Meghan Markle’s miscarriage revelations highlight tragic royal truth

When it comes down to it, the reason The Crown has proven so popular is that it does something mundane but unprecedented: it humanizes the royal family.

Over the course of four series, we see that they are so … normal.

And yet we would never have really seen and understood it if it weren’t for the Netflix series, because being a member of the royal family is living a life brutally divided into public and private.

Now, Meghan Duchess of Sussex, metaphorically speaking, took a sledgehammer with that particular arrangement, posting an essay on her hitherto unknown miscarriage in July this year.

In the article, published in the New York Times, the 39-year-old writes that one morning earlier this year, “I felt a sharp cramp. I dropped to the ground with him in my arms, humming a lullaby to keeping us both quiet, the happy melody contrasted with my feeling that something was not right.

“I knew as I hugged my firstborn that I was losing the second.”

She then takes the reader into her hospital room with her husband, Prince Harry, and describes “her knuckles, wet with our tears.”

The Duchess’s story of the loss of her and her husband Harry is eloquent and deeply moving. Your goal is to break the silence around pregnancy loss with the power to simply ask another person, “Are you okay?” as a means of healing.

With this Times article, Meghan has skillfully and powerfully demonstrated the staggering reach and impact that members of the Queen’s family can have to immeasurably change public conversations on taboo topics or subjects.

Reading Meghan’s article, the thought struck me: This is the kind of thing Diana, the Princess of Wales would have done if she had been a young princess today and experienced a similar loss.

What Diana understood was the amazing power of her royal position to change public opinion with astonishing speed and force.

In the 1980s, when HIV and AIDS spread around the world, people faced extreme stigma and ostracism. In 1987, Diana was invited to the opening of an AIDS ward at Middlesex Hospital and was photographed shaking the hand of an HIV-positive man. Such was the fear and shame surrounding the disease that they would only shoot him with his back to the camera.

The effect of this simple gesture cannot be underestimated in profoundly changing the public conversation about what, until then, had been viewed as a deeply embarrassing disease.

Meghan’s piece is the equivalent of that moment in the 21st century.

The actress-turned-duchess clearly understands that she can choose any post, title, or platform in the world and that will happily help her spread whatever message she wants.

More than that, she understands the full impressive extent of its power and is more than willing to use it. She is willing to put her heart on her sleeve for the sake of other women, all over the world, whether she defeats the royal custom or not.

The impact of the duchess’s piece is sure to be seismic, but it also sheds a particularly sad truth about real life: that to be a front-line member of the royal body is to accept the largely unspoken dictation that personal suffering must be maintained. , for the most part, firmly in secret and out of the public eye.

If Meghan were still a high-ranking member of the royal family today, if she had experienced a miscarriage and wanted to go public with her loss to support others experiencing the same trauma, I find it hard to believe she would have been given permission.

Consider this: Kate, Duchess of Cambridge has three children and yet we do not know, and will never know, if she too has suffered this terrible tragedy that affects 10-20 percent of pregnancies.

That is an extraordinary tragedy in itself.

In 2001, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, wife of Prince Edward, was rushed to hospital after collapsing at home and undergoing emergency surgery. Had a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace issued a statement to the press, not once using the words “pregnancy” or “baby” and saying “I cannot comment on the nature of the operation; this is medical in confidence. Condition is described as comfortable “.

Today it reads like they are trying to throw an embarrassed and awkward blanket over the whole situation; that the palace did not dare openly address what had actually happened since it involved the disgust of the female parts.

Almost 20 years later, reading those cold phrases from a faceless palace speaker makes me want to rage: How dare they use such nondescript language, those weasel words to mask the immense pain Sophie and Edward must have been feeling ?

Meghan’s essay amounts to a blunt and truly impressive refusal to follow in the silent footsteps of the royal women before her.

What the news today highlights so perfectly and tragically is the underlying failure of the monarchy at this time to more substantially use its platform to break taboos and address the difficult but important issues facing society.

We have seen Prince William, Kate, Harry and Meghan take steps in this direction and each has spoken about their own personal mental well-being and has worked hard on the issue of mental health.

But here’s the question: is it enough? Is it enough for the royal family to trust its younger members to go out and bare their souls a bit? Is it enough that they defend certain issues that are already rapidly creeping into the mainstream, like climate change?

The royal family could give a voice to those without it and advocate for issues that are still on the fringes, such as trans rights. Instead, before Covid, the Court Circular was packed with visits to regional railway museums and endless charity roundtables.

They don’t have to worry about being eliminated, losing the shortlist, or being kicked out of the cabinet. Taking a more controversial stance here and there might generate some opinion pieces, but it won’t evict them from Buckingham Palace. My point is: they can afford to take the risk.

And yet they don’t.

When they speak, the world listens and remains in an irritating silence.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the royal family has a moral responsibility to use its global reach to bring about much greater change.

Now, Meghan has shown how much they are failing.

• Daniela Elser is a real expert and writer with over 15 years of experience working with various of Australia’s leading media outlets.