Serving Bread

I am saddened after reading [tag]Dan Neil[/tag]’s opinion piece in today’s edition of the LA Times. His front page column (in the opinion section) titled, “And then there were two” chronicles the decision he and his wife “had to make” aborting two of the four living fetuses, fifteen weeks into their pregnancy. He doesn’t feel guilty nor shame terminating the fetuses because it was a medical imperative.

The article explores how the abortion debate became less academic and more real. The Neils were always pro-choice and this experience forced them to truly make the choice. An issue such as [tag]abortion[/tag] is real and not a theoretical debate for millions of women. I agree with Neil that the abortion debate stops when it’s my family. When Layla was born, I had a new level of respect for life. I had always been against abortion (I refuse to use the term pro-life because it has come to mean a particular theological/political marriage with which I disagree). But after Layla was born, I came to regard abortion as a gross violation of God-given life.

But I disagree and am saddened by Dan and Tina Neil’s decision and thought process. He felt no guilt nor shame “watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife’s suffering belly.” Dan Neil feels no remorse that he and his wife had to make this decision. I scoured the article for any sign of the severity of the pregnancy that forced them into such a decision but found none except a sentence that refers to her pregnancy as “white-knuckle from day one” and that the doctors said that her health would have been in jeopardy. Rather than explain his decision-making process and communicate the difficult choice, Neil’s article was an apologetic for the abortion-rights movement.

Personally, I do not hold a strong opinion in favor of making abortions illegal. Is the practice inhumane? Yes! Is it a gross violation of the sanctity of life? Yes! But the reason I do not have a strong opinion on legislating against it is because I find legislating abortion is not the answer to whatever crisis exists. And while I can write more on this topic, that’s not the reason why I am writing this post. I am writing this post to mourn for the two aborted boys that no one else (certainly not the Neils) is [tag]mourning[/tag] or grieving.

The Neils made a choice to pursue in-vitro fertilization. They made a choice to have children later in life (Neil says he is 47 but doesn’t say the age of his wife). And they made a choice to abort the two fetuses because four could be unhealthy for the wife. And they made a choice of aborting the male ones because a male fetus is four times more likely to develop autism when the father is older. Rather than live with certain consequences of life, Dan Neil communicates an aspect of our culture that proclaims that life revolves only around our choices and that we have a right to control all of the consequences of our decisions.

This is not just Neils’ worldview; this is a secularist and human worldview. I know that I can operate with such a worldview as well: I want to control every circumstance to benefit me. Such a [tag]worldview[/tag] captures my rebellion against God. I do not want to live within the parameters of God, believing that I am more equipped and more worthy that God to make decisions about my life.

Near the end of the article, the author writes, “I feel sorriest for our doctors” because they may be “terrorized by some gun-toting antiabortion extremist.” Actually, I feel sorriest for the two male fetuses and for Dan and Tina Neils. I feel sorry for the Neils to have a worldview that is more concerned about self than of others. I feel sorry for the Neils who found themselves in a situation where they believed that abortion was the only choice left. I feel sorry for the Neils for their loss (even though they do not feel any remorse). And I feel sorry for the two girls that were spared the chemicals—Roz and Viv—who will never know their two brothers.

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