Pro-life advertisements forget who pays highest cost

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Nancy A. Knox

The woman recoils in horror. "All over?" she mouths. After this scene, a paternal voice tells us "Every life is precious and should be saved." Lately, I have been reading stories of women who have changed their minds about an impending abortion and have been eternally happy they did. The story goes like this: woman decides against abortion, keeps baby, goes on to lovingly nurture the child and watch it grow. Everyone's happy. End of story.

Ironically, I saw this commercial at a place where babies seldom get happy endings, at my job in a group home for medically fragile children.

Most of our clients became medically fragile due to parental abuse.

They suffer from a variety of physiological and neurological ailments, a few of which include cerebral palsy, epilepsy, severe retardation, visual impairment, kidney failure and orthopedic problems stemming from multiple long bone fractures.

These are the result of severe shaking of the children by parents, repeated blows to the head, kicks to the back, beatings with blunt objects, etc.

Those who suffered their abuse in-utero via maternal drug use endure spinal malformations, cardiac anomalies, hearing loss and seizure disorders.

The most mobile of our kids are wheelchair-dependent. They are pierced with various tubes, medication-dependent and incontinent.

These conditions are not going to improve. This is their lot for the rest of their, often short, lives.

Instead of a nurturing mother, protective dad and devoted grandparents, they get neurologists, orthopedists and Child Protective Services caseworkers.

Sadly, every single one of them would have been normal children had it not been for their "loving parents."

Empathetic individuals often donate well meant but unusable gifts to the group home. We have a swing set never swung on, a pool never swam in, a sandbox never played in and bikes never ridden.

The one thing these kids could use is an item rarely donated: a happy, loving home.

Despite their many medical problems, these children are all up for adoption. In the nightmare of their lives, they wait for the dream of a loving family, the kind we watched in that commercial.

We have gone so far as to "advertise" them on the Internet in hopes of helping them achieve that end.

When a family does materialize for those lucky few, we rejoice. Then we go about cleaning up their room for the next child on our ever-growing waiting list.

Our rooms are always full.

The commercial also didn't mention those children who never even make it to a group home or similar place. In my job at University Medical Center, I often worked pediatric trauma. A disturbing percentage of the helicopter- or ambulance-ferried patients weren't accidents, but were victims of child abuse.

We lost 11 children in one summer to parental inflicted injury. We saw children who had been beaten, sexually violated with various instruments and burnt with everything from cigarettes to scalding bath water.

Even the doctors, normally a stoic bunch, would be moved to tears when we lost these children to the seemingly demonic ministrations of their parents.

Our job was to save them. Our only ally in that effort was usually Child Protective Services.

Mostly, they failed us. The children, given back to their parents upon completion of parenting classes, would be back. This time, the damage would be beyond salvation.

The commercial I viewed was pure propaganda. Everyone that has the ability to procreate does not have what it takes to be a parent.

The stress of parenting, coupled with poor parenting techniques, can cause irreparable damage.

The consequence is a population of children shuttled from social service agencies to hospitals to tiny little lots in cemeteries.

True parenting requires more from an individual than the ability to have sex. Parenting requires a plethora of skills and compassion.

Most importantly, the guarantee of birth does not guarantee good life.

The gift of life? For too many, more like a ticket to hell.

Perhaps we should not pressure every individual able to create life to sustain it. Is the sanctity of life worth the brutality and horror that the life may have to endure? Doesn't the true pain one may suffer at the hands of incompetent parents undermine the preservation of a fetus at all costs?

Before we decide to coerce everyone to preserve life at all costs, we should think about whom will pay the price.

Nancy A. Knox is a political science and sociology senior and can be reached via e-mail at Nancy.A.Knox@wildcat.arizona.edu. Her column, Processed Cheese Food, appears every Wednesday.