Dispelling fear

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 12. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Giving women life-affirming help.

When we think of women who face pressure to abort, we usually think of single moms with unplanned pregnancies. Maybe it’s social or financial pressure pushing them to consider abortion.

EICHER: But women in another category are also vulnerable to pressure: those who want their babies, but whose doctors find a fetal abnormality and deliver a frightening prognosis.

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last week highlighted one mom in that situation and proposed abortion as the solution.

But some pro-lifers are working to help women in similar situations find real help. WORLD’s Leah Savas reports.

LEAH SAVAS: On Thursday night, a blonde woman wearing red lipstick sat in the House gallery with First Lady Jill Biden as the president told her story.

BIDEN: Joining us tonight is Kate Cox, a wife and mother from Dallas. She’s become pregnant again and had a fetus of a fatal condition. Her doctor told Kate that her own life and her ability to have [inaudible] children in the future were at risk if she didn’t act. Because Texas law banned her ability to act, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get what she needed.

Biden used Cox’s story to criticize pro-life state laws and federal attempts to protect the unborn.

BIDEN: If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.

During the nearly three minutes Biden spent on the topic of abortion, he avoided actually using the word abortion. He also left crucial details out of Cox’s story. The main risks to Cox’s health were the same that many women face routinely in pregnancy. Having another baby after two C-sections could put her at risk for uterine rupture or a hysterectomy.

But her baby girl had trisomy 18, a genetic condition that meant the baby would likely die shortly after birth or live with severe disabilities. Cox wanted an abortion because doctors told her it would give her the best chance of having another child later.

Anticipating Biden would champion Cox’s story, some pro-lifers shared their own testimonies.

BEVERLY JACOBSON: We spent the first few weeks after getting our diagnosis preparing to bury our baby.

That’s Beverly Jacobson. She spoke at an online panel Students for Life Action hosted ahead of Biden’s address. Back in 2016, Jacobson was 18 weeks pregnant with her youngest child, Verity, when she got a phone call from her doctor. Verity had trisomy 18, or Edwards syndrome.

JACOBSON: I had no idea what those words meant. I had never heard of this condition, and that phone call, and then honestly the followup Google research showed very dire information.

But eventually Jacobson came across online support groups and started seeing pictures of children of all ages, even young adults, with the same condition. They were joyful and well-loved members of their families.

JACOBSON: And I started to realize that maybe instead of preparing for our baby to die, maybe we need to be preparing for her to live.

Today, Verity is seven years old. In her honor, Jacobson founded Verity’s Village, a support group for families who get scary prenatal diagnoses.

JACOBSON: So while we personally did not experience pressure to abort, many, if not most, of the families who come into the Verity’s Village community are constantly offered and even pushed toward abortion, sometimes appointment after appointment they encounter these narratives. At least in a couple of these cases we know about, mom was actually scheduled for an abortion before she even knew about her diagnosis.

One of the women who experienced that pressure was Kathryn Kerr. She also spoke on the panel.

KATHRYN KERR: So I had the bloodwork done. About two weeks later I get the phone call, and they said your baby has a one in seventeen chance of trisomy 13 or 18. When do you want to schedule your abortion?

Kerr learned about Verity’s Village and started connecting with other parents whose children had similar diagnoses.

KERR: Indiana lived for just over six weeks. And she was curious, and she was funny, and she smiled… and I would do it over and over again … for the memories and the joy she brought us, and the joy she still brings us.

Today, Kerr supports moms in similar situations through Verity’s Village. She helps them put together birth plans and process through the news. The group provides other resources such as counseling, pregnancy journals, and a guidebook with a chapter on preparing for loss.

But Verity’s Village is not the only support group of its kind. Here’s Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications for the pregnancy center organization Heartbeat International.

ANDREA TRUDDEN: We've worked with other organizations to put together prenataldiagnosis.org to connect people to support groups.

The website helps connect parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis with what Trudden called parent care coordinators from the organization Be Not Afraid.

TRUDDEN: They're kind of like social workers which are able to find all of the resources they gather all of the details and connect the parents to those resources depending upon where they are.

Trudden herself received a scary prenatal diagnosis with her oldest. Her daughter’s stomach, small intestine, spleen, and liver were all developing in her chest cavity, which meant her lungs wouldn’t have room to grow. But Trudden had doctors who worked hard to help her daughter. Today, her daughter is 15 years old and on her school’s rowing team.

TRUDDEN: The things that we can do with today's modern technology is fantastic. And so the fact that—it's kind of an interesting tension, because it's all the things that we can do to save lives. Yet this isn't a perfect child, therefore, you know what, why don't you abort and try again, it’s a very interesting juxtaposition there.

That’s the message Trudden and other pro-lifers will continue to combat as it comes from pro-abortion groups…and even the halls of Congress.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

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