Nashville Woman Asks "Pro-Life" Christians To Expand That Term

By Anna Caudill, for the Tennessee Lookout

August 25, 2022

In the United States, our Constitution has set up a remarkably unique arrangement, a promise we make to one another about how we will consent to be governed. The words we often use to describe that arrangement are “equal justice under law.” For Christians, the promise echoes another most holy calling: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

I had that second promise in mind when I adopted two disabled sons from China. Born just shy of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, I grew up in a church that emphasized adoption as part of the pro-life movement. It seemed natural before marrying the man of my dreams at a small Baptist college in Appalachia to imagine the family we would have, filled with children by both birth and adoption. Then infertility changed those plans.

We pursued adoption with the prayers and support of our church community. Once we became parents, I found my vision of pro-life was no longer big enough. Adoption does not provide an instant “happily ever after,” because children are real people with very real traumas from losing birth families, living in institutional care, having no one person consistently present to mark all the firsts. My sons needed more from me.

As big as my love was, it had to grow. I had to set aside my expectations of motherhood and make room for understanding trauma’s long-term impact, letting go of any illusion that I could direct my children’s outcomes if I just tried hard enough.

Those early parenting years were a blur of doctor’s visits and surgeries at children’s hospitals in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Sometimes we spent two or three months at one of those “home away from home” places for families of children with complicated stories that often didn’t have easy answers or happy endings. Nearly every night, a handful of sleepless mothers found themselves in the family kitchen, emptying the dishwasher or baking muffins in a desperate late-night attempt at normalcy. I was in awe of the pregnant women I met during those years whose babies were diagnosed in utero with complex needs. One story in particular changed my life.

As an adoptive parent of children with disabilities, I met a woman at a Philadelphia hospital. She was pregnant with twins, and one was dying inside her. This woman was fighting for her children, hoping for a miracle, slowly coming to terms with the reality of one child’s gradual demise. She felt alone, forgotten by God.

Lauren had traveled a long way to Philadelphia to get help for her babies. Tall and thin, she was pregnant with twins. To her heart’s grief, one was slowly dying. We sat up past midnight near the kitchen, quietly talking over mugs of hot tea. Her husband was back home with their young children, and she was desperate to talk about what was going on inside her. Aside from her doctor, I was the first person who had ever heard of her babies’ condition. Her story was not new to me—the same thing had happened to someone I love more than thirty years ago.

Back in the late 80s, my loved one was in her third trimester, helpless as one twin expired. His death triggered a stroke in the other baby, stopping his brain from developing further. She refused abortion and carried both babies to term, one dead and one living, risking her own life. The surviving twin defied doctors’ expectations, and his mother fought through every one of his surgeries to keep him alive and as comfortable as possible for thirty years, despite one medical challenge after another. We loved him deeply.

Three decades later, Lauren had different options. The children’s hospital had found that if the dying twin was aborted shortly before it passed, a stroke could be averted, the surviving twin’s brain would continue developing, and he and his mother’s life would be spared the risk of deadly infection. Lauren was heartbroken. She wanted both babies.

Once again, I found my definition of “pro-life” needed expanding. This woman was fighting for her children, hoping for a miracle, slowly coming to terms with the reality of one child’s gradual demise. She felt alone, forgotten by God. What could I do but listen, remind her that she was a good mother, and weep with her? How could I not pray for her to survive the paradox within her, one life failing as the other grew?

In those cold silent nights when sleep forgot me, I grieved with this woman and felt the weight of her choice, the chance she had to give one child a life that my loved one could not provide years ago for her surviving son, no matter how brave she was. I began to realize how many women in my life have lost a child—miscarriage, stillbirth, ectopic pregnancy, adoption, cancer, abortion, accident—I, the infertile one, am the exception.

I wonder what it looks like to truly love my neighbor, how that might expand the vision I once recognized as pro-life. As Tennessee’s abortion trigger ban law goes into effect this week, making every single abortion a felony with no exceptions, I can’t help but think it is the opposite of an ethic that truly values life. To me, that ethic means sitting with the grieving in the small hours. It means we respect and trust women with the complexities of decisions surrounding their health care, honor birth parents, affirm adoptees, and center foster youth.

Looking back at Lauren’s story, where her difficult and heartbreaking decision gave her surviving twin the best possible chance at life, I realize if she were in Tennessee now, the law would not even allow her that choice. Lauren–and every mother who faces nonviable pregnancy or the choice they never wanted to make–deserve policies that protect their lives while recognizing the law’s limits to constrain medical complexity and human privacy.

If we aspire to support a truly “pro-life” ethic, then we must commit to taking responsibility for safeguarding the lives that are here now. Being “for” life means supporting the flourishing of all children and expanding our vision to see God’s holy image in all people. We cannot disregard that truth to further a political agenda. That bold arrangement requires our utmost care.

Anna Caudill

Anna Caudill is a Nashville-based Special Education Advocate. A member of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, she was named a Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute Angel in Adoption. She has spoken at the Center for American Progress on disability rights and is a graduate of Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Volunteer Advocacy Project and the Institute of Special Education Advocacy at William and Mary Law School.

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