I usually stay away from politics and controversial issues on this blog. I'm just an ordinary mom with ordinary kids, living an ordinary life. I love God and his Word and try to do what's right each day, usually UNsuccessfully. I daily contemplate and wrestle with cultural issues and how it conflicts with spiritual things. I'm sure all my friends and family know where I stand on abortion. If you disagree, I will gladly discuss it with you. I truly did not come by my opinion mindlessly or blindly by parroting views of white evangelical Republican men.
I have looked at all sides. I know what it is like to be poor raising children without any help. I've been there. There are so many "hard" cases. As a young woman I went with a classmate to an abortion clinic to be with her as she carried out her choice. It was a nice, modern clinic, but as she was in the back with the medical personnel, I had such a sense of darkness and evil that I wanted to flee. As I looked around at the women waiting, I had visions of Jews lined up for the gas chamber. For whatever reason, my friend did not follow through and we left. It was the last time I supported the "right to choose."
I've seen the pain of infertile couples yearning for a baby, with no babies to be had. One woman I know had an abortion when she was young. Later on, after she married, it was discovered she could not have any more children. I remember her guilt, shame, and remorse over her past decision. And then her struggle to adopt here in America. Not enough babies for all the couples who want them. In our own family, I see the outcome of women who chose life and the indescribable joy these children have brought us.
Many years ago I worked in the delivery room at an inner-city hospital and assisted with many births. I saw babies born to teenagers and drug-addicted mothers. Hard cases. Would it be better to not be born at all than to be subjected to poverty and abuse later on? But we fall into a trap if we carry that line of thinking into other problems in life.
Once I picketed an abortion clinic and watched people I know be hauled off to jail. I' saw the anger and ugliness of both sides. This doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
One time I took my youngest son to an optometrist in a poor section of town. I forget why we were at that particular place. I was in the waiting room and a pregnant woman sat beside me. She saw my girls--they were little then--and we started a conversation. She realized she could not care for her unborn baby and she was looking into adoption. She was working through an agency and was in the process of choosing a family for her child. She hinted that maybe I would want the baby. Maybe she saw that race did not matter in our family. I would gladly have added another color to the rainbow of people in our big extended family, but at the time, Liana was still a baby and I knew this wasn't the right decision for us then. I've thought about that woman so many times since. Hopefully she was encouraged that her baby would be loved by its new family after she saw my happy little girls.
At that same hospital where I worked, my views were cemented firmly in place when I was assigned to care for a baby boy born without part of his brain. He had no chance of survival. Nurses were supposed to monitor him and wait for him to die. I believe that was my hardest day of life on this planet. A doctor came into the room and joked how he would like to put a pillow over the baby and smother him. He even picked up a pillow and demonstrated. Despite this baby's deformities, he was still a human being. He was denied food and cried pitifully. I spent the day in tears, stroking his small limbs and talking to him. He suffered for 6 days before he died. This passage of scripture that Jesus spoke came alive for me:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:35-40)
The LEAST of these. Is anyone more helpless than an unborn baby? Poor women are also victims and often helpless too. Followers of Jesus must reach out with compassion to those who are hurting, whoever they may be. There has to be a better way.
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