We Cannot Forget The Rocking Chairs
It seemed the calls always came in the darkest pre-dawn hours.
And began with an apology: “Father, I’m sorry, but…”
Either a baby in the Intensive Care Unit had “just died” or death was imminent.
“Can you, please, come… Now!”
Because I was doing what turned out to be a two-year rotation on the adolescent psychiatric unit at Miami Children’s Hospital and responded to crises there 24-7, I was “the priest of first call.”
And privileged to witness the heroic kindness of nurses in moments of unspeakable tragedy.
There were no words. There could be no words.
Depending on circumstances, I might baptize. Quietly. Quickly. Then move to the side of the room and sit and pray for the parents whose pain was overwhelming and palpable. Sometimes, I was just present. There for parents and the medical team – if they wanted me.
Often, the nurses would gently swaddle the baby and bring in a rocking chair, so mother and father could rock – for however long they needed – and begin the grieving process.
Those are scenes impossible to forget.
Scenes that put the lie to the claims of one presumptive presidential candidate: “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”
No. It’s not crazy.
It’s a lie!
No state legislature has passed or proposed a law that allows the execution – murder – of a baby after it is born. Killing an infant after birth is illegal in every state of the nation.
In fact, the candidate who repeatedly makes some version of this claim has only named one state – New York – “and other places” to back-up his claims: “You have New York state and other places that passed legislation where you’re allowed to kill the baby after birth,” the candidate told Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker at 27 minutes and 4 seconds into an interview that aired on Sunday, September 17, 2023.
In 2019, New York approved legislation that makes abortion illegal after 24 weeks with the exception of cases where the fetus is not viable or abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s [mother’s] life or health.” The law does not legalize post-birth murder – something the candidate either knows or should know.
“The Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth,” he asserted at 26 minutes and 48 seconds into the same interview.
That’s also an outright lie!
Less than two minutes later, the “pro-birth” candidate – he does not qualify as “prolife” after calling for the death penalty for those who kill police officers (address to NRA on May 18, 2024); promising to ask for legislation that would provide “everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” (November 15, 2022, during announcement of his candidacy); “And by the way, you’ll never solve the problem [of drugs] without the death penalty” (Turning Point conference in Phoenix, June 10, 2024) - repeatedly promised to “negotiate” the number of weeks into a pregnancy at which an abortion would be allowed.
The candidate, to whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention once reported, knows (or certainly should know) that, according to the CDC, abortions late in pregnancy are exceedingly rare and, in 2021, less than one percent of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks.
Abortions later in pregnancy are usually the result of serious complications – often fetal anomalies – that put the life of the woman or fetus at risk. The candidate’s lies are all the more injurious when it is recognized that, in most cases, these are wanted pregnancies.
During the June 2024 first debate between the two presumptive presidential candidates, one maintained a straight face when he lied yet again on the abortion issue:
"The problem [Democrats] have is they're radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth. If you look at the former governor of Virginia, he was willing to do this. He said, 'We'll put the baby aside, and will determine what we do with the baby.' Meaning: We’ll kill the baby."
The candidate was referring to former (2018 – 2022) Virginia governor Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist currently practicing at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (Norfolk, Virginia).
In a January 2019 interview with radio station WTOP, Northam addressed what happens when a baby is born with severe deformities and has a low – or no - chance of survival.
Because context is everything, it is important to cite what the pediatric neurologist said as a prelude to the response “pro-birthers” take out of context:
“Decisions such as this should be made by providers – physicians – and the mothers and fathers that are involved. There are, when we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of, obviously, the consent of the mother, with the consent of the physicians - more than one physician, by the way - and it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that's non-viable. So, in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So, I think this was really blown out of proportion. But we want the government not to be involved in these types of decisions; we want the decisions to be made by the mothers and their providers and this is why legislators, Julie [addressing his radio interviewer], most of whom are men, by the way, shouldn’t be telling a woman what she should and shouldn’t be doing with her body.
Northam added, “It is always good to get a second opinion and for at least two providers [physicians] to be involved in that decision because these decisions shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
Northam was describing decisions about and the process of providing palliative care – keeping both the newborn and his/her parents as comfortable as possible in the most painful of circumstances: “… the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s wat the mother and family decided.”
Those middle of the night calls often came when a newborn was receiving palliative care. That is to say, even before birth – in utero - the baby had a fatal abnormality that would cause death within minutes or days of delivery.
It seems counterintuitive to look to the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health, for a definition of palliative care in discussing newborns, but the NIA definition is straight forward and simple:
“Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness… Patients in palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms, or palliative care… Palliative care is meant to enhance a person’s current care by focusing on quality of life for them and their family.
“A palliative care team is made up of multiple different professionals who work with the patient, family, and the patient’s other doctors, to provide medical, social, emotional, and practical support… A person’s team may vary based on their needs and level of care….”
Think about it. Does anyone with a sufficient number of functioning brain cells actually believe that – in a hospital room and surrounded by parents, doctors, nurses, assistants of all kinds, maybe even a priest – someone just kills newborn infants and gets away with it?
Those incredibly kind, generous and unspeakably gentle nurses who wrapped dying or just-died babies in “swaddling clothes” and offered rocking chairs to overwhelmed mothers and fathers were providing palliative care. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be done to cure or save the baby with brain cancer and whom Death would claim within minutes. Nothing, absolutely nothing could be done for the anencephalic newborn infant whose brain never fully developed in utero and whom Death had already touched.
But palliative care, “swaddling clothes” and a rocking chair – simple acts of kindness – can soothe broken hearts.
In another version of the lie, the candidate – who, more than eight months after the Meet the Nation interview, should have known better – told Fox News on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”
How do we know it’s a lie. The candidate didn’t name a single state. The candidate cannot name a single state because there are no states “where you can execute the baby after birth.”
In this election year, the question of whether or not abortion rights should be enshrined in state constitutions is slated to be on the ballot in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, South Dakota, Arizona (potentially), Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, and Nebraska. In most cases, proposals will allow abortions up to the point of viability or 24 weeks; in almost all cases that time frame will de facto be extended through the pregnancy when the life and/or long-term health of the mother is at risk.
At least one of us will vote for the amendment that enshrines that right in the Florida constitution. Not because we are pro-choice but because we are fervently opposed to the lies of those who ignore the suffering of mothers and fathers whose babies are non-viable or will die within minutes or hours of birth, the mothers whose health – and, often, ability to become pregnant again – is at profound risk. We’ll vote for the amendment and against a candidate who cannot – or will not – stop lying about the most difficult decision a woman might ever make.
We’ll cast our vote because, more than forty years later, we cannot forget the grieving parents rocking their babies – “wrapped in swaddling clothes” – in those darkest predawn hours.
We cannot forget those rocking chairs.