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194 quý: “my decision depends on medical expertise” When I first met her, Quý was forty-one years old and lived in a village in Sóc Sơn district, northwest of Hanoi. On January 7, 2005, my colleague Hiê .p and I went to visit her and her husband, Hinh. Their house was new and well kept, and the yard outside it meticulously swept. Hinh invited us in. After seating us in the heavy wooden chairs in the main room of their house, he served us steaming-hot boiled corn “to keep you warm on this chilly day.” Telling us that their floor was cold at this time of the year, he placed two pairs of plastic slippers in front of us, insisting that we wear them. When I looked up, I noticed that, as in most homes, the ancestral altar was placed at the center of the room, on top of it a plate of fruit, a pot with incense sticks, and framed photographs of family elders. To one side of the room was another, smaller altar of the kind that people build for those who have suffered an early and untimely death. Two photographs of young men were hanging over this altar, one old and faded, another of a recent date. To begin with, Quý spoke very slowly and with an expression of intense sorrow. She told us that in 2002, at the age of sixteen, their son had suddenly died from a kidney disease. This had made Quý regret that she had acceded to her husband’s wishes to keep their family small: Hinh was a local official and a party member and it had been important for him to comply with the national family planning policy. Despite chapter 7 Questions of Conscience Questions of Conscience | 195 Quý’s wish to have a third child, therefore, he had insisted that they stop at two. The unexpected death of their son caused a family crisis. Hinh was the only man of childbearing age in their kin group; with his son’s death, there was no one to carry on the lineage. When Hinh died, the entire family line would perish. Quý felt too old to have another child, but her parents-in-law insisted, putting her and Hinh under intense pressure to produce another son. Four months into her pregnancy , Quý went to the district health center for an ultrasound scan. The fetus was found to be male, but the physician also informed her that it was abnormal. Hearing this, Hinh drove her immediately on the back of his motorbike to the obstetrics hospital in Hanoi. Here, the physician told Quý that there were large amounts of fluid on the brain of her fetus and advised her to terminate the pregnancy. But her parents-in-law were of a different opinion. In Quý’s words: My elders said, “This fetus is still small. It is only a couple of months old, so how can we know about its brain?” “Don’t be ridiculous (vớ vẩn),” they said; “it is still in the womb, so we cannot know for sure.” So I did not have an abortion. You see, in Vietnam, when you are married, you must follow your husband’s family (theo nhà chồng). So how could I make my own decision (làm sao mình quyết đi .nh cho riêng mình được)? Our elders said, “Some people want to have children but cannot have them. Now that you are pregnant , you should appreciate that.” They said, “If we see flowers, we appreciate flowers; if we see buds we appreciate buds.” Our entire family was happy that I was pregnant again, so they thought that I should keep this child. People who understand about science would have opted for an abortion, but our elders do not understand about science, so they encouraged me to keep it. If I had been able to decide on my own, I would have trusted the experts. . . . I’m a rural person, so I am ignorant (dốt nát), but I do trust science and the experts. When I went for the scan, the doctor asked, “Given this problem, what will you decide?” I said: “My decision depends on medical expertise. I cannot know. If you tell me to keep it, I will keep it. If you tell me to have a C-section, I will have a C-section. If you tell me to...

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