Ok, I will answer it from my own personal experience. I have written about this before and the experience has been published several times. But it is always hard for me to write about it even after 23 years. But it continues to make me steadfast in my position which is pro-life and pro-choice with absolutely no Government or religious intrusions.
The context here is Christmas 1991 in central New Jersey. I was 33 years old, had wonderful wife and a 2.5 year old son who I adored. Parents, Parents-in-law, large extended family, big house, fantastically successful scientific career. That Christmas we announced that my wife was pregnant with our second child. Life was good. Furthest thing on my mind was abortion debate. Frankly couldn’t care less, it was somebody else’s issue, certainly not mine. Wasn’t much of a Catholic then and really didn’t care to know what all the controversy was about. I lived in a state that didn’t meddle into this area, or so it thought.
In January 1992, I received at 5 am from my frantic mother, that my father won’t wake up. My father was died at age 66 from a heart attack during the night. Turned my world upside. Within a week after the funeral, my wife was having difficulty with the pregnancy. After many doctor visits, all kinds of tests, including genetic tests, it was concluded that the baby (a boy) was developing normally (a little smaller than normal) but in the normal ranges for everything tested. But it was my wife that all of the concern was on. The long labor and vaginal delivery of our first son really took it toll on my wife’s uterus. The high risk pregnancy doctors told us that it was going to be very difficult to reach term with the baby. They recommended one of two courses of action - terminate the pregnancy or go into a high-risk pregnancy hospital that day and they would do everything possible to prolong the pregnancy. For my wife it was an easy decision. So we packed up my son to let him live with my wife’s sisters family for several months. My wife went into the high risk pregnancy hospital and I continued to work and see her every evening.
This went on for several months, the pregnancy was progressing but my wife was getting weaker and weaker, and sicker and sicker. Each time I would go see her, she was more and more in real difficulty and was even more and more determined to get to term with this baby. A priest (who we didn’t know) would visit my wife but it never went well. He was always blessing my wife and telling her how wonderful she was for continuing the pregnancy and not terminating it. On a Friday Afternoon in May when I was there, my wife throw the priest out of her room. He came out and saw me talking to my wife’s doctor. He tried to talk with me but I told him to please leave as I was talking to the doctor in private about serious matters. What I was talking to the doctor about was how far are we going to let this pregnancy continue. My wife getting sicker and sicker (BP 90/40) My statement to the doctor was “I have a 2.5 year old who needs a mother much more than he needs a brother.” The doctor said that he was in up state NY for the weekend but his partner would take good care of my wife over the weekend.
Sunday morning I received a phone call (pre-cell phone days) from the partner doctor. My wife took a major turn for the worse, temperature spiking, she was being prepped for surgery, her live was in danger. Baby’s heartrate was 200. I got there in minutes, my wife was in the operating room and the doctor was scrubbing up for surgury. The hospital medical examiner was there asking the chief OB/GYN of the hospital why they were terminating this pregancy. I told the hospital chief to leave so that I could talk to my wife’s doctor. There was no time for reflection, no time for prayer, no time for philosophical/moral discussions. The doctor said to me that my wife was dying and he was going to do everything possible to save her life. He said the baby wasn’t viable and certainly wouldn’t survive a vaginal procedure. He said that he could do a C-section to allow the neonatology team a chance to resuscitate the baby. I said do the C-section. He then turned to me as he was entering the operating room and said, “I can do a vertical C-section (instead of horizontal), it might give the baby a better chance but your wife could never have children any longer.” I said do the vertical C-section. There was no moral discussions. It was instinct and reasoning. Unclouded by beliefs.
Within 10 minutes, I heard a loud voice "baby’s out - 3:26 pm May 17, male. A few minutes later, my wife’s doctor came out and said “she is going to be okay but she was pulled from the edge and will need to stay in the hospital for a while” I thanked him. He said “you want to see you son, he is over there”. Here was 10 people working on him. (we were at a level 1 neonatology hospital - only two in the state at the time.) They was ready to rush my son upstairs but stopped for me to see him. He was 12 inches long, 417 grams. His skin was translucent, his eye slits were partially opened with yellow eyes, he had a light beard of cillia on his face. He look more marcipial than human. As they were rushing by I did get a chance to talk with the lead neonatologist - a young magnificant doctor. He said that my son was born long before any chance of viability, he said that he had about a 10% chance to live 72 hours but I was to be very proud of him because he was breathing on his own with no respirator. At that point I said that I was his father and I was proud of him and that every thing possible should be done for him.
About 48 hours later, I was in the level 1 neonatology area, my son was stable with a lot of tubes running in and out of him. He looked like a Borg baby of Star Trek. My wife hadn’t seen him, she was still too sick. A nun came up to me and started talking to me. She asked if she could Baptize the baby. I said sure, “but make sure you use sterilized holy water and you don’t touch him as he didn’t have an active immune system and an infection would kill him” She baptized him. A few minutes later, that priest who my wife throw out her room a few days earlier came by. He looked at my son. He then said to me the most shocking things I could possibly here, “you don’t have to use extraordinary means to keep this baby alive.” This was the same person who just three days before was blessing us for keeping the pregnancy going. I turned to him and said, “We are going to use every technology, every treatment possible to give my son the best chance possible to live.” He left and I never saw him ever again.
My son stay in the level 1 hospital for 4 months. My wife got to hold him for the first time when he was 4 months old. I didn’t hold him until he was six months old. His first year birthday he was 8 pounds, and didn’t quite sit up. He is still the smallest, most premature boy to survive in NJ history.
He is now 23 and in graduate school studying Cybersecurity.