The Sanctity of Life

Pregnancy is about life. New life. We understand its critical importance in the continuation of human life on our planet. We are in awe of the miracle for some or the science for others involved in creating life. We covet the ability to extend our own life into another, newer person.

Pregnancy is about hope. Our individual hope for the life each person constructs for themselves. We hope that we will do it better than those before us. There is hope that a new life will not make the same mistakes we have made. The hope gives us a respite from the tragedies, stress and trauma that can take up too much of our lives. We hope that each new life will bring the world closer to peace, love and calm.

For some, pregnancy is about fear. A what-if scenario to be diligently avoided. An understanding of the dangers - sometimes from a much too early age - if you were to find yourself in the same situation that most women - and the vast majority of society - celebrates. The work and number of experts needed to avoid pregnancy can even outnumber those used to enable a pregnancy.

“Why?” you ask.
Sanctity of life is the answer. 

Our understanding of the importance of life compels us to protect it. Illness, injuries, and life expectancy rates have all benefited from human being’s desire to be healthier and live longer than those before us.

But, improvements do not mean perfection.

Let’s consider that which is at the center of all life - the heart. It is complex, so many pieces moving, relying on each other to function correctly. Perfection is when no one notices the amazing work it does day in and day out, year after year, decade upon decade. While life 100% relies on it, most don’t acknowledge the heart until something is wrong with it.

But, what if there is a heart that has always been broken? Pieces of it missing, holes in it and a body craving more oxygen than it can send out. Life is many things, but it is rarely black or white. There are many shades of gray in between where many live. And while defects in the heart can allow for life, it often creates life without. Life without norms.

When a heart is broken, it works extra hard to accomplish the bare minimum. The rest of the body jumps in to help in a dozen different ways, perhaps by delaying puberty, increasing the red cell count in the blood, or naturally maintaining a low body weight, to name a few. The external world is also engaged, helping with surgeries, procedures, medicines and general medical guidance all in an attempt to help keep a precious life alive.

But, these interventions, the will of the person which houses this broken heart, or even society at large cannot always produce the desired outcome: the ability to house a new and growing life. When a heart must work so hard to maintain one life, how can it be expected to support a second?

And, so the calculations begin. Everyone apparently has their own calculator as well as the belief that they should possess an equal amount of input into the final sum. A life’s value is weighed. Pro and con lists are created. A full grown productive member of society's life is compared to the potential of a new life on this planet. Each side of the problem is detailed and defended. 

Shockingly, the host often campaigns against her own survival. She will give it all up for a life not yet breathing air. She makes plans: how she will communicate with the tiny life post-mortem, who will serve as the best stand-in mother, why it will all be worth it for the promise of that new life. But, these plans are fantastical. There is no guarantee that her sacrifice will be a one-to-one trade: her life for that of her unborn’s. Those two lives may instead only share the same ending.

There are other options, that neither she nor others engaging in her shared fantasy can bring themselves to confront. A life left wanting a mother’s love that was robbed from him or her never to be fully refunded, despite best efforts. Or perhaps worse. There may be diminished capacity. Pain. Despair. At best, a life without. At worst, a life that is barely living.

The scale tips. Does the potential host’s life offer another value besides physically bringing a new life into the world? Is her ability to mother not simply confined to a life with whom she shares genetics? Are there lives with feet on the ground who need nurturing, love, protection?  Or, could her impact on the sanctity of life be less direct? Might she have a talent, knowledge or a vision that itself will serve as a miracle? Could she contribute something to society that will lead the world onto a path that will bring some sort of salvation or peace or necessary healing?

Pregnancy, like life, is complicated. And the battle to control it may belong among the list of the Millenium Prize Problems, an unsolvable problem that many have fought to master and no one has ever resolved.

With no universal solution, perhaps we can resign ourselves to step out of the world of black and white, and live in the gray. With each new pregnancy comes a new solution to the problem. For some that solution will be life, for others hope and perhaps for others an inspiration to do more with the one life their body is able to support. But no matter how a pregnancy ends - with a new life or by preserving an existing one -  it is ultimately about the sanctity of life.