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Fearful Choices

Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Thursday, August 18, 2011 12:30 PM

At the height of Operation Rescue’s clinic-blocking efforts during the Clinton administration, journalist Cynthia Gorney published a fine pair of articles in City Paper profiling pro-life activists and abortion clinic-workers, respectively.

They were very fair-minded pieces and formed the seed of a book she later wrote on the topic of the abortion wars.

Her piece on the atmosphere inside abortion clinics is seared in my memory because there wasn’t one clinic worker she quoted who was actually comfortable with abortion; all had serious misgivings of some kind.

Worse, though, was that of all the clinic clients Ms. Gorney interviewed, not a single one was there by “choice” in the liberating sense that term is intended.

Without exception, they were there because they felt they had no choice, were being pressured by boyfriends or parents. In their own words, what came out over and over again was the idea: I wouldn’t be doing this if it were up to me.

A moving, heartbreaking piece: I don’t know how anyone could read it without feeling terrible empathy for the women involved, and particularly for the bondage most of them were in to either callow or domineering men.

“This is liberation?” I remember thinking.

I had a similar response to The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy, the controversial story in last week’s New York Times about the growing practice of “twin reduction”—and the Times’ apparent desire to lift the “stigma” against it. 

The piece is an ethical nightmare, epitomized perhaps by this remark from one mother who chose to abort half her pregnancy:

If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.

That’s candid, at least, but….my God! Is that the way we want to think about human life?

The procedure was pioneered and is championed by one Dr. Mark Evans, whose philosophy is summed up in this remark:

“Ethics,” he said, “evolve with technology.”

Again there is the merit of candor. That’s as naked a statement of the logical fallacy I like to call empirica ergo moralis (if it’s “scientific,” it’s moral) as I’ve ever seen.

There’s been a lot of justifiable outrage since the article’s publication last week. Nancy French compared it to the superstitious West African practice of twin killing. Rachel Abrams recalls the twin culling experiments at Auschwitz. Jennifer Fulwiler reflected on the intellectual honesty of the argument.

I want to leave the appalling moral calculus aside, however, and notice something else. Read these excerpts from the story:

The idea of managing two infants at this point in her life terrified her. She and her husband already had grade-school-age children, and she took pride in being a good mother. She felt that twins would soak up everything she had to give, leaving nothing for her older children. Even the twins would be robbed, because, at best, she could give each one only half of her attention and, she feared, only half of her love.

Whatever the particulars, these patients concluded that they lacked the resources to deal with the chaos, stereophonic screaming and exhaustion of raising twins.

“It was horrible,” she says. “I felt like the pregnancy was a monster, and I just wanted it out, but because we tried for so long, abortion wasn’t an option. My No. 1 priority was to be the best mom I could be, but how was I supposed to juggle two newborns or two screaming infants while my husband was away being shot at? We don’t have family just sitting around waiting to get called to help me with a baby.”

I was eight weeks pregnant when my husband and I, with our 2-year-old daughter in tow, visited friends who had recently had twins. Our friends, two of the most laid-back parents we knew, looked exhausted, beaten, overrun. Between their infants and their 3-year-old, it seemed someone was always hungry, howling or filling a diaper. The second my husband and I stepped into our car to drive home, we said in unintentional unison, “Thank God we’re not having twins.”
...
“Twins,” the midwife announced cheerfully. My terror was instantaneous, and for the next few days, I could not seem to grab enough oxygen to breathe. Aborting half the pregnancy didn’t occur to us — who knew it would even be doable? — but for a few panicky hours, we wondered if it was possible to give one up for adoption.

Terror, fear, panic….are these words we normally associate with liberty and empowerment?

Even the medical professionals involved, who are supposed to be offering calm assessments, seem to be emphasizing risk rather than probability. Here’s how Dr. Evans justifies twin reduction, for example.

The calculus of risks had also changed. For one thing, he argued, in experienced hands like his, the procedure rarely prompted a miscarriage. For another, recent studies had revealed that the risks of twin pregnancies were greater than previously thought. They carried an increased chance of prematurity, low birth weight and cerebral palsy in the babies and gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia in the mother.

Not to minimize the dangers, but with the exception of cerebral palsy, all the conditions in the above list are temporary and highly manageable with competent medical care.

Doesn’t this read like fear-mongering?

I’ve noted previously how bizarre it is that we tell women they are strong and can handle anything…except pregnancy.

Maybe I have to expand that to say we tell women they can handle anything except pregnancy and the rigors of rearing infants and toddlers.

I’m not mocking the feelings. When I first became pregnant after years of longing for a child, my initial response to the little “plus” sign that had been so prayed for was not gratitude, but abject terror. It’s normal and human to respond to great change—even welcome change—with fear of the unknown.

Nor do I pooh-pooh the genuine challenge of raising twins. Arwen’s chronicling her experiences with that on this very site.

But what ever happened to “Grrl power!” and helping people confront fears and overcome them? Why are we selling weakness, impotence and incompetence in the name of strength and solidarity?

One woman cited above actually did give birth to twins, and is glad of it. It’s not that she wasn’t fearful or that it wasn’t hard:

I was right to be afraid. Studies report enormous disruption in families with multiples, and higher levels of social isolation, exhaustion and depression in mothers of twins. The incessant demands of caring for two same-aged babies eclipse the needs of other children and the marriage. It certainly did for us. There’s no doubt that life with twins and a third child so close in age has often felt all-consuming and out of control.

It’s that fear and its moment passes. Babies—even multiples—eventually do sleep through the night and potty train—and love remains:

And yet the thought of not having any one of them is unbearable now, because they are no longer shadowy fetuses but full-fledged human beings whom I love in a huge and aching way.

Women are stronger than abortion, and we ought to help them be strong rather than sell them on their weakness.

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