As most of you know, I’m a sooky little adopted kid, so I tend to get pretty opinionated about the abhorrent state of the adoption system in Australia. It’s a disgrace, and consequently, far too many beautiful yet infertile couples will miss out on what I believe is life’s greatest gift … becoming a parent.

Parenthood - the dream of so many

Then there’s the issue of abortion. I know a number of women who have made the inconceivably difficult decision to abort a baby, for many different reasons. I tried not to judge these friends, just offer love and support, as I do believe that it’s a decision you cannot even contemplate unless you have walked in their shoes.

That all said, as a child of adoption, boy am I glad my mum didn’t have an abortion and instead decided to ‘gift’ me to a loving couple desperate to have a baby. Phew! Personally, I don’t think I could do it – refer to the sooky little adopted kid comment above, but that’s because of my particular circumstances.

How I imagine I was delivered to my mummy & daddy ...

And then I learnt about the fertility world’s “dirty little secret”, thanks to 60 Minutes last night, called “selective reduction”. Put simply, selective reduction is when a mother chooses to end the life of one or two of her babies and continue with a single pregnancy. (You can check out the transcript here, but at the time of posting they hadn’t yet loaded the video.)

What the hell? These aren’t women who accidentally fell pregnant and for whatever reason couldn’t see the pregnancy through and look after a baby. These are women desperate for children – wanting to become mothers. In most cases, they have undergone IVF in order to become a parent.

But apparently you’re now able to select exactly how many foetuses “live”. And generally we’re not talking sick babies; we are talking completely healthy foetuses. Oh, and technically it’s not an abortion, so says the doctor who invented this procedure, as the definition of abortion is to “end a pregnancy”.

The American mothers interviewed cited different reasons for choosing to end those two little lives – it would have been too difficult and costly to raise triplets, the health risks associated with a multiple pregnancy, and one woman even said something along the lines of, “human beings are only supposed to give birth to one baby, not three – we aren’t made to birth a litter”. Tell that to the millions of parents with twins, triplets and the like who were gifted these “litters” without IVF intervention … the natural way.

This story really pissed this little adopted kid off. Not just because these women appear to be the most ungrateful “parents” in the world. (Sorry, yes we wanted one, not three, so could you please dispose of the other two as having three will be far too difficult and won’t really fit with the lifestyle we want to live, thanks anyway.) But because they have selfishly passed up the opportunity to give two beautiful little babies up for adoption – to give infertile couples desperate to be parents the greatest gift of all … a baby.

The way I see it, and many of you will disagree with me (which is fine – life would be boring if we all had the same opinions), if you’re going to go through with a pregnancy anyway, why the hell not carry all three to full-term and, if you really, truly can’t handle the pressure of triplets, give two up for adoption? I have no doubt it would be bloody difficult, but isn’t that a better option that picking two foetuses to dispose of? (And I don’t want to get into the ‘when does life start’ debate …)

So many would see triplets as a gift, challenging as hell, but a gift all the same ...

Watching this story made me think of my adoptive parents, my dear friend, Genine, my uncle and aunty who have tried every fertility treatment on the planet, and another friend who has been told that there’s no point even trying IVF – she won’t ever be able to have a baby, and oh, by the way she’s too old to even think about adopting. These women on 60 Minutes are the lucky ones – they fell pregnant (which was the plan) and not with one but three.

A shame they couldn’t see past the inconvenience and potential (worse case) health risks and see the pregnancy through – to either keep those beautiful babies and deal with the massive changes they would bring (not doubt having triplets would be super difficult), or to appreciate the beautiful gift they could give other parents, just like them.

So, I open up the floor for discussion. What do you think? Is selective reduction the same as abortion? Should the mothers have kept their babies and given them up for adoption? Am I being far too judgemental?

Alli x

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