The “Miracle of Life” is the Courage of Women
It’s time we show them respect
My daughter is one day past her emergency C-section. We’ve been told that this will be the most painful day of her recovery. Between changing bloody pads, she’s nursing her newborn, both of them attached to a half-dozen tubes and monitors. Every time my daughter nurses, her uterus contracts, generating more pain.
Why the C-section? The doctors believe that my daughter’s placenta tore before her labor began. We don’t know why — none of the risk factors were in place. But the contractions that followed came fast and hard, and the baby’s heartbeat dipped dangerously after each one. When my daughter’s water broke, it was mostly blood, and we’ve been told that my little granddaughter was only minutes away from an unthinkable outcome.
We — my daughter, her husband, and our family — are still processing how close we came to grief. My daughter’s first day as a mother was spent dragging an IV stand down to the NICU, trying for a glimpse of the IVF baby she’d worked so hard to conceive.
I’m so proud of her. I’ll say that again — I am so proud of my daughter. It’s been wildly crazy watching my own baby courageously struggle through challenge after challenge — braving contractions that felt as if they were tearing her apart, and cervical checks that would bring the bravest to their knees.
Then to hear that her baby was in danger — changing course fast, being cut open, having her baby whisked away. No skin-to-skin bonding, no reassurances of good health. Fear, pain and worry . . .
Not once during that entire ordeal did I hear my daughter ask if she would be OK, if she would survive.
All of this has made me think again of the issue of abortion — of the hordes of conservative Christians screaming about “the sanctity of life.” How many times have I heard someone add that women who don’t want babies “should’ve just kept their legs closed?”
This, it turns out, includes rape victims of all ages — any female who is unfortunate enough to have become pregnant by her attacker. In the eyes of the holier-than-thou anti-choice folks, all pregnant females, no matter their circumstances, must subject themselves to at least part of my daughter’s experience.
I’ve also been pondering my own religious upbringing — how I was told that women deserved labor pain because “Eve ate the fruit.” I try to imagine how any just Creator could punish half of humanity because an ancestor made a mistake — how anyone could ever call such a God just or loving.
I look at my daughter. I recall her tears during labor — and how few there were, under the circumstances. I know that, in a day or so, her milk will come in, and her breasts will be hot, and so painful that she’ll walk on tiptoe to pick up her child.
Women’s bodies are amazing, but that miracle of fortitude should never be taken for granted, should never be wrung from them by force. No, we are not obligated to serve society by putting ourselves through torment. No, we owe no god and no religion our pain.
Women need be no one’s scapegoat.
If there is any wonder to birth, it is wrapped up in the fact that so many women willingly put themselves through so much emotional and physical suffering in order to become mothers. And those who choose not to — that can also be a way of loving, of mothering, of knowing oneself and one’s capabilities, of guarding one’s potential offspring from a situation in which nonexistence is the better choice.
Life is indeed a miracle. How dare Christians attack the instrument of that miracle! How dare they invent a god with which to do it! It is on women — not an angry deity — that humanity’s continuance depends. If there is a Creator, this is how she made it to be. Dismissing, devaluing, and stripping control from the females of one’s species is utter lunacy.
There is so much anger behind conservative efforts to ban abortion, strip away birth control, and limit IVF. I wonder how much of this antagonism comes from the knowledge that women do have power over human reproduction. We do know when we’re willing to make the sacrifice, and when it can’t be.
Making life harder for us — banning abortions, restricting contraceptives, withholding health care, punishing women with lower wages and fewer economic options — none of this will lead to willing mothers or happier families.
On the contrary, making a world that’s more welcoming to children — a more equitable world, a healthier world, a less violent world, a world that values the little girl babies as much as the little boys, that protects children as tenderly as pastors, and rape victims as assiduously as politicians — maybe if Christians fought for a world like that, fewer women would make the choice to end their pregnancies.
You see, we do know when we want to be mothers and when the timing’s not right.
When I look at my daughter, already losing sleep for her little one, the message is clear as can be. Motherhood is an immense responsibility. It requires a deep commitment, and the sacrifice must be made willingly. If we’re wise, we’ll accept that reality. We’ll cease the attacks and show some respect to those upon whom our species relies.
My daughter did the work. God or no god, without my daughter’s acquiescence, my granddaughter would not be breathing today.
That’s just the naked truth.
