Lately I have been thinking a lot about abortion. Mother Teresa once said "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." When I was younger I didn't really think about abortion all that much, no one I knew personally (that I know of) had ever gotten pregnant out of wedlock, it just wasn't something that effected me personally and so I never put much into it other than that I knew it was wrong.
But recently all that changed. My friend Kristin was unable to get pregnant and in a turn of events that I can only attribute to the hand of God, she and her husband recently were given an immense blessing in the form of a daughter, named Cate, who is now 3.5 weeks old. As I have been processing all of the events that have transpired, and as I see the immense joy that Greg and Kristin now radiate all I can say is that the birthmother did something very selfless. At the same time, my close friend Arwen has been going thru a juxtaposed situation as one of her coworkers chose to have an abortion even after Arwen begged her not to. What it comes down to in the end is to be selfish or not. Both women were not at a place where they were ready to raise a child, and both women were in a situation where they were pregnant and it was not planned, and definately not within the confines of marriage. One chose the bear some embarrassment, to carry the child, to give birth to that child, and to allow a couple who has been praying for a LONG time that God would bless them with a child, an oppertunity. The other chose to try to save face, to not have to deal with any embarassment, and to "terminate the pregnancy." Somewhere out there I'm sure there is a family who is waiting for the Lord to provide a child for them, who would have found great joy in raising that child. And now that women will for the rest of her life what could have been, she will have the shame of knowing that she killed a defensless human being.
This weekend as I held Cate version 2.0 and I looked at her long feet and large hands, I joked with Greg that she is going to be a ball player, and maybe she will be. Or maybe she will be a phenomenal piano player with her long fingers. I don't really care as long a she is not a cheerleader. And who knows what that other child could have been, now we will never know.
