In February, the Supreme Court of the state of Alabama made a decision that will shape the future of how families are created – in Alabama and perhaps around the country.
If you happened to have missed the news, the short version is that several families in Alabama had their frozen embryos destroyed when a hospital patient let themselves into the cryogenic nursery where the embryos were stored. The families sued the hospital under the Alabama Wrongful Death of a Minor Act and the Alabama Supreme Court decision was, “the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children regardless of their location.” This means that in the state of Alabama, regardless of whether the embryo is in utero or in vitro they are an unborn human life.
This decision set off a news and social media firestorm within hours of the public release of the decision.
Without getting into the political ramifications my goal is to cultivate some compassion on this social issue.
Imagine being a 24-year-old woman who has been trying to build a family for over a year and leaving a follow-up appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist. The doctor has delicately explained that you have a diagnosis of infertility. When asking for more specifics of the diagnosis, all the Dr. could say, with the utmost compassion, was that it was categorized as “unexplained infertility.”
Can you imagine the myriad of emotions you would feel? Or the debilitating disbelief? The frustration and confusion are immense. Learning that having children may be a physical impossibility, or at best, extremely challenging is enough information for heartbreak. After experiencing pain and uncertainty, the hard questions begin to follow. “How will I tell my spouse?” and “What will I say to my family when they ask questions?”
We cannot forget there is a human side of this issue. Women all over the world are currently shaken by news they didn’t want and the isolation they feel around today’s infertility conversations. There are a plethora of stories and multitudes of differing experiences. The community of women dealing with infertility issues are not a monolith and we would do well to focus on these women with lenses of care and compassion.
Right now, there is a woman in the middle of a hormone therapy cycle, who injects herself with synthetic hormones daily for weeks for the chance to carry a baby inside her. Or there is a woman who supports her by doing it for her because her spouse is TDY or deployed and cannot be there. Some couples in the middle of an IVF cycle are anxiously waiting to hear how many viable fertilized embryos they have left. Many military spouses are marking days off the calendar during the 14 days after their ovulation injection and implantation day to find out if they are pregnant this time while also praying that they don’t miscarry.
What the news and social media coverage fails to convey to the country is any sort of compassion for the extreme pain that women and their families are currently experiencing.
We cannot be blind to, or worse, have no awareness of the human side of this conversation. Nor can we neglect compassion for the raw human experience attached to it.
Scarcely in the media or online in the weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court decision, has the discussion been centered on loss and, more importantly, about the grief that transcends political discourse.
Subsequently, we may have ignored the psychological impacts and mental well-being of our friends because we are uncomfortable. Or we have neglected to offer support in meaningful ways because we just weren’t aware.
As a woman who has walked through the hard hallways of pain, grief, and loss myself, I can say for certain that these women need you- they need us. The shame and guilt are difficult to carry and, sometimes, a little hope goes a long way. We must do better by our friends who walk this road because they will carry the wounds of infertility long after they scar.
We can encourage women, and their families, by being present in the pain. Let’s refrain from political discourse at first and offer provision instead. Let’s show up with something in our hands and a heart full of hope. If we do this well, we can step into this conversation and hold space for those who need it and make a real impact for those who are affected.