WARNING: This is deep and is about abortion. It is not a popular opinion.
“I chose to deliver Embree on April 25, 2016 via c-section. I chose late-term abortion. I did so because it was the only way I could hold my baby girl while she was still alive. It was the only way I could encounter her soul until we are together again in heaven. This is why I am PRO-CHOICE.” – Haylie Grammer
At face value, you might think that this woman had an abortion near-term but that’s not the case. She was 25 weeks. You also may have already seen this story as Haylie aborted her baby 4.5 years ago. Her situation is tragic, I don’t deny it. I do however, want to talk about it.
Her post is really about politics (which she admits) and it’s to garner your vote for the pro-choice legislators. Heck, it might even be about the Supreme Court Nominee, Amy Coney Barrett since the concern is she will help overturn Roe v. Wade but most likely this is about the presidential election. It’s quite suspect that this circulated during the last presidential election year.
Haylie tells her tragic story about how Texas forced her to have an abortion because the law would not allow an early induction. According to Texas law, there is no restriction on abortion if the baby has a severe fetal anomaly and/or the mother’s life is at risk. The ACLU for Texas confirms this. Nothing stated the need to wait until 27 week, although she could be referring to private insurance restrictions. This is most likely one of the determining factors for her choosing the abortion route.
Even in Catholic circles, there is disagreement on if what Haylie endured was abortion and those are the details I will focus on in this post because I am not so much interested in the terminology than what was on Haylie’s heart (in her own words).
The quote is above. She chose to have her baby early so that she could hold her baby while she was alive. She chose.
If you’re Christian, then you should understand that God has given you free will to “choose.” There are also laws or rather Commandments, that God has told us not to break. His command doesn’t say, “thou shalt not…unless you are suffering.” It certainly doesn’t say, “thou shalt not…unless the person will die anyway.” And most obvious, His command doesn’t say, “thou shalt not…unless the person isn’t perfect.”
All of us (whether you believe in God or not), were created by God in His image and likeness. Even the unborn were created in His image and likeness. We know that God knows the unborn because it was revealed in scripture. Psalm 139: 13-14 is one of the more popular verses in Sacred Scripture that shows us that God knows us before we are born.
I realize there is much debate on when “life begins.” Science says life begins at conception but medicine says otherwise, “at implantation.” I am not going to debate these statements. Here’s why, as Catholic Christians, we believe in science. Medicine can be manipulated, just as it was in this particular story.
There is also no question if Embree were a living person because her mother believed her to be and wanted to meet her soul on this earth. So the argument then turns to the fatal condition and mirror syndrome. She was told Embree was going to die. Embree would likely die in the womb. Haylie did NOT choose to end Embree’s life in the typical abortion fashion where the baby’s heart is injected with digoxin and then a dead baby is delivered, she chose early induction or rather, early c-section.
This is extremely tragic. As someone who has experienced the death of a baby in the womb and someone who assists families through such deaths as well as fatal diagnoses, I have a perspective many do not have. Not many people choose to get this close to families enduring such suffering.
The death of a baby in the womb is life-changing. Honestly, it doesn’t matter how early or late this occurs. Women have experienced extreme suffering whether the baby dies at an early gestation or full-term. We humans though, believe that the farther along in pregnancy a woman is, means the more love she has to lose and therefore, she will endure more suffering than someone who is in an early gestation (less time to love) but this is not the case at all.
Unfortunately, this is quite damaging to the families who lose children to miscarriage and stillbirth. With this logic, a young woman who loses her fiancé should grieve less than a woman who loses her husband after 40 years of marriage. It is nonsensical and would be damaging to the young woman.
I can tell you that ending the pregnancy early, will not lower the amount of suffering someone will have. They love the child already. We don’t love our children more and more each day they are with us, we just love them and it would break our hearts to lose them no matter what age they are. So instead of bringing in this human logic and trying to reduce a perceived amount of suffering, why aren’t we offering support to women and families enduring such a diagnosis?
I mentioned this to some friends recently and their response to this situation was “let the decision be made between the person, their doctors, without fear of persecution or stigma.” Well, that sounds good on paper but unfortunately, doctors don’t give all the options. Doctors are human too. Doctors have their own biases and opinions too. Doctors can also manipulate things without much repercussion.
Even though my maternal fetal medicine specialist knew I was pro-life, I was still encouraged to abort my 20+ week baby girl because there was a 2% chance the test I had was wrong and my daughter could have Down Syndrome. The whole reason I had the test was so I could advocate for my daughter, who could potentially have Down Syndrome or some other trisomy (even Triploidy since I already had a child with Triploidy). I wanted the specialists necessary for my child, not a judge who believed my baby should die because they weren’t perfect.
I know a family who suffered the loss of their son because a doctor purposefully allowed him to bleed to death following a routine surgery because the child “wasn’t perfect.” He was 8! It was a “medical error,” but believe me, this family knew the judgment against them for bringing forth an “imperfect” child who consumed medical services and did not live in the “normal” way nor would be a “productive member of society.” This is a horrible culture our society has created and supports.
But suffering is the big concern on everyone’s mind. Suffering MUST BE reduced or eliminated at all costs. Why have we become a society that doesn’t accept suffering? As Christians, it seems we have no understanding of the purpose of suffering and somehow believe that God should not allow us to suffer regardless of what we are doing here on earth. There is no suffering in Heaven. Are we living in Heaven?
Through suffering comes grace. We all must suffer and we all WILL suffer through the sins of our brothers and sisters (as well as our own). So I always giggle when I hear someone say, “their life and choices has no effect on mine.” On the contrary, the sins of this world affect us all. This is pretty deep and theological and most people will not take the time to learn anything about this.
So, would prayers have worked to save Baby Embree? Unfortunately, no one will know because the choice was taken away. God’s ability to provide grace on this mother and child, His ability to perform a miracle, the community’s ability to intercede in deep prayer for this child, was taken away.
Haylie used her God-given free will and took this matter to human hands. Of course, she says her in her own words that she hoped modern medicine and prayers would heal her daughter. As an outsider looking in, it would seem she carries a religious belief.
Embree could have received a miracle or should would have died. Death, as much as it hurts for those who love, isn’t the worse thing that could actually happen to us. That’s a physical death. The worst thing that could happen would be spiritual death (eternal separation from God). How does one experience spiritual death?
Rejection of God, aka breaking the Commandments.
Thou shalt not kill.
“But Embree was going to die anyway,” they say. Maybe, we’ll never know.
“But Embree wasn’t killed through abortion,” they say. Well, how do we know that her early delivery wasn’t responsible for her death? She was only 25 weeks. Many 25 week babies do not survive. Some doctors even refuse to provide any life saving care at this gestational age. The error isn’t that life saving care needed to be provided. It didn’t, but a delivery this early could have been responsible for her early death and of course removed any chance that further prayer would have resulted in a miracle.
“But the mother’s life was at risk,” they say. This is debatable. Swelling in the feet is hardly life-threatening. She says she was the size of someone who was 36 weeks pregnant so swelling in the feet at 36 weeks is normal. Haylie doesn’t disclose any other life-threatening issues except the statement about mirror syndrome. An extremely rare condition and while she fits the gestational age in pregnancy for this to occur, it’s unlikely she was experiencing mirror syndrome based on what she revealed. It seems the doctor was finding an excuse to allow this woman a c-section due to some law.
I was unable to find that information in the law. I don’t see anything about 27 weeks in the law at all. In fact, Texas law grants abortion for fatal conditions in the baby and/or threat to the life of the mother after 20 weeks. As stated at the beginning, it seems it might be a private insurance reason over Texas law. It was obvious a c-section was needed due to the tumor the baby had. A vaginal delivery would not be an option.
Someone failed this family.
Now for my Catholics who have argued that this was not abortion because the mother’s life was at risk and a procedure to save the mother is permissible during pregnancy even if the result is the death of the baby. You are correct. Fetal anomalies are not reasons for early induction though and I would argue again that this mother’s life was hardly at risk (based on the information given). It’s likely the doctor manipulated the swelling to justify an indication for such delivery. But, we must look to this mother’s heart.
“I did so because it was the only way I could hold my baby girl while she was still alive.”
This mother did not want to deliver a dead baby. The only way to deliver her alive was to have an early c-section while she was still alive. Believe me, no one wants to deliver a dead baby. No one wants to carry a dead baby in their womb. It might be the journey God has asked of you.
I know this is heart-wrenching. I know that deep down many people know that this was wrong. I also know that many people believe this was an act of mercy. There is no such thing as “mercy killing” for humans though. We must always allow for God’s grace even in the toughest situations. God forbid someone end my life early because I have dementia and they believe it’s merciful to kill me (by refusing food, water, or worse, providing euthanasia).
Redemptive Suffering. Look it up. Someone doing this might have removed not only my redemptive suffering but their own! Suffering sucks. I’ve been there! I don’t want to suffer any more than you do. I’ve lost two children to miscarriage. I have experienced mental illness. I nearly died twice in 2017 and one occurrence came with a month of in-patient care for nearly complete organ failure. We’ve all endured suffering in some way or another.
That’s not what this is about though. We are in this world, but not of it. There is more to us than this little blip of time on earth. Life on this earth includes suffering. We cannot get rid of it and the more we try through these false acts of “mercy,” the more we will suffer…until the end. Only God can provide the mercy you are looking for.
We must offer up these sufferings to God. We must allow others to help us through that suffering. By allowing others to help us, we are allowing God’s grace into their lives and are allowing God’s grace to flow in ours. We are all connected.
“To suffer means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ. In him God has confirmed his desire to act especially through suffering, which is man’s weakness and emptying of self, and he wishes to make his power known precisely in this weakness and emptying of self. (SD 23)” – Pope Saint John Paul II (Salvifici Doloris)
Recently in a group, bereaved mothers were comparing the pain they experienced based on the age of their baby. One woman shared she had miscarriages so her pain could not be nearly as painful as a friend who had lost a baby at full term and the friend who lost her baby at full term could not possibly be in as much pain as the person who lost their baby at 2 weeks old. Even with those comparisons, another mother stated that the pain of losing her 24 week gestation child could not be as painful as someone who lost their living child.
Validation that the grief is real and that they are worthy to grieve starts with us (society); sharing our stories of loss, and encouraging society to recognize that the grief from miscarriage exists. For many women, the moment they see the positive test they begin imagining all they will do with their future child. All those hopes and dream disappear in a fleeting moment, a flicker on an ultrasound that diminished too quickly, a kick or punch which faded away, a breath that emptied too soon. All are worthy of grief and mourning.
Last year, he was born on May 11. Silent and still on the ultrasound just days before, we knew his birth was inevitable. It was devastating. Our 4th and thought-to-be last child, gone so quickly. We were so excited to be pregnant with him, naturally and at our age. It was a miracle. But he was not to be. He was not to live on this earth, just a saint in heaven.
I learned today that I am NORMAL! I am NOT alone in my feelings about my new baby following my pregnancy loss. It was so comforting to learn that. I had the feeling that my emotions were normal but I really needed to hear this. Did you know that if you have experienced a pregnancy loss and give birth to your rainbow baby that it’s normal to feel like you will lose your baby? That it’s normal to be scared that your baby will die? That it’s okay to feel these things?
