When does life begin?
Don Coldsmith
Monday, October 9, 2006
AN ELECTION looms ahead and in our area a great deal of importance appears to revolve around the subject of abortion. I’d like to toss in a thought or two. I feel qualified to make such comments, having “delivered” some 3,000 babies while I was in the field of medicine. We have also raised five daughters.
In the 1980s, the Supreme Court stated that to rob a woman of control over her own body was unconstitutional. Abortion was legalized. Every physician then had to decide: Will I do abortions? I was uneasy about it. Some abortions MUST be done, to save the life of the mother. In some (fortunately rare) cases, the fertilized ovum results in a cancerous growth which must be aborted. (The “hydatidiform mole,” to be more specific.)
In the course of medical training, I had seen a young teenager forced to carry and deliver a pregnancy. It was the product of rape by a drug-crazed psychotic individual, a stranger to her, and by that time serving a prison term. Isn’t something out of control here? To force a woman into such a situation virtually reduces her to the status of a brood mare or a cow.
The anti-women’s rights crowd refer to any abortion as “killing babies,” as if every fertilized egg is a human being. By this analogy, every acorn is an oak tree, which is twisting facts. Many fertilized human eggs will never become human beings. About one in three pregnancies will never develop completely enough to implant in the womb. This will account for a great many “late starts” of the coming menses.
Unfortunately, there are several abnormalities that can be carried to delivery. In one, the fetus is completely developed, except that it has no brain or back of the skull. The face is a grotesque, frog-like monster. The creature, on delivery, loses life support and dies gasping and blinking its huge frog-like eyes. Who would force a woman to carry and deliver this monster? (Yes, I’ve delivered two such cases, before women’s rights began to be recognized at a more sensible level in the 1950s.)
That’s only one of the several abnormalities that may be involved in a human pregnancy.
I still think back to the example of the acorn, which is for certain not the same as an oak tree. It may fall among the rocks and never sprout. It may sprout, but not find enough nutrition, due to location, or any of a dozen other necessities for life. It may never sprout, due to a variety of reasons, never become an oak tree, just as every human embryo will not become a baby. To imply that a fertilized human egg in a petri dish in a fertility lab has a soul is a bit of a stretch for most of us.
In the 1980s, physicians had to decide: Am I going to do abortions? It’s legal. I was uncomfortable about aborting a normal pregnancy, because I didn’t feel like playing God. I didn’t like making such a decision, so I decided not to do so.
A respected colleague, with the same dilemma, decided to avoid the decision by doing ALL cases requested. It was legal. I referred my abortions to him. This avoided the soul-searching for us both. For the record, I totally object to abortion as a birth control method.
But, even more, I resent the threat that politics rears its ugly head again. I’m all in favor of freedom of religion. Our Constitution guarantees it. That’s why, on a grassroots level, I resent the effort of religious extremists of any faith to force their own narrow brand of religious belief on the public by way of politics. To me it seems downright un-Christian, to say the least.
I consider myself a Christian, have taught a church-school class for 40 years. But, such decisions as abortion should be made by the woman in consultation with her family, her doctor and her God — the Constitution guarantees it, no matter WHICH religion. It’s not anyone else’s business, especially the politician’s.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.