“Not too late to terminate…”

As clear as glass, I can still recall the day when my wife and I went into a local hospital to get a level 2 ultrasound, which wound up rendering a movie of our very active unborn child.

She is now 12 years old, but at the time, our baby was 19 weeks in-utero, and we just went in for the pictures, not because there was any medical need to do so.  Even so, we were told there would be a counseling session prior to the procedure.

Sitting down across a desk from the “counselor” who’d looked at our file, the first words out of her mouth were, “It’s not too late to terminate.”

I can still recall the stiffening in my neck and back setting in as the words set in.  I said nothing, and neither did my wife, but to this day, I wish I’d flipped the desk over.

I thought there must be something in the file that indicated some severe issue we’d not been informed of.  There wasn’t.

It was just that we had the option, the right, the permission, to terminate.  Why?  Well, because…  Because.

It had nothing to do with health of the mother, or the child.  It was all about the right to terminate, at will.  Just, because…

I brought a VHS-tape and had a video recorded of our 19 week old, somersaulting little girl.  And watching it, I think the fact that we could have just ended her life, without just cause, is completely reprehensible.

Termination is sometimes very necessary, and adviseable.  Yes.  But making it a simple, even casual option, at 19 weeks gestation, is an ethical disgrace.

It is a disgrace that demeans all people, women and men alike.

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