As you may have noticed, I have been posting old videos of poetry recitations for several months now, mainly because I was pregnant again with my second baby. I found out on April 5, 2026. But by the evening of May 11, 2026, I received a terrible phone call from the ob-gyn’s office saying that our second baby was at high risk for trisomy 13, a devastating chromosomal abnormality. I cried on the phone with my husband once the news sank in. I felt exhausted, like a hollow shell of myself for the rest of the days before our next scheduled ultrasound a few days later. My thoughts spun around madly. The gender was discovered after the screening results: female. I felt as if two pieces of bad news had come up. I wish I hadn’t known the gender in case I lose her. It would be easier to stay separated emotionally from it. Of course, my husband came home, still hopeful and told our toddler about her new sister. I wanted to hurl an object at his head for being so dense. We cannot give her a name or talk about her to our child or maintain a sense of hope when the numbers were right there; there was a 30 percent chance she was coming out of this journey alive and well. To me, those odds sounded like death. I told him to stop speaking about her. Stop acknowledging my growing belly. Stop the world from spinning until we know that she is healthy.
On May 14, 2026, we went in for an ultrasound, and they found the nuchal fold to be thick and abnormal. Our second little girl most likely had trisomy 13, and it’s almost always fatal, with the baby having both severe physical and mental disabilities. At first, we thought it could be a false positive, but after a couple of ultrasounds over the next few weeks, we discovered that the fetus had abnormal brain, heart, and nuchal fold structures. So, sadly, by thirteen weeks, I had a dilation and evacuation surgery (aka an abortion).
So why am I sharing this publicly now? Well, one of my Patreon members wanted to know how Objectivism works in my life. While contemplating how to write about this topic, I thought this was an extremely relevant example of how it helps.
By the time the surgery occurred, the fetus no longer had a heartbeat. Of course, my husband and I were both devastated. I texted a lot with my family, who currently reside abroad, and I just had to bring Ayn Rand into our conversation about my abortion. Below are some of the relevant texts I sent in real time to my family and the arguments that got me through it, thanks to Objectivism:
“I’m just so grateful we have [my daughter], so we know that perfection is possible. But I’m probably now going to have two fetuses that didn’t make it. Oof.”
“I never realized how difficult it can be to create a child… We’re pretty darn lucky to be here and healthy.”
“I guess I’m glad that [my husband] and I are both atheists at times like these. Of course, Ayn Rand considered a fetus just a clump of cells without rights until birth. Though, never having a child herself, I don’t think she’d feel the same way if she saw her baby on an ultrasound and it had a spine, a head, and arms, and legs. So I feel like it’s more than just ‘a clump of cells’ past the first few weeks. But I also don’t believe like a religious person that they have innate knowledge about the world or some divine destiny that I’m destroying either—like they’re a fully functional adult. But I saw these crazy religious mothers online who will, if they can, keep the baby and give birth to them only for them to die hours or days later. They act like they have some godly duty not to end the pregnancy themselves. You are making everyone suffer tremendously in that situation. Or I’m sure some libtards do the same because ‘diversity is our strength.’ Some women don’t even take these newer early screenings and just wait to see what comes out. I just can’t. I think it’s cruel and dangerous. [My husband] is on the same page, though he’s a bit more hesitant when it comes to Down Syndrome, because they can live ‘happily’ until they’re into middle age. But I told him I also wouldn’t want that because it’s not fair to [my daughter] and it involves a life sentence for us of guilt and special education and adult daycares. I mean, give your child a fighting chance in this world for crying out loud. It’s not easy out here.”
“Anyway, I am relieved that we can find out earlier than back in the day and just start over if something is wrong. I wish I could swap this poor broken one out for a healthy baby and just carry on. [My husband] said it’s kind of a relief knowing that this is a fatal condition and not something we could try to make work…”
“Unfortunately, I also got home still feeling pregnant, like bloated and fatigued. It will take a few days for my body’s hormone, like HCG, levels to go down and to lose all the water I had retained for the baby. But, at least, now I can just recover and heal.”
“Yes, although some days have been more challenging than helpful with her around since she is a crazy toddler, climbing and getting into everything now. Lately she’s been pulling the stuffing out of our couch pillows. But it has been much easier, I think, seeing her through this whole ordeal and knowing that we can create a healthy, happy child.”
This last text is from June 12, 2026: “Just heard back from the genetic counselor and the good news is that it was not a genetic error carried from either of us—just an error. The bad news is that it was trisomy 13 and fatal.”
So there you have it. My sorrowful past few months dealing with losing another potential life. Objectivism helped me maintain a more rational perspective on what exactly I had lost—not a full-blown adult with their own set of values, but a fetus with the potential to have them. Even though Christians want to bulldoze over the idea that different values cause different levels of emotion and pretend that every loss is just as devastating as the next, it’s not true. Losing a fetus is painful, but it is not the same as losing a parent or a spouse or a child. The loss is still a loss and it is painful, don’t get me wrong, but it is not earth-shattering. My husband and I intend to try again soon.
To me, breastfeeding is not a sacrifice; bringing a physically and mentally disabled child into this world who will never be able to use the key tool for their survival: reason—that’s a sacrifice. The extreme Christians give up all self-autonomy, like when they refuse vaccines. Those hypocritical Christians accept scientific discoveries, like vaccines, but not when it comes to a chromosomal error. Then you must give up your entire life for a biological mistake because it’s still “God’s creation.”
We have not given up hope. Nature makes errors sometimes, but that does not mean the universe is not benevolent. It just is. We still have another low chance of producing a fetus with a chromosomal abnormality, but the chance remains just as low as before this fiasco, and it is more likely that we will have another perfect, healthy baby in the future.
About the Author: Kaitlyn Bankson is an American literary novelist. She writes psychologically driven literary fiction and hosts the Bankson Manor podcast. Read more of her work at kaitlynbankson.com.
Views Expressed Disclaimer: Please know that while I consider myself an Objectivist and my work is inspired by Objectivism, it is not, nor should it be considered, Objectivist since I am not the creator of the philosophy. For more information about Ayn Rand's philosophy, visit aynrand.org.
