A reality check before an abortion
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
It's a moment every mother knows, and these days, it typically comes
during the
first ultrasound. As you lie in a darkened room and stare at what appear to
be
meaningless black-and-white streaks on a computer screen, your eyes suddenly
fix upon that distinct little circle clinging to the uterine wall and you
realize: That's my baby.
Sometimes the moment comes when you hear the heartbeat, that staccato
throbbing
echoing through the exam room at a pace all its own. It overlaps at times
with
your own but is definitely not the same — it's faster and more urgent, a
reminder that the life growing within you has its own trajectory,
intertwined
with but independent from your own.
Until now, everything about your pregnancy has had a distant, theoretical
feel:
a faint plus sign on a pregnancy-test stick, a bunch of numbers on a
blood-level report, a slight rounding of your stomach where it used to be
flat.
You may have celebrated these signs or lamented them, but either way, the
pregnancy did not feel quite real. Now it does.
And for the first time, it really hits you. This is not just about me or
even
the baby's father and me. There is someone else involved — another body,
another destiny, another human life.
A bill winding its way through the Missouri Legislature right now would
ensure
that every woman seeking an abortion has an opportunity to experience that
moment before she decides to end her pregnancy and her unborn child's life.
Sponsored by Sen. Robert Mayer, R-Dexter, this measure, Senate Bill 793,
cleared the Senate last month. Now it is in the House awaiting consideration
before the legislative session ends next week.
The measure includes a number of other features. It would provide women
seeking
abortions information about fetal development, pregnancy resource centers,
alternatives to abortion and the child support obligations of the baby's
father
under state law. It also would bar taxpayer-funded insurance coverage for
elective abortions in plans offered through health insurance exchanges
established by the new federal health care law.
The most controversial aspect of the bill has turned out to be the one that
would seem to be its least offensive: its call for an ultrasound to be
offered
at least 24 hours before an abortion to any woman who wants one. Similar
legislation in Oklahoma, Florida and Louisiana has sparked heated
condemnations
from abortion-rights activists, who have denounced ultrasounds as
"burdensome"
and "invasive." This despite the fact that many abortion providers routinely
conduct ultrasounds anyway, and the Missouri bill merely stipulates that a
pregnant woman be given a chance to see what her doctor or nurse sees: the
living, breathing being targeted for abortion.
It is true that viewing an ultrasound can complicate a woman's decision to
abort. Slogans about "my body and my choice" ring a little hollow when you
are
faced with another body that will be destroyed by your choice. And it's
harder
to believe that it's "just a lump of tissue" when you hear that lump's
heartbeat or see her tiny hands waving at you from the sonogram screen.
But if the vast majority of women choosing abortion are what abortion-rights
advocates always say they are — empowered, informed and sufficiently
deliberative about the irreversible decision they are about to make — then
an
optional ultrasound will not tell them anything new or sway them from a
choice
about which they feel secure.
Of course, there are countless stories of women who, upon hearing their
baby's
heartbeat or seeing his blurry ultrasound image, decided to spare his life.
Supporters of informed consent laws see those stories as proof that too many
women choose abortion from a position of desperation and vulnerability
rather
than knowledge and strength.
If they are right, more mothers will discover the humanity of their unborn
child, more children will be allowed to live, and more couples hoping to
adopt
will find a child to love. If they are wrong, women in Missouri will face a
minor speed bump on their road to speedy abortions.
Surely that little life peeking out at us from the sonogram screen is worth
that much.
Colleen Carroll Campbell is a St. Louis-based author, former presidential
speechwriter and television and radio host of "Faith & Culture" on EWTN. Her
website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.