Sad Story

Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday and perhaps an appropriate time to tell a story from my bag of psych experiences. I suppose the statute of limitations will allow me.

Almost twenty years ago I was was working in a small unit that treated mostly teenagers with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, but we had this one time a fifteen year old black female with hyperemesis gravidarium, a term that just means vomiting a whole lot when pregnant, as if it were a psychological problem (not) instead of the body's hormonal reaction to the pregnancy. In nursing we are regularly confronted with ethical issues, and we had one on our hands.

She was still having excessive vomiting well into her second trimester. I knew how she felt! The why was never justified, but some of the staff including the doctor, the social worker, and a nurse co-worker who had previously worked in an abortion clinic wanted her to have an abortion, or in clean, detached lingo to "terminate the pregnancy." The single, young patient and her sweet and supportive grandmother were now in the hands of medical experts and dependent on them to lead them in the right direction. Though she was in good health, was not a drug user, and was not the victim of rape or incest, "termination" was presented as their only option, and in fact encouraged via fear tactics.

I spent some time talking with this pregnant girl who quietly confided, "I want my baby." The grandmother had agreed. Swayed by the dignified psychiatrist and the trust she placed in the black nurse, she went through with it via giving birth. Afterward polaroids were taken of the perfectly formed dead twelve ounce baby boy, one whom she would never know, and I will always remember how she, perplexed and very sad, showed them to me. I thought of all the patients I have had who lived with the guilt and shame of abortion and how this girl one day would be old enough to be angry with a medical system that robbed her of her first born son.