Pro-life or Pro-choice?

I honestly think that this issue, which is very personal and tender and difficult, should be between a woman and her doctor. The difficulty in the US is that so many of the people who need help in this way don't have, and can't afford, good medical treatment. I am slightly biased, perhaps, having grown up with socialized medicine and definitely believing that it is a much better system--but in the US, people seem to get caught up on the question of who pays for it. And if they are pro-life, they don't want to be paying for someone else's abortion. Or insurance companies have policies of what they will or won't pay for. In any case, it takes it out of the realm of the doctor-patient relationship. It turns it into everybody's business, when in my opinion it really should be nobody's business (except the patient and the doctor). Way too much guessing and jumping to conclusions about the motivations of others happens when everyone gets a say about it.

In the US system of health care—which, in my mind, isn’t even a system; it is chaos—people who really need help don’t have access to it. Which is why organizations like Planned Parenthood exist. They can get some medical help and information to the most vulnerable people. They can help with birth control so that future need/desire for abortions are lessened. People who really are having abortions for the wrong reasons (inconvenience or whatever) are way more likely to be the wealthy than the poor. The wealthy can do whatever they want, anyway—fly to a different country, for example, to get what they want. So if all abortions are made illegal, rich people can still do whatever they want. But the really vulnerable people, who can't even see a doctor—they are the ones who need protection. They are the ones who will suffer at the hands of an illegal abortionist if they have nowhere else to turn.

In Canada, there are no abortion laws. So technically, the question of abortion lies where it belongs, between a woman and her doctor, at all stages of the game. But actually, very few late-term abortions are performed in Canada, because since it is up to the doctor—most doctors won’t do it.  But realistically, since all women have access to medical care (unless they live super remotely) those kinds of decisions can be made earlier, anyway. Since abortion is not in the criminal code, the doctor and the woman are both free to follow their consciences and make the best decision given the situation THAT NOBODY ELSE UNDERSTANDS because nobody CAN understand another person’s life or motivation. 

Since the decriminalization of abortion in Canada in 1988, you might think that abortions would be trending upwards, and for the first decade, that was true. However, after that, the number began dropping and has been on a decline ever since—even though the population has been growing. http://abortionincanada.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Annual_20_203.pdf. The number of abortions in 2010 was lower than the number in 1978. Yet the population of Canada in 2010 was 34 million, while in 1978 it was only 24 million. I will leave it to you to do the math, but obviously the per capita number of abortions has DROPPED, so putting health care decisions in the hands of the woman and her doctor, in my opinion, when it comes to abortion, is a good place to put it.

When I had my last child, born in British Columbia in 1994, my doctor ordered an ultrasound because I was an older mom. Ultrasounds were not routine in 1994. My doctor would not use an ultrasound to look for gender at that time because wealthy people in British Columbia would use that information to seek abortions. Since doctors in British Columbia would not perform abortions for that reason, those people would go to Washington State to procure their abortions.  A lot of Americans are stunned, horrified, and disbelieving when I tell them that. That Canadians, living in a country with no abortion laws would go to a nation with abortion laws seems to make NO SENSE. Except that—in the United States, the motivating factor in medicine seems to be money, not actual good health, so clearly these BC women who could afford it were able to find a doctor to do what they wanted. Money can buy anything. 

I personally consider myself neither pro-life NOR pro-choice. I am pro mind your own business. Let a woman and her doctor make decisions about things that you cannot understand. No one can understand your life, and neither can you understand anyone else’s. We are all so different: different mental and physical health, different financial and social circumstances, different history and life experiences. How can we ever fully understand all the ramifications of all pregnancies and make laws to cover all situations? It is ridiculous to think we can. We can’t.

I have known women who have been carrying fetuses that were destined to die (conditions not consistent with life) that decided to carry those babies to their natural conclusions, and I have known women in those situations who have terminated their pregnancies early.  The outcome was the same in all cases: a dead baby. Who are we to judge which of these women made a better choice? All of these women were heartbroken. But they made different decisions about how to handle these horrible circumstances based on what they and their doctors felt was right for them. 

Which is, in my opinion, how all pregnancies should be handled.

Random Things

First post of the New Year, and I just have a few random things I would like to write down.

I just finished book number five of 2017, "Beyond the pale: Folklore, family, and the mystery of our hidden genes" by Emily Urquhart. That was a great read.  So much to like about it! Emily was a graduate student in folklore at whatever university in St. John's Newfoundland (probably Memorial?) when she and her husband had their first baby.  Baby Sadie was striking because of her shock of white hair. "That's some white!" the nurses would say. Baby Sadie had albinism, and this was a shock to both parents since neither of them were aware of this genetic condition among any of their family members.  This book traces their family's education in albinism, their involvement with the NOAH organization (the dead sea scrolls describes Noah is such a way that he was maybe a person with albinism), a trip to Tanzania where still today their albino population is threatened by poachers. (I know. That sounds like I am making it up. Or like she is making it up. But no, it is true.)

And the investigation into their family history is really interesting! Some things I really liked: when she talked to an aptly named geneticist, Dr. Brilliant, about the ethics of selecting offspring for genetic traits, about maybe using selection to eradicate a genetic condition, he says, "You can't eradicate a condition. On average, we all have about seven really bad mutations. It's just the draw of the genetic cards...We all have something." (page 39) Like--there are no perfect humans, and everyone carries something, and if you happen by chance to marry (or procreate with) the right/wrong person--a mutation might show up. Emily and her husband Andrew learn to appreciate their daughter's albinism--it comes with problems, like poor vision and sensitivity to sunlight, for example, but she is a beautiful person just as she is.

I loved this story she told about her great-grandmother! Those of you who have been to Niagara Falls will appreciate it--most especially those of you who have walked across the bridge, and experienced the border!!! The family of Emily's father, the Urquharts and the Morses, were from Niagara Falls.  Here is the story, from page 212:
"When she was young, Mayme's parents sent her across the bridge that spanned the Canada-U.S. border to buy a loaf of bread. The bridge was being repaired and some of the slats were missing. There were gaps large enough for a small body to slip through and fall into the churning gorge more than 160 feet below. Riding her tricycle, she made it across easily and somehow without knowledge of the dangerous gaping holes. On her way back, a construction worker saw her coming and rushed to greet her. "You can't pass this way," he said, but Mayme was adamant. "I live on the other side, so I have to get back." The man picked her up and the tricycle up in a kind of firefighter's carry and gave her one instruction: "Don't look down." But she couldn't help herself. As they stepped over a missing slat, she looked directly down to the black waters below, and at that moment released her grasp on the bread. The image of the loaf twirling down through space, getting smaller and smaller and then disappearing into the water with barely a ripple, stayed with my great-grandmother all her life. She told my father this story often because she could, because although the bread was lost forever, she'd made it across the bridge."

What a great story! Worth it to read the book just for that.

And for my children, this quote on page 246, but first the context: she has just recently met her father's second cousin, who has been able to confirm that her mother was one of four daughters with albinism in the same family--of five daughters, only one was pigmented.  These cousins were much older, so by the time her father knew them, they were at the age when all the old people had gray or white hair, so he didn't realize that they were different. Anyways, she was thinking as a parent of a child with albinism, how their parents must have felt.  She begins by saying that she knows that their parents worried about their daughters, not because anyone told her that, but because she is a mother.  I am going to paraphrase a bit by putting (my children) or (they) instead of her daughter's name: "(My children) are my constant fret. (They) are at the forefront of every small or large concern in my life. (They) take up so much of my brain, I am sometimes shocked there is room for anyone or anything else."

True for me: They fill up my brain and my heart! I worry about each one, and also their children.  Think hard before you have six or ten children--it ends up being a lot of people to love, but a lot of people to worry about, too.

In other news, Abra let me know that Myra Evanson died. She was 94 years old.  Here she is in a recent picture with her son Eric and his wife Ruthie:

For my kids who were old enough to remember, Eric and Ruthie were in our ward in Port Coquitlam, and I used to pick up the youngest son Matt for cub scouts, along with David and the Loos boys and Doran Turner. Abra was friends with Angie, who was a twin to Krit. Becky was older, and Abra was/is friends with her in Taber. There was also a daughter named Rachel, younger than the twins and older than Matt.

For me, the connection goes back much further. I don't ever remember not knowing Myra, and she and I were always friends. This goes back to a story that I just told Abra today, when she let me know that Myra had died.

Well, not to brag, but I was an extremely pretty baby, if I do say so myself. And I think I can say that, because I do not think I am an extremely pretty woman, but I did get a chance to be exceptionally cute as a baby. Which is pretty good timing for it, actually, since I was too young to know it and be prideful, right? Anyways, when I was a small baby, my mom was holding me in church one Sunday, and she noticed that Myra Evanson kept staring. Being my mom, not a very confident woman, she was all worried about what was wrong. She checked to see if I had a runny nose, or if my hair was messy, if my dress was okay, if she looked presentable herself. She was really worried about it, because Myra was always so excellently put together, so my mom thought that something must be wrong with either me or her. After church, Myra came up to her and said, "Pearl, I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable staring at your baby! I just couldn't take my eyes off her! I just can't get over how pretty she is!"

Well, it may have been because of my mom telling me this story, or it may have been just that Myra and I just were drawn to each other, but I grew up always admiring Myra, who always knew my name, always had time to talk to me, and was always unfailingly kind and pleasant to me.  This was true also of visiting with her in Taber Third Ward in the recent past few years, when I have had the opportunity to attend there with Colleen and/or Abra.  

When I was a small child, Ray Evanson, Myra's husband, was our stake president. Then they were called as mission presidents to the Southern States mission. I think they were away five years! (They used to go for longer than they do today.) Their youngest son was my sister Arlene's age, but while there, they had a baby girl, who they named Kathy (though they considered Georgia and Carolina...) They moved back to Taber while Kathy was a baby, and I was able to return the admiration that had been bestowed on Baby Me, because I adored Baby Kathy, and I often couldn't stop looking at her, and always asked to hold her! 

And those are the random things I wanted to say today!