Has anyone noticed a "national conversation" about abortion?
Long ago I lost count of the number of things about which it has been said we should have a national conversation. Budgets and fiscal restraint. Universal health care coverage, whether we should have it, how to pay for it, whether that will lead to "socialized medicine," and whether socialized medicine (like England's National Health Service) would be good or bad for the United States. Energy policy, and all of its accompanying issues, especially energy independence, renewable resources, and climate change.
I like the idea of a national conversation. I think of a conversation as two or more people settling into comfortable chairs to have an exchange of ideas about a topic of some importance or significance. The purpose is to give everyone some insight into the subject, including how others think. Ideally, if it's a national conversation about something of national importance, it should enable the development of consensus. That isn't always possible, but it's worth a try.
We don't seem to do this very well. The art of conversation requires active listening and a mind that is willing to entertain others' ideas and be open to the possibility that divergent viewpoints are meritorious. Our "national conversations," however, tend to be more like single-minded monologues. You express your views, while I am focused on what I'm going to say when you're finished. If I'm listening to you at all, it is only so that when it's my turn to talk, I can make sure I include a pointed refutation of anything you've said.
Is it any wonder that consensus has so persistently and repeatedly eluded us on issue after issue?
This happens because we form opinions quickly and adhere to them tenaciously. Once we've made up our minds, we are very selective about the opinions of others we are willing to hear. If you are to the left on the political spectrum, you would no more watch the Fox News Channel than go to a Klan meeting. If you are a political conservative, watching MSNBC is reserved for a day that might otherwise be spent reading Das Kapital, say, the second Thursday of next week.
Climate change? Evil humans are destroying the earth. No, idiots believe we are changing the climate, as if we have the power to alter God's plan, when there have been much larger changes in climate than this one over the course of our planet's history.
Health care? Corporate greed precludes any possibility of rational allocation of resources, steadily widening the gap between rich and poor. No, socialists want to destroy the world's best health care by turning it over to mindless bureaucrats who will assure that all of us get health care of equal mediocrity.
Fiscal policy? We are irresponsibly burying our children and grandchildren under mountains of debt. No, the deficit doesn't matter, and cutting the federal budget by 2% will inflict unimaginable suffering upon orphans, widows, and others unequivocally deserving of our generous help.
Perhaps no issue highlights our inability to engage in civil discourse better than abortion. Extreme views dominate the debate. On one side is the position that life begins at conception and abortion is murder. The opposing view is that personhood begins at birth, and before that the only consideration is a woman's right to control her own body.
When do we hear a national conversation - one that meets my definition - about this issue? That's right. Never. The most recent event to gain national attention in connection with abortion was that exact opposite of a conversation: the one-person filibuster.
To remind those whose memories of high school or college political science have dimmed, when a deliberative body is debating something, there are rules about how long debate can go on. In some contexts, such as the United States Senate, debate can go on ad infinitum unless there is a successful motion to close debate, called cloture. In that body, cloture requires 60 votes, rather than the standard 51-vote majority. So if there is someone who wants to debate something endlessly, and there aren't 60 votes to invoke cloture, whatever it is will never come up for a vote. Rules vary about whether debate must actually be going on continuously around the clock, and in the US Senate that typically isn't actually necessary to filibuster a bill, preventing it from coming to a vote without a 60-vote "super-majority" to close debate.
The Texas Senate was considering a bill to impose various restrictions on access to abortion. I will not describe them here, because it is not my intent to focus on the details, but I can assure you that the pro-life folks think they are all eminently reasonable, and the pro-choice camp finds them all quite unacceptable and intended to keep any woman from ever getting a safe, legal abortion: in short, another battle in the Republican Party's "war on women."
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis took to that chamber's floor this week to filibuster the abortion bill. The idea was that she would speak on the issue without interruption (as required by Senate rules for debate to go on without the matter coming to a vote) until the scheduled end of the session, thereby keeping the Senate from voting on the bill before adjournment was mandated by the clock.
I believe Senator Davis's filibuster was available for watching and listening in various ways, probably including C-SPAN and live Internet streaming. I must admit I didn't have a chance to watch or listen to any of it. But I think I can be confident that she did not spend her time examining the arguments for and against each feature of the bill in a carefully balanced way. That isn't what filibustering politicians do. A filibuster isn't a national (or state) conversation.
Can we have a national conversation on this issue? I believe the answer is yes. And I believe the key to doing so is a willingness to accept the notion that this is an ethical dilemma.
About three decades ago I began to develop a keen interest in biomedical ethics. One of the constant features of this realm of thought is the ethical dilemma. Someone is having trouble figuring out the right and wrong in a situation because it isn't obvious. Arguments can be made on either side that seem to make some sense. Clearly issues of health, and life and death, fall into the realm of biomedical ethics, and when right and wrong are not straightforward, ethicists will frame a dilemma. This requires defining, and then comparing, competing interests.
In my view, the competing interests here are clear. On one hand is a woman's interest in controlling her body and what happens to it. On the other is the interest of the unborn child in surviving to viability outside the uterus (which usually means birth).
In 1973 the United States Supreme Court espoused the principle that, in general, state abortion laws may not restrict access to abortion before fetal viability but may do so afterward. (This creates its own difficulties, in that advancements in medical technology can make the age of viability something of a moving target, but that's a big subject all by itself.) So the Court cast the competing interests in black-and-white terms. Before viability, a woman's interest in controlling her body is paramount; afterward, the state may consider the interests of the fetus and impose restrictions. Black-and-white terms. Suitable for application of law. Note that the Court is not a group of nine ethicists.
The great difficulty in having a national conversation is that the debate is dominated by those who refuse to accept the notion that there is an ethical dilemma, that there are competing interests to be defined and weighed against each other. No, there is only one interest, and what that is depends on which side you're on. Either the only interest is the woman's right to control her body, or the only interest is the baby's right to life. Anyone on the other side of the debate is either a baby killer or is waging a war on women, condemning them to being maimed or killed through back-alley abortions with wire clothes hangers. Plain and simple.
But it's not plain and simple, and until we stop pretending it is, the national conversation will never take place, consensus will never emerge, and this issue will continue to be among the most divisive that our society has ever seen.
There is, I believe, no doubt about the path we should follow. But we will never take the first step along that path until we admit that others' views may have some merit.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
DOMA and California Proposition #8: Excedrin Headache #2013
Today has yielded what we have come to expect from the month of June: interesting and important rulings in cases brought before the Supreme Court of the United States.
One of the rulings was on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacted by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Section 3 of the Act declared that many aspects of federal law that applied to married couples would apply only to opposite-sex couples. Same-sex couples who were married in states granting marriage licenses to such couples would not be recognized as married with respect to many provisions of federal law for which marital status is determinative, including taxes and various federal benefits.
An avid student of constitutional law for many years, I was fascinated by this case. On the surface it seemed pretty simple. Two couples married in New York, one heterosexual and the other homosexual, would be treated differently under federal law solely because of their sexual orientation. Surely there must be something wrong with that. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There is a judicial principle called the Doctrine of Incorporation that has been used to apply Constitutional protections written in relation to Congress to state governments (notably so for various protections in the Bill of Rights), and in reverse it has been used to apply restrictions on state governments (especially those in the 14th Amendment) to the federal government. Thus the Equal Protection requirement of the 14th Amendment applies to the federal government, and this section of DOMA violates it.
But then I started reading the Court's opinion and was reminded that among the questions the Court must always consider are whether it has jurisdiction and whether the litigants have standing. So, to make up an absurd example, if on my commute to work every day I pass a house painted orange with purple polka dots, I may not file suit against the owner and expect the Supreme Court to accept the case. My opinion that the house is ugly does not give me standing, and the Court does not have jurisdiction, because if the appearance of the house violates anything besides my esthetic sensibilities, it would likely be a city ordinance.
The Court spent several pages on this question, because it was not so obvious. You see, the plaintiff claimed standing because the federal government required the payment of estate taxes by failing to recognize a marriage recognized by the state of New York. Had the marriage been recognized, the plaintiff would have been exempted as a surviving spouse. The plaintiff paid the tax, thereby sustaining an "injury," and then asked the IRS to refund the tax because refusal to recognize the marriage was wrong. Lower courts agreed and ordered the IRS to refund the tax. The federal government agreed to do so. The case wound up before the Supreme Court despite the fact that lower courts had ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and the federal government was not arguing that DOMA should be upheld.
So the Supreme Court has issued a ruling in a case in which the litigants before it were in agreement, and it did so by claiming that the case was sufficiently important that it should issue a ruling on the constitutional question even though the matter of damages had already been settled. As Antonin Scalia explained in his dissent, the rationale used as the basis for so doing is most peculiar, and it raises questions about whether the Court might begin ruling on constitutional issues without having before it a case in which the issues are raised in a concrete circumstance.
This gives me a headache. Sometimes these questions seem straightforward. Let's say I think the other part of DOMA, which says states don't have to recognize marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples in other states, is wrong. I cannot challenge that law in the federal courts, because I lack standing. I haven't been harmed by the law. If I were a member of a same-sex couple who married in Massachusetts and then moved to Alabama, and Alabama's refusal to recognize the marriage caused some tangible harm, I could sue. But if a federal court ordered Alabama to rectify the harm (without nullifying Alabama's broader statutory refusal to recognize same-sex marriages from elsewhere), and Alabama agreed to comply with the order, I would not have standing to take my case further up in the federal court system.
Lower federal courts often try to resolve cases without ruling on constitutional issues, and cases that appear to involve constitutional issues typically don't reach the Supreme Court unless they get there because the constitutional issue must be addressed to resolve the case. (Disclaimer: I am not a constitutional lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. This is just the impression I have formed.)
So, the bottom line is that I think the Court's ruling is correct, and even if Scalia is right that the Court had no business issuing a ruling in this case, it is logical to surmise that another case would have come along eventually in which the Court would have properly issued an opinion. So why now? Well, the Court argued that if it waited for another case, many people would have been harmed by DOMA's Section 3 in the meantime. That seems a sound practical argument. But I can't help thinking, intellectually, that Scalia's argument about ruling on constitutional issues only when requisite conditions have been met is correct. And so I have a headache.
And then the headache got worse when I started pondering the ruling on California's Proposition #8.
The California Supreme Court said the state constitution required, as a matter of equal protection, that the Commonwealth allow same-sex couples to marry. The people of California (some of them, that is), disagreed and said if the state Supreme Court insisted on interpreting the constitution that way, they would amend the constitution to clarify that "marriage" was for one man and one woman. The referendum to amend the state constitution went on the ballot as Proposition 8 and was approved. In the meantime, some marriage licenses had been issued to same-sex couples. Opponents of Proposition 8 filed suit. The California Supreme Court said the amendment was valid. All of the legal protections typical of marriage were left in place by Proposition 8, which had no effect on domestic partnerships recognized under state law. And marriage licenses issued between the original ruling and the passage of Prop 8 were "grandfathered." The one thing clearly denied same-sex couples, however, was the label "married." And that was grounds aplenty for them to fight. Subsequently, federal courts invalidated Prop 8, saying the voters could not, by amending the constitution, take away a right that had previously existed without a compelling reason for doing so. (Never mind the question of whether that right existed before the California Supreme Court said it did or that that same Court had upheld Prop 8.)
So now the proponents of Prop 8 want to challenge the decision of the lower federal courts. And the Supreme Court says no. Why? They - the proponents of Prop 8 - have not been harmed by its having been struck down, and so they lack standing. The U.S. Supreme Court thus lets stand the lower federal court rulings, Prop 8 remains invalidated, and California can once again issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In one case, the Supreme Court says litigants who have not been harmed lack standing. In the other case, the Court says the litigant has standing, and the Court has a basis for issuing an important ruling, even though the claimed harm has been addressed by a lower court ruling. To add an interesting wrinkle, the IRS had agreed to comply but had never actually given the plaintiff her money back, and the Court said if she had gotten her refund, the answer to the question of standing might have been different. But instead of just telling the IRS to give her back her money.... Well, you already know the rest of the story.
In both cases there were questions of standing and jurisdiction. In both cases I am content with the outcome. But the inconsistency of the reasoning gives me a headache. Scalia's opinions were the same, saying the Court should not issue a ruling in either case. The consistency of his argument is compelling. Oh, and if you've never read any of his opinions, his opinion in the DOMA case is worth the read. Even though I like the Court's ruling, his dissent is much better written and more logical than the majority opinion, and - frankly - entertaining. He never disappoints me.
One of the rulings was on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacted by Congress in 1996 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Section 3 of the Act declared that many aspects of federal law that applied to married couples would apply only to opposite-sex couples. Same-sex couples who were married in states granting marriage licenses to such couples would not be recognized as married with respect to many provisions of federal law for which marital status is determinative, including taxes and various federal benefits.
An avid student of constitutional law for many years, I was fascinated by this case. On the surface it seemed pretty simple. Two couples married in New York, one heterosexual and the other homosexual, would be treated differently under federal law solely because of their sexual orientation. Surely there must be something wrong with that. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There is a judicial principle called the Doctrine of Incorporation that has been used to apply Constitutional protections written in relation to Congress to state governments (notably so for various protections in the Bill of Rights), and in reverse it has been used to apply restrictions on state governments (especially those in the 14th Amendment) to the federal government. Thus the Equal Protection requirement of the 14th Amendment applies to the federal government, and this section of DOMA violates it.
But then I started reading the Court's opinion and was reminded that among the questions the Court must always consider are whether it has jurisdiction and whether the litigants have standing. So, to make up an absurd example, if on my commute to work every day I pass a house painted orange with purple polka dots, I may not file suit against the owner and expect the Supreme Court to accept the case. My opinion that the house is ugly does not give me standing, and the Court does not have jurisdiction, because if the appearance of the house violates anything besides my esthetic sensibilities, it would likely be a city ordinance.
The Court spent several pages on this question, because it was not so obvious. You see, the plaintiff claimed standing because the federal government required the payment of estate taxes by failing to recognize a marriage recognized by the state of New York. Had the marriage been recognized, the plaintiff would have been exempted as a surviving spouse. The plaintiff paid the tax, thereby sustaining an "injury," and then asked the IRS to refund the tax because refusal to recognize the marriage was wrong. Lower courts agreed and ordered the IRS to refund the tax. The federal government agreed to do so. The case wound up before the Supreme Court despite the fact that lower courts had ruled in favor of the plaintiff, and the federal government was not arguing that DOMA should be upheld.
So the Supreme Court has issued a ruling in a case in which the litigants before it were in agreement, and it did so by claiming that the case was sufficiently important that it should issue a ruling on the constitutional question even though the matter of damages had already been settled. As Antonin Scalia explained in his dissent, the rationale used as the basis for so doing is most peculiar, and it raises questions about whether the Court might begin ruling on constitutional issues without having before it a case in which the issues are raised in a concrete circumstance.
This gives me a headache. Sometimes these questions seem straightforward. Let's say I think the other part of DOMA, which says states don't have to recognize marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples in other states, is wrong. I cannot challenge that law in the federal courts, because I lack standing. I haven't been harmed by the law. If I were a member of a same-sex couple who married in Massachusetts and then moved to Alabama, and Alabama's refusal to recognize the marriage caused some tangible harm, I could sue. But if a federal court ordered Alabama to rectify the harm (without nullifying Alabama's broader statutory refusal to recognize same-sex marriages from elsewhere), and Alabama agreed to comply with the order, I would not have standing to take my case further up in the federal court system.
Lower federal courts often try to resolve cases without ruling on constitutional issues, and cases that appear to involve constitutional issues typically don't reach the Supreme Court unless they get there because the constitutional issue must be addressed to resolve the case. (Disclaimer: I am not a constitutional lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. This is just the impression I have formed.)
So, the bottom line is that I think the Court's ruling is correct, and even if Scalia is right that the Court had no business issuing a ruling in this case, it is logical to surmise that another case would have come along eventually in which the Court would have properly issued an opinion. So why now? Well, the Court argued that if it waited for another case, many people would have been harmed by DOMA's Section 3 in the meantime. That seems a sound practical argument. But I can't help thinking, intellectually, that Scalia's argument about ruling on constitutional issues only when requisite conditions have been met is correct. And so I have a headache.
And then the headache got worse when I started pondering the ruling on California's Proposition #8.
The California Supreme Court said the state constitution required, as a matter of equal protection, that the Commonwealth allow same-sex couples to marry. The people of California (some of them, that is), disagreed and said if the state Supreme Court insisted on interpreting the constitution that way, they would amend the constitution to clarify that "marriage" was for one man and one woman. The referendum to amend the state constitution went on the ballot as Proposition 8 and was approved. In the meantime, some marriage licenses had been issued to same-sex couples. Opponents of Proposition 8 filed suit. The California Supreme Court said the amendment was valid. All of the legal protections typical of marriage were left in place by Proposition 8, which had no effect on domestic partnerships recognized under state law. And marriage licenses issued between the original ruling and the passage of Prop 8 were "grandfathered." The one thing clearly denied same-sex couples, however, was the label "married." And that was grounds aplenty for them to fight. Subsequently, federal courts invalidated Prop 8, saying the voters could not, by amending the constitution, take away a right that had previously existed without a compelling reason for doing so. (Never mind the question of whether that right existed before the California Supreme Court said it did or that that same Court had upheld Prop 8.)
So now the proponents of Prop 8 want to challenge the decision of the lower federal courts. And the Supreme Court says no. Why? They - the proponents of Prop 8 - have not been harmed by its having been struck down, and so they lack standing. The U.S. Supreme Court thus lets stand the lower federal court rulings, Prop 8 remains invalidated, and California can once again issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
In one case, the Supreme Court says litigants who have not been harmed lack standing. In the other case, the Court says the litigant has standing, and the Court has a basis for issuing an important ruling, even though the claimed harm has been addressed by a lower court ruling. To add an interesting wrinkle, the IRS had agreed to comply but had never actually given the plaintiff her money back, and the Court said if she had gotten her refund, the answer to the question of standing might have been different. But instead of just telling the IRS to give her back her money.... Well, you already know the rest of the story.
In both cases there were questions of standing and jurisdiction. In both cases I am content with the outcome. But the inconsistency of the reasoning gives me a headache. Scalia's opinions were the same, saying the Court should not issue a ruling in either case. The consistency of his argument is compelling. Oh, and if you've never read any of his opinions, his opinion in the DOMA case is worth the read. Even though I like the Court's ruling, his dissent is much better written and more logical than the majority opinion, and - frankly - entertaining. He never disappoints me.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Paula Deen and the "N" Word
I do not watch cooking shows. Not any more, that is. I used to watch Julia Childs (The French Chef), but only because my mother did. The Food Network and my television are strangers. The ratio of time on ESPN to time on The Food Network at my house approaches infinity, falling short only because I once paused while scrolling to take brief notice: Oh, that's who Paula Deen is.
Now I see she is in the news. Something about a racial discrimination lawsuit, and the question was posed to her whether she had used the "N" word. The answer was yes. The woman is 66 years old and grew up in the American South. Would anyone believe her if she had said no?
I have always been fascinated by the use of words. So what about the "N" word? Superficially, its origin is straightforward. Black. Same as negro. Same root as place names Niger and Nigeria. That reminds me of a Philadelphia city councilman who was introducing dignitaries visiting from Nigeria and referred to them as "our friends from Nigeria," except that he pronounced the first two syllables of that country's name like the racial slur: "nigger-ee-yah," accent on the "ee." I couldn't believe my ears.
So the "N" word means black. But it means so much more. It means, typically, that the user of the word regards black people as different. It says your people are different from mine, inherently inferior, and deserving of disdain or even hatred. That is a lot to pack into a single word.
Throughout human history we have identified others as being different from ourselves in various ways, including appearance and belief systems. Having thus characterized them as different, we have used those differences as a pretext for fighting wars against them, taking their land, and raping, brutalizing, killing, or enslaving them. By contrast, the modern era is a period of relative enlightenment, running counter to the patterns of behavior that have marked most of the story of our species.
Now I see she is in the news. Something about a racial discrimination lawsuit, and the question was posed to her whether she had used the "N" word. The answer was yes. The woman is 66 years old and grew up in the American South. Would anyone believe her if she had said no?
I have always been fascinated by the use of words. So what about the "N" word? Superficially, its origin is straightforward. Black. Same as negro. Same root as place names Niger and Nigeria. That reminds me of a Philadelphia city councilman who was introducing dignitaries visiting from Nigeria and referred to them as "our friends from Nigeria," except that he pronounced the first two syllables of that country's name like the racial slur: "nigger-ee-yah," accent on the "ee." I couldn't believe my ears.
So the "N" word means black. But it means so much more. It means, typically, that the user of the word regards black people as different. It says your people are different from mine, inherently inferior, and deserving of disdain or even hatred. That is a lot to pack into a single word.
Throughout human history we have identified others as being different from ourselves in various ways, including appearance and belief systems. Having thus characterized them as different, we have used those differences as a pretext for fighting wars against them, taking their land, and raping, brutalizing, killing, or enslaving them. By contrast, the modern era is a period of relative enlightenment, running counter to the patterns of behavior that have marked most of the story of our species.
But the contrast is less marked than we should hope. I am only a little more than a decade younger than Paula Deen, but I grew up in one of the nation's most segregated cities (Philadelphia), and racism was everywhere. And it was bidirectional. I experienced physical and verbal abuse because I was white. I was ignored and refused service in a diner because I hadn't realized it was in a black neighborhood where I was unwelcome. And there was plenty of use of the "N" word.
When I was in college there was one summer I worked in a genetics research lab during the day and drove a cab in the evenings. One evening I was driving down a street in North Philly being stared at by children playing on the sidewalks. It took a bit of thought to realize their faces bore expressions of wonderment because they had never seen a white person, except on TV. That is segregation.
We all know the "N" word's meaning varies with the user. When blacks use it themselves, it can be funny, teasing, playful. But it can also be scolding. I know better, as an outsider, than to try to sort out those nuances. It does, however, trouble me that sometimes it may reflect at least a little bit of self-hatred, a phenomenon all too common among members of minority groups struggling with opposite impulses to assimilate into a culture that often denigrates them while maintaining their distinct identity.
I had a friend in high school, now an attorney, who used a different "N" word. At the time I had little insight, but now I find it disturbing. It reflected some of that group self-hatred. Socioeconomically he was a member of the black middle class, but he lived smack in the middle of the urban ghetto. And he regarded the black urban underclass as different, in much the same way middle class whites did. He referred to them with obvious disdain. His "N" word was "the natives." In using that word he was labeling them as different, recognizing that their milieu was far removed from white middle class society, which was the stratum of America in which he saw himself belonging. The choice of word conjured up an image of African tribesmen, scantily clad, such as one might find on the pages of a contemporary issue of National Geographic.
Usually when I write an essay for this blog, I think I have some little topic of interest all figured out - at least to the point of being able to capture the important questions we should be asking about it and trying to answer. The "N" word is an awfully large subject for a brief essay. I have been reading Michael Burlingame's superb biography of Lincoln. It is definitely a "man and his times" sort of opus, and so there is much to learn about 19th-century America within its pages. The attitudes of white America toward blacks are shocking. The use of the "N" word is painfully ubiquitous. Burlingame pummels the reader with it in certain passages, perhaps because he knows the modern reader otherwise just won't "get" the difference between the way whites viewed blacks then and now.
There have been times when I've thought there was an awful lot of fuss being made over the "N" word. After all, blacks sometimes use it themselves. And what blacks want to be called has changed from generation to generation. There was a time when they had no problem with being called "colored." The organization NAACP captured the legitimacy of that word in its name. Then they preferred Negro, then black, and now African-American.
But there is no question that the fuss made over the "N" word is very real, and very important. It bears all of the intense hatred toward others who are different. It is a reflection of the deeply troubled history of relations between the races in a country whose founders were unable to abolish the great evil of African slavery, who instead wrote it into our Constitution. Jefferson knew it would later ring "like a firebell in the night" and tear the nation apart. A century and a half ago it did just that. The process of reconstruction, begun after the Civil War, continues today. And the "N" word gets in the way, every time it is used.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
The Anniversary Phenomenon
Life is full of personal tragedies. Events that bring great sadness and intense grief are inevitable. Those who have experienced them often discover the anniversary phenomenon. When the event was a death, this may occur on the anniversary of the death, or it may be on the person's birthday.
Julia Grace was born on June 5, 1989. So today she would have been 24 years old. That is how I have thought about it every year. She was little past three months of age when she died. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is surely one of the most wrenching things that can happen to a family. Parents blame themselves, or each other. The sense of loss is overwhelming.
I have never thought of myself as an emotionally open or demonstrative person. Before that day in September, I think I had not cried since I was a small boy. But Julia's death began a period of many months during which there did not pass a single day on which I did not, at some point, find myself in tears.
Donna, my wife, blamed herself. I knew that was a normal reaction. I devoted a lot of time and effort to trying to convince her that it was not her fault. At the very least, I wanted her to know that I held her blameless. SIDS has torn apart many married couples. That would not happen to us. She sought counseling and found a support group. It seemed to help. And she read books. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, was very good. And When Mourning Comes: A Book of Comfort for the Grieving, by William Silverman and Kenneth Cinnamon, also offered some insight and solace.
I briefly perused the books. The support group was not for me. I didn't want to talk about it. Not about the death, not about my feelings. I was not shutting out the event or pretending the grief wasn't there. I just didn't want to talk about it. I would look inward. Introspection was my nature. I would wrestle this demon on my own. I knew that every time I pinned it, it would get back up. I also knew that it would eventually realize it could not destroy my inner peace, and it would give up.
I was wrong. It has never given up. It comes around every June 5th to remind me how I felt that day when we found Julia Grace in her crib, motionless, not breathing, with a slightly dusky color. She had not been ill in any way. She was an extraordinarily pleasant infant. She was easy to care for, fussed little, cried less. Other infants, including her older sister Diana, could be fussy and cranky even when they were entirely well. Diana didn't sleep through the night until I don't know when, but it seems it was long after that should have happened. And she was a bit colicky. Not Julia. She was placid. When she wasn't happy, she frowned.
Donna and I couldn't help finding this amusing. It was just part of the whole package. A very pleasant baby who let us know, on the infrequent occasions when she was out of sorts, with a frown. No screaming. No fussing. Just a frown.
I read a lot about SIDS. I found a research neonatologist, Robert Guthrie, who could tell me what was known about the syndrome. There was (and still is) much more unknown than certain. I invited Dr. Guthrie to the small town where I was practicing emergency medicine at the time to give a lecture on the subject for the hospital's medical staff, most of whom knew as little as I did about it. They all came, even the ones whose medical specialties would never bring them into contact with SIDS babies or grieving parents. I thought it was because they were interested. Only over the subsequent years did I realize they were there to show their sympathy with my sense of loss.
I learned about how people don't know what to say. I was very fortunate, though, in that I was surrounded by people with enough insight to know it didn't matter what they said. All they had to do was ask, "How are you doing?" I would talk if I wanted to, and they would listen, and they knew that was the right thing to do. Mostly I just said the pain was diminishing very gradually, and I was hopeful that eventually life would get back to normal.
Equally fortunate was the absence of people foolish enough to say, "I know how you feel." Because no one does, unless there is truly a shared experience. And I guess that's what support groups are for. But I didn't care about talking to people who really did know how I felt. I was entirely satisfied just to know that my friends cared about how I felt, even if they couldn't fully understand it.
Always one to try to look on the positive side of things, I must say that was quite a challenge. I was quite sure there was no positive side, no redeeming virtue to this event in my life that I would have given anything to have been spared. And then I found myself talking to a mother whose young infant had just died of SIDS. Found at home, EMS summoned, resuscitative efforts unsuccessful, as they almost always are. And this young woman was beside herself with grief.
I knew how she felt. What were the odds? How likely was it that the doctor at the hospital to which her lifeless infant was taken would really know what she was going through? I knew she wouldn't remember much of what I said to her that day. So I focused on just two things. First, I told her mothers blame themselves, and it was important for her to know it hadn't happened because of anything she had done or failed to do. Second, I said it was important for her to know it hadn't happened because she was being punished for not being a good enough mother or for anything she may have done in her life that she regretted. And I told her if she wanted to talk to someone who could give her medical information about SIDS and also understood what she was going through, she could call me. Then I called her pediatrician and set in motion the series of events that must follow any sudden, unexpected death. I hoped the medical examiner would be as caring and respectful as the one who had investigated Julia's death.
Over the years since, this scene has been replayed too many times, although the incidence of SIDS in the United States has declined by about 50% since then. The teaching of parents to put infants to sleep on their backs may be playing a role, although that, too, is incompletely understood.
Shared experience makes the difference between sympathy and empathy. As I look back over the last 24 years, I still would give anything not to have had the experience that enables me to feel genuine empathy with grieving parents. But I cannot change that, and so I will make the most of it by using it to help others when I can.
Julia Grace was born on June 5, 1989. So today she would have been 24 years old. That is how I have thought about it every year. She was little past three months of age when she died. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is surely one of the most wrenching things that can happen to a family. Parents blame themselves, or each other. The sense of loss is overwhelming.
I have never thought of myself as an emotionally open or demonstrative person. Before that day in September, I think I had not cried since I was a small boy. But Julia's death began a period of many months during which there did not pass a single day on which I did not, at some point, find myself in tears.
Donna, my wife, blamed herself. I knew that was a normal reaction. I devoted a lot of time and effort to trying to convince her that it was not her fault. At the very least, I wanted her to know that I held her blameless. SIDS has torn apart many married couples. That would not happen to us. She sought counseling and found a support group. It seemed to help. And she read books. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Harold Kushner, was very good. And When Mourning Comes: A Book of Comfort for the Grieving, by William Silverman and Kenneth Cinnamon, also offered some insight and solace.
I briefly perused the books. The support group was not for me. I didn't want to talk about it. Not about the death, not about my feelings. I was not shutting out the event or pretending the grief wasn't there. I just didn't want to talk about it. I would look inward. Introspection was my nature. I would wrestle this demon on my own. I knew that every time I pinned it, it would get back up. I also knew that it would eventually realize it could not destroy my inner peace, and it would give up.
I was wrong. It has never given up. It comes around every June 5th to remind me how I felt that day when we found Julia Grace in her crib, motionless, not breathing, with a slightly dusky color. She had not been ill in any way. She was an extraordinarily pleasant infant. She was easy to care for, fussed little, cried less. Other infants, including her older sister Diana, could be fussy and cranky even when they were entirely well. Diana didn't sleep through the night until I don't know when, but it seems it was long after that should have happened. And she was a bit colicky. Not Julia. She was placid. When she wasn't happy, she frowned.
Donna and I couldn't help finding this amusing. It was just part of the whole package. A very pleasant baby who let us know, on the infrequent occasions when she was out of sorts, with a frown. No screaming. No fussing. Just a frown.
I read a lot about SIDS. I found a research neonatologist, Robert Guthrie, who could tell me what was known about the syndrome. There was (and still is) much more unknown than certain. I invited Dr. Guthrie to the small town where I was practicing emergency medicine at the time to give a lecture on the subject for the hospital's medical staff, most of whom knew as little as I did about it. They all came, even the ones whose medical specialties would never bring them into contact with SIDS babies or grieving parents. I thought it was because they were interested. Only over the subsequent years did I realize they were there to show their sympathy with my sense of loss.
I learned about how people don't know what to say. I was very fortunate, though, in that I was surrounded by people with enough insight to know it didn't matter what they said. All they had to do was ask, "How are you doing?" I would talk if I wanted to, and they would listen, and they knew that was the right thing to do. Mostly I just said the pain was diminishing very gradually, and I was hopeful that eventually life would get back to normal.
Equally fortunate was the absence of people foolish enough to say, "I know how you feel." Because no one does, unless there is truly a shared experience. And I guess that's what support groups are for. But I didn't care about talking to people who really did know how I felt. I was entirely satisfied just to know that my friends cared about how I felt, even if they couldn't fully understand it.
Always one to try to look on the positive side of things, I must say that was quite a challenge. I was quite sure there was no positive side, no redeeming virtue to this event in my life that I would have given anything to have been spared. And then I found myself talking to a mother whose young infant had just died of SIDS. Found at home, EMS summoned, resuscitative efforts unsuccessful, as they almost always are. And this young woman was beside herself with grief.
I knew how she felt. What were the odds? How likely was it that the doctor at the hospital to which her lifeless infant was taken would really know what she was going through? I knew she wouldn't remember much of what I said to her that day. So I focused on just two things. First, I told her mothers blame themselves, and it was important for her to know it hadn't happened because of anything she had done or failed to do. Second, I said it was important for her to know it hadn't happened because she was being punished for not being a good enough mother or for anything she may have done in her life that she regretted. And I told her if she wanted to talk to someone who could give her medical information about SIDS and also understood what she was going through, she could call me. Then I called her pediatrician and set in motion the series of events that must follow any sudden, unexpected death. I hoped the medical examiner would be as caring and respectful as the one who had investigated Julia's death.
Over the years since, this scene has been replayed too many times, although the incidence of SIDS in the United States has declined by about 50% since then. The teaching of parents to put infants to sleep on their backs may be playing a role, although that, too, is incompletely understood.
Shared experience makes the difference between sympathy and empathy. As I look back over the last 24 years, I still would give anything not to have had the experience that enables me to feel genuine empathy with grieving parents. But I cannot change that, and so I will make the most of it by using it to help others when I can.
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