I won't ever forget the day a nurse told me I had no right to know the gender of my soon-to-be first child. It was information she could only share with the patient, my wife.
This was after my wife and I had done months of joint planning, years even. We decided not to have kids until we moved out of a cramped one-bedroom apartment. We decided it was time to try expanding our family once we secured a favorable mortgage on a small three-bedroom house. We threw away her birth control pills after I giddily brought home a baby basket I bought on a whim on the way home from work.
We celebrated � dancing like 3-year-olds � in that small three-bedroom home when the pregnancy test said positive. (That child is now a 16-year-old track star who I'm trying to teach to drive. Pray for us.) When we sat in the doctor's office the next day staring at the ultrasound screen, I was told it was no longer about me, that only she had a right to know about the health and gender of our child. For legal and social purposes, I was no longer my wife's partner, but rather an appendage. I was no longer an integral part of the process.
I thought back to that day while reading a recent column in The Washington Post by Ruth Marcus. In it, she argued that women have the constitutional right to abort babies with Down syndrome. She acknowledges others might disagree, as well as the moral complexity of the issue but still believes this is about a woman's right to choose, and little more:
"Technological advances in prenatal testing pose difficult moral choices about what, if any, genetic anomaly or defect justifies an abortion. Nearsightedness? Being short? There are creepy, eugenic aspects of the new technology that call for vigorous public debate. But in the end, the Constitution mandates _ and a proper understanding of the rights of the individual against those of the state underscores _ that these excruciating choices be left to individual women, not to government officials who believe they know best."
She's right that a woman's right to choose must be preserved. It makes no sense to declare a love of small government while advocating that government be given control over a pregnant woman's life. Not even the rights of a husband or father should supersede the woman's, whose body must remain her own.
That's clear.
What's less clear is how best to honor that principle while balancing it against several other legitimate concerns that go well beyond a woman's individual right. Convincing men that they are an annoyance during the 40 weeks of gestation � rather than that they can play a critical role in the health of the mother of their child, as well as jumpstart the bonding process with their kid � is wrongheaded, self-defeating. It can unnecessarily fracture relationships and send a message to men that they really don't play a vital role. If it's only about the woman's choice, why would that change at the pregnancy's end?
Neither can it only be about the woman's wants if we are serious about honoring life and cementing equality. Those with Down syndrome are fully complex human beings who deserve just as much love and respect as the rest of us. So do others contending with a bevy of other supposed imperfections � which are only considered imperfections because of our warped sense of human perfection.
I don't have the answer to squaring that circle. But we must continue grappling with how to do better than we've long done.
