Anna Levinzon photo
Aaron Gouveia and his wife were already having the worst day of their lives. Then came the abortion protesters.
“You’re killing your unborn baby!”
That’s what they yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives. As we entered the women’s health center on an otherwise perfect summer morning in Brookline, two women we had never met decided to pile onto the nightmare we had been living for three weeks. These “Christians” verbally accosted us—judged us—as we steeled ourselves for the horror of making the unimaginable, but necessary, decision to end our pregnancy at 16 weeks.
After extensive testing at a renowned Boston hospital three weeks earlier, we were told our baby had Sirenomelia. Otherwise known as Mermaid Syndrome, it’s a rare (one in every 100,000 pregnancies) congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together. Worse than that, our baby had no bladder or kidneys. Our doctors told us there was zero chance for survival.
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I’m not a religious person and I’ve never believed in heaven or hell. But there is a hell on Earth. Hell is sitting next to the person you love most and listening to her wail hysterically because her heart just broke into a million pieces. Hell is watching her entire body convulse with sobs because she’s being tortured with grief. For as long as I live and no matter how many children we have, I will never forget that sound. And I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure she’d never make it again.
Across a crowded street, two people with “God Is Pro-Life!” signs and pictures of torn-up fetuses managed to drive the blade in even deeper. Again, I was left trying to console the inconsolable, feeling even more helpless this time, because I wasn’t allowed into surgery with her.
Running on pure adrenaline, and without even a hint of a plan, I grabbed my cell phone and crossed the street. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, I just knew I wanted to make public the cowardice of these protesters.
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I learned a few important things from this encounter. First, these people aren’t used to being confronted. They prey on the weak and they pounce on the wounded. It’s easy to berate people and shame them when they’re too beaten down to fight back. But I chose to do just that, and you can see what happened.
They spout the same tired rhetoric passed out at rallies and subway stations. They don’t have one salient response to any of my questions.
The most telling thing about their cowardice is when the woman on the right gets upset that I’m recording the conversation (which is perfectly legal) and then threatens to call the police. The irony is rich. She wanted to call the police because I was peacefully expressing my opinion on a public sidewalk and exercising my First Amendment rights, which is exactly what she was doing. But I’m not on “God’s side,” am I.
She also claims the women at the clinic are suicide risks. Even if she believed that were true, does she really think yelling at them and shaming them in public is going to encourage these women not to kill themselves?
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After I took a walk and calmed down, it was time to pick up my wife and go home. When we pulled out of the clinic, the protesters were gone, and a police cruiser was parked nearby with the lights flashing. My wife, still groggy from the surgery, managed to crack a little smile, and asked, “What did you do?”
I have no idea if it was my interaction with the protesters that got them to leave. I doubt it was, but my wife was convinced that was the case. At first, I didn’t think of it as a big deal, and I actually felt a little foolish for getting so heated.
My wife, suddenly serious, pointed out a women entering the clinic. Within minutes, she said, that woman would be making a serious choice. Whether she kept her baby or not, it didn’t matter—what matters is that she can make the decision that’s right for her. And she can make it without people screaming at her.
My wife and I wanted our second child. We loved her. We even had a name for her, Alexandra.
You never know the circumstances surrounding this kind of decision. Consider this my plea: stop terrorizing women. Stop adding trauma to their trauma. If you’re able, stand up to these bullies in nonviolent ways. Speak out. And if you have a camera, use it.
—Read Aaron Gouveia’s follow-up piece to Confronting LIfe, ”I Will Lie To Patients (Well, Only If They’re Having An Abortion)”.
—Aaron Gouveia is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project Magazine. Want to know when Aaron’s next piece comes out? Sign up for our email mailing list. To learn more about The Good Men Project, click here.
About Aaron Gouveia
Vocalyze
Sigh. It’s unfortunate that so many people don’t see the hypocrisy in policing a woman’s sex life. Women have a right to choose when they become sexually active. Let’s just get that straight. Nobody is allowed to tell me that I’m not allowed to have sex. I am responsible when I have sex; I have been sexually active since I was seventeen years old (I am almost twenty one). I have had three partners. Not once have I gotten pregnant, nor have I had an STI. I’m also a middle-class girl with liberal parents who was taught sex-ed in a liberally slanted school district. I have a privilege here that a lot of kids don’t have; my parents taught me that sex is natural, and they taught me how to protect myself against STIs and pregnancy. So few kids get that education in this country, and THAT, my friends, is what leads to unwanted pregnancies. If this country weren’t so absolutely phobic about sex, there wouldn’t be nearly as big a problem.
Beyond that: It’s a woman’s choice to have an abortion. No matter the circumstances. If I were to become pregnant now, three quarters of the way through my undergraduate degree, with no way of supporting myself (not even enough money to pay for prenatal vitamins, for that matter) — why on earth should I be forced to become a mother? Because I decided to have sex? Even though sex is natural and feels good and I protect myself? Even though I have my whole life ahead of me and I’m creating a life for myself so that one day, in good conscience, I can give a child a good home?
Aaron, you and your wife made an incredibly difficult decision. I commend you on standing up for yourself when far too many women are left voiceless in the face of protesters who don’t seem to understand how personal a decision like this is. These women clearly didn’t understand that, but I hope they remember their conversation with you for the rest of their lives.
“Because I decided to have sex?” Actually, yes. That’s what sex is for. Making babies.
She should have kept the baby. Let it go naturally, even if it’s a still-born. At least she doesn’t have to deal with the grief that she killed it.
I’m sorry, but I almost cannot believe you are serious. I certainly don’t want to. Do you honestly believe that it would have been better for this poor woman, who is already emotionally traumatised by the discovery that an all-but dead baby is inside her, to carry the baby for nine months, put her body through pregnancy and birth (not to mention the potential medical complications that could occur during this time) only to have the child be stillborn or dead within the first few hours of its life?
Surely there would be no benefit to the child which would most likely not survive to be born and wouldn’t even be aware of its life, and there would be a world of harm done to its mother and her partner, who have to endure pregnancy with the knowledge that their baby was not going to live. The grief of allowing further attachment to form with their dead baby would certainly outweigh that of making the perfectly legitimate decision of aborting the pregnancy and saving themselves that extra pain.
I try my hardest to respect all people’s opinions, no matter how stupid I find them, but yours is truly a hard one for me to make peace with.
Actually, that happened to my aunt and uncle. My cousin had no brain, yet they chose to give birth to her, if only to hold her for an instant before they died. So yeah, she’s serious.
I can understand the argument that a parent deciding to end a healthy pregnancy might be morally wrong. But one with no chance of producing life which entails serious health risks for the mother??
Thats her call, noone elses. If she decides she needs to hold that baby at least once, then she should. But if she decides she doesn’t want to do that, it benefits noone (dead child included) to force her to do so.
The primary focus needs to be on the innocent little pre-born baby, who has a right to not be killed.
I’m sorry, who are you replying too? I didn’t come across any review above taking about a “primary focus.” Not that I disagree with you or anything, but we pro lifers have to choose our methods of arguments more carefully than that in this increasingly hostile environment to our kind of people.
Actually, Lauren, giving birth to a stillborn baby is extremely risky. Why lose two lives?
IпїЅпїЅm intrigued, I suppose you are an authority on this subject. Now i am subscribing to your upcoming revisions in the future.
It’s very hypocritical for you to pull out the “its my First Amendment right” when its their right too. You may not agree with them but they have the same rights you do, just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you can go yell at them and call them the lowest common denominator. You are the lowest common denominator for your actions towards those ladies.
“just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you can go yell at them”
That is EXACTLY what those ladies were doing in the first place. I think you’ll find the only hypocrisy here is coming from you. He went out and defended his wife in an extremely polite manner given the circumstances and the turmoil and stress he was assuredly under. If that is him on a bad day I commend him no end for his restraint and decency in the face of such blind, ingorant intolerance.
Hear hear
“You may not agree with them but they have the same rights you do, just because you disagree with them doesn’t mean you can go yell at them and call them the lowest common denominator.”
It is not their right to deny anybody their rights. End of story.
Killing a child is not a right.
Hear, hear!
“It’s very hypocritical for you to pull out the “its my First Amendment right” when its their right too.”
Yes, everyone does have a right to share their opinion. But there’s something called being a decent human being and respecting the feelings of others. Yelling at people who have made the hardest decision of their lives is not going to change their minds. However, knowing that a complete stranger thinks that you’re the scum of the earth for carrying out your decision is more pain than anyone should have to bear. Sharing your opinion is fine. Just don’t do it in a way that is going to hurt people…especially those who are already hurting.
The First Amendment allows you to say anything you want. But it’s your job to know when and where to say it.
He did nothing to them or their first amendment that they hadn’t already done to him and his wife.
These protesters were wrong to say what they said and in the way that they said it.
Aaron I think it very likely that you made them think very deeply about their behavior. My problem however is with Doctors and a medical profession that advises, or prompts you to have an abortion in such circumstances.
Why is bringing such a child into the world, even for only a few hours (minutes even) the wrong choice medically or in any other sense? Why are doctors prompting one choice over another? Is meeting the daughter you named and wanted to have and to say goodbye to not something that we encourage as a healthy and cathartic way of approaching our grief at such a painful loss?
We ought to question why as a society in so many circumstances abortion is seemingly always the only option?
Why for example are Keavy and many other students in a position where becoming a mother is not an option? If it’s not a realistic option can it be said to be a genuine choice at all?
So your saying it is healthy for a woman to carry a child for several months, feel it kicking, bonding wit even thoughbe she knows it wont survive out of utero? I, personally, would call that torture. I for one would be tortured no end, carrying what feels like a normal and healthy child though i KNOW it isnt. Feeling my daughter inside knowing her life would come to an unfair ending. Knowing their is nothing that i could do. I would rather deal with the grief sooner than go through that torment.
As someone who has been through three miscarriages – the last time after being told by my doctor to terminate otherwise it would kill me… I can’t see that anyone would terminate by choice, it would be the last thing they’d want to do.
I feel lucky that I wasn’t in the USA and tortured for what happened. Or being screamed at to keep a hold of something that could never come to life. The depression alone… dear God.
These so-called prolifers should put down those horrible photos and signs and bend their anger into assisting and loving women who are in need of termination.
Susie,
If your doctor told you to terminate otherwise your pregnancy would kill you I would seriously question the professionalism of your doctor
Cos there is no way whatsoever that any such situation may arise and you would definitely no more than her GP, gyno and consultants!!
There are many, many women who abort by choice. Every woman is different.
I think he’s saying that there are different solutions for different people.
Jess,
What you call torture I would call grief.
Clearly you are unable to comprehend what it’s like to be a woman in that situation. Grow a uterus and ovaries, get pregnant, and go through it yourself. Then maybe you’ll understand something, because right now you clearly dont.
Jess, I sympathize. The same thing happened to me with my second.
As a woman who’s been through an abortion and had to see those signs and deal with people screaming that (after the fact, a protest happens every year in my hometown) I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Those people make me sick. They have no idea why we go through this procedure. For me, it was my health. Carrying the pregnancy to term would have killed me, in all likelihood, and having an abortion was my only option. Now, every year, right around the anniversary of the abortion, I have to deal with those signs, etc. I think this year, I’m going to go have a talk with those people about their narrow minded ways.
You’ve inspired me to make a change in this world. Thank you so much.
Aaron I am so sorry for you and your wife’s loss, my daughter who is a year old was diagnosed with Caudal Regression Syndrome while I was pregnant with her, the doctors told us that there was a high chance that her liver and kidney would not form plus a whole slew of other dire prognoses. I cannot imagine what I would have felt like if I had to abort her, and on top of that a group of subhumans making your wife feel worse. She is so lucky to have a wonderful man like you supporting her, so few of the women who have to make that hard decision do. Kudos to you.
I used to volunteer at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas. Due to the layout of the neighborhood, all patrons had to cross a public street to get to the clinic (it has since moved). Every Saturday at least 2 protestors showed up to yell at young women. Our task was to meet them in the parking lot, explain about the protestors and how to identify the PP personnel, and offer to walk them to the door.
We would have advised you not to confront them. It could escalate into something that could get you arrested. Even though your behavior may be strictly legal, it’s not impossible that a protestor who would like to a young girl about a made-up risk of breast cancer from abortion would also lie to a cop about what you did. And if there are other protestors, they might do so also.
Even if there was no escalation, protestors may get personal satisfaction out of confronting you. They feel pride in martyrdom. They can also use the confrontation to drum up additional supporters to come out next week.
It’s totally understandable to want to tell off the street crazies, but it’s much effective to try to replace their fellow-travellers in state legislatures and congress who are, unfortunately, much more effective at denying women access to health care.
Aaron, you’re a hero. If it were me I would not be able to act as courteously as you did (because seriously, fuck these people). Bravo.
Bravo to you
I’m slightly pro-life: I think that late term pregnancies aren’t distinguishably less alive than a human infant and require society’s protection, but I can’t fathom the mind of someone who does this. I really can’t. Good for you for standing up to those bullies.
Mad props, dude. That was awesome.
“Tim Tebow was born in Makati City in the Philippines, to American parents who were serving as Baptist missionaries at the time. While pregnant, his mother suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors had expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion, even though illegal in the Philippines, to protect her life, but she decided not to have one.”
Doctors thought she would have a stillbirth, but she didn’t. Imagine if she had. Just because doctors say that such-and-such might happen, doesn’t mean it will. We can still choose to give a child a chance in this world. It is not our right to take their lives, no matter what the circumstances. My brother can’t feed or clothe himself. Do I have the right to take his life? No! He deserves to live just as much as I do.
Pro-life people are allowed to share their opinion. To be called names for standing up for their beliefs is childish and bullying. You can disagree with a person without calling names.
Tim Tebow had kidneys. And a bladder. And an anus. This is a TOTALLY different situation than Tim Tebow. Our baby was missing human organs necessary for survival. And as I hope you know, not even the almighty subpar backup quarterback of the New York Jets can miraculously grown human organs out of thin air. So unless you think the dozens of ultrasounds performed by some of New England’s best doctors were wrong or misread — or if you can tell me how to produce kidneys and bladders spontaneously — your Tebow explanation is completely moot and utterly pointless.
And you’re wrong in that it IS my wife’s right to decide what she wants to do with her own body. In this case, tragically our baby was not going to survive. So we made the best decision for us and that is not only our right, it’s the law of the land. You might not like it, but don’t tell me we don’t have the right to do what’s best for us. YOU don’t have the right to dictate what my wife can and can’t do with herself.
And again, your brother is alive. Our baby would never have survived out of the womb. And if you want to talk about name-calling, the pro lifers across the street were calling US names. I merely responded, and I didn’t even insult them that much. They called us murderers, the worst I called them was “lowest common denominator.” After all, you can hold a differing viewpoint without calling names. Take your own advice.
Mad props man.