The BBC have reported that women who lose babies during pregnancy have been promised improved care. They report:
"Women who lose babies during pregnancy have been promised improved care, including better ways for remains to be collected and stored with dignity.
"The government will also introduce a voluntary certificate for parents who lose their baby before 24 weeks.
"The commitments come in response to an independent review of care in England."
You can read the full article here.
For what it's worth, I think this is a good thing. The article notes, 'Myleene Klass, musician and TV presenter, who lost four babies during pregnancies and campaigned for the reforms said: "I wanted to use my voice for something really powerful, but it turns out we've just gone on to move a mountain."'
They go on, 'The separate independent Pregnancy Loss Review made 73 recommendations for improving care for people who experience baby loss before 24 weeks.'
All of this is, without question, positive. Women and families who experience baby loss before 24 weeks should have access to care, it should be easily available and I am sure they will welcome this recognition of their loss.
What is perhaps most surprising is the fact that this is being recommended. Don't get me wrong, I think it is excellent that it is being recommended. I am just surprised. Surprised given the fiction that we are constantly fed that babies prior to 24 weeks are not babies at all. They are mere foetuses.
Foetuses that are not proper persons. Non-persons, it turns out, that we can simply dispose of if they are unwanted. This is the line that has been deemed sacrosanct and on which the abortion industry relies. Prior to 24 weeks, we are dealing with non-person foetuses that are legitimately and acceptable terminated, for you cannot kill non-persons.
But here we are being told that foetuses that die in utero prior to 24 weeks is, actually, baby loss. Indeed, the BBC article repeatedly refers to it as baby loss. The government are providing certificates now to affirm this is baby loss. The co-lead of the review, Zoe Clark-Coates, insisted changing the language around baby loss was essential. "I absolutely will always call miscarriages baby losses... it's really important to acknowledge that," she said.
It seems that the official position is now that of Schrodinger's Foetus. Living beings in utero prior to 24-weeks are both babies and not babies. A death is both baby loss and the mere passing of a clump of cells. It is the loss of a living being and the denaturing of a non-person. It is a foetus and a baby that can be terminated without a second's concern and must be mourned as the devastating loss of a real child.
The essential grounds for Schrodinger's Foetus seems to be however the parents view it. If they are sad about a miscarriage, they must be comforted at the loss of their child. If they are relieved by the termination of a foetus, there is nothing to see but the destruction of a non-person. The objective reality, it seems, doesn't matter. What rules is the subjective feelings of the parents. If they didn't want a miscarriage, it is baby loss. If they purposefully terminated life, it is foetal abortion.
We really cannot have this both ways. Either the life growing inside a mother is a real person, a real life, a baby whose life must rightly and understandably be mourned in miscarriage or it is merely a foetus, a clump of cells, not a baby or even a person whose loss should be felt no more seriously than some dead skin cells flaking off a foot.
If parents are to be comforted at the loss of a baby in miscarriage, those terminating pregnancies are necessarily wilfully killing real babies and ought to be stopped. If those terminating pregnancies are merely aborting a foetus, those who suffer miscarriage should be helped to recognise they are facing the loss of some unimportant cells that are of little to no value. But we cannot with a straight face talk about baby loss before 24 weeks in miscarriage whilst those who purposefully induce miscarriage are merely aborting a few cells. It is absolutely true that the language we use around this matters.
We need to decide whether we think we are discussing baby loss or whether we are merely discussing foetal abortion. If those who suffer baby loss need comfort and proper support, those who terminate pregnancies must be treated as those killing children. If those who abort pregnancies are genuinely only removing a clump of cells, those who suffer miscarriage must best be helped by gaining some proper perspective. What we cannot do is invent Schrodinger's foetus and insist that it is both, depending on how we happen to feel about it.
This article first appeared on Building Jerusalem, the blog of Stephen Kneale, and is printed here with permission.
