The Case For Legal Late-Term Abortions

The murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has intensified the national debate over late-term abortions. I have a special interest in this topic because I had a brother who was severely retarded. Though he lived well into adulthood, he never developed beyond an infantile state.

Abortion was not an option for my parents when Jon was born back in 1949. I doubt they would have chosen abortion even if it were an option. But in not having the right to choose abortion, there was also a heavy emotional price to be paid. They never had the chance to take a personal inventory and ask themselves honestly if they were capable of caring for a severely retarded child along with their four other children.

For anyone who believes life is precious, such a decision is bound to be wrenching. Whatever choice one makes is sure to be painful and deeply personal.

For the first three years of Jon's life, my parents tried to care for him at home. He would spend nearly all day screaming or rocking uncontrollably or banging his head out of frustration for what he couldn't do for himself. "Success" at the end of the day, as my mother described it, would mean coaxing the baby to swallow enough food to nourish himself.

Jon caused my family severe emotional distress in his early years. Both of my parents experienced nervous breakdowns. They could not face the reality that they could not care for him in their home and at the same time meet the needs of their healthy children. Years later, my uncle wrote a rather macabre story about how he was tempted to let the baby who was wreaking havoc in his beloved sister's home "accidentally" slip from his arms while swimming in the ocean and drown, so that the family's emotional collapse could be avoided.

Thankfully, he resisted that temptation. Instead, he searched far and wide for an institution that would take Jon. There were few such facilities in those days. He finally found a place 300 miles from my parents' home, and he persuaded (or perhaps bullied) my indecisive and not completely rational parents into doing what they needed to do to stabilize their family unit. Jon was 3 at the time; he lived at an institution until he died at 52 of heart failure.

Sending Jon away, no matter how caring the institution was, was a heart-wrenching decision. And yet my parents found a great sense of relief—finally, they were able to recover their emotional stability. My mother went on to lead a relatively happy, productive life, devoting it to helping children. She became an outstanding educator and North Carolina English Teacher of the Year in 1979.

My father, in his denial, prayed repeatedly for decades for a miracle cure to his namesake's Down syndrome. He'd visit Jon and come home expressing the false and unrealistic hope that "I believe he's better." For him, the stigma of having a severely retarded son was real, and I think he internalized the notion that he was a failure as a parent because he agreed to send his child away to be cared for at an institution. To dull his sadness and pain, he turned to beer and wine.

My sisters were 9, 7 and 1 at the time Jon was sent away—I had not been born yet. The irony is that if Jon, who was at the time my parents' only son, hadn't been severely retarded, I might not have been conceived. So in one sense, I owe my very life to him. My sister calls this "soul sacrifice"—Jon's soul was sacrificed so that another soul could have a more abundant life.