From the news story about the baby rescued from a sewer pipe in China:
The mother of the Chinese newborn rescued from a sewer pipe has said she kept her pregnancy secret after the father refused to stand by her and she could not afford an abortion.
The ordeal of Baby 59 – known only by the number of his hospital incubator – made headlines around the world after extraordinary footage was shown of firefighters and medics freeing him from the narrow pipe. Police in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, initially thought the baby had been abandoned and said they were treating the case as one of attempted homicide.
But they subsequently realised that the resident who had raised the alarm, and who remained present throughout the two-hour rescue on Saturday, was his mother. Local media said she told police she wanted to raise the child but had no idea how to do it.
I wouldn’t mind reflecting for a second on the “could not afford an abortion” part of the report. If she could have afforded the abortion, Baby no. 59, pictured sleeping above, would not be a controversy, because he’d be dead. We go to extraordinary lengths to save babies, once they are born. Now it appears the mother would like to parent. I’d be grateful if she got the opportunity. Seems to me her son got a new lease on life, and so should she.
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Two things spring to mind here:
1. This woman wanted an abortion, but then changed her mind. I think it is a good idea for prolifers to remember that it is absolutely normal for a woman to reject a pregnancy early on, especially when the pregnancy is unplanned, and these feelings of rejection have absolutely no bearing on what kind of mother she will become. You often hear an argument for abortion that goes something like this: “women should not be forced to continue pregnancies that they don’t want”. What ends up happening, though, is that plenty of women end up getting abortions and regretting them later, because, during the “informed consent” part of the procedure no one bothered to inform them that feelings of rejection toward a pregnancy are common, and in most cases resolve themselves by the second trimester.
2. Apparently this woman tried to catch the baby, but he slipped into the toilet pipe. I’ve been hearing a number of “baby born into a toilet” stories lately, and I think it needs to be pointed out, rather loudly and vociferously, that we were NEVER meant to undergo labour and delivery alone. Women have been assisting one another in labour since the dawn of humanity. We actually have laws here in Canada that mandate that you seek out assistance when in labour. There is no shame in calling out for help when you are in labour: you need the help. It is shameful, and an indictment of an entire community, when a woman labours alone into a toilet.