August 28th is my birthday. It's also the anniversary of the day I learned about my stillbirth fourteen years ago. (Never schedule a doctor's/midwife's appointment on your birthday--you may 1. change the day forever and 2. never be able to forget the date when.)
(Otherwise perfectly normal pregnancy; we'd passed the standard 18-20 week anatomy scan with flying colors. I found out about the fetal death when the midwife couldn't get a heartbeat on the Doppler. Nothing discernible happened--testing revealed no genetic abnormalities.)
That experience--the decisions I had to make then (deliver a dead baby? Go under general anesthesia and have them extract a dead baby from my unconscious body? Yes, this is awful, but these are the decisions that have to be made),
did two paradoxical things: it gave me an entirely different appreciation of the pain of pregnancy loss and stillbirth, and it made me irrevocably, implacably convinced that the only people who should make these decisions are the pregnant person and whoever she wants guiding her.
Her doctor, sure; clergy, if she wants them; anyone else she wants to consult with. Only them.
I had supported abortion rights before, for halakhic and general political reasons. That experience made it a burning conviction in my bones, to mis-quote Jeremiah.
I had supported abortion rights before, for halakhic and general political reasons. That experience made it a burning conviction in my bones, to mis-quote Jeremiah.
No, I didn't have to make those particular choices. I wasn't terminating anything. My daughter's heart stopped on its own, for no discernible reason. But I had a whole other appreciation for what those decisions and choices could feel like.
Since then, I have comforted women who have experienced stillbirth and pregnancy loss.
And I have comforted women who, with the guidance of their doctors and rabbis, terminated yearned-for pregnancies.
And I have comforted women who, with the guidance of their doctors and rabbis, terminated yearned-for pregnancies.
The murdered George Tiller was right. Trust women. (Today he might say trust pregnant people, but he said trust women.)
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