Having a baby just to have to give it back.

The Curt Jester has this interesting piece on his blog. Here is an excerpt:

Catholics get abortions. A mother of two described hers to me this week. It was her first pregnancy, and her doctor said the fetus had a lethal genetic defect. She knew her baby would die, and so she made the difficult choice to abort. To this day, she tells no one.

“I certainly could not tell my priest, because he would say I should have carried the baby to term and let nature run its course. And we don’t talk openly at church, so I have no idea who there would support my decision

It’s too bad she didn’t see her priest. It might have changed her life.

A friend of mine faced a similar situation a few years ago. She knew that once her baby was born it wouldn’t live very long – minutes, hours, maybe even months, but certainly not long-term into years. She was a very strong woman of faith and did everything in her power to deliver that baby as close to term as possible, even undergoing a C-section because her physician did not think that the baby would survive a vaginal labor and birth.

She got to take her baby home where she gave her round the clock care, pumping milk to put into her GI tube, changing diapers, holding and loving her. She even was able to get a family picture with her husband and other three children and the baby. When that baby passed, she passed peacefully in the arms of her parents, with her family around her. She was loved.

But even more amazing was the outpour of love from the community. We made dinners for this family, watched the other kids, prayed, prayed, and prayed. And when that baby was lying in state at the funeral home, you would have felt an important older person had died by the crowding in the parking lot and in the parlor. Just before departing for the church we said a rosary, and my friend, this brave mother, lifted her baby from the coffin and held her while we all prayed the rosary for her and her family.

The funeral was beautiful, the church was packed. There was just a special feeling in the air – a sense of holiness and grace in the midst of this deep, deep grief. And then the baby was carried to the cemetery and laid to rest.

So what does my friend have now that the lady who chose to abort her sick baby doesn’t? She has the knowledge and memory of the time she got to spend with that precious child. That alone is priceless. She also has the knowledge and memory that her community loved and supported them and prayed for them. Those kind of bonds always go on. And she has a little grave site to tend to and mother. A place to visit, pray and remember.

It’s too bad the first lady didn’t talk to her priest first. She missed a lot.

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