Our culture and society is deeply divided on issues of “life”. There is no better place to see this than the recent discussion around the Santorum family’s handling of a stillborn child… in 1996. The fact that some will go back more than 15 years and pull such a painful and private episode for criticism surely says something about the divisive nature of these issues.
A good overview of this discussion can be picked from Ross Douthat, the token NY Times conservative.
At 19 weeks of pregnancy, Gabriel was found to have a potentially fatal fetal abnormality. After a risky intrauterine surgery, Karen Santorum came down with an infection that ended up triggering labor. The baby lived for just two hours, and after his death the couple took his body home overnight — so that their children could “absorb and understand that they had a brother,” Santorum said later — before burying him the following day.
As Ross and Pete Wehner point out, this is in line with the recommendations of medical professionals. The American Pregnancy Association outlines the following suggestions for dealing with this loss. Here is an excerpt:
After the tests are completed, you will usually have the choice to spend time alone with your baby. You can find comfort in looking at, touching, and talking to your baby. Most parents find it helpful to make memories of this precious time that will last a lifetime. Here are a few ways you can make memories with your baby:
- You can give your baby a bath and dress them in a special outfit. Before leaving the hospital you can take the a piece of this clothing to have as a keepsake.
- You can take pictures of your baby.
- The hospital staff can give you an imprint of handprints and/or footprints.
- You may want to take a lock of your baby’s hair.
- It may seem odd at first but you can read a story or sing a lullaby to your baby.
- If you would like, the nurse can record your baby’s measurements.
- You probably have also named your baby by now. Be sure to tell the hospital staff as soon as possible so all documents can have your baby’s name listed.
- You can have your baby christened or blessed while in the hospital.
- A baptism certificate will also be given to you to keep.
You will be able to spend as much time as you need with your baby, but at some point you will need to say goodbye. This will probably be one of the most challenging things to do because it is so final. Allow yourself to cry; expressing emotion is natural in the grieving process. Having the keepsakes will remind you that a part of your baby will always be with you.
If you are like me you cannot possibly read that without out feeling a deep empathy for anyone who has to deal with this staggering of a loss. Heartbreak of this magnitude should be understood and respected enough to not make it an issue of public criticism and debate. However, sadly, that is not the case.
“He’s not a little weird, he’s really weird,” Robinson said of Santorum. “And some of his positions that he has taken are just so weird that I think that some Republicans are off-put. Not everybody is not going to be down, for example, with the story of how he and his wife handled the stillborn child. It was a body that they took home to kind of sleep with it, introduce it to the rest of the family. It’s a very weird story.”
The divide that is visible in this viewpoint is shocking. While mainstream medical and psychological advice gives full support to treat a stillbirth as a real loss of a very real person the political Left has come to a point of seeing little value or humanity in the body of a stillborn child.
The inevitable conclusion for Christians who still value life is that while the tide may be turning on abortion, the value of life will continue to be degraded and dismissed by a small, vocal portion of society. How do we deal with this on an everyday basis? How do we live with and explain our decisions that may start to be very different from what is expected? Do we dedicate our time to the old-fashioned culture wars? Or work to change our world one mind and family at a time? I think we will unfortunately have to spend a good deal of time deciding these things.
