a woman would feel guilty terminating a pregnancy. That probably sounds harsh and cold and I do not mean to say I did not suffer and dream about that baby, but as someone said, I wouldn’t have my daughter if I’d have had that baby. And though I’ve never had a chosen pregnancy termination-and that has been a conscious decision-at least I can say that if it was early enough I know I could probably do so without guilt. And that is my pro choice opinion.
63
@ST I can completely understand how one could be devastated by an early pregnancy loss. It took my husband and me 2.5 years of trying to conceive before we finally had a positive pregnancy test. That positive test only occurred through IUI because we finally decided to get help from a reproductive endocrinologist after 2 years of heartbreaking failure. I saw a heartbeat at my 5.5 week ultrasound and felt so much hope and joy, even though I was trying to be cautiously optimistic. I went back to my RE two weeks later for our final ultrasound before being transferred to a regular OB. That day I found out my long waited for child had no heartbeat and probably had been gone for at least a week. No blood or cramping to warn me ahead of time that anything was wrong. Even though I ended up having a successful pregnancy two years later, I will never forget that day and the immense sadness I still feel at the loss of our first child.
6
I am infertile and suffered through multiple rounds of IVF. Never worked. Yet my loss is NOTHING close to the loss of my 9 day old grand niece. I feel for Ms McCain but she never suckled the child at her breast. She didn’t take a “healthy” infant home to a new nursery, field calls of congratulations, take and upload pictures, etc.
Grief is grief and everyone grieves differently. She chose (because she clearly was not far along enough for others to notice) to share. Many, many families, forced to share because the pregnancy or birth was obvious, don’t have the option of choice. Most families just grieve quietly, regroup, and get on with their lives.
1
I feel for Ms. McCain in her sorrow. But I ask her to put herself in the place of women who might have to endure even more grief, under the kind of puritan anti-abortion laws that several states have passed and only await the Supreme Court's OK to become constitutional.
It does not take much to imagine some zealous DA, eager to progress up the political ladder, investigating early terminations of pregnancy to determine which ones were spontaneous, with the aim of a prosecution for any that were not.
Ms. McCain did not hesitate in her article to promote her conservative credentials, so I won't hesitate to speculate that those credentials would immunize her from suspicion. But maybe as a woman with obvious deep feelings, she should learn something else from her miscarriage: how she would feel if she were hounded by the authorities to prove that her abortion was indeed spontaneous.
22:15 EDT, 7/19
57
Dear Meghan,
I’m so very sorry for your loss. My first pregnancy ended in miscarriage seven years ago and I still think about the experience constantly. Each December I think about the due date when I should have met my baby, and each May I remember the day I found out that there was no heartbeat. I applaud you for writing about your experience. It’s something so common, but also something not talked about.
I wish you peace. I know what it is to blame yourself, but I hope you’ll get past that, because it wasn’t your fault. I hope you find comfort in the stories of others who have gone through this experience, something that helped me tremendously.
9
I sent Meghan McCain a tweet when I learned of her miscarriage today. I felt her pain and her grief and I wanted to acknowledge that and offer prayers and solace. I have read many of the comments about Ms.McCain using her grief to somehow make other women who have had or simply believe in the right to terminate their pregnancy. I read about the 'zygote' and embryo and it took me back to the night before I had an abortion scheduled for the next morning. My then husband, who had been traipsing all over the U.S. with his mistress for the past year, showed up at our home begging me to have the baby. He promised to be a different person than the person he had been since the birth of our first child. I didn't want to have an abortion, but I remembered the amount of money the judge had ordered him to pay when I filed for divorce the first time. I was awarded alimony and child support of $79.00 per week! My ex came from a wealthy family and worked for them, therefore, they were able to create false reports of his income. His family was furious that I had left him and thought the lack of money would bring me back into the fold. They didn't care that their beloved son and grandson had disappeared for months before our first child was born and beat me the night before we brought him home. So, he won again. I didn't have the abortion and I ended up raising my two boys on my own which was very difficult and I could have stopped the pregnancy with a simple procedure. Don't judge others.
23
@Kathy Murray
Wishing you and your sons all the best.
@Kathy Murray, when I read Meghan McCain's essay I feel her pain and at the same time see very clearly (bigly?!), how she is using it to support forced birth laws for others. I understand that when a pregnancy is wanted we call it a "baby" and we hear a "heartbeat" (“fetal pole cardiac activity”), while at the same time we intellectually know that what we have is a clump of cells with electrical activity. For McCain to use her experience as a platform for forced birth of course she is inviting other opinions. Other opinions do not equal judgement.
1
I didn't mourn my miscarriage for 18 years. We just didn't talk about the loss of a baby back then. Too often, the child we hoped for was/is treated as not human, definitely not human-enough to mourn.
Sending peaceful thoughts your way!
5
Here’s what perplexes me. Miscarriage is tragic and painful. It’s the death of a hope, a terrible, all too common outcome. I am deeply sorry for mccain’s loss. But why does McCain deal with miscarriage by insisting that a lost pregnancy is a fully formed child?
It’s like conservatives have to advance the personhood stance even when discussing miscarriage. Does everything have to be political? If we don’t view a lost embryo as a child, the implication is we don’t care as much as those who do.
My experience with miscarriage was that I invested in the dreams of a baby but something went wrong and nature intervened. There was no child, not even a fetus. But I still mourned the loss.
120
@CinnamonGirl nope, I had two miscarriages in a row. I felt the same she felt, I was 3 1/2 months pregnant, and caught my miscarriage in my hand. It looked very tiny. But it definitely looked like a baby just a very tiny one… And it was red, but I could definitely tell it was a baby. I do not have an agenda but I can tell you after having two miscarriages, and seeing one of them… I know what I saw.
1
I have every sympathy for Ms. McCain's loss.
However, I question her motive for writing this piece.
She writes that one in 10 to one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. She goes on to say that's about 3 million lost "children". (parenthesis mine) But what is her point really? Miscarriage is a very common occurrence. I'm not really sure why she claims that there is stigma and lack of knowledge about miscarriage when it is so common.
Most women who miscarry go on to have successful pregnancies. Miscarriage is a normal part of human biology,and when a pregnancy fails it's usually due to something with the fetus being incompatible with life.
Why does she blame herself? She asks "Why was an innocent life created in the image of God and then abruptly snuffed out" when clearly it is God who is responsible for the failure to thrive of her fetus?
61
Failure to thrive is a term of art and I do not think it is applicable to fetuses, but rather to babies who are not growing and developing properly, despite proper care and nutrition.
14
My sympathies to Meghan on the miscarriage. My first pregnancy many years ago ended in miscarriage and I understand the grief and sense of loss you feel, and I would not wish that on anyone. On the other hand, had I not lost my first pregnancy I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with the baby who became my son and I wouldn’t exchange him for the world. When he came, my ache over my miscarriage disappeared and I believed that what happened was meant to be. In a long winded way, I wanted to say that not all pregnancies are meant to end with a baby. But a pregnancy is NOT a baby; it is a potential baby. It also carries with it health risks both physical and psychological for the mother and a life change that no woman should be made to undergo unwillingly. You lost your much wanted baby and that is a tragedy. Being made to carry a pregnancy to term against a woman’s wishes is also a tragedy. You deserve sympathy for your loss, but your bald faced attempt to use your tragedy to push an agenda that harms other women is disgraceful.
123
@NMY
No, Meghan McCain spoke the truth, intellectual, moral, as well as personal.
A pregnancy is a human life, and I challenge you to prove otherwise.
Your thinking is on a par with somebody claiming that government should not be able to outlaw armed robbery because if it is allowed such power, then it would have the power to force people to commit armed robbery.
Plenty of commenters have pointed out the strong anti-choice stance of this piece and the obvious, unrecognized privilege of its author.
Can we also take this time to point out that Meghan McCain came to the position of being able to publish this in the New York Times because of who her parents are? And that her notions of the mysteries of creation seem not to have evolved past a Disney/grade school understanding. These are the wages of aristocracy.
174
@ Max Farthington.
Thank you!
3
Dear Meghan,
I am so sorry. I've been through this with my husband before we had our three children, and I still remember how excited we were, our due dates, the details of our losses, the names we chose, and so much more. And it's been almost 40 years. Thank you for sharing this, and stay optimistic.
12
I had 2 miscarriages one after the other years ago. I was sad, confused, didn’t understand my doctor saying I was luckier than another woman who had tried for years for children and then miscarried twins. He seemed not to know how to handle my sadness. It was dealt with eventually like most losses by time and on my own. My beliefs nor anyone else’s are necessary to this discussion. I wouldn’t add to anyone’s grief at this time. I will only say the beliefs for yourself are yours and aren’t vital.
11
Dear Meghan -
My heart mourns for you.
After my miscarriage, I could not stop weeping. My sadness made me remember a story that was in the NYT and how another brave woman honored her loss and sadness. May this be of solace to you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/21/magazine/mourning-my-miscarriage.html?emc=eta1
I told my husband how much I needed to travel to Japan, and that’s what we did together. We traveled to the shrine the author mentions in the article and mourned the loss of our much-wanted baby.
13
My condolences to you and your family. Loss is loss. Grief is grief. We experience it individually and differently at different times in our lives. Ms, McCain, you seem to be an incredibly resilient woman, and I am sure you will come through this grief. Remember in your moments of darkness, total strangers support and empathize with you.
I am sorry there is stigma attached to miscarriage such that people feel they cannot discuss it. There is no “fault” here. Sometimes bad, sad things happen.
14
I hope Meghan McCain realizes how very personal a pregnancy is to each woman and can find it in her heart to accept the decision by a different woman to terminate her pregnancy voluntarily if that is her choice. Shouldn't every woman have the right to deal with the emotional, spiritual, and financial load of a pregnancy as it works best for her?
64
We lost two... and it is really tough, a devastating loss every time. Your mind races ahead to the potential of another member of your family to love and care for. And then with no explanation it is simply over, ripped away.
Calling the fetus a baby is abortion politics. It is language used as a passive aggressive cudgel.
I'm sorry for her loss. The loss is what is real.
94
I am sorry for your loss. You are very lucky that you don’t live in a state whose laws would force sepsis on you since do few doctors will perform the d and c procedure you needed to safely end your failed pregnancy. Women will die from these laws you support. But you didn’t - you were cared for and as a result can try again.
124
@Deirdre I had a DnC for one miscarriage and for the other I had it naturally… I don’t understand. Women have been having miscarriages since the dawn of time and DNC has only been around for a while.
@Amber And what was the mortality rate for women having miscarriages and babies since the dawn of time? Hand washing before delivery has only been around for a while. Some folks with political agendas wish All women good health and quality care, and might take a moment to think about someone less fortunate in the same situation.
17
@Amber
Some miscarriages are partial and tissue remains which would cause sepsis or other complications. It can be an emergency.
7
Meghan McCain probably doesn't have to worry about being arrested and prosecuted for missteps during pregnancy. I hope she uses her fame and experience to keep the police and DA's away from less privileged and powerful women who are going through the same thing.
108
Acknowledging your feelings is healthy and helpful to others. Thanks and God bless. However, your personal views need not be imposed on other women.
75
@Marylee You don’t have to read it… But it is called freedom of speech. Let her have her moment if she so wants. What ever happened to live and let live
Thank you, Meghan. This beautiful secret which circumstances have invited you to share is a precious gift you and your child have given to America, so needed today. God bless you and your child as you have blessed us.
1
No, Meghan, a miscarriage is not a lost child. It is Mother Nature ending a pregnancy because there is something wrong with the embryo or fetus. Of course a woman should be disappointed, but like it or not, it's a natural phenomenon.
93
@AnnabelleLeigh She seemed to forget that a miscarriage would affect men as well. And their families.
@AnnabelleLeigh Wow. No. Lol. A miscarriage doesn’t always happen because something is wrong with the embryo. Did you know a woman has to have 3 miscarriages in a row before she is tested for blood clotting disorders? Sometimes the woman has something wrong with HER, which is EASILY fixed with a medication for pregnancy. Also miscarriages can happen at any time. I had one at 20 weeks. The baby doesn’t just disappear. I can assure you it was more than a “pregnancy”.
Meghan, hanks for the piece, though never have I heard or read of women being stigmatized by miscarriages. I think that's a stretch.
What's not a stretch is that in Georgia, a woman - not famous and white as yourself - who suffers a miscarriage soon may be criminally investigated by police if there is suspicion of an illegal abortion. Hey, here's a cause you could get behind, right? Because as awful as this loss was, just imagine being poked and prodded by a doctor for the prosecution and interrogated by a cop about what REALLY happened.
154
You must be under 40, from a hip urban area, or both.
Miscarriage long has been a stigma held against the women and couples (but especially the women!) who experienced it. It was something they were taught and reminded not to talk about, often denied the opportunity to grieve publicly -- even if just amongst family and close friends -- or to receive the comfort that family and friends and community provide and is so vital to healing from tragedy and from what often enough is also a physical as well as mental trauma -- especially if the pregnancy was a wanted one.
I don't agree with some of Meghan McCain's stance on certain laws, but she is absolutely correct, unfortunately, about the stigma of miscarriage, then and, sadly, still now.
13
@Another Woman in the, I am 69 years old and I quite agree with Sarah. Please do not assume that all women everywhere have been unable to mourn their miscarriages.
13
@Another Woman in the I’m 56. I’ve had a miscarriage. I’m grateful no one investigated me for it. I’ve also raised two children who are productive adults. I am suspicious of this piece because it elevates fetus to baby. And Meghan McCain’s stance is well known.
40
I do not for a moment begrudge Ms. McCain her grief and her choosing faith to deal with her loss. That said, if recent years have taught us nothing, it's that words matter. Using the "child" and "baby" to refer to a being that could not survive outside the womb troubles me. When my mother described the miscarriages she had between me and my brother, she said that she lost the pregnancies. Never did she say that she lost babies. I wish all the best for the McCain family. However, with a platform like Ms. McCain has, I do wish that she could be a little more clinically accurate to describe her miscarriage.
72
@MountainFamily It is sad she lost a planned and wanted pregnancy, and her description of her pregnancy loss as a lost child is well calculated.
3
Meghan, thank you for telling this story. Every word of it could have come from my own mouth in 1985. Every December when my little one's would-be birthday rolls around I remember. I thank you for calling your baby a baby, and I honor you for not bringing politics into it. People will say stupid things, hurtful things. I still have to keep discussions about reproductive rights off limits in my own life, except among a small handful of friends.
I wish you and your family peace and all blessings.
6
@Kathleen S.
McCain's loaded language in this piece, and her well-known political stance on a women's right to choose, has dragged politics into it. Had you penned the piece, Kathleen, I would believe there were no political undertones in it. When a public figure whose fame is inseparable from her vocally strong anti-choice political stance pens it then the politics, her misogynistic politics, are baked in.
6
Imagine the grief and misery which would result if some overreaching bureaucrat decided to investigate this miscarriage and determine whether or not Ms. McCain was somehow criminally responsible for the loss, that would be unconscionable - yet that will be law in Georgia after January 1st. Certainly hope some anti-abortion individuals such as Ms. McCain can relate to the horror resultant of their hubris regarding medical privacy. My heart goes out to her, will her heart reciprocate for other women?
73
“That’s about three million lost children in America each year.”
No; that’s three million unviable fetuses that spontaneously aborted … in all likelihood, a mercy for everyone involved.
“They were conceived, and they lived, fully human and fully ours — and then they died.”
Fully human? Hardly. A zygote or developing fetus is a potential human life; all of us spend years after birth becoming human. Many never make it – witness our compassion-free so-called president.
I sympathize with Ms. McCain’s pain, but the language she uses is florid and hyperbolic – the sort of thing Republicans will continue to use to prosecute women who miscarry, for any reason they can find to condemn them.
They don’t see “A Handmaid’s Tale” as dystopian; they think it’s a pretty good idea.
142
"Yet this is not my fault" should have been written in extra large bold italicized print.
Miscarriages are not the mother's fault. They spring from nature. The most extremely complicated engineering and construction project - a man made island, a moon landing, a bridge across a huge chunk of ocean - is less complicated than the simplest construction project in a fetus.
From a single cell grows a brain, a heart, lungs, blood, bone, tiny energy plants, chemical manufacture plants in the brain and glands, chemical cleansing plants in kidneys and livers, huge swaths of skin, multiple complex systems which work in lockstep with each other.
Things go wrong, frequently, and expecting mothers and fathers suffer the loss.
Write it in bold print. Not. My. Fault. The fault was in the blueprint and that is a tragedy, but not one for blame.
16
@Cathy It is a sad loss of a wanted pregnancy, it is not a tragedy. It is a tragedy when women are treated as less than human by being denied sovereignty over their own bodies.
6
@Cathy, "Yet this is not my fault" should have been written in extra large bold italicized print.
Or maybe tattooed to lawmaker's foreheads when they pass laws criminalizing women who experience them so when they look in a mirror they can be reminded of this basic scientific fact.
1
So sorry for your loss.
9
Very sorry for your loss. As has been pointed out, some women suffer the additional ignominy of being accused of "self-induced miscarriage". Which women? Where? and Who are the accusers?
Two groups of women for sure: Poor women of color in the Deep South of the U.S. and poor indigenous women in Central America. The accusers are the prosecutors and judges influenced by Protestant Evangelism in the former and the Roman Catholic Church in the latter. Unlike Ms. McCain, such women do not often have an obstetrician and scan documentation to buttress their case; but rather only a rushed trip to the E.R. - the circumstances of which can be easily manipulated - or perhaps a traditional midwife, who, despite her long experience, carries no weight in court.
38
Come on, people--stop telling Ms. McCain how to mourn her loss. As an aside, every woman I've known who's miscarried has spoken of the baby she lost, not the fetus or embryo. Honor your sisters.
20
@Diane
You apparently haven't known many progressive women, or women with science backgrounds. As you can read here, every woman's reaction is different. McCain's politics would force every woman to believe as she does. That truly dishonors her "sisters".
6
@Diane To honor one's sisters is to accept the way they speak and believe.
2
@Diane, I haven't read one comment telling Ms. Mcain how to mourn her loss. What I have read are empathic replies to a hyper politicized essay using her experience to further the forced birth movement.
3
I had a miscarriage.
I didn't ask 'Why'?
I didn't blame myself.
I didn't think of my body as 'a rock-strewn wasteland in which no child may live'.
I didn't feel deep shame.
Honestly, the mourning, weeping & horrendous sorrow you write about was not a part of my experience.
I sure as heck never wondered about what sort of 'faith life' I was going to cobble together for my future child.
Not for a second do I question the reality of your personal experience as you describe it here, Meghan.
But I am uncomfortable with you assuming you speak for all women who have had miscarriages.
You do not.
You do not speak for me.
96
@CR
I don't get the sense she is trying to speak for anyone but herself.
2
I am sorry for your loss and commend you for your courage in speaking out. As a society, we have no rituals for such losses.
I respect your opinion that miscarriages end the lives of “fully human” “children.”
I wonder if you would accord me the same respect; I believe miscarriages end life processes called embryos and fetuses that are not the same as children.
42
I imagine the experience of having a miscarriage would have been far worse if Ms. McCain had been subject to a criminal investigation to determine the cause of her pregnancy loss.
59
Meghan,
Hugs to you and your husband. I think I may not agree with most of your politics but having been through it twice. 24 and 23 years later, I think of them all the time. Especially when I look at my children who by the grace of God made it through the 9 months. They are a part of you and of your life experience. A heads up, it may help to develop a thick skin when people who mean well say dumb things.
Also Meghan, having gone through those experiences, I was brought to tears when a coworker who is rabidly (yes rabidly) “pro-life” said that she agreed w AL (?) that women who go through miscarriages have to prove they did not abort/terminate their babies/pregnancies. And she is a Catholic like me. Take your time to grieve. Don’t let ANYone tell you it’s time to move on.
8
Ms. McCain, I am so very sorry for your loss.
11
Please! If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all. This poor woman is writing about a tragedy. It's not political, it's personal. She's grief stricken. She's in mourning. Condolences, warm concern, reassurance is all that should be coming at her. Be nice!
13
@Northway
The grief ceases to be personal when she makes it so widely public. Had Ms. McCain wanted the comfort of friends and family, she could have confined her "sharing" to them. When one shares personal stories with strangers, one has no reason to complain when they express their own opinions in turn.
24
@Northway
You apparently overlooked the anti-choice message dripping from this piece, in which the author herself chose to go public with her grief in the largest print platform in the world. Being nice gives us misogynistic GOP rule. Sorry.
3
I can't imagine how Ms. McCain must have felt during those awful days, in the public spotlight. My experience was much more of a private affair, but I was so devastated I could barely function. (The miscarriage also came after five years of my husband and I trying to conceive, and I believed I'd lost my last chance to have a baby. Miraculously, I became pregnant again a little over a month later, and our incredibly wonderful son is now 20. Still, I mourn the child we lost, regardless of the reasons.)
For those who downplay the pain of losing a baby in the first trimester, I'm including a link to a poem I wrote about the experience, published in the journal Up the Staircase Quarterly. It's the best means I have to communicate what the experience was like, and why, although my heart has always been in the deep Liberal zone, I could never think of a fetus as a mere "cluster of cells." It has NOTHING to do with religion, at least as it tends to be defined.
https://www.upthestaircase.org/nancy-bevilaqua.html
7
@NGB, you can choose to think of a clump of cells in any way you want but your choice doesn't change science.
2
Miscarriage is far more common than the opinion piece states. If a foetus was truly a person, then this would be a national emergency which it isn't. To each their own, but there is no need to feel guilty about this you have done nothing wrong.
15
God bless you and yours, Ms McCain, I'm sorry for your loss.
6
What you experienced is awful. Now let's make it even more traumatic. Imagine living in one of the states where increasingly women are being charged with somehow contributing to their miscarriage - how would you feel having a DA or investigator question whether your job stress, eating habits, driving decisions, or other activities were the cause of such a tragedy? Because thanks to the GOP-led war on women, this is occurring. In our country. I don't want to diminish your grief- it's real, and it's significant. And you already likely blame yourself too much for somehow being responsible....so don't support politicians who want to make this experience even harder for women than it already is. Again, sorry for your loss.
54
@Gracie No one is " increasingly charged with somehow contributing with their miscarriage." If it's happening, we would certainly see frequent and sensational reporting in the media.
Natural death happens- and that's what a miscarriage is.
2
@BNuckols
You apparently haven't stayed up-to-date on the fetal personhood laws recently passed in states around this country. The situation Gracie mentions is real. The laws she describes are promoted by Meaghan McCain and anti-choice, right-wing zealots like her. Maybe you'll get the message when the first white woman is executed for fetal murder after her miscarriage. I, for one, would prefer to cut this effort off before we have to read "frequent and sensational reporting" about it.
4
I for one applaud the Times' commitment to publishing opinion columnists with a diversity of viewpoints. It's about time we heard from someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth who *also* commands a daily TV audience of millions. This is the courage America so desperately needs right now.
23
I am really sorry to hear about your miscarriage and I hope you find some peace. But I don't see what was newsworthy about it, and can't understand why the Times chose to publish your essay on it. There's no larger social message, and nor was this a particularly well-written piece. (It wasn't poorly written, but wasn't great writing either.) I don't get this, at all.
28
Bitter sweet. God bless you. Your little boy will be in my prayers. Wonderful you believe grandpa McCain is with his grandson. Another example of how Faith helps us through some of our many tests hear on Earth.
Thank you for sharing. My Faith has been stenghthed.
God bless you.
3
I am sorry for your loss and wish you strength during your time of grief.
But consider that some anti- abortion laws being propsed (e.g., Alabama) would consider you a criminal until proven otherwise.
49
God bless you and your baby Meghan
3
Lucky she is not poor, in AL or other restrictive States. She could be in jail right now
42
So sorry Meghan. I had no idea. I'm sure your father will take care of your baby as he took such good care of you.
3
Before I was married, I had an abortion. After I was married, I had a miscarriage. They felt different and should be treated as such. The first was my choice, the second was God's. After my miscarriage I wondered if it was God's punishment for a Catholic girl like myself getting pregnant as a freshman in college. I wondered if, after all those years trying to prevent pregnancy, would I be denied a child I actually wanted? Like Ms. McCain, my pregnancy was a surprise but I welcomed it, only to have motherhood taken away from me at 8 weeks' gestation. Honestly, the hardest part was the uncertainty that I could ever carry a baby to term, not the loss of the "child", who slipped into the toilet with a cramp. This is not pro-life versus pro-choice. It is biology and that thank goodness for that. Today I have four children in their 30s, with a second miscarriage that occured between child 3 and 4. My best to Ms. McCain, and to all the women out there whose hearts are broken, and whose futures are questioned, by miscarriage.
13
In medical parlance, a "miscarriage" is called a—
Spontaneous abortion after it has taken place—
Threatened abortion if symptoms are occurring like spotting and cramping—
Inevitable abortion if the process is irreversibly underway—
Incomplete abortion if pregnancy tissue still remains and likely requires surgical assistance (i.e. some type of curettage)—
Missed abortion (fairly uncommon) if the early pregnancy stops growing but there is no expulsion by the body.
"Miscarriages" are very common and a large number occur before or without a woman evening knowing she was pregnant, the only evidence often a slightly delayed and maybe heavier period.
And of course "miscarriages" are very private (the ache and disappointment between the woman and her family), as opposed to pregnancy becoming a public reality.
Perhaps this spectrum can give a better understanding of the word "abortion" for those who would deny a woman control of her own body in electing to have a therapeutic abortion, the medical term for the woman's choice.
A physician MD
46
@srwdm Another MD, here.
Doctor, All humans are human-enough to possess human rights. There's nothing "therapeutic" for the human subject of an intentional, interventional, "elective" abortion.
There's no more equivalence between the spontaneous abortion or miscarriage and the intentional, interventional *elective* abortion than between natural death due to aging or disease and involuntary euthanasia by a lethal injection.
Rather, the intentional abortion is, like involuntary euthanasia, the willful ending of a separate, individual human life by another human.
Both ignore the most basic human right not to be killed by another when no threat to life is present.
1
@BNuckols, would you suggest then that every man that masturbates is killing human life? That every woman who dares to have a period and not get pregnant that cycle has killed a baby? I'm guessing not because that would ludicrous. Consider then the forced birth movement who want to claim that the two cells that form as a result of the sperm entering the egg is now suddenly a human.
1
I'm sorry for your loss, but this article reeks of the bubble of privilege its author lives in. Had you been living in some US states, and perhaps been a little more poor and a little less white, you might be facing criminal charges right now. Or, were you a little less advantaged socioeconomically, your anticipation and joy might have been moderated somewhat by trepidation about how to feed this incipient new life on a low wage job with no benefits. And all of that is true without addressing the other major falsehood being implied here, which is that a fetus is a child. I wish you the best as you recover, but Ms. McCain you and many others of your tribe could definitely bear to walk a mile in the shoes of a few American women with different life circumstances.
56
@Chris Where would any woman face criminal charges?
Most women live through one or more miscarriages, whether they are aware of this or not.
On some level, it makes the rants of the no-abortion-never men, look ignorant, ridiculous.
From the point of view of their paradigm, God aborts many many babies-yet-to-be, no medical procedure required.
Maybe the no-abortion-never-men should put God in jail for murder.
17
I love her last sentence.
3
A master class in emotionally manipulation that many won't dare challenge, though it seems like some below aren't taking the bait, thank god.
I am definitely, for-real sorry your miscarried, and if there's a stigma out there, always nice to remove it. As for meaning, there isn't any: it was bad luck, bad biological luck. Surely you shouldn't feel any guilt: the more biology you know, the less you'd feel. So, all for removing needless guilt and stigma.
But not like this. To use your miscarriage as a wedge for anti-choice propaganda, after a public blow-up just last month with Whoopi Goldberg about abortion, and given what your party is wreaking across the country...yeah, not a good look. Fetuses are not children, whether you italicize the word or not. They are not "alive" as you also smuggle in. You were not, yet, its mother. You can insist all you like, using the event in this fashion you've chosen, but no one need be emotionally browbeaten into accepting your framing.
Actually, many women do *not* know they are pregnant. Many women do *not* raise their children "in faith," certainly not this anti-abortion faith. Nobody will ever force anyone to have an abortion if they don't want to. What's being forced is not having one, at peril to your life, even. Or being a real live baby or child ripped from its mother on the border and put in a camp.
Try choosing love there. It's within your power.
Your miscarriage is not your responsibility. How you chose to characterize it is.
57
If it's any consolation a lot of first trimester miscarriages occur because the fetus is genetically defective cannot survive till term.
15
Her loss may be real but the language she uses makes this letter more propaganda than an honest sharing of her grief. The majority of miscarriages happen within the 1st trimester especially when the fetus is nonviable and in effect is aborted by nature. To use words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ for this situation is a rather slippery way for the profetus brigade to muddy the waters quite a bit. Again not that her grief isn’t real but if you are going to share at least be honest in the proper use of language.
39
Boy it sure ain’t easy being a woman.
Abuse
Rape
Discrimination
Abortions
Miscarriages
The only thing they got going for them is they usually live a few years longer then men.
That’s why I’ll always be *pro choice* and respect a woman’s right to manage her body and healthcare as *she* sees fit.
(Sending Planned Parenthood $50 tonight)
44
Meghan, I am so sorry for your and your husband's loss.
You are a smart, brave young woman with so much to offer the world and a child. I lost both of my parents within 9 months of each other at age 31, so I also identify with your loss of the irreplaceable John McCain. I was fortunate not to grieve on television like you did; you were an inspiration handling such crippling grief with grace and humor.
I appreciate your feelings and feel your pain as I had two miscarriages at 37 and 40. Given my age and fertility issues, I ended up adopting a beautiful little girl from China and never looked back. God blessed me with the strength and fortitude to understand what was possible and I embraced the opportunity to be a mother.
You are much younger and likely healthier than I was and my prayer for you is that God will grant you the strength and fortitude to be a mother whether the baby grows under your heart or in it.
I have watched you over the years and although we don't agree on much politically, I respect you and your family. I was a huge fan of your father and saw him as a person of honor who could save our troubled nation. I cried when he passed as he represented so much that is the best of America.
Peace be with you and your husband. I look forward to the day when People Magazine shows the world a picture of you, your husband and your beautiful child.
12
@Renee,
Yes! I am progressive politically, and I am dismayed at the commentary displayed here.
I am lucky enough to be a dad of two kids, and I can't imagine how devastating a miscarriage would have been for me - and I'm just a man. This article made me cry, I felt I was sharing in the grief, which is so clearly genuine - it didn't feel I was being fed an agenda at all.
2
Even the luckiest of women -- blessed with good health, a safe environment, access to care, a loving family, and the education to understand how to maintain a healthy pregnancy -- can experience pregnancy loss. We forget the extraordinary complexity of making a new human being and the risks inherent in such a process; consequently, we are not only grief-stricken but shocked, astonished, stunned in the face of a loss.
As one who has been there (first pregnancy, 25 weeks gestation), my heart goes out to you, Ms. McCain.
13
So sorry for your lost, Meghan. Every lost child remains in our thoughts & hearts forever. I know that you will find support in your family & friends. And I hope that all women are able to reach out and feel the arms of other women & men around them in comfort & love.
6
Dear NYT:
Thank you Meghan McCain for addressing so directly and honestly a hidden realm of loss that many of us have experienced, but not shared, fathers included.
I will never forget the day we went in for a 20th week ultrasound that -- after an initial misreading -- brought a sharp look of fear to our doctor's eyes. We immediately knew the worst had happened.
My wife and I held each other and cried about the little life that had inexplicably winked out, and we mourn all the days we would not be able to hold our child and teach him to face the world with joy and confidence.
Later, praying with my daughter (who did not know of the miscarriage), she asked God for a sister, who arrived in due course.
I could not be more blessed.
And though I strongly support limited abortion rights for women, and the ethical compromise that is is Roe v. Wade, I now can understand in my heart the vehemence of the pro life movement, and share their reverence for the spark of life that exists at all stages of gestation.
9
@Jorge
I became more pro-choice after my/our pregnancy ended in miscarriage. I realized that only the woman going through the experience should decide.
22
My deepest sympathy for your loss. There are no words that make this loss any easier. But having suffered three miscarriages, I did take comfort that my husband and I together did create the beginning of a new person....and it was a tangible sign of love.
Please, do not blame yourself. As you know from the statistics you quoted, it is not a rare but still a devastating event that you will not forget.
I also took comfort that nature ( or God) does intervene when the science for that life is not just right. But I do pray that you will be blessed with more chances to bring life into this world...that miracle does continue to happen in far more instances than the saddest part you just experienced.
Do not blame your age or anything you have chosen to be fulfilled in your life. There are many, many powerful and successful women, leaders in their field, who are mothers. Stay strong and have faith.
7
Michelle Obama also recently opened up about the miscarriage she suffered and lamented how people often don’t feel like they should talk about this loss, although more open dialogue would help others going through that experience.
Michelle Obama and Meghan McCain, for all their political differences, are both brave to open up about what they have gone through and are trying to help others who are struggling silently.
Maybe we can all follow that spirit of shared humanity and appreciate this account about the painful, universal, experience of miscarriage, and suspend our other feelings about the individual sharing her story?
14
I’m very sorry Megan. My wife miscarried our first at eleven weeks - I watched it happen in our home. Time will help you handle the loss of your child.
11
Meghan, my heart aches for you, your husband and your baby. I watch you on the View and I respect your opinions even though I am a Democrat. Please continue to fight for what you believe in and offer a balanced "view" to the real issues America is fighting for. Your honesty, integrity, humor and love for America shines through. Do not leave the show, stay strong and know that your are appreciated by so many viewers. Lots of hugs and support!
14
So so sorry for your loss.
7
Ms. McCain, I’m not a religious person, and my political beliefs are completely opposite yours. However, I had a lot of respect for your father, and I’m so sorry you lost your first baby. I believe, as do you, that your father is indeed enjoying his grandchild and that all of you will be reunited in whatever afterlife comes our way. My heart goes out to you and your husband.
12
I had a miscarriage a few years after a first child. It is not an experience I would wish on anyone to go through. But six months later I was pregnant again and another healthy son was born. I understand people grieving for a first trimester miscarriage, but as I watched my son thrive and grow, how could I not be happy he was born? This living person would not have existed if I did not have a miscarriage. I will always rejoice and be thankful for what IS, not grieve the what would have been.
16
I was taken back by Megan's comment of being "poised and strong for my fellow conservative women". This division of a political party defining who we are and who we connect with is so out of step of where we should all be.
57
@smf I believe Meghan made the statement she did was definitely for her conservative sisters. She knows well that Abortion Rights are owned by the Liberals.
I am sorry for your loss. I am pro-choice and this is why: It is a deeply personal experience for every woman. I agree with everyone that no politics should be involved in my view of your experience or that of any other woman.
30
What many commentators here seem to be missing is that many pro-life people are pro-life because we really do believe that life begins at conception, full stop. To someone who truly believes this, the loss is as real a loss as a loss of a ten year old child- you just had less time to know him or her. Not every woman may feel that way about her pregnancy, but Ms. McCain did and does. Have the decency to respect that she may feel this loss at a different scale than you think she should.
I have lost three. The birth of the other two does not diminish that. Time gives a perspective, and sometimes a window into a reason, but the pain is there. It is not about politics. It is about loss. And, I am grateful for this column and wish her peace.
19
@Kateri Stewart
To me it looks like that many of the commentators have indeed expressed empathy for her loss, even if they had a different experience or different politics.
37
@Kateri Stewart. They are NOT “pro-life.” That is nothing but a meaningless, hypocritical political label. Pro-life is actual support to women, children and families devoted to being caring, devoted parents. Analyze that, looking at actual policies, and you will find those seizing on a label to pat themselves on the back, severely lacking.
30
@Kateri- ah, but those of us who don’t believe a zygote is a child would not force you to have an abortion. Anti-choice people,on the other hand, wish to impose their view on all women and force them to carry a pregnancy to term. It really doesn’t matter to me how sincere your belief is. Mine is just as heartfelt.
52
I'm not a mother, but reading this was absolutely heart-wrenching, and I'm so sorry for your loss. Sharing your story with the public is incredibly brave- considering what you have been through this past year. You are a strong, tough, and inspiring woman who is surrounded by fantastic ladies on 'The View' every day. We couldn't disagree more politically, but I am a huge fan and admirer of you and your entire family. Never stop speaking up, and never stop sharing your stories. Sending you love and good thoughts.
19
Some (mercifully few) of these comments bewilder me. I'm an old woman whose last chance for biological motherhood ended in miscarriage years ago. I later raised two stepchildren who were indeed (and remain) "unfathomable delights and an everyday struggle." I'm pro-choice and wary of policies that would protect unborn children while cutting funding for preschoolers.
But let's get a grip, here, and recognize that Ms. McCain's loss is real. Her grief is real. Two weeks after my miscarriage I mentioned it to the stylist during a haircut. She asked sincerely, scissors poised, "Did your miscarriage affect your hair?"
Message received. The world didn't much care that I had lost a potential girl so real that her karate training would someday allow her to travel the world, safely, on her own. And I KNOW that the "actual" child might've been a boy who hated to travel. Nevertheless.
I don't have to share Ms. McCain's politics to consider her grief authentic.
40
Thank you so, so much for this poignant articulation of your pain and loss. It is brave. When I miscarried twice, my learning was that it is sad that we're not encouraged to share a pregnancy until 3 months (to be safe in case something happens). Both my misses were in that range, and it wasn't as if I was going to hide the tragic feelings MM outlines here, so I ended up JUST telling people about the miscarriages and NOT the pregnancy. That seemed like a bummer. I never allowed myself to feel the joy and anticipation. I"m so glad Megan McCain gave herself and her partner that experience, and I hope she gets what she wants in the design of a beautiful family
12
As someone who had a miscarriage 30 years ago and went on to the successful completion of a pregnancy the following year I am mystified as to why people think there is a stigma to a miscarriage and why it should be politicized from either end of the political spectrum. Yes, it is deeply painful, in part because it is deeply personal, but it is also common, particularly in first pregnancies. And it is beyond anyone’s control if it happens - nature makes the decision, most often because something went seriously wrong at the beginning. This is not a serious public issue. Better to spend the time and the ink to consider how we can make the lives of so many children who are born into poverty or abusive or dysfunctional homes better.
45
@Janet Flanner There is no stigma to miscarriage. it's just that there is no recognition of the pain of women who've experienced it. While you were able get beyond your miscarriage with a successful pregnancy (and good for your!), many women haven't been able to do the same. I'm not advocating a big pity party for childless women, or even women who were able to have children post-miscarriage, I just think recognizing the pain that miscarriage causes is a good thing. It's real and just as valid as mourning the death of any living, breathing child of God.
5
@Chris
I don’t disagree with you but it doesn’t explain why this experience should ipso facto be an op ed. There are many deeply moving and hurtful
events in life an individual may experience, but the implication of an op ed is that the issue pertains to policy in some way. And Ms. McCain has courted just that impression, evidenced by the way respondents have put her words into context on the issue of abortion. A column for “Modern Living”? ok. But an op ed?
8
@Chris Grieving a miscarriage should never be considered comparable to mourning the loss of a real child. A miscarriage is very sad but it's the loss of hopes/dreams, not a real person. Beyond the abortion debate, Ms. McCain referring ad nauseum to the loss of her pregnancy as the death of her child greatly diminishes the experience of those of us unfortunate enough to watch helplessly as our real children died.
13
Look, I'm pro-choice, but I"m appalled by all these comments telling Meghan McCain that she's not allowed to think of herself as having lost a child. An unwanted pregnancy and a beloved, hoped-for child are two very different things. And it's very true that the experience of losing a pregnancy is one that women are expected to just put behind them, and that expectation can be very cruel. There's no profit in comparing losses; it's not a competition.
I'm very sorry for your loss, Meghan.
29
A definite loss, but of what might have been. Not what was.
25
@Intrepid Well, you could say that of any loss. When someone dies, we don't lose the past, we lose the future. And it's not for us to rank people's griefs.
The loss felt from having a miscarriage has nothing to do with having a baby. Yes it’s a loss. A deep and permanent one. But it’s not a baby and when someone conflates the two it saps some of the empathy that typically is lost when you hear someone pretending that they are not making a political statement. Saying baby and miscarriage shouldn’t serve as a kryptonite to reason.
27
Many thanks, Meghan McCain, for this essay. As a working woman I too had a deeply affecting miscarriage, at 5 months. Then soon thereafter another at 2 months. My life was so stressed at the time, I was only shattered and had no time to think about what it meant, though I tried to. We do have some degree of control over the timing of life and death -- but not much. If the NYT had emojis to place in reader comments there would be a lot of hearts, to express heartfelt support, right here:
7
I think of what could have been all the time. I do have a wonderful child who is 43. I wishfully wonder how the 33 or the 29 year olds would be now. You never forget. Thank you Megan for this touching tribute.
17
My sincere condolences to Ms McCain, it can be devastating to miscarry. I have had two, it is deeply painful. But I cannot help but see this piece of writing as self-defeating behavior. In the short run, yes Ms McCain will get empathy, which she deserves as a human being. But it will also garner critcism, in part because she refers to her loss as a baby (which is not universal obviously, for women who miscarry as she dives in to one of the most complicated and divisive issues of our time). It is an invitation to get beat up and this set up, with her as provocateur and then victim is repetitive. She just put herself and her private pain in the public forum and she is likely to soon feel more pain. (Sigh). I feel for her.
16
@Ms I agree with your version of having a miscarriage. I had five. The first was 10 months after we were married. It was at 6 weeks of pregnancy. There was no baby, just some dead tissue cells. The second time, I was about 3 months, and was told no sign of growth and it would have to come out "naturally" that took 7 more weeks. The third and fourth were painful and frightening. There was never any "baby" After the fifth, I was told it would never happen to give birth and to make other choices. I understand where Megan is coming from because we all thought it was a baby, otherwise we wouldn't be able to stand it. I went on after 7 years to adopt twin babies. Four years later, I was pregnant when I was almost 37. I was told I wasn't and the doctor gave me an injection to end the non pregnancy. Hello, I gave birth 4 years almost to the day I adopted my twins. A third girl! You do not forget the miscarriages, but you do go on. If I had the children that were never born, I would not have my daughter. Or my twins. So my wish to Megan is be brave, be kind and love each other. You will be stronger for it and when and if you have a child, please love it as well as all the other children in this world that do not have a family to love them.
6
A loss is a loss. It has nothing to do with politics. Sad for you. Let’s work to create a happy, fair, just and healthy world for all future children. Let’s also support moms and families in general so that they can provide a warm and safe place to grow up.
18
I feel for Ms McCain's loss, and yes, miscarriage is a loss we should talk about more. But we need to talk honestly.
I know women who have had still births and have lost born children: to terminal illness, accidents, and violence. The experience is not even remotely the same as a miscarriage.
Most of the people I know who have had miscarriages in the first trimester, myself included, and have gone on to have other children have said they don't really think about their miscarriage much anymore now that they have children. (Obviously the grief is much more complicated for those who struggle to get pregnant.).
On almost every website for expectant parents, there are separate chat boards for miscarriage and for stillbirth / child loss. Because it is such a different experience.
The reality - the scientific reality - is that a first trimester pregnancy is not a "child" with a fully formed human body or a consciousness capable of relationship. It really is just a very active bunch of cells that we HOPE will become a child.
The women I know who have lost born children or late to full term babies will never, ever get over it. It is a true, unimaginable horror they live with every day. Their eyes sag, their hair has greyed prematurely, their loss is worn in their eyes every second for the rest of their life.
As a mother I would rather have a thousand miscarriages than ever lose one of my children or suffer the pain of a stillbirth.
77
I miscarried at 17 weeks. I probably miscarried many times before that but too soon to know for sure, too many late cycles and terrible periods involving cramping and pain and passing large blood clots. But this time we did know for sure and my husband and I were delighted. I loved that baby more than life itself. So excited! But it was the late 70's and no one ever talked about the pain of losing a baby that was truly wanted. My OBGyn was on vacation when I started having problems and a doctor, who I'd never met before, told me my baby was dead and I needed a D&C right away. I refused because I didn't know this guy and I wanted this child so badly that I knew he couldn't be right. A few days later, the cramping and pain became so unbearable that we ended up in the emergency room. The doctors who performed the D&C refused to give me information about my child, even it's sex. They said that some pregnancies aren't viable and we should just accept what fate ordained.
I'm 65 now and never had another pregnancy. And, as I'm writing this, I still cry.
I'm so very sorry, Meghan, that you have lost your beloved child. I fervently hope you are given the chance to try again and someday are able to hold him/her in your arms.
25
@Chris
Sorry for your loss.
God bless you Megan and your child’s soul. From my earliest memories I heard from my mother how she had had three third trimester miscarriages before me. I always admired her strength and fortitude to keep trying. After 36 hours of hard labor in the small rural hospital of Rhinelander, WI, all 10 pounds of me was delivered (mom was a tiny 5’ 1” gal! )
Nineteen months later my adored sister was born in the same hospital.
Your baby will live in you and your husbands memories as well as in the hearts of your future beautiful children.
I admire you very much as I always did your father. I watch every day. I enjoy the spirited discussions you have with your colleagues on The View. You and I could be friends even though we might not agree on many things. As a gay man, a appreciate your vocal and unfailing support.
Be strong and don’t be silent. Be true to what you believe and thank you for believing that we all have the right to say what we believe in our hearts.
(PS I loved your necklace and dress today! Sending you “liberally” hugs of love and support.)
13
Miscarriage is terrible pain. Losing a parent is terrible pain. Blessings on you for sharing so others can hear and not feel alone. Blessings as you recover from these painful events.
11
I can't believe people can't use this as a say something nice comment section. I have never had or lost a child, but I know Meghan has beliefs and those who're not pro-life have other beliefs. This column was not for any agenda. It was written from the heart of a good woman. Not one I always agree with, but I appreciate her candor most of the time. To say it scientifically wasn't a baby and to say it's harder to lose a grown child is so unfeeling. I am liberal. She is conservative. Now is the time to just keep quiet if you can't be supportive of what she feels she has lost. If she believes her Father will be holding her daughter's hand I pray that he will be. I like to picture the golden I lost has found his friends and as the song "Old Dogs" goes he will be waiting around the bend for me. We all do what we can to cope. All Meghan deserves right now from the cyber world is support for her loss or restraint from the critics. Take care Meghan and feel whatever you believe. I wish you the best and I know this article was written from your heart and your pain is real.
25
@gmhorn After my mother died and I wrestled with our deeply conflicted relationship, a friend sent a card with a short personal note: honor your feelings. That’s what Meghan has done by writing this, and I hope the positive and supportive messages here comfort her.
4
@Frolicsome I always send a heartfelt note to anyone in my world that loses a person close to them for the first Christmas after their death. Firsts are always tough. My cousin's Father-in Law told me that note was the greatest gift he got that year. It is helpful to just acknowledge grief like your friend did. Too many just gloss over it. Take care.
2
@gmhorn
I agree.
I'm a feminist and have been pro-choice all my long life.
But I recognize Meghan's pain is very real and I'm very sorry for her loss - whether she has a political agenda or not.
Whatever her politics - and whether I agree with them -
she's suffering.
What I took away from this essay by Meghan is fresh hurt and a serious questioning of why we suffer in this life - and an acknowledgement that it's usually beyond our understanding. That all we can do is to make a narrative for ourselves that lets us survive our loss, try to gain some kind of peace and go forward with hope.
I recognize that's what Meghan McCain is doing here.
I wish her the best.
2
Ms McCain, you had one devastating loss in your father's death. And what should have been a joyous reminder of life's renewal instead turned into another loss and occasion for grief.
I'm so sorry for your loss and your grief--they are like some terrible tag team.
I hope things are as you hope in the afterlife.
17
God bless you with another child.
I too lost my 1st child every early in his growth. But as you. I still love him..This was in 1964. I fortunately had 2 daughters after that. And 4 granddaughters...and this year 2019. We just had our 3rd great Grandchild...God is good. Your are a strong woman & your fathers daughter. Your legacy will continue I pray. .........I dont always agree with your politics, BUT I have come to see a beautiful soul watching you on the View. As I did watching your father over his last several years on earth.
11
When I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks, I was upset, and the actual physical event was painful and confusing. But I did not "love" this embryo. (Even though we'd given it a nickname.)
I realized that I "loved" the idea of being pregnant and decorating a nursery and having someone throw me a shower, and I did not like having my hopes dashed.
But miscarriage is common, and I knew that.
I accepted that this embryo wasn't viable, for some reason, and nature took its course.
Miscarriage is not, by definition, devastating.
29
@Ann W you don’t get to decide what is devastating for anyone else, much less define miscarriage.
My second trimester miscarriage was devastating to my family and myself.
29
@Ann W Why do you get to decide what is devastating to another human being? You had an experience with miscarriage; it is your experience and no one else's. The same is true for Ms. McCain. The same is true for millions of other women. When I miscarried at 8 weeks I was too depressed to function for several weeks. When I lost identical twin boys at 6 months, I changed forever. Devastation is not the word: part of me died with them. I went on to have three healthy children, but still to this day I always think of myself as the mother of 5, and the boys' birth/death day is always a day of mourning. As a woman, frankly, you should perhaps consider being more supportive of your sisters.
And the phrase "....xyz is not, by definition, devastating" actually makes no logical or linguistic sense. Feelings of loss and anguish are inherently personal and unique, and as human beings we become richer in recognizing the right of other beings to their own experiences.
20
@Rachel A definition is socially understood meaning. Her phrase does make sense. Miscarriage to many women can mean relief if the fetus is not viable. Your experience is personal and very very sad. But you don’t own the meaning of words. Miscarriage is a physiological process. The emotions it engenders require different words. I feel sorry for your pain. I do. But you are also dismissing Ann’s experience. She never denied women the right and need to grieve,
7
You are never prepared for the grief. I'm so sorry for your loss.
12
A brave and thoughtful piece. I love the last part and know it must be true. I have never had the joy of being a mother. My thoughts are with you even though I can’t imagine the pain. God love you.
8
No politics here.
So sorry for your loss.
Sending healing prayers your way.
20
I had a miscarriage, a baby, a miscarriage, a baby. I was 38 and 40.
I never felt sad or guilty, only disappointment.
My miscarriages were in the first trimester. I didn’t catch it if Ms McCain mentioned how far along she was. I imagine if you were further along you’d be quite sad. I’ve known others who have miscarried. I’m not familiar with any stigma. Must be a social circle thing - something among her peers. Now that is sad.
17
@Jane Women are often blamed when they miscarry. My mother was immensely critical of a neighbor who miscarried her last child. She told me the woman’s had probably not wanted another child and had done everything possible to miscarry. I was very young when she related this and vividly remember how shocked I was by her judgment. I still am more than 50 years later.
2
I am deeply grateful for Ms. McCain’s courage and eloquence in describing the grief and shame that many women experience following miscarriage. It’s time to eliminate the ignorance and stigma associated with this common event.
5
Meghan, thank you for bearing this cross, this burden of sharing your pain. I pray that it touches the hearts of all those women who have gone through what you have, and those who love them. I hope that anyone who need not go through what you have is encouraged to see her baby through to birth.
3
I was so enriched by reading Meghan's account of her miscarriage. Too often we suffer these extraordinary losses along. I lost my first pregnancy in 1986 when I was 36. I had tried for over two years to get pregnant and the clock was ticking to 40 when my chances of carrying a baby full term would sharply decline. I had some signs that all was not well after four weeks. I visited my doctor who examined me and ordered an ultrasound which showed no beating heart, no signs at all of the life I had just days earlier carried in my womb. My doctor didn't tell me; the ultrasound technician explained what had happened. Essentially the baby failed to grow inside of me and was no longer evident, no beating heart, no sign at all that my tiny baby had ever existed. I was devastated. Where had he/she gone? Would I ever be able to deliver a full-term, healthy baby? Thirty-three years later I am the proud, loving mother of an amazing, beautiful, smart, loving daughter. I was not able to deliver another baby after her birth but it didn't happen. My miscarriage was early and most people assume that reduces the severity of the grief you experience. It does not. My lost child was very much a part of my life from the moment I learned I was carrying her/him. There is a small stuffed lamb I bought for my first baby who stands on a shelf in my closet even unto this day. Now and then I hold that little lamb to my cheek and remember my first child who was never born.
21
This article is about miscarriage and people are making it out to be about pro choice/abortion. Meghan McCain is a pro life woman and has spoken about this on The View. No where is she giving her pro life views here but is being criticized for them anyway. This should not come as a surprise but this is not the time or place to bring this up.
23
@KMW
Her language here is the passive-aggressive tongue of the pro-fetal-personhood crowd. Those in that crowd just don't see it. She has put her radical views on display in public; we can't overlook them now as she chooses to elicit our sympathy for both her current pain and her overarching agenda.
3
Thank you Megan for having the courage to share your grief. The only thing that anyone can do to assuage the pain of miscarriage is for the many of us who have had the experience to let ourselves be known. No mother should feel alone when a miscarriage occurs. Alone is the very last thing you are, and so many share and remember the loss of this particular kind of love.
6
Perhaps Ms McCain will take this as a wake up call that infertility is rising in the western societies and that miscarriages are not uncommon. Maybe she will take initiatives to improve maternal health for all so that those that do want to bear children can do so healthfully and improve the chances for a successful outcome.
I like others in these comments section had a miscarriage within a great marriage but was not devastated. It was not growing properly. It was not a child. I also had previously had an abortion at the end of a previous terrible marriage that allowed me to leave and to attend school. It was a good thing. Then I had my wonderful boy child 26 years ago, who is now a man of whom I am immensely proud. I was in a better financial and emotional situation and was able to devote myself to parenting.
Women (and men) are good parents when they choose to bring children into this world and understand and are willing to bear the 18+ years of total commitment after that child is born. Bringing children into this world and raising them should be a conscious and deliberate choice, not forced upon us by government .
33
@Deborah
I don't watch television, and according to the comments on here Ms. McCain is anti-choice. But what does that have to do with her miscarriage? I agree with you wholeheartedly about choosing when, how and whether or not one wants to be a mother, but I also think there can be space for straight forward compassion.
I am so supportive of a woman's right to her own health choices that frankly I find it offensive when men (outside of educated OBs) even comment on women's reproductive health. But as a woman who has had miscarriages, I can also feel simple, human to human compassion for another person suffering.
Maybe if we could create more space for one another there could, at some point, be a country not quite so stupidly at war with itself.
2
@Rachel
Ms McCain has chosen to be a very public, very active soldier in that war you decry. She cannot escape her anti-women stance just because she shares her pain with us here. A pain she shares in carefully couched dog whistle anti-choice language.
2
I cannot imagine anyone who would deny you the space to mourn your precious child, or to create a bad vibe about your pain. I am indeed sorry for your loss. I respected and loved your father, even though I am am liberal dem veteran.
7
I wish you the best after the loss of your pregnancy. I cannot imagine what that is like. However, I hope that you can understand that this loss is not the same as the loss of a child. When my son died at age 30, so did my hopes and dreams, similar to those that died when you miscarried. But differently, the young man I loved passionately was not just an idea of someone but an actual person with whom I had a relationship.
55
Thank you for sharing your pain in such a public way. I don't know your personal history--if you had trouble getting pregnant, if you had a high risk pregnancy, if your husband/baby's father was supportive. The marvels of modern medicine give us the luxury to agonizing over miscarriages--we know about the viability of the pregnancy, something about its course (twins, etc.). It was not too long ago that women had miscarriages, wittingly or otherwise, and then just went on. There was no other path.
I too had a miscarriage and I also safely had an abortion--I entered each with the hope that they would result in healthy babies but it was not to be.
I do have one wonderful child who is about to finish a medical residency. If life had not unfolded the way it did, we would never have had the resources to support a child through medical school.
I respect your approach to a pregnancy lost. However, I hope that you have the grace and dignity to respect how other women have approached the end of a pregnancy, however that may have happened. We cannot know the soul's of each other; we do not have the right to judge anyone.
29
a word, meghan, for those of us who have suffered losses through ectopic pregnancy. I had my 1st ectopic when my daughter was almost 2 years old, I had just learned I was pregnant the day before. It was upsetting but mostly due to being away from my famiIy.I had surgery and was admitted to the hospital for a few days.
We began trying to have a baby as soon as my obstetrician said it was ok and we tried for a year before I went to see an infertility specialist. I was puzzled at my infertility, I had conceived my daughter the 1st month we tried. My doctors gave me fertility drugs .
I had surgery that year to remove adhesions from my surgeries and kept trying. I became pregnant that fall. My happiness and relief were unbounded.
That week, I found out I was pregnant with another ectopic pregnancy, in the same fallopian tube where the 1st one had implanted.
I had my surgery on a Saturday. I did not feel well. On Tuesday, I was taken back to the OR to repair the perforation in my bowel that had occurred during the operation on Saturday . My colorectal surgeon told me I was lucky to have been 32 years old and in good health, otherwise I might not have made it.
I had a very long painful recovery.
3 years after my 1st ectopic, through the hard work of my doctors and the miracle of IVF, I became pregnant with my younger daughter.
And joy of joys, 7 years later, I gave birth to twin boys.
My point:Every woman's story is her own story.
Do not impose YOUR morality.
Peace
31
@Patti Travaglio, I'm sorry for your experiences, but where on earth in this piece by Meghan McCain is she judging ANYONE. She is simply sharing a painful experience she went through, nothing more nothing less.
2
@A M Fernau
There certainly is more here. The piece is replete with judgmental, partisan, anti-choice language.
1
Thank you for sharing your grief. When I lost four pregnancies back in the sixties, no one talked about such things. I was told to be content with the one living child I had, and I could try again, which always sounded like I hadn't tried hard enough. Whether the fetus was damaged or not, I still mourn the loss of those four babies that I never had a chance to hold. I am pro-choice, and respect the individual choices women make, and I wish I'd been free to express my sorrows when I lost my babies, even as I loved my living daughter. What you shared will help others who are weeping alone.
17
My only small, but consequential, difference of (implied) opinion with Ms McCain is her description of the fetus (or baby) as "fully human." I believe that fullness does not apply to offspring who are not entirely formed and cannot be physically independent from the mother. This seems to me to necessitate the primacy, an an actual individual, of the mother. I wonder if motherhood is not broken into 3 parts: potential motherhood (every woman), gestational motherhood (one person), motherhood (a relation to a separate human). I also applaud Ms. McCain's incredible thoughtfulness and candor and grieve with her.
15
So very sorry for your loss. It’s so easy to fall in love when we find we are pregnant. I hope you feel peace and comfort.
9
I am so sorry for your loss. I hope sharing this information with the audience is helpful to YOU (and it seems to be so with some commenters) but I regret it came across as an advert for pro-life. Kudos to those commenters who wrote to incorporate the CHOICE option that had you included something about in your piece, would have made your piece much more relatable and "journalistic". In 2019, with miscarriage as distressingly common as you site in your piece, I don't think women are hiding from friends and family or "stigmatized?" I wish for you to get out of your privileged bubble. I bet none of your friends or family would have made you feel bad. But pouring your heart out in the age of social media, is just asking for it; but then you like a fight. Just a week or so ago I was reading about your threats to quit the View with a reasonable theory that your threat was simply a way to negotiate your next big contract. Sorry girl, but most of what you wrote, read to me like just another Hot Topic for Monday. I hope I'm wrong.
15
And the professional term for a miscarriage is "abortion", "spontaneous abortion". How traumatic is that. I knew a priest friend in Clinical Pastoral Education. He refused to see a woman because she had an abortion. I had to explain that sometimes abortion is the same as a miscarriage.
8
Kudos to the NYT. In such a polarized political landscape, the media needs to find the courage to publish op-eds from the children of prominent senators, even the ones its readers may not always agree with. Hearing from Meghan is such a nice break from politics these days, which seems to devolve into shouting and outrage on TV. The Times went out on a limb to publish such an intimate story from one of the hosts of The View. It's clear from the books prominently displayed on her dressing table how deeply she cares about her family.
8
Meghan's piece is not a break from politics.
6
@Max
Meghan McCain seems to me unable to separate any part of her life from politics.
It may be because she is a conservative member outnumbered by progressive members on The View that she is aggressive in her own views and seeks validation by mourning her father (for whom I had great respect) and her miscarriage.
6
@julia I thought only talking about campaigns, bills, and elections counts as politics ?? ; )
1
I am appalled to see her use this personal loss, painful and familiar to so many, to push an anti-abortion agenda. A fetus is not a baby. She lost a potential life, not an actual one, and while that is painful, we should not confuse the two. I know many many women who have had miscarriages (nearly every woman I know who has a child also miscarried a fetus before or between their completed pregnancies). I also sadly know women who have lost living children after completed pregnancies and years of life. There is a world of difference between the two experiences. The women in my life who've miscarried, with the exception of two who lost pregnancies late in the gestation process, have been able to moved on with their lives uncrippled. The same is not true for those who lost actual living children. They have been irrevocably changed and will never recover from that loss not matter what joys or additional children may join their lives. What makes you love a fetus is that you want to carry it to term. But carrying a fetus to term should not be a requirement, as it is fast becoming in this country where far too many states are moving to criminalize women for exercising autonomy over their own bodies and their own lives. The only way for a fetus to become a person is for a woman to choose to act as its host. This should be voluntary in every case.
136
@Gita
I'm in my 60s, a feminist who has been pro-choice all my life.
I read this essay as Megan McCain - just a bit past being a newlywed, struggling with grief, less than a year after she lost her beloved father.
Somehow I missed the political component of this piece and experienced it as simply the unburdening of a human heart.
If we give Meghan McCain the benefit of the doubt, perhaps that's all this is. An essay about how she has experienced her miscarriage.
And if that's so, some people here have been very unkind to her.
I am so sorry for the grief and sorrow that this pregnancy loss caused. But...then, I think of my aunt, married, go-to-church-every-Sunday, mother of 4, who was killed by in a criminal abortion at age 36. I think of my grandparents, senior citizens, who, after raising 7 children, found themselves burying their eldest daughter, and then taking in, and raising their 4 orphaned grandkids, ages 12 to 2. I think of my cousins, those orphaned by their mother’s death (their Dad ran off, unable to cope with the loss), whose lives were drastically changed by their mother’s death.
So, let’s be careful here. It is very sad to lose a wanted pregnancy. But, every woman deserves to have self-determination over her own body.
109
Being forced to bring to term an unwanted pregnancy can be just as emotionally and physically devastating as the loss of a wanted one. Two sides of the same coin.
133
Meghan,
Thank you for assigning the right name to a loss that so many of us have endured... the loss of a child. Not a handful of protoplasm, but a child. Finally, reading this beautifully written piece, the tears come.
I love the vision of your elegant, wise and strong father cradling this new member of your family.
May your heart heal. It is profoundly comforting to hear someone reflect my own beliefs and sorrows.
7
I had 3 miscarriages before my first child was born. While it was frustrating and discouraging at times, I don’t view each of those miscarriages as a lost baby but a lost pregnancy. I don’t agree with this statement from the piece: “Estimates range from one in 10 to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriages. That’s about three million lost children in America each year.” I have 2 children. If I didn’t miscarry, I wouldn’t now have 5 children — I would still have stopped at 2.
60
I watch Meghan every day on The View and my heart goes out to her. I admire her strong-willed nature but also her courage to be vulnerable, especially in public. I am as pro-choice as Meghan is pro-life but I wish that there was more nuance in conversations around reproductive health; despite having different stances on abortion, I believe that Meghan and I would see eye-to-eye on issues of reproductive health more generally. Meghan is correct that miscarriages are distressingly common, and for a developed country, our rates of maternal mortality are appalling as well. Why don't we talk about this? Thank you, Meghan, for shedding light on this topic and I am sorry for your loss.
13
As much as I feel for Ms. McCain's sorrow,I have to wonder, still, what precisely I am to get from this new article. That miscarriage is part of women's lives, and must be talked about: Yes. It is huge source of unhappiness, and a traumatic experience mostly, vastly, shared by women.
However, we should not confuse projections from reality. Once a child is born, any ideas one might have had that concerns her goes out the window: this child willl teach you who she is, and you will learn to love that person for the unique aggregate of chromosomes she is. And that is an unfathomable delight, a fascinating surprise, and an everyday struggle. Until that child is born, it is only a prent's imagination at work, vastly disconnected from the reality of what that person may be and may become.
I applaud Ms McCain for speaking out about an experience so long Kept silent by the sisterhood of women. And more on that subject is certainly needed. As it more on the subject of distinguishing between a person and a project.
18
I’m sorry for your loss, but a miscarriage is not the loss of a child. I’m sure there are many biological reasons they occur, but often it is nature taking care of naturally occurring biological errors. While I agree we should be open and unashamed to talk about them and the feelings they cause, this is a clearly politically motivated piece trying to preach to make a fetus a full blown human. They are the beginnings of a human, but aren’t yet. Don’t fall for the emotional appeal of this kind of puff piece in any kind of policymaking.
98
@Jon I am glad you seem to be in favor of women's reproductive freedom.
However, you are a man.
You don't get to decide one single thing about a woman's interpretation of loss when it comes to carrying or not carrying a child. No. No. And no.
And you know what? Calling a woman's miscarriage a "biological error" is spooky in its own right. My sister died of leukemia. At 18. Her body was filled with "biological errors." I guess that was just nature belatedly taking care of its mistakes??
7
@Jon
Bingo.
Thank you, Meghan -
You have opened the floodgates here for all of us who have endured these private sorrows to write of them now in public. My due dates were 17 April 1990 and then 30 December 1990. No one knows the how and why of these random exits - other than the biological one that the egg did not implant in the lining of the uterus. And how and why of this, I never knew.
I hope you are lucky enough to have a full-term pregnancy and to give birth to a healthy baby. But if not, I hope you adopt - maternity is not the divine right of birth mothers, Being a mother is something deep inside a woman, far bigger than biology. I sponsor a cat shelter in Syria where mama kitties regularly adopt orphan kittens and nurse them along with their own. One only wishes humans were as loving. Good luck!
8
@JA what is the cat shelter? I would love to sponsor too
I’m embarrassed here. Instead of simply offering condolences, why is there debate of terminology, stages of pregnancy, expectations of pregnancy and limits of termination?
For heaven’s sake. Just offer sympathy. This woman is grieving. Just let us say we are sorry.
Meghan, please accept the deepest sympathy for your loss.
40
@MIMA
"Just offer sympathy. This woman is grieving."
If she were "just" grieving, people would probably just offer sympathy.
She's doing something else, and it's not difficult to see what it is.
71
I am sorry for your loss; I, too, fell in love immediately.
5
Despite the fact that I find her unforgiving, judgemental and lacking in empathy about pro-choice matters, I am sorry for what is for her a great loss. I have no doubt that she will be a fine mother because she comes from a fine family.
37
Sitting here on my deck, in the heat, with a cold beer after a long hard week of work....didn’t expect to read something that would bring on a couple of tears. Honest and well done - thank you.
20
Megan, I knew you were somehow different today on The View. Perhaps I recognized the pain in your eyes as the same I've lived with for forty years. It changed me too in ways I didnt realize for years. I blamed myself too. We all do. I also lost my dad to cancer in my twenties. You will survive. It will take time for the searing pain to die down to a smoldering coal that flares up occasionally. But please know that we share in your grief and wish you the absolute best. -from a devoted liberal whose always had the utmost respect for you.
19
Meghan,
I am truly sorry for your loss. Mothers never forget their abortions (spontaneous or otherwise).
The incidence of spontaneous abortion (laymen speak: miscarriage) is up to about 20% in confirmed pregnancies.
And they can be caused by viruses, CMV, herpes, parvo, etc and from disorders like chromosomal or mendelian abnormalities in the fetus or luteal phase defects.
Mother's organ abnormalities like fibroids and pelvic-adhesions, and trauma are other major causes.
But, often, we don't know the cause.
Ob researchers will tell you, sp. abortion before 14 week is nature's way (if nothing is wrong with the mother's health) of stopping a fetus which would otherwise not have been normal.
However, there is undercurrent in your Op-ed that bothers me, and that is pro-life sentiment. As if a woman with miscarriage understands the pain and a woman who would choose to have abortion doesn't have that trauma or pain.
That is completely untrue. I can tell you by experience.
Personally I wish women didn't go for an abortion because there are so many ways to prevent pregnancies & in a small no. D&C can have consequences. It is stressful on human body.
But, I also firmly believe, the choice to have an abortion is a conversation between that woman and her physician.
State does not enter into it. Just as your christian faith has no room or say in an Atheist or a Buddhist's pregnancy.
Let's keep State and Church out of it.
234
Meghan, I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your story and your words. They speak to alot of us who have had miscarriages.
8
Thank you for sharing your story. It demonstrates how intensely personal pregnancy and motherhood can be. This is exactly why a woman's right to privacy--the one at the heart of Roe--is so valuable.
73
I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. I’ve lost three precious babies, and have two wonderful children. Your dad is taking good care of his grandbaby, I’m sure.
Thank you for sharing your story, I know it is difficult. The more of us who speak out, the easier it will be for our own healing as well as for those who come after us. I hope you find comfort and peace, and I wish you luck on your road building your family.
6
Oh, Megan, I am so sorry for your loss! I still remember the due date of my own miscarriage, 27 years later. I pray that your grief will be quickly replaced by the joy of a new pregnancy. Your words on the sanctity of a child/life resonate beautifully for me. Not only are women devastated by miscarriage but I have witnessed women devastated by their decision to abort. I pray for all of them especially. Best of wishes to you and your husband.
6
I mourn Ms. McCain’s loss, alongside her. I have had the same experience. However, a mother’s emotional investment in imagining the future does not represent scientific truth. When I was three months pregnant, I could project and vividly imagine the future, one in which my child grew and evolved. But the cells I miscarried lacked a central nervous system. The cells I miscarried were not viable, hence the miscarriage — although environmental factors may matter too. My heart was wrenched, my tears abundant, but I was mourning the idea of a future child, and not the facts. Please do not confuse Ms. McCain’s deep grief with biological truth.
255
@Ambroisine
Biological "truth" is very different from the heart's truth. The fact for many women is this: A pregnancy is a baby. A child. You needn't think that, but many women do.
8
Megan, I am so sorry for your loss. It is absolutely heartbreaking to lose a wanted pregnancy. Thank you for sharing your experiences. Hearing others talk about it freeing for those of us who have also been through it. I lost 4 pregnancies and it was just as hard each time it happened. It took years, but we now have two amazing children. I hope your dreams of a family come true for you and your family. Take care of yourself in the meantime.
13
yes, the occurance of miscarriage is due to abnormality in the embryo; it has nothing to do with maltreatment by the prospective mother unless she subjected that embryo or fetus to physical harm.
23
@M.Wellner
About 30% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities in an embryo. It is not a certainty that the miscarriage was due to an abnormality in the embryo. Proper genetic counseling for Ms. McCain, if she so desires, may help determine the cause in her miscarriage.
1
I miscarried in the 14th week of my first pregnancy. It was devastating and excruciatingly painful, because I (naively) decided to let the miscarriage take its "natural course" once it was determined to no longer be viable. (Big mistake. If your fetus has died, have a D&C with anesthesia, which is far preferable than without in an emergency setting.) I went through all the emotions Ms. McCain has here, but when a pastor friend asked me if I believed I would see this lost child in Heaven, I answered honestly, No. It took me by surprise as much as it did him. I realized there was no soul in that fetus, if God and my body thought so little of it. It didn't lessen the heartbreak of that loss, but years of infertility treatments that resulted in a second pregnancy and a healthy child, who is now an adult, resulted in my never even thinking about that miscarriage except when discussing my medical history. A late-term miscarriage or a stillbirth is something very different from a first-term spontaneous abortion (the medical term for miscarriage). In most cases, it is nature's way of preventing a nonviable fetus from continuing to develop. Ms. McCain, you can still have a child, or many children, through conception and/or adoption. When you do, you are unlikely to grieve the fetus that never developed into a child, any more than you grieve the old boyfriend "who got away." I don't say that to be cruel but to give you hope that this current pain will pass and not last a lifetime.
48
@Lee Rosenthall Having had two first-term miscarriages, with one healthy, full-term baby in between, I can tell you that I carry plenty of grief for those two embryos. I have been pregnant three times, and my body and heart know it.
7
@Anna, let me assure you that if you were to suffer the death of your child, it would put your grief over lost embryos into stark perspective.
3
So many of the devastating emotions you describe I experienced with my miscarriage. I remember sobbing in my car after leaving my doctor's office thinking of the life that one minute had seemed so promising and the next was over. But doctor said that miscarriages happen when the pregnancy is not to be for whatever genetic reason and at that moment my body did what it was supposed to do. And something to think about: if I hadn't miscarried I would not have conceived the child that I became pregnant with 1 year later who is the brightest light in my world.
32
Thank you for sharing your story. Your story is so important for those who feel they cannot speak and for those who need to better understand how we can provide compassion and further understanding for those who go through this experience.
2
Meghan- thanks for sharing the picture’s background story and your experience reminds me of an often mentioned statistic: families are most susceptible to a miscarriage when conceiving for the first time.
5
Hi Meghan-I loved the honesty and rawness of your editorial. Thank you for sharing it. May I offer my confidence in your future success to have a beautiful family? Just follow the advice of your doctor and read, read, read. It will happen, soon!
5
Thank you Meghan McCain for sharing about your miscarriage. I had three miscarriages and was diagnosed as having an incompetent cervix. Luckily I have two wonderful grown daughters but I did experience a horrific loss. One of my miscarriages was truly like losing babies. At six months of pregnancy I lost twin baby boys. It was devastating and I’m still haunted by the souls of those lost boys. With the medical advances that have we have today perhaps my sons would have survived. Although I am not religious and do not believe in god I am in awe of life in general and of all individual lives as well. I’m in awe of the power our bodies have to create lives; of my own body to generate life and how devastating it was to lose those lives. I have never shared about this experience and am grateful for the opportunity to talk about it here. I think this topic should be brought more in the open so that no one should feel alone with this again.
23
I was not prepared in any way shape or form for my miscarriage. I had just begun to wrap my brain & heart around having a baby & all the amazing things that would happen. I was getting used to the changes in my body & just barely telling a few people. And then it all ended so suddenly. I was devastated & felt somehow it was my fault. I was working & traveling overseas & had a busy life. I was so thrown off by it. After a few months my internist gave me a book to read that so incredibly helpful. It talked about the loss & it's significance & how important it is to mourn & process. It also talked about how common it it - 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. I also had the love & support of my husband, family & close friends. And I was very fortunate to get pregnant again 6 months later & have a healthy baby boy & then went on to have another healthy boy 20 months later. But now so many many years later I personally know so many women who have also had miscarriages. I try to share my story if I think it will help another woman get through her ordeal. Not everyone will be as lucky as I was I realize.
9
I've had a miscarriage and I couldn't really speak about it at work because they'd know I was trying to get pregnant. Yes, there is a stigma against miscarriage, as well as women having a say about what they plan to do in terms of reproduction (being pregnant or not pregnant).
Now imagine that you and I both had our miscarriages and on top of our grief, we were charged with manslaughter. (In my case, I had fallen hiking; it probably didn't cause my miscarriage, but someone could argue that it did and produce medical testimony.)
I miscarried a fetus, not a child. It was a wanted fetus, but it would be a very different situation and MUCH, MUCH larger grief if my tween died. I am sorry for your grief, but it is a different situation. I do agree that we should be able to speak more openly about miscarriage, though.
150
@Lauren, I am sorry for your loss. As a retired obstetrician I fully understand.
What galls me are male lawmakers who want criminalize your loss.
Thank you for bringing it up
11
Meghan, I am sorry for your loss and understand your grief. I had a miscarriage at 7 weeks pregnant between my second and third child. As my doctor explained, miscarriage is very common (I have since discovered that many of my friends also had miscarriages) and they are usually the result of a defective or non-viable fetus. I was sad, but I never felt after the fact that this was a lost child, the likelihood is that the fetus wasn't going to develop into a viable child. And even though this happened nearly 27 years ago, I never felt a stigma or shame, or even the need to be private about it. This is a natural part of reproduction. Luckily, I was able to concieve again quickly and went on to have a wonderful healthy son.
57
thabk you for this is beautiful piece and for your steadfast courage .
4
I am so sorry for your loss.
11
My sincerest condolences to you and your husband. I admire your strength and candor in sharing this news with us and will pray for you. I can imagine your father holding his granddaughter in his arms and keeping him company for now.
Thank you for your courage.
Mil abrazos
9
I admire your strength to share your loss with us. Like you, I experience a miscarriage early in one of my pregnancies. My faith in our Creator coupled with familial and professional support helped me through. I pray for you to reach the peace that comes only from God and that in His time, you will experience the joys of motherhood. Stay strong!
4
Meghan, my condolences to you and your husband for your loss. There are a million books to teach you how to deal with pregnancy, parenthood, etc...but very few that help you and your spouse/partner deal with the loss of what could have been. While I do not have the platform you do, one of the things that helped me process our loss was sharing my feelings. Not just with the people who I loved but with the baby who I lost. I created an email address where I could send the baby all my thoughts, hopes and prayers for the life that could have had. I also shared it with my husband so he could use it to process his feelings—as often many people forget that the loss is not only moms but dads as well. I also shared a long letter to my son, who was too young to understand the immense loss that I felt, the hopes I had for him as a big brother and to share with him the sonogram that we were so excited about for such a brief period. Dealing with the loss of my little angel was by far the hardest time of my life. But as we do with grief, we learn to move forward, to live in the moment, to feel the sadness when it comes. My heart hurts for you...I wish you and your husband healing and peace. And with angels on you side maybe there will be a child to complete your family when the time is yours. Best of luck!!!
5
This piece is heartbreakingly sad. I am so sorry for your loss Meghan. To write about it publicly must be so hard, and I greatly respect the courage it must have taken.
11
So sorry for your loss. I think you do a valuable thing by sharing your personal story. When I had my first miscarriage, I had not told anybody that I was pregnant, but I did end up sharing after the loss because it was too lonely otherwise. A large number of friends and relations shared their personal stories of miscarriage after my loss. I think it helps to realize others have had similar experiences. I wish you peace and comfort.
13
I whole heartily admired your father. I took his death very personally and miss his wisdom and courage. I am very sorry for your pain. I have 2 daughters, one who gave birth to her 3rd child in April and one who will give birth to her first child in October. I love my grandchildren with all my heart. I hope you will be able to have the joy of bringing a child into this world, never fear, you will be a good mother.
When your father passed I wrote a long letter to you and your family. I never sent it, did not know where to send it really, but found it very cathartic. I am the daughter of a warrior too, who died in 2017. We did not share politics in common but he was a wonderful father.
12
Not sure about this essay.
I was having lunch with two married friends-- one child, one grand child between us. So far as I know no miscarriage; an early breast cancer that might have led to a decision not to procreate (OTOH it's just fine and very possible to reproduce post treatment for breast cancer -- my 40 year old nephew!).
All children in the world deserve to be loved and cared for, including those at the border. And having a miscarriage (or abortion -- I am sure more than one woman has regretted the necessity for such) has nothing at all to do with either one's ability to conceive or one's merit as a person.
Personal merit can well be judged on how we regard, and support (or not) the growing and grown and gradually disappearing people all around us. We need lots of compassion that's for sure.
30
May I suggest that those who support a woman’s right to choose accurately refer to those who do not as “anti-choice”. I am pro-the-people-who-are-alive. I wish Ms. McCain’s political party felt as strongly about born children who live in poverty and without adequate food, health care, and education. That would truly be “pro-life”.
312
TG,
Those who are pro life could refer to those who are pro choice as pro death. Pro choice really means that they agree to abortion. An abortion always results in the death of a baby. We in the pro life movement consider this a tragedy.
1
@KMW, pro-choice isn’t “agreeing to abortion”. It’s agreeing that women have agency over their uteruses. They choose what happens in there.
You may consider abortion a tragedy and you may choose not to have one for that reason. That is your choice.
6
@KMW
When a woman is pregnant and at eight months it is discovered that the fetus is dead, how do you explain your objection to an abortion so that the woman does not carry a dead fetus so it can be "born?"
The fetus is already dead. How is an abortion causing the death of that fetus?
If pro lifers have their way, abortions would be illegal and not available under any circumstances. In Ireland several years ago, a woman died because aborting the dead fetus she was carrying was illegal. She died carrying the fetus to term.
6
Every woman deals with her miscarriage as she sees fit, or as well as she can. For many women, their religious faith is comforting for them during this time. I'm sorry Mrs. McCain was so hard on herself, and blamed herself. I am happy for her that she found a way out of that destructive thinking, which, I think, is a part of the grieving process. I lost my second pregnancy at 11 weeks and it was terrible. And it was lonely. I was very angry. That was part of the grieving process too. The anger. I am not religious, and I am pro-choice, and an atheist, but none of that matters when a wanted child is lost. In that, Meghan McCain and I are the same. It hurts and it is terrible. When she is ready, I wish McCain the motherhood of her dreams.
32
This is heartbreaking and I wish Ms. McCain well. This is a fear many of us experience and it’s important to share this with us and let us know how common it is. However, her party would support laws that would potentially criminalize her miscarriage and investigate it as a potential crime. How does she support that, having something so private and devastating for so many women exposed to the public and dragged through courts?
76
Does not seem fair or accurate to characterize anyone’s position on the right as seeking to make miscarriage illegal.
@Idranoel
Just because your state hasn't quite gotten there yet doesn't make it not so. Some state laws would have miscarriages investigated for potential criminality. That is where the radical right is taking this country. Ignore that truth at your own, and everyone else's, peril.
It does not seem fair or accurate to characterize anyone’s position on the left as celebrating abortions or forcing anyone to have one, yet the no-choice right, embodied in Ms McCain's politics, repeats these lies constantly.
1
My first, visceral thought was of grief for you to HAVE to publicly bear this pain; to write this article, to make this a "teachable" moment. I wanted you to be able to be private. But, as mentioned by others previously, yours is a brave and noble family, so there was no other way to be. I wish you only well.
15
Tremendous sympathy to Meghan from someone currently experiencing the same devastating loss, if one time removed as a grandparent in waiting. The sorrow over a lost pregnancy is doubly exacting precisely for the high hopes dashed and the dreams of a new life filled with potential extinguished. Along with Meghan, this reader can't help but believe all those who are likewise stricken by such a cruel stroke of fate would fare better not to suffer in silence however difficult the alternative.
14
@Leigh please don't try to second-guess others' grief. I was silent for years. My husband and I told only two friends; no one else knew I had ever been pregnant. It was right for me.
12
Thank you for sharing. I am so sorry for your loss.
12
I have never had a miscarriage but my beloved mother did have 2 and said that these experience (the loss of the possibilities of birth) saddened her.
I have a spinal injury and had an abortion when I had a pregnancy (which would have been wanted) but would have endangered my ability to walk again.
I am saddened deep in my soul (at your loss) and as a mother, woman, human being, my eyes are filled with tears.
I am also saddened when women are forced to go forward with pregnancies which endanger their health and hope that you understand that as well.
You are a role model for me, since your feeling about life, your father, your role and a person - I am on that page.
Sending love and condolences.
Love,
Linda
37
Thanks, Meghan. I'm sure your personal story will help a lot of women. That's brave. But then, bravery is your family legacy.
17
I am sorry for your loss. I hope you will have what you need and what you want. Until then, as you are going, be brave as you can be brave, sad as you may be sad and hopeful always for the future you will know.
6
This article sheds light and new understanding upon women who go through tragedies such as having a miscarriage. Women who experience this extreme loss are very strong and deserve a lot of love and prayers. As a Christian, I believe that everything happens for a reason and that God only gives his soldiers what they can handle. Because of these women's great strengths, they will always have support and they will never be alone.
4
@Maddie Buzza - saying that "everything happens for a reason" is literally true - the fetus/embryo was not viable. Telling someone, especially someone who does not share your views of religion, that it happened for a reason is incomprehensibly cruel. Please think about your audience before you say that again. I'm an atheist, and if someone told me that my miscarriages or other medical issues were the results of god's grand plan, I would first let them know how cruel and narrow-minded they were, and then probably not have anything to do with them again.
13
@Maddie Buzza - The expression "everything happens for a reason" is literally listed in several different articles of what NOT to say to a woman who has experienced a miscarriage.
8
Meghan, wishing you good health and joy in the days to come. Thank you for sharing your experience, it takes courage to write of love and loss.
7
Reverence for human life enables triumph of the human spirit...
All human life - all human lives...
11
I think some of the comments directed at Meghan McCain are a bit harsh and are mildly critical of her pro life views. She has not been afraid to voice her views which takes courage in today's society. This is a difficult time for her and what is needed is compassion and caring not lectures from others.
This baby was very much wanted and I hope she is fortunate to eventually become a mother. When someone suffers such a loss they refer to this as a baby. I have never heard anyone say they lost a fetus or embryo.
17
@KMW
Well, okay. But i had a miscarriage at 13 weeks, and though it was very much wanted, the way I referred to it was having "lost a pregnancy."
62
@KMW
She puts herself in the public eye as someone in favor of denying women the right to choose. She is not a random contributor. While I sympathize with her loss, the pejorative words phrases she uses here make me think she is using her loss and her celebrity to gain sympathy for her political position. I actually question the necessity of publishing the article at all. She seems concerned that women who miscarry can be the targets of derision and isolation, but glosses over the fact that her pro-life beliefs leave women who want choice in the same, or worse, situation. A situation she would have the government endorse.
156
@KMW -
"...to voice her views which takes courage in today's society."
I'm sorry, but I question the idea that it takes courage to be anti-choice in today's society. The anti-choice movement seems to be well and thriving and has no hesitation in speaking out about its views. In fact, it is strongly engaged in attempting to force its views on all of those who disagree. Otherwise we would not be seeing some state legislatures doing everything they can to make abortion impossible (at least for those who do not have the resources to travel someplace where it will remain legal). Nor would we be seeing anti-choice proponents just itching to a case come before the Supreme Court that they hope will overturn Roe v. Wade.
It's impossible not to feel sympathy for Ms. McCain's devastation at her loss, but at the same time, this op-ed feels very much like she is using her own personal feelings and grief to advance an agenda that not everyone agrees with. And there's nothing courageous about it at all.
23
After my miscarriage, and after speaking with many friends, I came to the conclusion that every mother I know has had a pregnancy loss, and on the converse, every one I know who has lost a pregnancy is (eventually) a mother. Loss is often bound to the joy of parenthood.
I also came to realize how important it is to have prochoice healthcare options well into the second trimester, so no one is forced to go beyond that loss and carry a child to term only to watch them die minutes later. Such a horrific loss after the physical trauma of birth would have been much harder than my miscarriage. I was spared that pain only because my unviable fetus did not develop as far as some others (and therefore spontaneously ended the pregnancy).
84
I appreciate Meghan McCain shedding light on the experience of miscarrying, and the experience of grieving the loss of the hopes and dreams a pregnant woman already has for her baby-to-be. I won’t judge anyone else’s experience of miscarriage, however, her use of anti-choice language in referring to her lost pregnancy as the death of a child is unsettling. A fetus is a potential child. The hope and dream for many is to carry the fetus to term and give birth to a child. Sometimes the fetus isn’t viable and the pregnancy ends in miscarriage. It is heartbreaking, and grieving is part of that, but it’s not a child. It’s a dream, a hope. Calling it a child bolsters the anti-choice zealots and jeopardizes women’s autonomy.
379
@TG I agree. And I have had a pregnancy turn out to be non-viable (a blighted ovum that could never develop to a fetus), and grieve because the image in my head was not what in reality existed, or would exist. I feel for Meghan’s grief, but I also see the mismatch. This was not a “child that drew breath”—that stage was far in the future, and unknowable. My blighted ovum was also “fully human”, if you want to use those words, if only to show how unilluminating the words themselves are.
55
@TG I had a miscarriage a few weeks ago, and I've been struggling with this issue. I know what I lost was an embryo (not a fetus by the way; most first-trimester miscarriages happen before the embryo has become a fetus), and I know it didn't have a consciousness or feel pain. But in my heart I feel that I lost a baby. I am absolutely pro-choice, and I've been feeling sad that the public rhetoric is such that I seemingly can't have these personal feelings about my own body and _still_ think that a woman has the right to choose.
The anti-choice zealots have established the vocabulary so that those of us who believe in choice have to react with denial--i.e., if we have a right to end a pregnancy, then that pregnancy must not have been a baby. But I think it is okay to acknowledge both early baby-ness and a woman's right to decide that, for whatever reason, she is not going to carry that baby in her body. It's messy. It's not black-and-white.
Just as a woman should have a right to choose abortion, she should have the right to choose the words she uses to describe a being within her, one that lives or one that fails to.
28
@Anna, I hear you. I too had a miscarriage about twenty years ago, between my first and second child. I was devastated and grieved alone. My husband was sad but practical (you’ll get pregnant again). My aunt said “it stinks”, and that was about it. So I appreciate Ms. McCain putting this topic out there, and I agree with you that women have the choice to think of their fetus however they want and write about it however they want. Unfortunately though, Ms. McCain uses her platform in a way that ultimately disempowers women, so that’s why I feel compelled to speak out about.
18
Megan McCain’s loss is a personal tragedy, and her feelings and emotions are obviously sincerely held. But she is part of a Republican Party that is moving steadily toward intervening and criminalizing anything to do with these types of incredibly personal issues. Imagine how this personal tragedy would be compounded if she now were to find out that an aggressive prosecutor was investigating her for homicide based on the belief that the stress of her job was a contributing factor. Even if her doctor told her it was OK. In those states moving in this direction, “speaking up” about the experience as McCain advocates may result in women incriminating themselves.
286
@Dan88 Her primary motivation is in support of the anti-choice efforts rather than providing support for women who've experienced miscarriages. She is nothing more than a political hack.
3
Thank you for sharing your story. May I offer a silver lining? At least you don’t live in a state like Alabama where someone could accuse you of having an abortion and put. you in jail. This is the reality of the modern pro-life movement. Criminalizing women’s bodies and taking away a woman’s autonomy to make the choices that are in the best interest of her and her family.
603
Reply to “Dabney”...my guess is you are a man? Writing from Alabama - many years ago I was 4 years into trying to get pregnant. Finally happened. Then 7 weeks into pregnancy had a massive issue that we all assumed was a miscarriage. Had a sonar at 6am next day to see a heartbeat. Kind of changes your view of things. It was my child after that point. Major heartbeat after thinking it was a lost pregnancy.
So judge if you want but it changed me.
26
"Life and death are beyond our power." Sort of true. More true: to prevent death is beyond our power.
That doesn't mean it is God's power. To me, it is nature's power. We can control natural forces to a certain extent, but we are also at the mercy of natural forces beyond our ability to control.
A force of nature beyond our control is sometimes called an "act of God." As these forces are better understood, we again see natural law behind hurricanes and tornadoes, more complex laws, but still nature not divinity.
Wasn't Christianity supposed to be an improvement over Zeus hurtling thunderbolts? What is divine for Christians that isn't a natural force? Love is a good answer. Much better than worshipping a natural force like "life."
9
Ms. McCain,
Beautiful essay.
Regarding your father’s pride over your success with The View, I’d imagine your work accomplishments are taken in stride, just like his were to him.
Its your courage in writing this piece, I bet, that really makes him smile.
15
Amid all the grief, consider how lucky you are to have health insurance, access to medical care, and did not lose your job. For many women that would have added fear and jeopardized the mother's well being.
337
@poslug Absolutely correct. Meghan could take a few days off to grieve but many women would lose their job or simply could not afford the loss of income. Let us all work towards at least one week (5 business days) of paid sick leave for every worker in this country.
28
@poslug Like the chubby girl (me) rolling her eyes at her thin friend complaining about the 5 pounds she's gained, we can sometimes forget that each person deserves empathy and understanding.
As a person who had two miscarriages, I wish you nothing but comfort and peace. It's been decades since I lost my second child during the second trimester and I still periodically grieve the loss of that little life that I saw waving in my ultrasound. I don't use the term "miscarriage" much, because I think it sounds like you and I made a mistake - which as you say, we didn't. I just say my child died before birth. I'm sure we don't see many things the same way - I'm not institutionally religious and I'm a liberal who supports choice, for example. But none of that is the issue here. We just suffered the same loss and I do wish you well.
69
I am sorry that Ms. McCain suffered a miscarriage. I am sure that it is a devastating and profoundly emotional experience. Adding to the sadness of a lost pregnancy are the complicating feelings of self-blame--a female response if ever there was one. And yet, as much as I respect her experience and her response to it, I feel uncomfortable at what feels to me a wave of propaganda roiling under the surface of her essay, the anti-choice notion that equates a pregnancy with a child. I do not in any way want to diminish Ms. McCain's pain, but as she herself says, she had the "expectation of a child." And that is what she lost.
We have different words for "fetus" and "child" because they are different things, even though one holds the promise of another. It's an important distinction to hold, especially these days when women's rights--and the expectations of rights--may also be, to use Ms. McCain's words, "abruptly snuffed out."
485
Thank you for sharing this very personal and sad loss . In this day and age when a certain state in the South has laws that blame and prosecute a woman when she miscarries , and holds her accountable for what must be a heart wrenching event . It is important to remind those law makers how cruel it is to lose a baby matched only by the cruelest of all , a law which is senseless . I am so sorry for your loss . Your place on the view is an important part of the group , and like Abby and Sara before , we saw them grow in their motherhood , and hope to see the same for you .
25
Meghan, I wish I had read something like this years ago, after suffering back-to-back miscarriages. I would have taken great comfort from your words, as I often grieved alone. I, too, had the questions, the guilt, and the “whys” that would never be answered. Trust me — you are not alone in this testing journey of faith.
Back then, I noticed that there was rare acknowledgment of this nebulous kind of loss. No funerals, no memorials. Hardly any support groups. Understandable — there was really no body to bury or life to eulogize; no history, no shared memories. My unborn babies were more like ideas than already much loved and eagerly anticipated children. How to react? I now understand that my friends and family did not mean to be cruel; they just didn’t know what to do or say. But oh, how I would have loved to have heard an “I’m sorry,” or “If you need, call.”
Things do get better. You do heal. But there is still a place in my heart that holds my babies. (And yes, that is how I see them.) Emotions that I thought were long resolved come to the fore whenever I read essays such as yours. I cried, and the fact that I did after 21 and 22 years assures me that I have not forgotten these gifts and the precious time I had with them. I still honor them. My sons.
I asked a priest after the first miscarriage if he thought my baby was in heaven. Unequivocally, yes. Just like your baby, being lovingly watched over by her Grandpa John.
Please take care. I wish you peace.
32
Meghan McCain is unabashedly pro life and for that fact I admire her greatly. It is not always easy to be a public person as she is and to voice your pro life views. I am not a public person yet as a woman my pro life views are sometimes met with scorn and criticism. I can just imagine how much more difficult it is for her to speak out against abortion.
Ms. McCain has my deepest sympathy on her miscarriage but I am sure she will eventually be blessed with giving birth to a baby. Her faith and trust in God will see her through these difficult times.
7
I am very sorry for your loss. I was unaware that there is any stigma associated with a miscarriage. I can't imagine why that would be.
31
@BG it's a unique stigma. It's such a sad time in a woman's life. They try to figure out why - and sometimes there isn't a why that can be determined. They blame themselves - wrongly - but understandably. Hormones & emotions are out of whack from pregnancy & loss. It's rough.
It's not something you want to discuss with everyone, yet many people find it fine to ask, "So when are you going to have a baby?" to any random acquaintance. I was asked by a coworker the same week I had a miscarriage.
Also, oftentimes those mourning are surrounded by women who are also pregnant. To bring up that you had a miscarriage around someone also worried about that happening to them is an awkward situation. So many remain silent.
It's a complicated, emotional time.
23
@BG In places the GOP run a woman can be jailed for miscarrying so there is that.
1
I am so sorry for what you have gone through. Going public with your story is a positive step in allowing other women to be vocal about their own. As you describe, miscarriage itself is common but rarely discussed.
More than one woman close to me has suffered a miscarriage, and I will share that the experience did not mean the same for all of them.
For one friend, it very much felt like losing a child she had longed for and whose life with her felt very real.
For another, it was painful, both emotionally and physically, but she has since gone on to successfully carry a son she can't imagine her life without.
And a third still experienced it more as a shock of her own vulnerability. She had to focus on overcoming her fear of experiencing that again in order to try again (and she did have a healthy daughter after).
So miscarriage doesn't even mean the same thing to every woman who suffers one. But every person who has experienced this loss should be comfortable talking about what happened and having her feelings validated.
28
Reproduction is a complex process. Often cell division goes wrong; errors are made in DNA and RNA transcription. Nature attempts to produce healthy organisms. When there is something wrong with a conceptus, zygote or embryo, Nature causes a miscarriage, a natural abortion of the defective organism.
Some data indicates that as many as one in three conceptions ends up in the natural abortion called miscarriage. These natural abortions generally occur during the first three months after conception and are Nature's way of maximizing the odds of birthing healthy organisms. Often Nature is saving the mother from having to undergo a full-term stillbirth, or saving parents from having an anencephalic baby that lives for a day, or a child who will never walk or talk. And after a miscarriage, most women go on to have one or more healthy children.
Early miscarriages typically involve a small mass of tissue the size of a grape or a strawberry. This is not a baby, but a conceptus, zygote or embryo, or later a fetus, which can become a baby at birth. Still, pregnant women often conceptualize what is growing in them as a baby and deeply mourn the loss of a pregnancy. One hopes those who experience unusual or excessive sadness or depression or unrelenting and overwhelming grief from miscarriage would get good relief & treatment from therapists or support groups or medicine.
107
@Earthling Well put. Thank you.
3
@Earthling All I can say is I'm glad no one ever talked to me like that when I was grieving my miscarriage.
@Earthling I appreciate the humanity of your science and putting the miscarriage experience in context. I don't know when Meghan McCain had her miscarriage, but at the very least a small part of us should be grateful for nature's way of preventing a different kind of sorrow.
4
Meghan,
Thank you for the strength you have shown to share one of the most vulnerable, heartbreaking times a mother can experience. My prayer for you is that you will feel Gods comfort and peace as you go through the days ahead.
I know your dad would have been very proud.
Sending you much love....
17
Sad that this has happened to Ms. McCain. Grateful that she's chosen to share her experience, as I imagine many in a similar situation, but without a "public voice", must feel incredibly alone. And in writing about her experience she gives a voice to others that they're not alone.
19
Condolences on your loss and your husband's loss.
23
I found this story poignant and informative.
14
So sorry for your loss. It sounds absolutely devastating.
The only thing worse, I can imagine, is being hauled in by the police to prove to a prosecutor that this is not your doing.
1024
@December
Yes!!!!! The abortion debate also includes miscarriage. I had a miscarriage 24 years ago. It was painful, but part of life, The pro-lifers want miscarriage to be included into the debate.
My body, my miscarriage. The only person who needed to know was my doctor, my husband, and my family.
Megan, you shared your experience, but I chose not to. I did not even miss a moment of work.
By the way Megan, I went on to have 2 healthy children. I was 37 and 39........I hope you become a mother if that is what you truly want.
57
@December
Thank you for pointing this out. In another country or a different decade, Ms. McCain might well face criminal charges and a potential prison term for her miscarriage (medically known as a "spontaneous abortion").
54
When I went through infertility, I ravenously read personal accounts of other women struggling with infertility to feel a bit of sanity. Yes, there is a little bit of stigma but there is much more self-blame. I’m glad Ms.McCain is talking about it.
We can save the abortion rights debate, the criminalization of miscarriages, and the horror at the border for another conversation.
10
By sharing your experience, you have given us all a gift of insight into how someone who experiences a miscarriage often feels. It is, I think, perhaps even a greater gift to us males, and I am glad you have shared it. Some of us have suffered vicariously through miscarriages, but that is not the same. In any case, it amplifies one's perspective to hear it from someone with whom one is not personally grieving.
It is clear to me that you and I do not share the same view of the beginning of life, and that is why I value your perspective all the more. Our society desperately needs to recover the skill of being able to disagree--to see an issue differently--without being disagreeable. I think your essay helps to accomplish that. Your father exemplified that, which is why, though I saw most issues considerably differently from him, I respected and valued him and mourned his passing.
Your essay is eminently worthy of you . . . and of him. Thank you.
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Thank you Meghan, what a beautiful written piece. I hope the best for you and Ben. Sending Love and Light to you.
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Miscarriages are a normal part of biology. For some a dire tragedy, for others, a normal part of life. In most cases, the miscarriage is because of grave or unviable abnormalities. And many women don't even realize they've had a miscarriage as they often happen in the first month. Nature's way of minimizing pain.
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Thank you Ms. McCain. Your pain and love shine through. You will forever be a mother. Your husband will forever be a father. You said so much that was critical, but what truly resonated with me was the feeling of blame. Why do we. as women, always start with blaming ourselves? Thank you for your beautiful, thoughtful, and deeply personal story. I wish you never joined this sisterhood, but even more so, I wish you peace.
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Meghan, it is unfortunate what has happened to you and your husband. May your family, friends as well as your faith help get you through this difficult time.
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I had a similar experience years ago and unfortunately never conceived a child again , I am sorry for your loss, keep the faith. Often I hear you say on the view, I do n't think I want kids. Watch sending out these sentiment to the universe. 🙏
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This piece dovetails nicely with "Like a Mother" by Angela Garbes. Maybe Ms. McCain should feature it on The View.
http://www.harperwave.com/book/9780062662941/Like-a-Mother-Angela-Garbes/
[I do not know Ms. Garbes or have any financial stake in her book]
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It does heal. It really does.
Like many women, I miscarried after having tried for almost a year to get pregnant. I wailed. I felt I had failed. I told my husband, who calls me "Best Sweetheart," that a "Best Sweetheart wouldn't have lost the baby." I didn't want this to be my story.
It took several years - even after I had my first and then my second child, with another miscarriage in-between - to become okay with my story. Several years after the first miscarriage, holding my young son and pregnant with my daughter, I began to see why it was important that the child I ended up having first was, indeed, the exactly right child for me to have first.
I was finally able to let go of the pain.
It is a lot to ask of a pregnant couple who want their baby to accept aphorisms such a, "Things happen for a reason," or "It's God's will," when all we feel is the pain of our loss, the weight of our unfulfilled hopes. For months after my first miscarriage, anyone who said that stuff around me risked having their skull caved in. I don't know that everyone who suffers like this will come to an understanding of the miscarriage's place in their life journey. All I know is: I did.
It helped.
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"For a brief moment, I had the privilege of seeing myself in the sisterhood of motherhood." I am 35 and had a miscarriage three months ago, and you articulated this loss of not just the life, but of the hope and of the fleeting feeling of being a part of something greater, in a way that really spoke to me. Thank you for your bravery in sharing.
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My first miscarriage as devastating because this child was to be the fulfillment of my dream to be a mother. The doctor said, "Be calm and everything will turn out okay." I took his words to heart and hope you have the same happy result that I had.
It would be refreshing if a man would write about a pregnancy loss, whether through miscarriage or abortion. Doesn't he grieve too? Will he remember it all his life? Their saying "It's a women's problem" skews the issue. Women bear the brunt of pregnancy, but that's not to say that prospective fathers have no feelings about it.
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@annabellina My wife and I lost our first child the day she was born. Yes, fathers grieve too. Yes, I will remember her--more accurately, feel her presence as part of our family--all my life. Past that, I also share a deep and abiding sense of guilt, shame, and unworthiness as a parent that I intellectually know is false, but emotionally cannot let go of. The physical experience of motherhood is a profound thing that men can't fully share, but it's true that miscarriage and infant loss--as well as the protection of reproductive rights in general--should not be minimized and stigmatized as "women's issues."
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Thank you Ms.McCain for sharing your painful story. I too had a miscarriage after many months of infertility treatment. Finally, after much emotional turmoil and with the help of excellent infertility treatment paid for by my health insurance, I conceived only to lose my pregnancy at 4 months. Miscarriage is cruel. And yet it is a fact of life. Yes 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage - no fault of the woman. And yet, we see the dangerous implementation of conservative anti-reproductive rights laws sweeping our country and in some cases, with the intent to criminalize miscarriage and punish the woman who suffered the loss. I hope you will lend your voice and your story to advocate for the reproductive rights and freedoms for all women in this country. Our loss and suffering is enough punishment.
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@Rachel
a reasonable plea but I have never observed Ms. McCain to be an empathetic person. Not to detract in any manner from her loss, her grief and her going public with this painful loss as she experienced it, but on "The View" and in interviews, she seems the opposite of empathetic. Very self absorbed, self righteous, melodramatic and dogmatic so I am not optimistic she will consider what you ask.
I'll never forget the disconnect between her father's long touted, standard issue, public anti-choice position, but when asked what if Meghan (then age 15) were to become pregnant, he said they we would sit down and discuss the options as a family--something every family should reasonably be able to do. The next day he sought to walk back a very honest answer because it did not meet with Republican orthodoxy and was shamed by the right for being empathetic to the difficulty of the decision and for thinking it was a personal decision. Not one of his finest moments
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I also lost a baby that I very much wanted and I grieved for that lost little one for a long time; however, I would never deny a woman the choice to terminate a pregnancy that wasn't wanted.
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@V I am sorry for your loss. Thank you for remaining generous and respectful to your sisters, no matter what their circumstances. Many in their grief want to just punish others, but you have chosen acceptance of one of life's hard knocks without blame. It is the higher road.
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What a strong and courageous person you are for sharing this moment. I hope you will be a parent someday - you are an extraordinary person just as you are.
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I, too, know what it is like to experience a miscarriage. It was to be my only pregnancy. Thirty-five years later, I remember that pregnancy, that miscarriage, like it happened yesterday. Above all, I remember the daughter I carried with all the hopes and dreams I held for her. Thank you for expressing what I feel so beautifully, Meghan.
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Thank you for writing about this. It resonates for me as a "miscarriage survivor" who remembers the way most people didn't really understand how deep the pain was. In the 1970s when it happened to me the hospital called it a "missed abortion"
which seemed a harsh way of describing what I had gone through. I don't know if the terminology is the same today, but it didn't help me heal from the loss. I also felt that I was in some way to blame. I wasn't but nobody helped me understand that, not doctors, nurses, family, etc.
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@Susan C When I miscarried in 1984, the term "missed abortion" was used to describe my experience, too. It is a cruel way to describe a miscarriage even though I know it is a medical term. I, too, felt I was to blame in some way. And, today, states such as Alabama are considering making a miscarriage a crime, which is beyond my understanding. I hope that Meghan McCain uses her platform to denounce this awful trend.
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Meghan, I'm so sorry for your loss. You did nothing wrong--sometimes things just happen, for no good reason. But of course it is natural to wonder why, and whether we could have prevented it. Thank you for sharing your story and I wish you all the best.
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Me too. Nineteen years ago, I had a miscarriage at 6 or 7 weeks, my only pregnancy. You don't forget.
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Thank you for sharing this personal story with us. I hope for peace for you and Ben and your wonderful family. You are so public and to share this was very personal experience was brave of you indeed. I wish you peace and continued love. All the best to you.
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