I Read Two Words About Unborn Babies That Stopped Me Cold

I had to read this sentence twice:

“A lot of early miscarriages happen as part of a natural process of discarding ‘errors.’”

Discarding “errors.”

We’re talking about unborn babies. A life created by God.

I’m a mom of two, and maybe that’s why I was honestly disgusted when I read it.

I’ve taken the pregnancy tests. I’ve stared at the faint line, wondering if it was actually there or if I was imagining it. And then took about 20 more tests after the first one. I’ve sat through the early ultrasounds waiting to hear a heartbeat. I know the excitement. I also know the fear that comes with realizing how much can go wrong and how little control you actually have, especially for someone who has a type A personality like me.

But at no point did I think of what was growing inside of me as some potential ‘error’ my body might need to “discard.”

That was my baby.

And I think it says a lot about how we’ve gotten to a place where writing about unborn human life this way can be passed off as clinical or scientific. DISGUSTING.

The New Yorker piece, which discusses anthropologist Kate Clancy’s book “Pregnancy Interrupted,” spends a lot of time talking about the uncertainty of early pregnancy.

Yes, there is a ton of uncertainty!!!

Doctors can get gestational age wrong. I know that firsthand. I had two different doctors give me due dates that were two weeks apart. Measurements can differ. Standards for diagnosing a miscarriage can even differ depending on where a woman lives.

The article itself points to research involving pregnancies classified as having “unknown viability.” About one-fifth of those pregnancies eventually turned out to be viable.

So doctors don’t always know.

Which is one of the main points of the article.

And then, somehow, we go from acknowledging how much we don’t know about an unborn child’s future to describing embryos as “errors” that can be “discarded.”

I’m sorry, but that’s sick. Yes, SICK. Actually, I’m not sorry.

And I think there’s something much bigger going on here than a couple of gross words.

The more I read, the more the baby seemed to disappear altogether. Pregnancy became something happening to a woman’s body. A medical condition.

Where did the baby go?

Because ask basically any woman who desperately wants a baby what happens when she sees two lines on a pregnancy test.

She doesn’t wait for somebody to officially declare the pregnancy “viable” before she starts imagining a future.

First, I thanked God. Try calculating my due date. Of course, I wondered if it’s a boy or a girl and didn’t know how I could possibly wait another day without knowing. Then came the names. How old will my baby be at his or her first Christmas?

Then, I start worrying about everything I ate, drank, lifted, touched, or even looked at in the past two weeks.

Maybe the woman comes up with some elaborate way to tell her husband. Or maybe she’s like me and has absolutely no ability to keep something like that to herself. I start screaming with excitement, blurt it out loud, and then tell everyone and anyone. And I mean anyone. I’d probably roll down my window and tell the random driver next to me if given the chance.

The relationship has already started.

I am my baby’s mother.

And God forbid the woman miscarries, nobody needs to sit her down and explain to her that she lost something.

She knows exactly who she lost.

Nobody would dream of telling a grieving mother that her body successfully “discarded an error.” And if you do, you are a psychopath.

But use basically the same language inside a discussion about reproductive biology and suddenly we’re supposed to nod along because it sounds scientific.

No! Words matter.

And there was another line in the piece that was also vile.

After going through the biological and environmental reasons a pregnancy might end, the author writes that pregnancy can also be interrupted “by a woman’s choice.”

Just like that, miscarriage and abortion wrapped up in the same word.

“Interrupted.”

A woman losing a baby she desperately wanted did not “interrupt” her pregnancy in the same way another person intentionally murdered an innocent human being God created.

And pretending they fall under the same language doesn’t make them the same thing.

It’s just trying to make abortion sound, what? Nicer? Sick.

And have you ever noticed how fast the language changes depending on whether the baby is wanted?

Think about how normal people talk about desperately wanting to get pregnant: We throw baby showers. We post ultrasound pictures. We decorate a nursery. We talk to the baby, my baby.

We put our hands on our stomachs when the baby kicks. I actually had my hand on my stomach 24/7 — you know, the same way, dare I say it, narcissist Meghan Markle was ridiculed for doing. It’s probably the only thing I can relate to her about. Sue me, but I loved it.

Nobody walks up to an excited pregnant woman and says, “Actually, you’re experiencing a developing medical condition of uncertain viability.”

Why? Um, because that would be INSANE.

We know what she means when she says, “my baby.”

But suddenly, when abortion enters the conversation, nobody wants to say “baby” anymore. It’s an embryo or a fetus. Abortion is a “choice.” Now apparently it’s an “interruption.” Funny how that works… right?! Actually, it’s anything but funny.

And yes, I know that miscarriage is natural. I know chromosomal abnormalities are a major reason miscarriages happen. I know there are pregnancies that, tragically, will never result in a healthy baby being born.

None of that means we have to talk about the child who dies as if he or she were a defective product.

If doctors themselves don’t always know what’s going to happen, you’d think we’d be a little more careful with the way we talk about the baby.

Maybe a little humility is warranted.

We might not know whether that baby is going to survive. That doesn’t mean the baby isn’t there. I don’t understand why we’re acting like those are the same thing.

Like every woman, I didn’t know anything about either of my children when I first found out I was pregnant.

I didn’t know what they would look like. What their personalities would be. Whether they would be healthy. Would I make it through nine months without something going terribly wrong? I didn’t even know if I’d make it through the first trimester.

But here’s what I did know. I knew they were THERE.

And from that moment on, I wasn’t the only person involved anymore.

That’s the part that disappears when pregnancy becomes nothing more than a condition happening to a woman’s body.

The baby disappears from the language. And once the baby is gone, I guess you can call what happens next whatever you want.

And suddenly we’re back to talking about “errors” being “discarded” and pregnancies being “interrupted.”

Motherhood does begin with uncertainty. And it doesn’t exactly get better from there.

First you’re worried about every little thing during pregnancy. Then the baby arrives and you’ve got 10,000 new things that can terrify you. Then they’re toddlers and climbing on things they absolutely should not be climbing on while you’re yelling, “GET DOWN,” for the 47th time that day.

The fear about what you’re worried about changes as they get older. But they’re still your kid and always will be.

That’s why that sentence about ‘discarding errors’ makes me so angry.

An unborn child is NOT an error.

A miscarriage is NOT a successful disposal of defective material.

And a woman who loses her baby didn’t simply have a pregnancy that was ‘interrupted.’

We’re talking about an innocent human life that God created.

So… start talking like it!