As a mother, there are so many times I look down at one of my daughters laying in my lap and I’m in awe. I look at the upturned lashes, tiny lips, and wispy, blond hair, and I’ll be amazed that something so beautiful came from me. As I watch the oldest grow taller, her face becomes slimmer as her features become more adult and less childlike, I wonder what she will be. When I look at her through that lens of motherly love I think she could do anything she wants, and I’m quick to tell her so.
Young ladies, especially, are encouraged to be all they can be, to believe in themselves, that the sky’s the limit. Girl Power, Girl Tribe, Go Girl, Be You, Be Amazing, and on it goes. I get it. I totally get it! When I look at my daughters I agree, I think yes, baby, be all you can be! But this has been a work in progress, it didn’t just happen overnight. Eight years ago she entered this world, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her that she was special. But it started even before her first cry.
She didn’t suddenly exist when the doctor cut the cord. The stork didn’t bring her, and she didn’t magically appear in my arms when I wished upon a Star. She was actually nine months in the making. She began when my husband and I joined our efforts to create her, and from that moment of conception, she began to form into the gorgeous young lady she is today. When I look at her today I know she will be something amazing, but I knew it when I looked into her newborn eyes. And I also knew it when I first saw the positive pregnancy test. That was the beginning of who she will become one day, and who would I be to halt that ascent to greatness?
And the thing is, whether she invents the cure for cancer, becomes a famous singer, decides to be a stay-at-home mother and wife, or a shoulder a friend can cry on, it will be great. Who am I to keep the world from a friend who talks them out of suicide or a scientist who creates a new self-sustaining and environmental-friendly form of fuel?
I wonder if those who support abortion ever wonder who they’re killing, who could have been had they not taken their life away?
It seems that a popular opinion is that life doesn’t begin until it starts outside the mother’s body, but how could anyone believe that lie? It’s simple biology. Just as I mentioned before, my daughters didn’t simply appear. Their father and I created them. We started their development. And with each day they develop more and more. They have a heartbeat. They are alive.
But they can’t survive outside the womb. That’s the argument for abortion if performed by a certain time, say less than 24 weeks. But if we’re going to use that train of thought then let’s do away with intubation, ventilators, life support, CPR, and vasopressors. As a nurse, I’ve taken care of hundreds of patients who would die without those things, but I don’t take those things away. I would lose my license and go to jail for murder. But ripping a body with a heart that beats on its own from its mother’s womb is perfectly legal. In fact, in New York, it’s now legal to rip that life apart even if it could survive outside the womb on its own. And other states are wishing to follow suit.
