You + Me + Everyone = The Need for Boundaries [and What That Means]

I am not real big on people’s rights.

Correction: I am not big on the rights people think that they have.

It turns out that the popular thing nowadays is to assume that feelings need to be validated by way of civil rights.

Before I get ahead of myself, I would like to clarify that I am a huge supporter of freedom.  This should be obvious based on the fact that I spent five years in the United States military.

The two concepts are not synonymous.  Unfortunately, they are being misconstrued as such.

To define a right is risky indeed.  The dictionary refers to a ‘right’ under the noun category as a “just claim or title”.  ‘Just’ being the key word there.  This means that any individual will be entitled to the same rights.  I hasten to follow that up with the clarification: a claim is simply that, a ‘claim’.  It is the ability to self-identify as anyone sees fit.  It is the opportunity for anyone to say, “This is what I believe.  This is who I am.”  However, a claim is not an automatic pass to fulfill an individual’s emotional needs.  It is merely the ability to self-identify without persecution.

I feel that it is necessary to identify ‘persecution’ as “persistent harassment, and/or oppressive treatment”.  At risk of sounding redundant, persecution is not a component of emotion.  Just because someone claims to be persecuted doesn’t mean that persecution is actually taking place.  There are actual guidelines to persecution: namely, it is the attempt to exterminate.  Persecution is not boundaries.  The people who have established boundaries in their lives can identify with how important they are.  Without them, chaos would take over as everyone would be able to run amock.  The people that cannot identify with the importance of boundaries are usually claiming to be persecuted, when they are the ones, in actuality, committing the offense. Yes, this can be a slippery slope.  But this is also why there are boundaries; to be able to identify when actual persecution is taking place, as opposed to when an offense is being had.

Before I circulate back to the concept of boundaries, and also persecution, the issue of ‘offense’ needs to be addressed.  The problem at hand is that offense has become a ‘right’.

In actuality, offense is a choice.

People from all over the world, of all religions, of all lifestyles, become offended, and decide that their offense needed to be unoffended.  The betrayal of offense is that it only leads to another.  If it is one’s ‘right’ to be offended, it is everyone else’s to simply not care.  To insist with agreement in regards to specific personal convictions is an automatic disregard of others.  This is why there are boundaries.

When So and So becomes offended, they often feel the need to publicize their offense.  This has become the simplest thing in the world to do, thanks to social media.  How many times do you see on Facebook what So and So believes to be offensive?  More often than not, it conflicts with other viewpoints, which is probably the thrill in making such a post to begin with.  After all, this is a free country, right?  Surprisingly, the 120 characters of a Tweet are just enough to mass produce a complaint.  Texts are a shameless way to vent without needing to be face to face.

Therefore, everyone else must become offended, either on behalf of the offended, or because they disagree with the view being broadcasted.  Retaliations are made.  Retaliations to retaliations are made.  Enormous amounts of people have gotten involved, enormous amounts of energy have been expended, and sometimes it all leads to an enormous amount of money being spent, too.  This angst could have been avoided.

No, really, it could have.

It has to do with humility, and it has to do with compassion.

The fact of the matter is that people experience life differently.  They feel life differently.  They see life differently.  The destruction one can bring on others by choosing to live in a bubble can be devastating.

We can pride ourselves into thinking that we are a liberated and open-minded people.  The stark truth is that we aren’t.  There is still a protestant attitude, across the board.  It is easy to tell when an individual is fighting a battle because they think they are being daring and forward-thinking, or ‘sticking to their guns’, or even because they are just trying to belong to something, or to be liked.  Those people that refer to themselves as ‘liberal’ are actually just living a giant double standard, and back-pedaling the progress they think they are making.  It is hypocrisy at its basest to claim that individuals have a ‘right’ to believe what they want, and make decisions as they see fit, AND anyone who is in disagreement is a hypocrite.

The people clinging desperately to their ‘old-school’ standards have refused to develop as the world has developed.  I am not talking about sacrificing a moral conviction, which happens far too often. I am talking about not expecting everyone to live according to the same standards.  Personally, I am true to my core beliefs, and I am not ashamed of them, or apologetic of them.  I do not expect to be harassed because of this, and I do not harass anyone else for what their own life looks life.  I need to be the best ‘me’ that I can be, and leave it at that.  We have all grown up under different cultures, religions, and guidelines, and to expect everyone to follow yours or mine is what leads to behavior that ultimately infringes on someone else’s time, space and, frankly, peace of mind.  That is what persecution is born of.  One would think that there are enough examples in history to be taken from…

Here’s a concept: we don’t all have to be in agreement.

No, we really don’t.

‘Freedom of speech’ is the ability to say what one believes in, and why, and that one disagrees with someone else if that be the case.  Freedom of speech does not grant anyone the liberty to harass anyone else, especially if someone disagrees.  I believe that we live in a world where harassment is seen as a ‘right’.  It is in movies, and music, and all over media across the world.  Everywhere, someone is badmouthing someone else because they aren’t doing something they agree with.  There is no support for docility and humility.  Everything has become a war, and therefore real war is greatly misunderstood.

It can be argued that such is the dichotomy of freedom of speech, but I disagree.  When something is destructive, it should not be ignored.  In a nutshell, it debases humanity when anyone claims that blasphemy, hate speech, and defamation are lumped in with freedom.  There is an obvious difference between saying that one does not agree with homosexual unions, and saying that (slur) are detestable and disgusting human beings.  It is just as much a gay person’s right to be gay as it is for an individual to not agree with that lifestyle. 

To recap the key points: a right is a person’s opportunity to self-identify without being persecuted; freedom is the ultimate right to disagree with someone else’s self-identity; and while harassment is never okay, people have taken to taking offense and expect the rest of the world to meet their emotional needs.

Now: boundaries.

If people can self-identify as they fit, without fear of being murdered for practicing their religion, or being run out of town for the color of their skin, or being rejected socially for their lifestyle (in so much as no one else is being harmed), than where do boundaries fit in?

After all, freedom is not telling other people what to do, right?

Actually, no.  To be quite honest, sometimes it just has to be established what can and can’t be done.

Any parent, any leader, any person of moral conviction knows that.

When we become too lenient with the definition of rights, we begin to overstep onto another person’s rights, and the natural order of things begins to become confused.  Confusion leads to chaos, which is in direct violation of safety, and security, which is the very core of freedom.  Through that leniency, we find ourselves disgusted with one another.  That often leads to taking action so that person, or people group, can no longer act or do or say.

Taking prayer out of schools is an act of persecution; we know this because the goal was to exterminate, which is what persecution is all about.  It is a person’s right to protect their home and property as they see fit.  It is never okay to harm another human being unless in self-defense.  [Claiming that it is a woman’s right to have an abortion automatically denies the unborn baby the right to its own life.  And when rights regarding human life and death are pushed around, you can rest assured the rest of them are up for grabs…]

I mentioned a natural order.  There is a natural order to things, and this is where civil rights make an appearance.  Civil rights are born with the individual.  It takes one look to determine with the naked and natural eye that someone is a woman, or that someone is Asian.  These traits are a direct and inherent result of genes, they are a code of and from nature itself; they cannot be erased, or truly altered, hard as anyone may try.  These civil rights are what keep us from owning other human beings based on their race or nationality, or from denying mutual respect based on gender.

I am not naïve.  I realize that inequality in regards to matters of civil rights still exists.  People have always abused their powers, and therefore other human beings suffered abuse.  The problems of civil rights have existed since the beginning of time (well, not quite the very beginning, but definitely a generation later).  It is inherent in human beings to dominate and practice selfishness.  After all, ‘self’ is the root word of selfishness.  All the same, I think the world is making enormous amounts of progress, and that progress will continue to be made, as it should.  Will true equality ever take place?  Honestly, I don’t think it will.  Someone will always be abusing their power, their position, and humanity.  Unless everyone surrenders to humility and compassion, which a lot of people really aren’t interested in because they see it as weakness, someone else will always be persecuted.

Contrary to popular belief, matters of self-identity are not matters of civil rights.  A personal opinion, or lifestyle, or choice, is a matter of self-identity.  It must be identified in order to be disclosed.  This statement will be highly offensive to many people, and it is not meant to be destructive in the least.  Recently, the claim is that homosexuals cannot change their sexual orientation any more than someone can change being born black.  At risk of sounding prejudice, that simply isn’t true.  A black person is black because they were born black.  That isn’t to say a homosexual isn’t born feeling homosexual.  I believe wholeheartedly that we are ALL born with an inclination that goes against our natural tendencies.  These are matters of the soul, which is stronger than anything of this earth.  A tug of war rages inside all of us for our entire lives: mental illness, addiction, sexuality.

Natural order has suffered ever since human beings relinquished the natural order of the soul.  Design has been under attack since the first time it was attacked.  We are now born that way: our souls at war with our bodies.  We all have souls for a reason, and that reason is to be in communion with God.  This might be too religious for most, and I can’t argue with that.  I don’t have a non-spiritual approach to what I have just said.  I think, though, that most people can agree that they have felt their own crux of the soul.  We know how frightening, how isolating, how crazy-making it is.  Let us, therefore, be compassionate on one another.  My crux might be different from your crux, but I can still have compassion on you.  I can still treat you with respect.

Respect is not a free pass.  There still has to be boundaries.  Natural order must still be submitted to.  If we have been granted life, than grant us life.  No human being should take the life of another, in part or in whole.  Marriage must be defined as the union between a man and a woman, before things get out of control. If it is redefined, one day, everyone will be able to marry everyone.  If that isn’t unsettling in its plainest of language there is no point in elaborating as to why it could be genuinely unwholesome.

I agree that this is hard.  As necessary as they are, boundaries can be uncomfortable.  Not everyone will always agree with where they are placed.

For a long time I have been of the opinion that you simply can’t tell people what to do.  I could never quite wrap my mind around that.  I could never quite understand why it didn’t fit right.  Because if you can’t tell someone what to do, you can’t tell someone what to do.  You then cannot expect people to be accountable for any of their actions, or be responsible for their choices.

You can’t insist that substances not be abused.

You can’t insist that people don’t drive under the influence.

You can’t protect children.

You can’t protect human life at all.

What I’ve said isn’t even extreme.  I have started at a very simple point: it is a matter of choice as to whether or not someone wants to abuse a substance.  But if you allow the abuse of a substance, you risk the harmful actions against others that could follow (i.e. drunk-driving).  If you negate the seriousness of harming others, you can’t protect those who can’t protect themselves, and then the very component of life, life itself, comes under attack.

Think: post-apocalyptic.  Think Water World, The Book of Eli.  Everyone is pretty much just doing what they want, because they can.

I am sorry that restrictions might be applied to some people more than others, or so it would seem.  I must stand by the need for boundaries.  Boundaries are not synonymous with persecution, regardless of what it feels like.

Perhaps I am being scoffed at: after all, I am so privileged.  I am married to a man, therefore I have never felt the sting of said boundaries.  I am a white woman, therefore I have never felt the sting of persecution.  Of course, I would disagree with that.  I know where and when I have been persecuted.  I know, as a practicing Christian, that my country has turned its back on my religion.  Suddenly, the attitude is freedom FROM religion, not freedom OF religion.  But getting into all of that is moot.

I felt a rising inside of me that needed to be released.  I felt the need to identify with all of mankind.  I felt a compulsion.  These words were born of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

50 Million Phoenix

[DISCLAIMER: this contains graphic images.  Do not read this if you do not agree to being exposed.]

On January 22^nd, 1973, the Supreme Court made a final decision on Roe v. Wade: which disallowed many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States, all in the name of the 14^th Amendment.  On the same day, it decided in favor of Doe v. Bolton, which states that a woman may obtain an abortion after viability, if in favor of her health.

This week marks 40 years after those decisions.

Therefore, I have been thinking a lot about abortion lately.  My son was born on September 4^th of this past year, and while I have always thought that abortion was detestable, I have recently become slightly distracted over its existence.

I am not fanatical about pregnancy.  I do not enjoy it.  I do not get a thrill from feeling a baby kicking around inside of me, unless you consider nausea to be a type of thrill.  But I always knew that it was a baby, and that his life was just as important as my own.  I do not think that birth control is wrong.  I think that it can be a very responsible choice for many people, although I do not condone taking it just so individuals can feel free to have rampant sex.  The key word there was: responsible.  It is irresponsible to have rampant sex.  Plain and simple.  If you don’t agree with me there, I don’t know what to tell you.  Sex is the one and only activity that leads to the conception of a human baby- the arguments for artificial insemination, IVF, etc. are moot since that child was deliberately sought.  Why then, after having sex, protected or not, do individuals feel that the embryo has somehow invaded them?  That the baby has just cropped up randomly and ruined their lives?  How else did it get there?  If it doesn’t belong there, where else does it belong?   From the point of conception, those parents are obligated to defend and care for that child.  They agreed to that when they engaged in sex.  If a mother is obligated to care for her born children, she is obligated to care for her unborn children.  How many times do women go to trial for killing their babies?  Too many times.  We look at Casey Anthony and say that she is a monster.  On the other hand, didn’t she have a right to do what she wanted to with her baby?  The baby was hers, legally.  Why does it matter if Caylee was inside, or outside, of her body?

I think of my womb, the dark and warm place that was my son’s home for the first nine months of his life.  I think of the blood that is in me being given to him.  I think of how my body fed him, and how he grew inside of me.  He was not a cluster of cells.  He was real, and he was alive, because he grew.  Things that aren’t alive don’t grow.  I think everyone can say that is true.  One minute he was there, kicking me from the inside out, and within a matter of seconds, he was suddenly out.   Nothing changed in those seconds.  He was not nothing one second, and then Osbourne the next.  I do not change when I get up from this couch and go into the kitchen, unless you count the calories I put into my body after leaving that room.  Enough of them would most certainly change me.  Why, then, does the thin wall of the uterus, the short tunnel of the birth canal, change a baby’s status?  Quite simply, it doesn’t.  It is just something that some people tell themselves so that they can continue to try and maintain control over their lives.

As I write this, the words of someone rings in my head: the safety of the mother always comes first.  I had never heard such a statement in my life.  Being in the health field, I have of course heard that a woman has the right to her own body.  I have already pointed out that if you engage in sex you are thereby agreeing to the possibility of becoming pregnant, and all that goes along with that.  (Now, hold on a minute.  There are probably a few of you shouting at the computer about how consensual sex is not the only way to get pregnant, and that not all pregnancies are without complication, and that not all fetuses will be healthy and strong.  I will get there.  I promise).  I have taken many classes on bioethical issues, from euthanasia to stem cell research.  However, I had never heard anyone say: safety of the mother comes first.  Allow me to clarify.  I had, of course, heard the argument that if a pregnancy is detrimental to a woman’s health, she can abort without it being considered unethical.  The actual wordage of “safety of the mother comes first” was new to me, and appalling.  Because, what mother would put herself before her child?  I am instantly barraged by all manner of scenarios in which I could put myself before my child.  Even an unborn child.

I wonder that selfishness has become so rampant these days.  Me me me me me.  Everyone says, “Me first.”  I can only imagine what a comfortable, worry-free world we would live in if people just took the time to say, “I care about you.  What can I do for you?”

What about the safety of the mother?  My husband has told me that he would want to choose me, if it came down to one or the other: me or our son.  I would have to agree.  I would choose my husband.  He is my second half.  We have become one.  I would never be able to endure the loss of a child without him.  I then snap out of it:  what possible scenario would ever make me choose between my husband or my son?  And what possible scenario could ever make him choose between me or our child?

My imagination takes a spin for a second.  Of course, we could be held hostage, and the kidnappers say, “I will let one of your loved ones go, take your pick.”  If that were the case, my husband and I easily say that we would die trying to save the entirety of our family.  I certainly hope that we would never be put in that position, and I would naturally like to assume the most honorable and brave qualities about myself, but I just don’t see bowing to the hand of another human being, and allowing them to make that decision for our lives: choose, your spouse or your son.  No human being can, or should be able to, dictate the life of another.

Okay.  So what about pregnancy?  What about when a pregnancy is unsafe for the mother?

If, for example, something tragic happens and an immediate choice has to be made (by immediate, I am referring to emergency proportions), it is ethical to choose which life to work on; coincidentally, which life to ‘spare’.  I think anyone could agree to the reality of that.

The problem arises when said mother has, say, cancer, and needs chemotherapy.  That chemotherapy would most likely be fatal to her unborn baby, or could cause some serious defects.  Most often, a physician would suggest an abortion.  It is then that I say the abortion is murder.  Would it be wrong for the woman to pursue treatment?  No, I can’t say that it would.  Even with the risks.  I would say that it is wrong to eliminate the baby for the sake of eliminating it.  If the pre-born baby is injured or dies from a prescribed medication that is necessary to save the mother’s life, such as seizure medications, the injury to the baby would be unintentional and, if truly medically necessary, not unethical.  Perhaps this would seem heartless to some people, or ridiculous, to say the least.  I don’t really know what to tell you, then.  I am not the author of life, and neither are you, and neither is anyone.  If a baby is conceived, it is no one’s right to take that baby’s life except for the One who granted it to begin with.  I always say: we can only work with what we’ve got.  If you have seizures, take your seizure medication, and leave the baby’s health and well-being up to the One who allowed it to take shape to begin with.

As far as a pregnancy sapping the actual life out of a woman: it just doesn’t happen.  Fetuses don’t kill their ‘hosts’.  They are not a virus.

What was that you said?  Ectopic pregnancy?  Yes, they are very dangerous for the mother.  In this case the embryo attaches to somewhere other than the wall of the uterus, such as the fallopian tube.  This will make the mother very sick, and could even result in her death.  The human body is incredibly resilient.  Many times the body will take care of itself, and ‘regress’ the ectopic pregnancy, removing it through a natural, biological process.  Those that take place in the fallopian tubes can, and have, never survived.  There is a fifty-fifty chance that the body will miscarry on its own, for the others it goes without saying that removal is necessary.  However, cases of abdominal, ovarian, or cervical ones have.  The key is that time and patience are crucial here.  I am not suggesting that the mother just grin and bear and pass away because that is the right and moral and self-sacrificing thing to do.  Now, one might wonder at the difference between a likely miscarriage and that of an abortion: why not just get it over with quicker?  A miscarriage is still a natural process, and an abortion is not.  And that is not just semantics.  There is no grey area in nature.  It is either alive, or dead.  It is either biological or artificial.  Nature is nature, and needs to be given its right.  The fact of the matter is, we have broken bodies.  They will succumb to sickness, perhaps to disease, and always to death.  We can only work with what we’ve got.  We can only try to survive, and that includes the protection of another’s survival.  Our own life loses its value if we devalue the lives of others.  If a mother’s condition during her ectopic pregnancy continues to deteriorate, surgery may become necessary to save her life.  This operation would be the attempt to remove and relocate the fetus to the uterus.  More than likely it would be discovered that the fetus had already died.  If not, an attempt to save the baby had been made, and its unfortunate death was not deliberate.  I am the first person to admit that I would have a surgical procedure if I had an ectopic pregnancy, but I hope that I would have given my body enough time to process, and try to correct itself.  My husband currently works with a man that was an ectopic pregnancy.  When I hear stories about that man, or when my husband relays a discussion they had, I try to envision the emptiness that would be present if he had been aborted.  My own body has been cut open, sewed back up, and completely resealed and healed on its own.  How fascinating, to know that my insides had been completely exposed, but that my cells were able to recognize the incision site, and go to work, and bring about full repair.  The body is resilient by nature.  Give it a chance.  Allow it time to try and survive.  An abortion to avoid an operation later is careless, and an easy scape-goat for a physician trying to avoid a malpractice suit.

I try to push away the thought, because I really don’t want to write it down, but all of this makes me think about Phoenix.  I think that is what bothers me the most about abortion, thinking about Phoenix.

October 15^th is Infant Loss and Awareness Day, and the whole month was designated by President Reagan for parents and people to reflect on the infants that have died due to miscarriage, molar pregnancy, SIDS, etc.  Ironically, on that very day, in 2011, Michael and I witnessed the passing of our own eight-week-old pre-born baby.  The baby had come, and gone, and had served its purpose, and lived its life.  We all die when we were meant to die, unless you take your own life or, heaven forbid, it is taken for you.  Who was I to argue with the baby’s Creator?  I hesitate to say, for fear of appearing cold and calculated, that I did not struggle with the baby’s passing as many have.  I certainly do not compare myself to parents who have birthed and begun raising a child that dies at a young age, or even those who experienced miscarriage passed the proverbial ‘clear’ mark of twelve or thirteen weeks.  I respect that Phoenix was our baby, I respected that it was growing inside of me, and I accepted that we would be responsible for caring for it.

I spent a lot of time on the internet after that.  I wanted to know what that little person looked like, at only eight weeks of gestation.  This is what I found (the first picture is an actual photo taken of a six-week-old miscarried fetus, as I couldn’t find one at eight weeks.  But look how much that baby grows and changes, to become the eight-week-old shown in the second picture!):

    

And then, suddenly, I couldn’t get passed the fact that people actually tear these fetuses, these babies, from their wombs, and I couldn’t stop myself from finding images of aborted, eight-week-old babies.  This is what I found:

    

And ya know what?  There was no difference.  They were the same type of baby.  Same little feet, same tiny fingers, already with eyes, and a delicate spinal column, smaller than the most delicate of bracelets.  Except that my baby had died on its own, and the other babies had been ripped apart.  They had been dissolved.  By choice.  Because of selfishness, and irresponsibility.

I didn’t want to be pregnant.  I didn’t want Phoenix growing inside of me.  I am not foolish enough to think that everyone should want their pregnancies.  I don’t think you are a terrible person if your positive pregnancy test makes you cry… and not with joy.  Having a baby, raising a child, can really ruin your life.  If that is the mentality you choose to take.  That is when we need to be courageous, when we need to be strong.  We need to get help and make plans.  Plans to prosper.

I did not want to be a mother.  God wanted me to be a mother.  He left the choice up to me.   I was not happy by agreeing, but I knew that my life would be empty if lived for my own gain.  Since Phoenix, and since Osbourne, we have experienced more blessings than we could ever ask for or imagine.  And they haven’t even stopped!  It is so exciting.  It is so refreshing, and it is what the Bible promises.

But who are we to say what is right or wrong for someone else!  I mean, am I right, or am I right?  Those people who flew the planes into the Twin Towers, according to their beliefs, they were doing the right thing.  So what did it matter?  You can’t hold it against them, then, right?

    

A serial killer prefers to take lives.  It makes them happy.  So who are we to judge them for that, or to try and stop them?

How could I be so terrible, right?  How could I dare to desecrate the memory of these people by posting such horrifying and sickening images?  I do not like watching the news.  I think it is wrong for the media to expose a family’s pain, a person’s dignity.  When it comes to abortion, those pictures are the reality of it.  I decided against listing the actual procedures of an abortion, since the decimated corpses in the pictures I show is pretty self explanatory; if you prefer to know the actual steps, it is not hard to find them listed on the internet.

What makes one life more important than another?

Nothing.

I am sure you would agree if you found yourself on the receiving end of a morbid plan.

All of that pain we just saw?  Man-made.  My baby died because it was time for it to go and be back with Jesus.  I can accept that; admittedly, a lot easier than some people might be able to.  The abortions, the attacks of 9/11, the serial killers: all of that pain, that horror, that devastation, is by the hands of another man.  Why do we give ourselves this power?  Why do we play God?  Why do we think we have the right?

I am tired of people and their ‘rights’.

I am not innocent of the fact that not all babies grow healthy and strong.  I have worked as a caretaker  for people with special needs.  And, man, are those needs ever ‘special’.  I have watched families struggle to raise their disabled children, and their healthy children at the same time.  I have watched the money stretch, and I have seen the pain, and heard the stories.

I have read accounts of parents that wanted their babies, but felt it was the right thing to ‘spare’ their children the suffering of growing up with a disability.

There are a large number of pro-choicers who agree that a fetus is a living, viable baby.  Their argument lies in that they believe a woman has the right to her own body.  I have already been over that.  When we stand before God and man and join someone in holy matrimony, we are agreeing to become one body, to become one flesh, to endure with one another through anything and everything, “to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part”.  We don’t get to kill our spouse or, for the sake of touching a less sensitive nerve, we don’t get to just walk out on our spouse when they get cancer, when they lose their mental faculties in a tragic automobile accident.  How detestable we would be seen as.  How shallow.  When an individual agrees to engage in a reproductive act, they are essentially agreeing to conceive.  When someone agrees to conceive, they are agreeing to the possibility that their pregnancy may destroy their body, it may leave them with Bells Palsy, they may experience life-threatening events such as hypertension preeclampsia or placenta previa, and even that the baby may have its own conditions, such as Downs Syndrome, or cerebral palsy.  Some babies are even born without brains!  There are numerous other factors that cannot be seen through an ultrasound, such as schizophrenia, or autism.  It is all part of the commitment, and it is terrifying, and we would like to think that we have control of it.  We have no control over nature.  It comes upon us as it wills.  It arrives and fashions and departs in a manner that we cannot alter.

The heart-breaking fact is that suffering and pain are a part of life.  They are unavoidable, as the parents who have aborted their disabled babies can attest; the accounts of devastation at the process of terminating those pregnancies, the emotional distress at feeling they needed to make that choice.  But they didn’t have to.  So many of the people that I took care of had become disabled in their childhood.  They weren’t even born that way.  It was not acceptable for those individuals to be dispatched of after their accident, so why do we argue that the lives of those disabled from birth should not be fostered?  There is no way to avoid disability, deformity, or suffering.  We can try, but it will always catch up with us.

Every life has a purpose.  It does not need to be healthy, and whole, to fulfill it.

I could understand the compulsion to spare a child a life of suffering.  I could understand wanting to just end it for that baby, if it was going to die shortly after being born due to a horrific condition.  I am a practical person.  Death is a reasonable, natural process to me.  And it takes many forms.  Those situations of parents being told that their fetus has a fatal or debilitating condition are very real.  They happen.  And they are a nightmare.  I must remind myself that each life has a purpose.  Each life was granted, and will be taken when it is time to be taken.  As a parent, that is not my decision to make.

Every single person that I helped take care, from those that needed one-hundred percent assistance to those that needed only minor supervision, all made an impact on my life.  Each one of them had a personality, and preferences, even if they could not communicate them.  Each one of them deserved to live their own life, to have their own experiences, to touch the lives of other people.  I watched even the most bedridden and helpless of them experience joy.  Experience pleasure.  They were generous, and friendly.  Those that could not even feed themselves tried to shower me with their most prized possessions.  The woman who could neither see nor speak, and was partially deaf, invited me to look at magazines- the horse ones were her favorite.  Disability does not equal dissatisfaction.  I know someone blind from birth who does not wish she had been born with sight.  She owns her own life.

Before ultrasounds were that common, or showing possible complications, numerous babies were born with numerous problems that resulted in astounding medical breakthroughs.  There is always a bigger picture.  Of course this is easy enough to volunteer for someone, anyone, else…  I try to think of the impact that every single life makes.  Someone that is very close to me has had the honor of being aquainted with a man with spina bifida, who just so happened to be the guitarist for a well-known band, and who runs a pain clinic to help others deal with their pain without the use of narcotics.  He uses his own pain to help others, consequently transforming those lives and, by effect, the lives that those people come into contact with.  I read an account of a couple who were devastated to learn that their third child would be born with spina bifida, and they felt it was more loving to end his life than to ask him to live it.  When I read that, I envisioned myself learning that news about my own son.  How truly horrendous.  What a lot of sacrifice, on everyone’s part, and we all know that sacrifice doesn’t feel good: or it wouldn’t be sacrifice.  After intimately knowing both demographics, I have always said that I would rather my son be born with a disability than to become a derelict of society, and you can’t screen for that in an ultrasound…

A well child will experience frustration, and anger, same as an unwell child.  Perhaps even more, if they are born with a syndrome such as bipolar, or a propensity for depression, or any other mental condition.  There is nothing to say that a child in a wheel chair will have to sit on the sidelines and watch others on the playground, seething with rage and frustration at the hand they have been dealt.  There is a place for everyone, perhaps not always on the playground, perhaps not always in the classroom, or on a sports team, or in the spotlight, but somewhere.  Pain and suffering are unavoidable, and I know many people, including myself, who can attest to the fact that pain of the mind can be just as debilitating as a physical condition.  It can rob you of mobility, access to others, the capability to excel and expound.  It can leave you shell-shocked and traumatized.  I had to choose my own path: one of desperation, or one of appreciation  Miracle of miracles, I was able to put the days of wishing I had never been born behind me, hopefully for good.  Everyone deserves the chance to make that decision, it should never be made for them.

And so that is the stance that I take on pregnancy from rape or incest.  I am sorry for your pain.  I am sorry for your suffering.  We must all find ways to deal with what has happened in our lives.  It is our responsibility, so that we do not base our relational decisions on circumstance.  Circumstances change.  As do feelings.  I have said before, there is a natural process to things.  This allows for healthy relationships, for procreation and population.  Emotions are fleeting, and unreliable.  We can only work with what we’ve got.

We forget that we are not here for ourselves.  We are not here to just walk the earth, and go to the grocery store, and get a degree, and hang out with friends.

Each one of us has a purpose.  There is a plan.

Sometimes that plan is hard to imagine.

But so is heaven.

I know that Phoenix is in heaven right now.  And that right now that little baby is welcoming another little baby.  And right now.  And right now…and now…and now…and now…  Today, over three thousand times, my baby will welcome another baby, an aborted baby.  Just today.  And tomorrow it will start all over again.

Whatever happened to Jane Roe, from Roe v. Wade?  She is now pro-life.  It isn’t the whole story, and I encourage you to research it if you have interest, but that is where she is right now.

Even Mary Doe, of Doe v. Bolton, recently sought to appeal the Supreme Court decision from her case.   She reveals that she had never wanted to have an abortion in the first place, she had been in an abusive relationship, and had been forced by her attorney to make the case.  It has been documented that she refers to herself as ‘pro-life’.

We named our Phoenix after the constellation.  We found it in the sky on the night of the baby’s passing.  It is a minor constellation, in the southern sky, consisting of many stars, some planets, and even a galaxy cluster.  The constellation was named after the mythical bird, which is cyclically reborn: it rises from the ashes of its predecessor.  The phoenix is a symbol of renewal.  I don’t think that this is ironic in the case of abortion.  Each baby that is conceived is dearly loved and welcomed by the One who created it.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”  Psalm 139:13-16

He welcomes each one that returns to Him.

“Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

Each one of them is a gift from Him.

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” Psalm 127:3

Each one of them is deliberate, and individual.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you….” Jeremiah 1:5

He identifies Himself in them, and commands us to protect them, and care for them.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 18:10

I wait to live in a world where we do not put ourselves before others.  Where we do not say that right and wrong is different for others.  Where we do not say that truth is subjective, for in that we lose truth in its entirety.  I know that my part is holding myself accountable.  It is treating others with love and respect.  Sometimes that is tough love; sometimes that is the most tender compassion.  I know that I must lead by example.

I am sorry for those of you who have wanted to bear children and could not.  I am sorry for those of you who have suffered terrible and detrimental pregnancies and births.  I am sorry for those of you who will struggle throughout your days as you care for a disabled child.  I am sorry for the pain and suffering that comes along with being a parent, regardless of how the parenthood was attained.  I am sorry to those who made the choice to have an abortion, and now must live with any guilt, or anger, or pain.  I am sorry that no one took you by the shoulders, looked in your eyes, and told you that you were strong enough.

Be strong enough.

Post-Abortion resources: http://www.heartlink.org/hottopics/a000000266.cfm

You can also find post-abortion resources [on-line and] at your local pregnancy resource center:   http://www.pregnancyresource.org/