I candidly struggle with abortion. My thoughts ebb and flow with the chatter and stridency on both sides of the issue, ultimately rising from a low background murmur to an insistent, rasping hum reminiscent of standing beneath a long-distance, electric transmission line.
When two friends I’ve known for decades recently entered into a protracted kerfuffle that honestly made little sense on either side, it rose again for me.
Bill Bangham
My experience with the subject is somewhat unique. Early in life, one of my classmates died in a back-alley abortion. It was gut wrenching and devastating. To this day, I cannot grasp the panic, pain and isolation that led to her decision. Nor can I set aside the anger and grief that enveloped me.
Later in life, while I was assisting in surgery at a large, modern medical facility, I heard a baby cry. Startled, we paused briefly in our work and looked at each other. One of us spoke: “There is no infant on the surgery schedule today.”
When my case was over and I broke scrub, one of my nurse friends beckoned me to follow her. Amidst the dirty linens and bloodied instruments to be cleaned and the detritus of post surgeries to be discarded, in a bowl lay a perfectly formed, beautiful fetus. It evidently lived long enough to cry once.
We were young. The nurse Catholic, I not much of anything. She asked me to help baptize the little, spent body. So I did. Then we each stumbled through a prayer for this little unnamed and unwanted wisp of life.
“She asked me to help baptize the little, spent body. So I did. Then we each stumbled through a prayer for this little unnamed and unwanted wisp of life.”
It was a well-known secret among us that in Maryland, in spite of some of the most strict abortion laws at the time, if there was money enough a young, pregnant woman could be admitted to the mental hospital on the hill above us and termination of the pregnancy legally declared a necessity for the well-being of the mother. The abortions usually were done at night when few of us were around. For some reason, this one happened late in the day.
I hold those two experiences in juxtaposition to each other. I never have been fully able to resolve either of them: the tragic death of my friend on the cusp of becoming a woman, or the termination of a life its promise yet to begin.
Today while reading Elizabeth Alexander’s book The Trayvon Generation, something was added that neither resolves my dilemma over abortion nor shifts my position one way or the other. As she deconstructs our cultural divide between those of color and those not, she offers this startling observation: “Think of the first sign that marks human beings as being human and alive: a baby’s cry at birth.”
I shall.
Bill Bangham is a retired magazine editor, photojournalist and writer who has worked in more than 70 countries. He lives in Memphis, Tenn., working on personal projects.
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