Abortion in America: terminating one twin [View All]

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/23/pregnancy-reduction-fertility-abortion-america

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician's examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound technician had turned off the overhead screen. She didn't want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment – and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy foetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny's abdomen, aiming at one of the foetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt.

"Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn't had children already or if we were more financially secure," she said later. "If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn't have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there's a natural order, then you don't want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner – in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me – and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control."

Reproductive medicine, for all its successes, has produced a paradox: in creating life where none seemed possible, doctors often generate more foetuses than they intend. In the mid-1980s, they devised an escape hatch to deal with these mega-pregnancies, terminating all but two or three foetuses to lower the risks to women and the babies they took home. But what began as an intervention for extreme medical circumstances has quietly become an option for women carrying twins. With that, pregnancy reduction shifted from a medical decision to an ethical dilemma.

Jenny's decision to reduce twins to a single foetus was never really in doubt. She and her husband already had primary school-age children. She felt that twins would soak up everything she had to give, leaving nothing for her older children. Even the twins would be robbed because, at best, she could give each one only half of her attention and, she feared, only half of her love. Jenny desperately wanted another child, but not at the risk of becoming a second-rate parent. "This is bad, but it's not anywhere near as bad as neglecting your child or not giving everything you can to the children you have," she said, referring to the reduction. She and her husband intend never to tell anyone about it. Jenny is certain that no one, not even her closest friends, would understand.