Death. Be Not Proud.

Trigger warning: I’m pro-choice.

…to a point. Is that also a trigger warning?

The Wall Street Journal just published an op-ed reflecting on the 15 week fetal development mark, as observed by ultrasound technicians. It applies these observations to Rowe v Wade through the premise of what was known about development Then v Now and without taking a deep dive into the amniotic politics, there are compelling points to pack up and take away.

I suggest you read it because this isn’t a response to the article. It didn’t change the way I feel about the right to choose, — whose compass needle is moved by confirmation bias-free options? — but it did underscore the fact as a formerly pregnant human I already know what it means to have more than a hypothetical relationship to the subject matter.

I’ve been pregnant five times and I have four children. Ever a statistics exemplar, the 1 in 5 pregnancies ends in miscarriage was pregnancy #3. It was a silent abortion – a misleading misnomer – which just means there were no signs until the ultrasound failed to detect a heartbeat where there had once been. I had to have an abortion, which is still called an abortion when the fetus is not alive, which makes no sense.

I’m not here for a pity party nor grand philosophical dissemination. Suffice to say, my body, not my choice. Things happen. You go on.

My point is that pregnancy and pregnancy loss teach you more about the moments when the developing life inside becomes a baby. While I realize this is personal, that is exactly the point.

The first flutter. The kicks. The elbows and feet. That head in the bladder. I didn’t need an ultrasound to tell me when my baby felt like a baby and not just a source of hyperemesiss gravitas.

The choice to end a pregnancy is always personal, even when thrust into the public sphere. Laws be damned, women who want abortions will find way to get them. You can’t be a little pregnant and you can’t stop women from taking control of their pregnancies.

And if you think women are joyous aborting their babies late in pregnancy, you’ve never met a woman who had to abort her baby late in pregnancy.

Nor a doctor who had to do it.

And there are sound reasons for abortion which I won’t waste your time listing. You know them.

There are no sound reasons for the trend to boast about one’s abortion. It’s a tasteless, attention seeking tactic, that achieves the opposite effect of what the braggart is attempting to do. I’ve never even considered side stepping the pro-choice crowd until confronted with this extreme lack of respect for what is often a traumatic episode in a person’s life. If you’ve ever worked in a clinic or with doctors who perform abortions, you appreciate the solemnity of the practice.

It is easier for some than others to rid their bodies of an unwanted cluster of cells. Or a baby, perhaps. That distinction is in the belly of the beholder.

And for the Wall Street Journaling, on a sonogram screen.

Whenever the distinction of life begins, the distinction of humanity ends when abortion is something we celebrate.