Pro-People (Part 1)

I still remember the call where Amy and I were told there was an issue with Hannah's last routine checkup. They couldn't tell us what exactly was happening as we had to wait days for further tests, but there was a chance we might lose our baby. It felt like an eternity. We thought all the thoughts. We prayed all the prayers. We felt all the emotions. Nothing can prepare you for news like that. Nothing can help as you wait to hear if your child will be viable or not.

We were visiting a different local church that Sunday as I was off from work (we had a vacation booked but had to cancel our trip in light of this news). The pastor got up and spoke about the evil of abortion - how it was unacceptable in ANY situation and that it was a sin against God in all situations. He pleaded with his congregation to fight this evil and how the church needs to stand up against this. His rally cry was met with spirited amens. We snuck out the back in tears as we were literally waiting to hear if we would have to have an abortion for an unviable baby.

This is the problem with declarative stances on issues - it forgets people and real situations.

We found out Hannah was viable shortly after, but that she did have a disability that would impact her life: Spina Bifida. They called us into the hospital to go over our options, of which we had three: in light of the disability we were presented to still have the abortion, we could carry on with the pregnancy and have the corrective surgery to fix the gap in her spine post-birth, or we could be the 19th couple in Canada to have a new procedure of in-utero surgery to prevent any further damage that could happen. We went with the last option as it gave our little Hannah the best chance.

I do want to note that in the "presentation" of the three options, the option that was pushed the most by the medical staff we met with was to have an abortion - We were told it was difficult to be the parent of a child with a disability and that so many would-be-parents choose the route to end the pregnancy. To put a number on this so you can understand the situation - 85% of spina bifida diagnoses are aborted in Canada and the US. That is over 10,000 abortions performed each year just due to Spina Bifida. That's 10,000 fewer Hannahs in the world. That's 10,000 babies not allowed to live, most simply because it would be more difficult for the parents to have a child with a disability.

This is the problem with declarative stances on issues - it forgets people and real situations.

The day before Amy/Hannah had their in-utero surgery we sat in a room with staff to have something explained to us: for the 20-30 minutes that Amy's uterus was open and Hannah was being operated on - she would be considered a person by the law. Before, and then after when she was put back inside, she would no longer carry such status. You read that right - Hannah legally went from fetus to baby and back to fetus in the span of 30 minutes. While our focus was on processing and preparing for this dangerous surgery, it shocked me how wild that logic seemed to be. The assumed position that the law/government gets to determine when someone is or isn't a person should be concerning for us all (I'd highly recommend Dr. Nancy Pearcey's book "Love They Body" as she brilliantly lays out the dangers of this line of thinking).

I will realize that, as with most things, if you are not fully on someone's side then you're often considered against them. You either have to be on the left or the right, and if you're in the middle you're just everyone's enemy. This always leads to an "us vs them" mentality, often attached with incorrect assumptions, created caricatures of positions, and straw-man arguments. It's very dichotomous thinking to approach complex situations such as abortion as a completely for or completely against stance.

That being said, I'm not pro-choice...but I'm also not pro-life. I'm not for abortion, and I'm not against abortion in all cases. The problem with hard-stance declarative statements is they forget real people and real situations.

The issue of abortion has been raging through our culture more and more these last few months and I've found myself in a different space as I think neither is the complete solution to addressing the issue. I end up disagreeing with both sides on some things and agreeing with both sides on some things.

I'm going to take the next 2 posts to touch on abortion and address both pro-life and pro-choice sides of this issue, but I wanted people to first understand my context and story; I thought it important to understand where I'm coming from with this.

It frustrates me to hear people justify ignoring the right to life for all under the poor argument of "personhood".

It frustrates me to have a movement that claims to care about life, but only certain lives.

It breaks my heart to see people terminating lives out of inconvenience.

It breaks my heart to see people demonizing women who might have to make that hard choice.

It is infuriating to hear people argue that ending the life of someone with a disability is the "loving" thing to do.

As with everything, I'm more than willing to have a discussion and dialogue about these things - I can only approach this from my own perspective and understanding so I do welcome others' thoughts. If you believe strongly on either side of this issue, you'll probably view my stance as against yours. We might disagree on things, but I want to tell you I'm not against you and am more than willing to have a good conversation - we can disagree and still accept each other.

So often we forget that any stance we take often affects real people who are living through hard things and difficult decisions. All that doesn't mean we don't stand for truth just because it's hard for people to hear, but it also doesn't mean we ignore the reality of what's going on in people's lives. This is more than just an intellectual exercise - You can't form your stance just in light of how people feel, but you also can't form it without any thought to people.

We need to remember real people are living real situations. We need to be pro-people.