Sleep well little ones. As I tucked you all in to bed tonight, I began to wonder what the world will look like for you as an adult. I’m concerned that it will still be a place where there is no legal protection for babies like you, but even worse, that there won’t be as many moms like me who will choose life for their children.
Our home state of Oregon is a state which allows children to be killed before they are born, at any time up until birth for any reason. Many other states want to have the same kind of laws which allow this. What a scary place our whole country be if this happens, because when a state or a judge says it’s okay to kill your unborn baby, many moms think there’s nothing wrong with it.
As a mom, it’s hard to explain to you how this even happened. In many ways, the answer is simple because, you see, it all started with an exception. Some people think it’s just one little tiny exception, but it’s not tiny. They’ll say that the exception is only 1%, but that 1% matters and you’ll see how the percentages grow from that 1.
What was the first exception? Rape — that word I’ve taught you. It’s when someone touches someone else’s privates without permission. It’s how mommy became pregnant the first time. The exception is when people think babies should be protected, except when the mommy was raped. Then they think it’s okay to kill that baby.
So how did that exception get bigger? When people became comfortable with this exception they added another: when the unborn baby isn’t healthy or will look different when they’re born. Then, the exception grew bigger when people said you can kill an unborn baby to save the mother — just because a doctor scares her and says she’ll die if she doesn’t kill her baby. Once you go and follow the trail of exceptions; or rather a rabbit hole of lies, you find that the one small percent, the tiny little exception, the ones who people figured don’t count anyways, that is what led to where we are today.
The exceptions which originally seemed small, grew to a free for all to kill any preborn baby at any time. People call these “the hard cases.” They called all of you — my precious children — the hard cases! But you aren’t hard. You are each a person like anyone else.
Perhaps my little ones, some people will try to tell you that a case of rape is a good reason to end the life of a baby not yet born, but you tell them that your big sister was conceived this way! But imagine that she wasn’t your sister. Would that change who she is as a person? If you have two newborn babies before you, smiling in their sleep, innocent and perfect; would you know which is a child from rape? No, you would not.
You see, I have raised you to love all people regardless of skin color, religion, age, and yes, the way they came into this world. Picture these two angelic faces peacefully dreaming; does one deserve to die because another person did something bad? Rape is very real in the world we live in. This is why I’ve taught you how we protect our privates. It’s sad that there are people who do bad things and hurt other people. I am so sorry my sweet children, but yes, it is all too common. So common that many women like mommy become pregnant with a baby this way. It is a tough thing to go through but the mommy isn’t bad and neither is the baby. Abortion kills babies before they are born. Does that sound like it would make a mommy feel better, to kill her own child? Of course not! We should punish the person who does something bad, not the baby who did nothing wrong. I am sorry the world can be so mean my child, but please love all, even the babies of rape victims. Rapists loves abortion because then they think they won’t get caught and no one will find out what they did. But the baby is proof!
The world may tell you my sweet children that a baby with medical problems shouldn’t be brought to this earth. They’ll say it would make the baby and the parents suffer for the baby to be born. They’ll say that the baby costs too much money to take care of. Don’t let them fool you my dear children. You see, even though the doctors promised he would die, your brother did not. Despite all the statistics, he lived, he is here, happy and healthy. Even if we forget that your amazing brother is doing well, I saw hundreds of babies just like him at the hospital. All miracles. Every single day a new baby was born too early, or with a medical problem, or in one way or another they were babies who doctors thought should not be given chance to live. Yet, all of them did. They grew, they fought, they made it out and are bringing joy to all of those around them. We don’t want our country or our world to be a place where people are killed because they may be seen as imperfect. There are places where that’s happened before. If, for whatever reason a baby does have a very short life, what a gift to treasure, those moments everyone gets to have with that baby.
Some people will tell you that a baby may need to be killed to save the life of the baby’s mother, and I know that sounds pretty scary. What if she has other babies to raise? We don’t want them to be orphans. What if there is an emergency? This, my sweet angels, is what worries me most. In today’s world, many doctors are getting smarter and better at fixing medical problems which people have. But there are people who believe that abortion is a cure. This scary thought is how we got to where we are today. The truth is that there is no safe and easy abortion, but some doctors will try to scare parents into aborting their babies by telling them the mommy will die if they don’t. It’s easier for some doctors to just kill a baby instead of treating the mother and making her better.
I tuck you in dear children, sad knowing that this is a possibility for your future — that these exceptions will grow and grow, and that more innocent babies will die. I hope I raise you well enough to love and value all people —that you never see a person based on the color of their skin, on the way that they talk, the color of their hair, how smart they are, how they talk, how they look, their health problems, the tough things they go through, and definitely not by the bad things their father may have done to their mommy. Once we are created, we are a person. The way we came, the way we look, the physical differences — none of it matters. You are the future, and I hope we can all fight to make it better. I want nothing more than to spread the truth to protect children like you, to protect all babies, all children, all people, before they are born and beyond. We must one day all agree that we are all equal, perfect in our own way, and we must fight for the innocent.
I hope that if I teach you these things there is still hope. As I get you snuggled up to your teddy bear, with your fuzziest blanket, and your night light — I can see the chance of a bright world ahead, a place where we all come together, a world in which we finally value people for their differences and celebrate them, a place where we won’t punish an innocent baby for a bad thing someone else did. There may be a future where abortion will be erased from so many people’s minds as being an okay thing to do. We need to change laws. We need to protect life, as we would have wanted someone to protect us.