This I Believe

It Could Have Been Me

Pro-lifers formed a two-block demonstration line next to the curb along a busy shopping area in Frederick MD. My husband and I drove by these well-dressed men, women and children on our way home from church. They quietly held signs designed to penetrate the consciences of motorists. The messages read, “Abortion Kills Children”.

The faces of our four grandchildren immediately came to my mind. How grateful my husband and I are that none of them were aborted. The demonstrator’s signs represented my convictions as well. I was thankful for the bravery of this assembly to make a public statement. Personally, I have never demonstrated for this cause, but seeing them made me want to go home, change clothes, come back and step in line. Maybe, because I lacked their courage, I did not follow through and join them.

The reason I feel strongly about the subject of abortion is because I could easily have been a victim of it. My parents worked hard keeping a dairy farm going without modern conveniences in the middle of the Depression. Dad was 51 and mother was 48. My mother noticed she was gaining weight around her middle. Dad drove my mother the 20 some miles to see our small town doctor. Mother thought she was developing a stomach tumor.

Her doctor gave her the good news/bad news that she had no stomach tumor, but instead she was pregnant. Soon after that visit, she felt new life within her confirming his diagnosis. My parents already had three married sons plus my 17-year-old sister at home. I can only conclude I was destined to be an unwanted pregnancy.

The risk of having a child at age 48 with no high-tech, neonatal intensive care unit available was one thing. The closest hospital, 20 miles away, was a converted two-story former house.

In my mother’s case the chance of having a child with Down’s syndrome was 1 in 11. Based on the elevated risk of birth defects at her age, my mother would no doubt be encouraged by a doctor, if the issue arose today, to have an abortion. Obviously, my mother did not entertain thoughts of an abortion, if the subject was even raised. Her doctor and a midwife traveled to our Wisconsin farm home to safely deliver me.

My views on abortion had to bridge a huge chasm from my staunch belief in the 1970s that no one was going to tell me what to do with my body – to my belief today that my Creator has created me and everyone else for a purpose. When I consider how valuable other people are to me, especially those who have supported, inspired or ignited me in some way, I realize that their mother’s choice, or even my own mother’s choice, could have changed all that.