“At least six Texas children under 12 got abortions out of state in 2023,” according to an article by Taylor Goldenstein of the Houston Chronicle. “The number, possibly an undercount, underscores the effect of blocking the procedures for one of the state’s most vulnerable populations.”
The headline sent me back almost 60 years.
Linda Cross
In 1967, the dawn of Roe v. Wade wasn’t even on the horizon. Birth control pills were new on the market and not yet widely accepted. We just didn’t talk about it except in the most oblique way in a shamed hush.
My friend “Ellen” and I had been away from our dorms since early morning. Another friend we usually joined for meals had missed breakfast and we stopped by her room to check on her. “Marsha” looked ghastly. She was in bed shaking with a high fever and her heart was racing.
We were stunned when she told us she was having a miscarriage. But we knew enough to know she needed help fast.
“The only person I knew to call was my Sunday school teacher.”
The only person I knew to call was my Sunday school teacher. She directed us to the Baptist hospital and gave me directions while Ellen was wrapping Marsha in a blanket. Together they walked down the stairs and out the front door while I raced to the car to meet them at the curb. We told the few people who noticed our strange behavior that Marsha had the flu.
My teacher and her best friend and dinner guest met us at the Emergency Room of the hospital. Marsha almost died that evening from blood poisoning resulting from a botched abortion.
After days in the hospital, Marsha was able to move to an apartment to be cared for by her mother until the end of the semester. She wasn’t allowed to return to class. And although it must have been against school policy at the time, Marsha was allowed to finish the semester and graduate on time. Normally, girls who got pregnant were dismissed and sent home.
Separately, Ellen and I were called to the dean’s office and to the campus doctor’s office where we were questioned extensively about what we knew and when we knew it. Fortunately for us, we knew nothing.
A few years later, after marriage and two children, I finished my master’s degree in religion. My thesis was titled “The Women’s Rights Issue in the American Abortion Debate.” The last time I visited the university library, I checked to see whether it was still in the stacks. It was.
It is both unimaginable and sadly to be expected that 50 years later women’s rights, our bodily rights and even our right to vote are up for debate. Is the discussion really about who owns us?
For more than half a century I never have spoken a word of this experience to anyone. I felt it wasn’t my story to tell. There is so much shame associated with abortion, miscarriage and women’s health issues in general. Out of respect and fear for my friends, I didn’t want to “out” anyone.
A few weeks ago, however, my almost 90-year-old former teacher and mentor greeted me after Sunday worship. Looking me directly in the eyes, she said, “We had quite an experience years ago, didn’t we.”
“My eyes filled with tears of sorrow and gratitude.”
My eyes filled with tears of sorrow and gratitude. Together we told our story to her daughter and my sister.
Now in our embattled atmosphere I find myself reflecting on questions of rights and truths, pondering ethics and responsibilities. What would I have done, what should I have done if I had realized Marsha was considering abortion? What would I, what should I have told the dean if I had known she was pregnant?
What would I, what should I have told the doctor? Does a student visiting a campus doctor have a medical right to privacy as they would have when visiting other medical providers?
And now the stakes are even higher than they were in 1967. Does any female, at any age, at any risk of death or disability have any right to medical privacy when visiting any medical provider?
In 1967, the community where I attended university had two hospitals, one Baptist, one Catholic. It matters which hospital a female chooses for her medical care.
In the view of Catholic moral theology, birth control is a sin. Furthermore, during pregnancy the fetus always has greater value than the presenting female, even in cases such as an ectopic pregnancy where there is no hope of the fetus reaching a viable age and the mother almost certainly will die as a result of being denied appropriate medical care.
As I understand it, the reasoning behind this preference is two assumptions. The fetus is innocent but has had no opportunity to be baptized and so must be delivered in order to be baptized. The pregnant person has had her chance.
Shortly after I finished my degree, I was asked to appear on a public television talk show discussing abortion. The other guest that evening was a Roman Catholic nun who also was a nurse in a psychiatric ward. I don’t remember much about the conversation, but one story has stayed with me.
“The nurse was excited to tell us about the 11-year-old who recently had delivered twins.”
The nurse was excited to tell us about the 11-year-old who recently had delivered twins. Frankly, I was speechless. I simply could not process the causes and consequences of a child that age bearing children.
A peripubescent child by definition hasn’t matured mentally or physically. How horrendous can pregnancy be? Notice: This doesn’t even take into account the damage and terror of the causal rape(s). What hope does this child have for a healthy future? And what about her children?
Do you know that girls as young as 9 can and do get pregnant?
And yes, it is always only girls and women who “get themselves” into these situations.
No one is suggesting that any state institute laws demanding abortions. Yet there is historical precedent in this nation for eugenics programs designed to limit “undesirable” births. We have precedents for forced sterilizations of men as well as women, usually without their informed consent.
The authority that can criminalize lifesaving and health-affirming medical care and procedures already has imposed government-sanctioned official intrusion into the personal affairs of people needing that care. The door is wide open for government sanctioned intrusion into who may, who must and who may not bear children.
When the state or the United States government takes over the decision-making in matters as personal as child-bearing, where does it end?
Linda Francis Cross, formerly an accredited public relations consultant and retired CBF field personnel, was one of the original Baptist Laity Institute mentors and later served as the executive director. She is a Baylor graduate with a bachelor’s degree in religion and communications and a master’s degree in theological ethics. Her first professional job was with the Radio-Television-Film Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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