January 21st, 2011

Dear Sofia,

I'm not going to write much in detail about the babies in this story; it's too shocking and too sad.

Over this past week a story came out about an abortion "clinic" in Philadelphia, PA where hundreds of babies were murdered. I cannot express how deeply mournful I am for those babies. An abortion "clinic" is a place where people go to have their babies taken away from them, and their lives destroyed. This particular one offered abortion services well past the legal gestational age of 24 weeks. In fact, at least one baby was murdered at 30 weeks - that's just two months before being full term.

Many babies are labored and birthed before that point. A woman I work with had her baby at 22 weeks. He was only 2 1/2 pounds upon delivery. Today, he is four years old and just a little small for his age, compared to his peers.

Why would someone opt to kill their baby instead of giving it up for adoption? I think many women are told that it's not really a baby, or, carrying he/she to full term and then giving him/her up means it really is and was a baby all the time. Faced with the decision to either deal with the emotions attached to keeping a baby you weren't planning on or pretend that it "never really happened," a lot of women (and not just young women) choose the latter.

At every abortion facility, they are killing babies. But they, for the most part, abide by the law to do it. That does NOT make it right, not at all. But even Planned Parenthood will say "we can't help you here" if you're further along than the 24-week limit. At the place in Philadelphia, however, babies were gruesomely, viciously, savagely treated.

And their mothers fared no better. At least two women were killed during procedures: one was overdosed with anesthesia - administered by un-medically trained staff - and the other bled to death after having her internal organs punctured by the clumsy "doctor" of the place. Another woman, only 17 year old, required a hysterectomy after a botched procedure. Faced with an unwanted child once, now she never again has the option of having children.

I want to scream about this. I want to - forgive me, Lord - inflict revenge against these child murderers. Their brutality makes me sick, and yet it's the sin behind it that really turns my stomach.

Even way back when I was a liberal (yes, it's an embarrassing truth) I wasn't comfortable with accepting abortion as an equally reasonable option. I would say I was "pro-choice" but almost always vocalized a caveat to that stance, namely that abstinence and, barring its failure, adoption were far better choices because they spared an innocent life and posed no threat to the mother's emotional/mental health. Yes, even back when I thought the Iraq war was "for money," I could not stomach the cavalier attitude with which people spoke of aborting babies, as if it was just another "medical procedure," like removing a tooth.

Someone will comment that it's only because I have a baby myself now - because I've been in the exact position of "choosing" whether or not to have a baby - that I can be so staunchly pro life. But it isn't just you, Sofia, that colors my perspective. It's the babies that were miscarried, grieving their mothers. It's the women who long to have children or be able to adopt, just to hold a squirming, wrinkled little person who needs them. It's the women who did chose to abort a child, and later fall into despair because of it.

All of these have given me a profound sense of empathy. A heart for little ones and their mothers alike, you could say. It's only you that has increased my ability to love so much more, so I have room for more in its scope.

I think I want to become a pregnancy counselor.