For the better part of two decades, I’ve been a blood donor. This is a simple matter of gratitude; people dear to me have benefited from transfusions. I’ve seen good outcomes.
Once of those outcomes began twelve years ago, and it’s affecting my life and my outlook on pro-life work to this day.
Ann Marie Banfield is a friend of mine. She takes delight in her family. On a volunteer basis, she works for good public policy on issues including the right to life, which is how I met her. She lives life to the full, and it’s not easy to slow her down.
At one point, something did. A hereditary disease began to manifest itself, and it started shutting down her kidneys.
Ann Marie is alive today because of a kidney transplant twelve years ago.
The disorder that laid her low, PKD, is caused by a faulty gene. “You’re born with the gene and it’s a slow process,” she told me. “Some people may not even know they have this, since it can be a slow disease, and it’s possible some patients never get to the point where they need a transplant.”
Ann Marie received a kidney from a live donor, her niece. Then and now, I’m in awe of such an astounding gift. What I didn’t know until after the surgery was how much Ann Marie depended on blood donors as well.
In order to prepare her immune system for the transplant, she needed to be infused with various medications. One of those substances was derived from a particular fraction of blood. Each dose was derived from three units of whole blood. That means that three blood donors who will never meet Ann Marie were figuratively at her bedside every time that life-giving substance went into her IV.
That’s a kind of pro-life ministry that doesn’t get a lot of attention. A remark from Ann Marie a few years after her transplant got me thinking about that. At that time, she was back in action at full throttle. She said to me in a rare calm moment, “I don’t know why the pro-life movement doesn’t do more with this.”
“This” is voluntary blood donation and organ donation. Donors gave Ann Marie her life back.
I asked her what the pro-life community can do to promote such donations. “Learn about the need, the process, and how that gift truly changes and saves lives.”
The process for both Ann Marie and her niece was long and exacting. “It’s amazing how easy it is to abort a child, but it’s extremely difficult to get through the process for a live donor to donate an organ,” she told me. The screening process involves much more than just determining physiological compatibility between donor and recipient. Protocols for informed consent and counseling are in place every step of the way, and there are no shortcuts. “The live donor is assigned a psychologist. The donor is asked questions to make sure she truly wants to do this and is not pressured in any way.” Again, she found the comparison with abortion impossible to avoid as she described the process to me. “It’s amazing what they go through to donate a kidney. If they want to abort a baby, none of this happens.”
Other parts of the world are haunted by the specter of trafficking in illegally-obtained organs. Ann Marie doesn’t envision that here. “I’m not aware of harvesting organs in the US. This would be big news. If there is fear or any scandal that would erupt, it would actually work against organ donation. After all, who would agree to sign [the donor consent on drivers licenses] if they even thought that was going on? It’s crucial for those who need organs to keep [the process] ethical and moral.”
I’ll be in the reclining seat at the Red Cross soon, being relieved of a unit of blood. I’ll hate the initial pinch as the needle is skillfully slipped into my arm. Then I’ll think of Ann Marie, and of the dialysis she endured while waiting for a kidney. I’ll think of all I’d miss – all that we’d miss – if she weren’t here with her mind, wit, energy, and deep faith in God. My apprehension will recede, as it always does, at the thought of her courage and that of her niece.
Think and pray about becoming a donor. A gift to someone who can never repay you, and in the case of a blood donation, who will almost certainly never know your name: pro-life, indeed.
Here’s to you, Ann Marie. May you flourish for many years to come.
This post is a revised and updated version of a post I wrote about Ann Marie in December 2014 on the Leaven for the Loaf blog.
Ellen Kolb 