The recent spotlight placed upon the Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has triggered some emotional memories of two pregnancies my wife experienced. After the birth of our first daughter Alexis, Cally became pregnant with our second child. During our first Dr. appointment with the ultrasound tech we discovered that Cally had a tubal pregnancy. This was very frightening. The Dr’s warned that if we didn’t abort the pregnancy immediately that not only would Cally’s fallopian tubes be in danger of being destroyed (and any future possibility of pregnancy) but also that there was an immanent danger of death. They also explained that there was an impossibility of the child becoming “viable”.

We told the Dr’s that we simply could not make a decision right there in the office. We needed to talk and pray about what to do next. We left the office not knowing what in the world to do. Over the course of days we sought counsel from friends and family. The consensus was that we needed to terminate the pregnancy because not only was it impossible for the baby to live but there was a certain expectation that Cally could loose her life in the process. The problem was that neither one of us could emotionally bring our self to allow this abortion to happen. As the husband I tried to concur with the counsel of our friends. I tried to convince myself that certainly this was the logical position and I wanted to protect my wife from any possible injury or death. At the same time I wanted to support her in this difficult period. The “resolution” that we came to was to leave the process into the hands of God.

We knew this was not a reasonable thing to do. We had to believe that God was at work in this situation and that just as he allowed this tubal pregnancy to happen so he could also terminate the pregnancy. It seemed to us that pregnancy was too big a ethical issue to leave in the hands of man’s wisdom and ways. A week or so after the initial assessment of the pregnancy, Cally miscarried. As difficult as this was for our family, we saw the hands of God at work to both give and to take away.

The next pregnancy was with our daughter Liena. We were in the first trimester and went in for an normal checkup and series of tests. The results eventually came back that the hormone levels indicated that the child Cally was carrying was likely had Trisomy 18, (aka Edwards syndrome which occurs when the baby has an extra copy of chromosome 18). The Dr’s explained that these babies don’t live past a few months and certainly no longer than a year and that they are extremely disabled.

It seemed that we were facing again an issue of whether to abort our child or accept the consequences of life. However, this time the issue was not Cally’s welfare but how to emotionally cope with an extremely disabled and likely deformed baby that statistically had no chance of survival. We had several weeks to get our minds around the issue, to do research, and to pray. Abortion was simply of of the question. Rather, we needed to look to God to find a capacity do handle what we faced.

Several weeks after the initial diagnosis we meet with a specialist ultrasound Doctor from the University of Colorado. We learn that the hormone test was leading to false conclusions because the dating of the baby was wrong. She was a few weeks older than first thought and that she was a healthy normal baby girl! (seen below)

Liena

More recently I listened to an interview of Susan Wicklund on NPR. In part of the interview, the Abortionist talked about the “horror” she faced after performing an abortion for a woman that was raped and finding out later that the baby that was killed was not from the rape but from the woman’s husband! This shocking revelation gives immense insight into the flawed logic or “situational ethics” that surrounds abortion. How is it possible to be horrified by the killing of one child over against the routine killing of another child? Who is the criminal and who is the victim in this case and how does it differ in other abortion cases? These are the questions that come to my mind.