Pro Choice, but not the way you think...

My Tajik sister, who I'll just call D (so I don't keep writing her name over and over) is pregnant - for the sixth time. She has 5 daughters ranging in age from 8 months to 13 yrs. Baby #6 is due almost exactly a year from the birth of her current baby. As you probably know from my previous posts, it's really not favorable to have daughters, though any mother will tell you that daughters are a special gift to a mother in how helpful and responsible they are. In short, sons bring daughter-in-laws into the family and daughters get married off into other families. Sons work (ideally) and help provide for the whole family and daughters are working in the home of their in-laws. So there are some really practical reasons why couples want at least one son. Most problems are put on the women (it's all their fault, right?). To the point where the local family of a friend of ours influenced their son to divorce his wife right after their second baby died. Their first one had died a few years ago and just a few weeks ago their new 3 month old died. I'm just guessing from maybe a congenital heart defect - probably even operable in the developed world, but not even a thought toward something like that here. What do you think happened after the baby died? Was the grieving mother comforted? Nope. She was ridiculed and bad-mouthed and two days before the big holiday we just had, ending Ramadan, her husband divorced her (which, by the way, is done by him simply saying, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you." I'm not joking.) Can you imagine?

Returning to my sister, D. Her husband isn't around very much. He's in Russia working. There just aren't many jobs here so most men leave for some amount of time to Russia or Kazakhstan for work. She's living in the village with her in-laws (our Tajik family, the place where we lived our first month here) and her five daughters - who I must add are each so beautiful. Her youngest was born this past January (I'm pretty sure I blogged about that) and at birth was named, Madina. After 4 months, her dad renamed her Istatoi, which more or less means "stop." He said it was because this must be the end of the girls and the beginning of the boys. I was surprised to hear there would be more because D had told me that 5 kids were plenty. Sure enough, she immediately gets pregnant again, her husband leaves for Russia and she's asking me how early she would be able to know the gender of the baby. I told her sometime around 5 months, even 4 1/2. They (she and our family) insisted that in Tajikistan (even using OLD ultrasound equipment) that they can tell at 2 months. Well, she's 3 1/2 months now and has been to 5 ultrasounds so far and 2 of them said it looks like it may be a girl and the other 3 said they couldn't tell, it was too early. Her husband promptly said, "don't take a chance, just abort it."Of course, he's never even really been around for one of her whole pregnancies, let alone known what it felt like to have a life inside you and he's in Russia so it's not difficult for him to just order her on the phone to abort the baby. D's mother-in-law and father-in-law (our mom & dad here) are saying, "our son is being bad. He doesn't understand. All children are a gift from God. We'd be happy if they had 10 girls." D, is concerned that he'll take a second wife (you know, one that can give him some boys because it's all D's fault, right?) and is desperate for me to help her abort the baby. I told her that I love her so much, that we would raise her baby girl as our own if our governments would allow it, that I hurt for her but that I would have no part in aborting her baby. That our hearts would be sick and sad forever and that all life is precious to God. I'm writing all of this because coming from Portland, you are considered close-minded and right-wing if you aren't pro-choice - that's obviously a generalization, but the Portlanders all understand, don't you? Well, I am a different kind of pro-choice here. I wish a woman could choose to keep her baby, even if it's a girl. I wish a husband didn't have the right to just command a woman to abort their baby. It really puts a different spin on the idea of a woman's right to choose. 

I really hope that someday I can blog about something good that happened in this situation. We're praying, we're trying to be there for D and our family. I've even asked about adoption, but apparently foreigners aren't allowed to adopt Tajik children. I have to look into this some more and figure out if that's the law or what. If you think about it, would you pray for her (or think good thoughts or whatever you do) too? I wish she was the exception, but unfortunately there are countless women like her in this country. 

This picture is a recent picture of Hannah helping her Tajik grandma (D's mother-in-law) peel veggies for the holiday, Eidi Ramazon. She calls her "moma" which means grandma. I'm really happy to say that moma loves girls :)