For Fear

I have been part of an abortion.
I was just a student, still in nursing school, having just completed my OB rotation. The mother was young, like me, but the pregnancy was very much planned. What she didn’t plan for were the “fetal anomalies” that the baby had–developing with kidney problems.
The staff told me about the case, set up for an induction, and prepared the labor monitors.
The baby was only 27 weeks.
Just shy of the legal age of viability for this particular hospital–the age when they would have been legally bound to make an effort to resuscitate the infant–at 28 weeks.
As realization dawned on me, I remained confused. “But, wait, why are we inducing now?” I asked. “Won’t the baby….?”
The staff turned kind, but sad eyes on me.
Just think about how much easier it will be for her, they said.
There will be less pain.
The labor and delivery will be easier because the baby is smaller.
It will be better this way.
Like a river current that starts out gentle, I felt myself get swept up. Yes, of course, I thought. The baby will die either way, right? It will be easier on the mother, poor thing.
Later that day, when I had completely forgotten the case and was crossing through the back room to fetch some supplies, I was humming and singing a song to myself and thinking of the ice cream I was going to eat on my break as I pushed open the swinging door into the dark room.
I practically tripped over him.
The overhead light, the one they used to illuminate x-rays, buzzed as it glowed around him, encasing him in a perfect halo of light as the rest of the room lay in darkness.
I blinked twice, my eyes focusing, understanding. Suddenly, I stopped humming.
Someone had placed a little blue hat on him, arranged a blanket rather haphazardly around him. He was so tiny. Almost see-through. So perfect it hurt to look at him.
My breath left then, like hiccups I couldn’t get ahead of. I felt like I was drowning. Wildly, I looked around. Surely this wasn’t real. Surely they didn’t leave this perfect baby in his blue hat alone and forgotten in our back supply room on the same cold counter we did circumcisions on.
Abortion happens out of fear.

Image: becca cahan on Flickr
Fear for the pain we will endure with a sick child.
Fear for the future that we thought we had.
Fear for the special needs our baby will face.
Fear of the abuse she will endure.
Fear of the memories of the rapist.
Fear of the unwanted.
Fear of the hardship that a young mother will face.
Fear that we can’t take care of another baby.
It’s human to be afraid. And I think it’s easy to get swept up in the thought that abortion is the kind option.
But abortion can not take take those fears away or change the circumstances that led to them.
It can only hide them away, hoping they will remain undiscovered, in a cold, dark back room.