Miscarriage is, without doubt, a particularly sad thing. I have, by God’s grace, never had to face it as an issue myself but I am conscious of so many who do. I can only imagine the heartache that attends it.

I can, then, fully understand and welcome moves by the government to grant baby loss certificates for those who have suffered a miscarriage before 24 weeks of pregnancy that acknowledges such grief. The Guardian report:

Baby loss charities welcomed the move, which they hope will help bereaved parents manage the pain and trauma of their loss.

Parents in England who have lost a baby in such circumstances at any time since September 2018 will be able to request a new baby loss certificate through the gov.uk website from 9am on Thursday.

Millions of people could potentially apply for a certificate, experts said. The certificate will be an official but not legal document.

Victoria Atkins, the health and social care secretary, said: “Losing a baby can be a hugely traumatic event and the introduction of certificates to formally acknowledge the loss of a life is a positive step towards better supporting women and parents affected.”

The Guardian also report that Ruth Bender Atik, the national director of the Miscarriage Association, said:

For many, if not most, people, even the earliest of losses can be deeply distressing, both emotionally and physically.

“It means the loss not only of this pregnancy but also of the hopes, plans and dreams that they had for this new life. And having no formal acknowledgement or marker of their loss can compound their grief.”

The certificates “will make a genuinely positive difference to many who have experienced pregnancy or baby loss, offering formal recognition of the tiniest of lives”

Similarly worthy of note are comments from Samantha Collinge, the bereavement lead midwife at the George Eliot hospital trust in Nuneaton, and co-chair of the pregnancy loss review that the government commissioned in 2018. She said this is a ‘milestone moment for people who have suffered baby loss. Miscarriage, and other types of pre-24 weeks baby loss, is often minimised and treated as a ‘clinical event’ or ‘just one of those things’ rather than the loss of a baby, and sadly the emotional impact of the loss is often disregarded.’

Also, Zoe Clark-Coates, the chief executive of the Mariposa Trust and co-chair of the review, said ‘I’m thrilled that from today millions of families will finally get the formal acknowledgement that their baby existed and I hope this will help their grieving process.’

All round, it is hard not to be pleased and welcome such moves. And it seems everyone is welcoming them. Miscarriage before 24 weeks is incredibly sad. It is a real loss. It is truly excellent that we are now recognising that there has been a sad loss of life and a baby really existed. Everyone should, and seemingly is, welcoming this news.

Which obviously raises a very particular question. If everything said by all the women above is true, and everyone really does mean exactly what they are saying, then miscarriage before 24 weeks pregnancy is “loss of life” and is “baby loss” and these certificates necessarily and rightly acknowledge “their baby existed”. All (in my view) absolutely true and wonderful that we now formally recognise this. The question is, if what they say here is true of miscarriage before 24 weeks, why is not true of abortion before 24 weeks?

It cannot be simultaneously true that a pre-24 week foetus purposefully terminated is not a real baby, is not loss of human life and ought to be euphemistically called “abortion” because it does not involve a human baby yet a pre-24 week foetus that is miscarried is a real baby, represents the loss of human life and is rightly (and now formally) called “baby loss”. One of those positions necessarily has to be untrue, doesn’t it? Given we’re all welcoming the formal recognition of baby loss in miscarriage at 24 weeks, doesn’t that cause us a significant problem for the abortion is not baby loss position?

No doubt some of us are happy with the cognitive dissonance here. But either people who have miscarried pre-24 weeks pregnancy really need to grow up and stop moaning about the deeply insignificant clump of cells that denatured inside them or we have to accept that actively doing to viable foetuses what we are properly and rightly mourning as baby loss is to quite literally kill real human babies in utero. We cannot have that both ways. If we want to meaningfully grant the legitimacy of grief to those who miscarry and wish to recognise their suffering as “baby loss” then we necessarily have to insist that those who conduct abortions are killing babies. If we want to insist that aborting foetuses pre-24 weeks is nothing more than aborting a clump of cells, those grief-stricken parents who have suffered miscarriage pre-24 weeks need help to come to terms with the fact that they have lost little more than some cells akin to having scraped some skin off their elbow.

But it seems we are now in the ludicrous situation of affirming Schroedinger’s foetus. It is simultaneously both a baby and not a baby. We are simultaneously aborting a non-human and mourning baby loss. It is something of a nonsense and doesn’t take very much to see the glaring inconsistency here.

Of course, I am delighted that we are now recognising miscarriage pre-24 weeks is something to mourn, is a legitimate point of sadness and is rightly termed “baby loss”. I hope we might join those dots and similarly recognise that if it is baby loss when we don’t intend it, there is still clearly a lost baby when we do.