Pastoral learning at Bellevue Hospital

Christian Century, August 30, 2000 by Chloe Breyer

PASTORAL ENGAGEMENT remained mysterious. How could I get involved with a patient's moral dilemma without, on the one hand, agreeing with everything he said, or on the other, imposing my views? The choice seemed to lie between relativism and closed-minded dogmatism. Although I never worked out a satisfactory answer to this puzzle in my own pastoral work, one of Mary's experiences let me glimpse a solution.

Mary had taken time off from the neonatal ward to visit the obstretics unit. A nurse on the ward pointed out a young woman who had just had an abortion; her mother sat beside the bed. Mary went over to introduce herself and began talking with the patient, an African-American in her early 20s.

The woman, called Tashi, wondered if she would be "forgiven" for what she'd done. Noticing the "confession" and "forgiveness" language, Mary inquired further.

The young woman and her mother had arrived at Bellevue a few days before, seeking an abortion for Tashi after the baby's father disappeared. on this point. At Bellevue, all had gone according to plan until they discovered, after the operation, that Tashi had been carrying twins.

"I don't know," Tashi told Mary tearfully. "Somehow when I heard that, it seemed like this was a gift. Something really special."

Mary caught the inconsistency. Twins would have been twice the work and demanded twice the resources of a single baby--all the more reason for their choice, if Tashi and her mother really meant what they said about being too poor to raise a child. Now Tashi cried that, had she known she was carrying twins, she might have kept them.

Then Mary did something pastoral. She pursued her curiosity and asked the young woman if she could talk more about her feelings.

Again, Tashi said it was because twins felt like a gift, a special thing.

Mary suspected there was more to the story. From the overbearing attitude of the mother, she gathered there was heavy maternal pressure on Tashi to keep up appearances even within her own family, most of whom had no idea what had taken place. This must have weighed heavily in the hasty decision to seek an abortion--getting rid of the child was the tragic means of saving face and avoiding shame.

Not once, however, did the church's or Mary's personal opinion on the morality of abortion enter their conversation. "Right" or "wrong" was never mentioned. By inquiring with sensitivity, compassion and natural curiosity into Tashi's situation, Mary engaged the young woman and her mother in an honest conversation about the abortion, a conversation they probably would not dream of having with someone in the church. Mary heard Tashi express her sorrow in the language of Christian faith, and opened the way for the young woman to continue talking with a priest or pastor who might help her to move beyond regret. Listening to Mary, I thought that the tragedy was not so much the abortion itself, but that such a large decision had been made so hastily and with no outside guidance. The church was the last place Tashi and her mother felt they could turn.