I didn’t figure my first post back from having a baby would be about this topic. I assumed it would be something about the baby or how our family has changed or is coping, but a horrifying scandal quickly rattled social media over the past 24 hours. A video (disclaimer, it is brutal) caught my attention yesterday with the title, “Planned Parenthood Uses Partial Birth Abortions to Sell Baby Parts, and as I watched my blood boiled and my heart ached.
I realized this is a post that must take precedence above any other because this is for all the Annabelle’s who will never see the light of day and for all the Luke’s who will be decimated by sundown. These words are for all of the unwanted and forgotten souls who will never see the sun this side of Eternity. This is for all babies – born or unborn.
This scandal is personal because I was repeatedly admonished in 2004 to abort my second child Lucas because he wasn’t “perfect” in the estimation of the medical professionals. For more of his story see Miracle Boy, Lucas, or Worst Travel Companion Ever…. This is also an issue I don’t easily stay silent on especially since having Luke has enriched my life and opened my eyes in so many ways to the beauty of life, the reality of what healing means, and the unconditional love the Father bestows upon each and every one of us. I have no idea how we have become a nation of people who not only kill our babies but then we also turn around and sell their limbs and appendages as products. I look at my sweet baby girl Annabelle, five weeks old, and cannot fathom how I could have legally killed her only a few weeks ago –how her limbs could have been ripped from her body and her heart or lungs gutted and sold to the highest bidder.
In the midst of the Planned Parenthood video going viral yesterday, I despairingly said to a friend “What do we do? What can we do?” Not even as Christians but as human beings? Americans? Living in the land of the free, the home of the brave? The exception, of course, if you’re an unborn baby then you’re not so free. Or a mother facing an unplanned pregnancy or a father threatening to break up with a woman unless she aborts her baby – then, not so brave. As a culture, if we have a shred of morality left in our souls, how do we right the wrong of millions of babies being killed? How do we reverse such a sickening mindset which says it’s okay to rip our children apart and sell their body parts? Where do we even begin?
We begin by finally opening our mouths and calling out the truth for what it really is – it is wrong. We have a hard time calling anything wrong in our day and age, but it is wrong to rip babies apart and slaughter them in such a way as to preserve certain body parts to be able to sell as a product.
IT IS WRONG.
We begin with brave men and women telling their stories.
Stories of regret, stories of shame, stories of rising above the shame, stories of hope and stories of pain.
All these stories must be told and circulated so that the shame lessens, the healing begins, and the voices rise to a loud cacophony that screams hope to the masses, hope for a different way, and hope for life. Mothers who have chosen to go against the advice of the medical professions and carry these “defective” children to term and then commit to raising these children also need to tell our stories. We have a different story, but it is still a story of pain, of heartache; hope, redemption, and joy in the midst of a difficult situation. Our stories can change the culture. Not acts of violence or social media rants but our honest, individual experiences woven together will begin to make a difference in our society and in the world at large. These stories must be told and retold for they will change lives. These brave words will, one by one, save lives.
All I have to offer these unborn babies is my story. I started this post with a gruesome video, and I will end with a hopeful one. A video which tells a tale of how any abortion story could end differently – a video of beauty rising from the ashes.
Tell your story. Or listen to someone who has a story to tell.
Just keep livin!!