Pro-Choice Catholic Testimony

In 2020, my husband and I learned we were expecting our first, much-wanted, much-loved child. Through a series of tests and ultrasounds that lasted over a month and through which we were devastated by grief, we learned that our son had trisomy 18. Children with this condition usually die within days of birth, occasionally live past a year, and always have severe, life-limiting conditions. Thanks to ultrasound evidence, we know that our baby fell into this first category: He would have died in agony within days or hours of birth. Every vital organ was affected, and one (his stomach) was missing. We chose to terminate. It was both the hardest and easiest decision I have ever made — easy because I never doubted it was the right thing for my son, and hard because I mourned him.

I hid my grief from my own family, Catholics who would doubtless have shunned me. As a result, I’ve grown apart from most of them. I did eventually share my story with my mother and my sister. My mother supported me, and my sister did not, and our relationship has never healed. My mother would like for me to go to confession so I can rejoin the Church. I will not. I do not believe my termination was a sin. I believe it was an act of mercy and of love. I don’t know whether I believe that a fetus is a full person, but whether or not he was, I know that I loved him. He was my son. I named him, I prayed for him, I mourned him. I did everything I could do to save him, but, ultimately, the only thing I could do for him is what I did: I let him go.