Pro-Choice Women Taken to Task Over Miscarriage Grief

by Amy Hatch (Subscribe to Amy Hatch's posts) Feb 5th 2009 10:00AM

Women who support the right to choose have no right to grieve for pregnancies that end in miscarriage -- so says a Momlogic guest blogger named Gina, who takes pro-lifers to task for their "hysterics" over first-trimester pregnancy loss.

Gina asserts that pro-choice advocates who "ridicule" pro-lifers as backward religious fanatics have no right to be upset when they miscarry. She writes: "Like vegetarians who eat chicken but not beef, many pro-choice advocates want it both ways. It's a baby when they want it to be, it's a bundle of cells when they don't."

She goes on to say that "it's ridiculous to break down in hysterics, set up a memorial website for your "angel," and seek out a grief counselor when you start bleeding in your first trimester. After all, you're simply talking about the loss of a conglomeration of microscopic cells, right?! That's hardly something to cry about."

This is one of most hateful, spiteful pieces of writing I've seen in a very, very long time. Here's why:

Asserting that women who believe in reproductive rights are pro-abortion is not only simplistic, it is cowardly. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that pro-choice advocates are very uncomfortable with the notion of terminating a healthy pregnancy.

Miscarriage is exactly that -- the termination of a healthy pregnancy. However, the woman who suffers fetal loss has absolutely no control over what is happening to her body. She grieves for the loss of her hopes and her dreams, for the loss of what could have been -- even if she believes intellectually that all she lost was "a clump of cells."

I get a good look at the abortion debate every time I go see my OB/GYN. The doctor I see is also an open reproductive-rights proponent, and she runs an abortion clinic alongside her medical practice. The faces of the young women -- and they are almost always young, these women -- are not joyful. These are faces in mourning, too, for what could have been and what should have been.

Much like the women whose planned pregnancies end in miscarriage, the women who choose termination will live with the loss for the rest of their lives.

Facile arguments like the one made by Gina only serve to fan the flames of hatred, and smack of small-minded stupidity. They also help prove the chauvinists right -- that women are a bunch of vindictive idiots.

So much for compassionate conservatism, eh?

Does pro-choice mean pro-abortion? Do women who support reproductive freedom have the right to grieve for lost pregnancies?

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Comments (24)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Jillian 2-05-2009 @ 10:15AM

I'm sorry, I don't care which side of the debate you're on. NOBODY has the right to tell a woman how she should feel about a miscarriage. Absolutely nobody.

Mariann 2-05-2009 @ 10:43AM

miscarriage is not the end of a healthy pregnancy, a live birth is. A miscarriage means there was something wrong in the pregnancy or the baby or the mother.

Jenni 2-05-2009 @ 11:22AM

You beat me to it, that's exactly what I was going to say.

I'll add that an abortion is the termination of a healthy pregnancy; quite the opposite of a miscarriage

MN 2-05-2009 @ 10:28AM

A woman carrying life in her will be attached to it even if she wasn't a 100% positive of it or apprehensive or just plain unprepared. Be it pro-life or pro-choice, nature made sure the mother bonds with the child growing in her via the proximity, the sensations, the hormones. Being pro-choice doesnot mean being guiltlessly pro-abortion. More than mourning about the loss of life or cells, we mourn the loss of opportunity - the loss of what could have been.

SKL 2-05-2009 @ 10:35AM

First, don't use this person as the symbol for "compassionate conservatism." That is just ignorant.

Second, while I don't appreciate the tone, there is a point in there. Many of us have been hurt and offended by people who sneer and coldly say "it's just tissue / a clump of cells," as if we were ignorant and foolish to think an embryo or fetus was something more. Not all pro-choice women feel this way, but a significant percentage of them truly do - at least when they are not personally invested in that clump of cells.

I was interested to see a recent poll that showed that a substantial majority of Americans were opposed to Obama's executive order reinstating US funding for foreign organizations that perform or promote abortions. The percentage was in the 70's, I think 76%. To me, that suggests that although approximately 50% of people are pro-choice, less than 25% of people really think abortion is a "good" thing.

Unfortunately, the visible pro-choice movement has historically taken a crass attitude toward life. Every reasonable limitation on abortion - such as requiring 13-year-olds to inform their parents first - is met with horror and anger. Naturally the thought of the pro-choice movement makes many people cringe. You sneer at the term "compassionate conservative," but I rarely see true compassion on the public pro-choice side. That's something the movement really needs to address.

There are so many people out there who think that my two daughters (adopted) should have been aborted. Yeah, that makes me beyond sick. These same people would feel differently if those babies had grown in their own womb - at least, most of them would. But they can't think that far in the heat of the discussion. So this article you are complaining about - yeah, it's crappy, but that is what many pro-life people feel about a lot of stuff your side thinks is OK. Let this be a lesson.

Rae 2-05-2009 @ 10:48AM

For me pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. In addition, yes, I do support reproductive freedom (both fertility assistance and abortion) and I feel that women do have the right to grieve for the loss of a pregnancy (no matter if it is by choice with an abortion or if it is a miscarry).

After several years of marriage, I lost a pregnancy before I was even aware I had been pregnant. I did not go through grief at all, even though I wanted a baby at that time.

A few years later, I had to seek fertility treatments to become pregnant. I had taken drugs to make more eggs mature and we did artificial insemination (which is conception occurring inside of my body). During my first cycle of treatment, I had 7 mature eggs. We did not go through with insemination because we had the strong possibility of getting pregnant with 7 babies and would have had to considered selective reduction. Nevertheless, yes, I would have most likely made the decision to reduce a pregnancy that would have been that large.

About a year later, with only 2 mature eggs, I did get pregnant and was surprised that it was triplets. Even though it was too early to know the sex of my babies, we had already seen their hearts beating and had even named them. It was just at the end of my first trimester when I miscarried one of the babies (still pregnant with two though) and I grieved deeply for my loss. I even grieved after the birth of my twins who were born 5 ½ weeks early but were for the most part healthy. I believe that had I carried the entire triplet pregnancy, chances would have been that they would have been born much earlier and may not have been healthy. My children are now happy and healthy 6-year-olds and are aware that there had been another baby with them (all of the early ultrasound pictures show 3).

While I personally would struggle with the issue of an abortion (selective reduction), I believe I would have grieved about the loss. However, with a high-order multiple pregnancy, I would have felt that in my life it would have been the responsible thing for us to do to decrease the amount of babies/embryos.

Caitlin 2-05-2009 @ 11:50AM

I think the anti-choicers would like people to believe that pro-choice is equivalent to pro-abortion, but I don't believe that is the case for many pro-choicers. Just because you can choose between two or more options, it doesn't mean you are obligated to pick the same one every time.

Reproductive freedom also covers more than just abortion. It includes the right to contraceptives, treatment for infertility, voluntary sterilization, and even continuing a pregnancy when everyone else thinks you shouldn't. It also includes the right to not have a selective reduction in a high order multiple pregnancy or to have a "quiver full" like the Duggar family. But with freedom also comes responsibilities and consequences.

Miscarriage has nothing to do with choice, which is why I think it can be so painful. For whatever reason, a woman's body decides to discontinue the pregnancy and there's no way for her to reason with it or beg it to wait until that "clump of cells" is big enough to survive in the NICU. I've been fortunate enough to never experience it, but after watching my best friend suffer two miscarriages, I think you'd have to be heartless to say someone couldn't mourn the loss of a pregnancy just because of how you misinterpreted their stance.

Sandyone 2-05-2009 @ 2:39PM

Um, how come you get to call us "anti-choice", but you get your knickers in a twist when we call you "pro-abortion"? Let's just start with the golden rule.

Karen 2-05-2009 @ 3:35PM

Sandy, you just got your knickers in a twist when our side used our terms, so please stop invoking the golden rule you just violated. Tell you what -- how about everyone minds their own business and grows a little bit of a hide?

Caitlin 2-05-2009 @ 3:56PM

Pro-abortion and pro-choice are not the same things. Pro-abortion is just anti-choice at the opposite extreme. "No abortion" becomes "no pregnancy". If I were pro-abortion, I'd steal a page from the anti-choicers' playbook. I'd get a job at a pharmacy and when a woman came to get a prenatal vitamin prescription filled, I'd refuse and hand her a card with contact information for local abortion providers.

I find that people are who truly concerned with the "life" part of pro-life also tend to be reasonable people. I find that we agree on many reproductive freedom issues like contraception, voluntary sterilization, and fertility treatments. We just don't agree on what should be an option for an unplanned pregnancy.

Melissa 2-05-2009 @ 12:34PM

I am pro-choice, meaning that I believe a woman has the right to choose what she does with her pregnancy, healthy or unhealthy. I don't necessarily AGREE with abortion, especially the late term ones because your child had Down's Syndrome or something, or because they may not make it to their first birthday. That to me is sick and wrong.. But when a woman miscarries, whether it is at 12 weeks or 20 weeks (this happened to me), that is not a choice, that is something that happened, for whatever reason. I grieved for my daughter (yes, at 20 weeks, they knew what gender she was), over all the dreams and hopes we had for her. Any woman that this happens to deserves that chance to grieve, and what kind of a heartless b**** says that we have no right to?

Emily 2-05-2009 @ 1:14PM

This woman claims she’s pro-choice (by saying she respects a women’s right to choose), but then calls pro-choicers “they”, so I think she’s confused.

She’s also confused because she doesn’t comprehend that a miscarriage causes a person to mourn the loss of expectations and plans, not necessarily the embryo or fetus. I highly doubt she or any other pro-lifer would be too broken up if she was not trying to conceive and discovered that she lost a zygote and started bleeding the day after her period would have started.

SKL 2-05-2009 @ 1:38PM

Emily, you are incorrect. I know someone who did not know she was pregnant until she miscarried. She mourned the little person who was miscarried.

The pseudo-scientific efforts to find a line beyond which a biomass becomes "human" enough to be cared about is just a waste of time. A way for people to rationalize when they really can't find an honest, moral argument for denying the humanity of a zygote, embryo, fetus, or already-born "vegetable."

When I was in college, the feminist argument was that if it hasn't been "socialized," it's not human. Well, OK, so people who believe this and have miscarriages are actually only grieving for a dream? Is that the same as the grief that a woman experiences when her dream of getting pregnant, getting married, etc. doesn't come true? How about the dream of making it to Las Vegas before they die? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

I have a friend who is a pro-life liberal. His wife miscarried their fourth child. He told me: "it's amazing to what extent a child is part of the family long before she is even born. This is why I can never relate to the pro-choice philosophy."

Karen 2-05-2009 @ 3:45PM

... and the pseudo-moral efforts to declare that life begins at conception without violating the First Amendment prohibition of establishing a state religion is even more futile.

And your friend can't relate to the pro-choice movement because he has never had an unwanted pregnancy. Everyone has a right to his or her own opinion, but not every opinion on every issue has equal weight.

Karen 2-05-2009 @ 4:06PM

So, your opinion on abortion carries more weight if you HAVE had an unwanted/unplanned pregnancy. I should think it would be just the opposite.

SKL 2-05-2009 @ 6:41PM

Are there two Karens posting here? I'm confused.

No way that I agree that some people's opinion has more weight than others'. This is supposedly a DEMOCRACY, one person, one vote. I can't believe someone actually said that only peopel who make a particular mistake should have a vote about what should be a legal way to deal with it. How about we make that same rule regarding drug abusers, child neglectors, embezzlers, and pedophiles? Wow, just when I thought I'd heard it all . . . .

Emily 2-05-2009 @ 2:34PM

It is true that efforts to find a line beyond which a biomass becomes "human" enough to be cared about is just a waste of time. The argument really needs to be about a balancing of rights, and once a fetus could survive not simply as a parasite, but outside the womb without any medical intervention, there can be an argument that it starts to have an ability to be given as much consideration as the wishes of mother.

Regardless, this woman's opinion once again shows that abortion is a deeply personal matter that, as with most other things, the government should stay out of.

isisaquaria 2-05-2009 @ 7:10PM

As someone who has seen three different situations within her family...

This I know to be true

Holding an infant as it dies sucks....
Watching my sister lose her child to miscarriage sucks
Having to watch my brother and his wife chose to end a pregnancy to save her life (and health--for the benefits of the other children future) sucks

i have never felt more entitled to grieve my personal loss than my sister or SIL--we all suffered a loss...end of story

Pierrette 2-05-2009 @ 11:17PM

First of all I am pro choice, secondly I know women that have had been in both situations had an abortions and then latter a miscarriage.

Even if you are pro choice having an abrtion is not something you do and forget about the next day, it's an emotional process just like a miscarriage.

The same woman placed in both situation will feel differently, if at 17 you get pregnant and are not ready for a family you have the choice to chose. But then the same woman at the age of 30 when she is married and ready to start a family and suffers multiple miscarriage that is no longer her choice and she needs to grieve.

No matter what side of the fence you are on, you do not have the right to tell another woman how or what she is aloud to feel.

Pierrette from Wiseman Conspiracy

Mary 2-06-2009 @ 10:36PM

I agree with the blogger. Although pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion, it does mean that you don't consider an early embryo a "life" or alive. So why grieve? Be the way, I AM a mother and I have had abortions and I certainly don't waste time grieving over any "lost" because there were none. Hopefully, when you make decisions they are educated and informed. Regret does not change anything. It's more productive trying to be a better person than to mope over the past.

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