Somewhere in Olympia Washington is young woman I have never met, with whom I mourn.  Hers is one of the most unbearable stories I have heard.

The girl is a close friend’s niece, and this weekend she was having a baby shower, being around 3 weeks from her due date.  But in the course of the shower the baby wasn’t moving and friends and family became concerned.

A trip to the doctors office confirmed their worst fears:  Her baby was dead.

This is not an early miscarriage, when the baby was newly formed, this was a near full term baby, already named and eagerly anticipated.  And his cord slipped around his neck and suffocated him.  A tragic accident that no one could have foreseen. 

I cannot begin to understand her pain.  Her baby, that she still carries is dead.  All her dreams and hopes washed away by her biggest fear.

And then I contrast that to women like Jennifer Raper of Boston, who tried to abort her child but it botched and she gave birth anyway.  My friends niece mourns the loss of a baby, she mourns the birth of one.  My friends niece will need counseling and a lot of support from her family.  The other needs a lawyer for her lawsuit for the botched abortion.

I’m sure my friend’s niece would gladly trade her.

Sure, I am a guy and I cannot truly imagine the horror of this…or can I?  Yes actually I can.  There were two issues with my two sons that threatened their lives and it is something that I have to consider occasionally.  My sons may be trials to my sanity, but they are alive and healthy.

Few issues can get us to such raw emotions as childbirth can, and by extension, abortion.

Take Raper for example:  She allegedly sought her abortion because she could not financially handle a child.  Can I judge her on that?  Can I condemn her for her making that choice, particularly when we live in a society that preaches the power of choice?

Perhaps I can, but I won’t. 

I will instead wonder about the emotional scars and baggage that poor child will carry, knowing she was a failed abortion and knowing that she was the focal point of litigation based solely on the premise that she should not be alive.

Ever feel like you are not worth a whole lot?  This child will see her worth on the court documents.

Hopefully someday she can meet this young lady, Gianna Jessen.  Gianna was a failed abortion also, but of a different kind:

When Gianna’s biological mother was seven and a half months pregnant, she sought a instillation abortion — a now-rare procedure normally not performed after six months of pregnancy.

Consequently, Gianna Jessen was born alive and premature, with severe damage that resulted in physical atrophy and cerebral palsy.

Her biological parents, who were both 17, put her up for adoption, and she since has became a vocal advocate against abortion, speaking even to the British House of Commons.

She has also made some startling physical recovery, and entered a local marathon in 2005, and the London Marathon in 2006.¹

So maybe the fragility of life is not aways so fragile.  Some times miracles happen, like Gianna.  Sometimes life wins.  Sometimes it just plain kicks ass.

But more often not.  Most abortions are done and over with.  No harm done right?

My personal belief?  They are babies, not choices.  They are children, not procedures. 

And thankfully, more often then not, they are wanted and loved and cherished.  I will weep for our society if that ever changes, and I will continually pray it does not.

And even in retrospect, life is not safety, and is not a guarantee.  We had two high profile child deaths in the news these last few weeks, and you have parent’s neglect their children daily (often fatally) to the rapt attention of the television audience on the 6 o’clock news.  Cue up that Pat Benatar song.

I cannot answer any of it effectively.  I cannot make sense of it, of the theological ambiguities of when God takes a life and when he does not.  I can’t even answer authoritatively that he is even paying attention and this is not just a random event.

My faith is not strong enough.  I hope their faith is.  I hope their faith helps them draw comfort somehow in this tragedy.

Tonight around 745 a young woman in Olympia delivered a still born baby boy.  The young couple was able to hold him in their arms.  Hopefully, somewhere, he felt their love..

RIP Alex Michael.

Excuse, me, I need to go hug my daughter…

1. source: Wikipedia [back]

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