Pro-Individual before Pro-choice or Pro-life

Pro-life vs. pro-choice is an eternal debate.  Each side is passionate in its own beliefs and campaigns with the best intentions for mothers, families, and future generations.  I am blessed beyond reckoning that as a young woman living in Canada I have the opportunity to make my own choices.  I have the great privilege of being able to do exactly as I see fit with my body.  I can follow my own beliefs and do so privately.  The hue and cry over those decisions are as loud or small as I choose to make them.

Right now in Nevada there is a young lady born with FAS who is being subjected to a very public court hearing that will determine whether or not the government deems her fit to bear a child.  The courts purpose is to determine whether or not this woman has been properly informed of her choices and has the intellectual capacity to analyze said information.  Strongly sensationalized across the web has been the fact that the court has the power to force her to have an abortion.

There’s grey area surrounding vulnerable people and how much (or how little) the law should be involved when people make decisions.  Things get even more tangled when decisions like parenting, adoption, and abortion are tabled.  The trouble is that people are unique.  Each person’s life, disability, and circumstances are so overwhelmingly individual that there is never an easy answer in these types of situations.

What I find distressing is how little I’ve found on the web that discusses what she wants.  Her parents are vigorous pro-lifers whose staunch Catholic faith has led them to publish their opinions on a number of pro-life blogs.  The court Doctors are concerned about the known damaging effects of this young woman’s medications to the child in the womb.  Personal danger over the course of her pregnancy will occur to both mother and child if she chooses to stop taking her seizure medications causing a medical catch 22.

Beyond the media circus surrounding the moral debate of this case, I hope that she is supported in making the decision that represents her wishes.  As she has changed her mind several times there is some doubt as to what her true opinion is and how much her current choice is being influenced by those around her.  This issue presents the ultimate challenge of support, how disciplined can we be as advocates in respecting another person’s wishes?  A woman so young and easily influenced is a great temptation.  How simple would it be to colour the facts, painting a favourable light over a personally preferred course of action?

For more details regarding the case, click here.

UPDATE:

Since the article was written the judge has come to a decision. See more here.