Last night, I quietly watched Trump and Clinton take differing approaches to the highly charged topic of abortion — an important debate issue that has now been largely overshadowed by Trump’s refusal to accept the election results. Yet, all day now, I haven't been able to stop thinking about a memorable client I counseled in the late 1990’s while practicing social work in a Brooklyn public hospital.
Late one afternoon on an otherwise typical day at the hospital, I had been assigned to care for a beautiful young pregnant woman who had just been admitted after experiencing a range of severe health problems that she and her family assumed were simply related to a unusually difficult 2nd trimester pregnancy. Just hours after entering the hospital, though, tests revealed that my client was suffering from advanced multiple myeloma.
A team of physicians offered this remarkable mother and her family (a husband and two young children at home) the most horrific of treatment options: terminate her wanted pregnancy immediately so she could begin an aggressive chemotherapy regimen that could save her life or do nothing and hope to live just long enough to deliver the baby but lose her own life in the process. Counseling this woman and her family facing this most difficult choice was a personal gift and revelation as they sought spiritual guidance from her Catholic faith and reached out for emotional support from their immediate family, friends, medical providers and, ultimately, their own hearts and conscience.
Listening to Trump last night just diminish women's reproductive health with such obvious disdain made me tear up thinking of this strong woman who was so brave, loving and gentle as she navigated the many complexities of this most painful decision. Unfortunately, this courageous woman died several weeks later despite doing whatever she could to beat the disease ravaging her body. She so wanted to live for those two young children at home.
After witnessing this family's heartbreaking struggle, I vowed to do whatever I could to keep government away from and out of the reproductive choices of American families like hers. I'll simply never forget this woman and her family. Nor should you.