ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, June 21, 2007

Facing an agonizing decision, parents choose principle over pragmatism
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Sunday marked a momentous Father's Day for Ryan Morrison of Minnesota and Bryan
Masche of Arizona. Both men recently had become fathers — to six babies each.

Their wives conceived using fertility drugs that increase the risk of multiple
births, and both delivered sextuplets prematurely last week. All six Masche
children are alive. Three of the Morrison children have died.

The couples have more in common than their sextuplets. Both rejected medical
advice that they selectively reduce — abort — at least three fetuses to improve
the health prospects of the others. As Morrison explained on www.morrison6.com,
"We understand that the risk is high, but we also understand that these little
ones are much more than six fetuses. Each one of them is a miracle given to us
by God. He knows each one of them by name, and we will trust Him absolutely for
their lives and health."

Although the decision has elicited admiration from many Americans, some have
questioned their choice of principle over pragmatism. Was it right to protect
the lives of each sextuplet before birth at the increased risk of losing some
or all of those lives after birth?

More couples are asking that question as fertility treatments become more
aggressive and multiple pregnancies become more common. The greater odds of
multiple births that accompany fertility drugs can be offset partly by careful
monitoring of a woman's ovulation process. But some physicians monitor more
carefully than others, and sometimes the unexpected happens: A couple who spent
years trying to conceive finds their doctor advising selective abortion for a
high-risk multiple pregnancy.

The Washington Post Magazine recently profiled this problem. Writer Liza Mundy
shadowed Manhattan obstetrician-geneticist Mark Evans as he performed prenatal
testing on three women carrying multiples. He was searching for information
about fetal defects or gender to make selective abortion more acceptable to his
patients.

He had little success with the patients Mundy profiled. One woman sobbed and
covered her face with her hospital gown after seeing a sonogram of her three
healthy triplets, one of whom Dr. Evans would kill the next day by inserting a
needle full of potassium chloride into its tiny, pulsing heart. The second
woman, described as "clearly terrified and needle-shy," shrieked throughout the
testing process. Moments before the abortion of one of her triplets, the woman
asked if she could keep all three. A third woman came accompanied by her
lesbian partner, who marveled at the sonogram images of quadruplets, two of
whom Dr. Evans would eliminate the next day based partly on the couple's gender
preference. Although she later thanked the doctor, the woman expressed anguish
before the abortion. "It's killing me that we're going to do this," she said.
"I never thought I would feel that. I'm the most pro-choice person."

For couples who have waited years for a child, the sight of three, four or even
six pairs of little hands and feet waving from a sonogram tends to produce more
wonder than alarm. Selective abortion may result in better chances for a
healthy child — or, as Dr. Evans puts it, "the finished product." Yet something
within us recoils at the treatment of children as commodities to be selected or
discarded based on circumstances of conception or potential illnesses and
attributes.

When asked by Newsweek why they kept their sextuplets, Masche said, "We'd been
trying for three years, and my wife had had two miscarriages. And how do you
choose which heartbeat you want to stop? … God doesn't make mistakes. … He
creates all life for a particular reason."

Masche's logic defies the prenatal trend toward exalting parental preference
and healthy outcomes above all else. It witnesses instead to a deeper truth:
that the gift of new life deserves to be welcomed with love, even when it
carries the risk of heartbreaking loss.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St. Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.