My Lamentation

Forgive me for posting twice in a day, but I felt like I needed to post this as well... whether it resonates with you or not, I hope it at least touches your heart...

The Holocaust was the genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II. Today, people read about it in history books, but it is not something one will generally hear discussed in regular day-to-day conversation. I wasn’t alive during the time of the Holocaust, I didn’t see the pain being caused, the horrible acts did not take place outside of my window, and I didn’t have to consider harboring a refugee or what my consequences would be if anyone knew there were Jews in my house, or even my barn. I am not of Jewish descent, I cannot identify with Jews of today who have or had family members who were victims of this gruesome time.

The two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Japan and Nagasaki, Japan near the end of World War II, were responsible for approximately 200,000 Japanese deaths. According to Wikipedia, the only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and that acknowledge possessing such weapons today—are (chronologically) the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is also widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it does not acknowledge having them.

In the world I have grown up in, there have been terrorist attacks, and my country has retaliated. The casualties of the Iraqi war are numerous. According to the Opinion Research Business Survey there were 1,033,000 deaths as a result of the conflict dating from March 2003 to August 2007. After the initial attacks on the Twin Towers, Americans across the country called for action to be taken against the terrorist organizations; the United States of America did just that. We retaliated in full force.... but as war waged and the death count rose, Americans began to feel the full affects of what this war was continuing to do to the lives of our citizens. People began to call for an end to the war, which was becoming increasingly apparent might not end until much longer than anticipated.

In any circumstance, with any group of people, if someone began to talk about a barbaric act in history, or if he/she were to recount the lives of those who had died, I believe people would began to feel a few emotions. A sense of loss for those who died and their families, a sense of sadness about the overall tragedy, and most likely a part of them would be wishing there was something they could have done to spare those who suffered, who are suffering, from that pain.

There are controversy topics around the world: politics and religion are probably two of the “hottest” controversies in the world today, and through studying history it seems to have always been that way. But there is no controversy that the obituary page in the paper is a sad one, especially when there is a young soldier listed, or a young child in general, or even when a highly influential person of the age is declared dead. A person reading an obituary of a ten year old girl who died in an accident at a camp, will most likely remark something along the lines of, “What a tragedy,” or “She was so young,” or even “She didn’t even have a chance to live.” Death of children seem to be more grief striking than the deaths of elderly men and women, who, in most views, were able to live a full and generally happy life.

So here is a new statistic, one that, like most of the others, isn’t something discussed in every day conversation. But, since it is a statistic that is growing at a constant rate every single day, American citizens should probably know about it. 38,507,550 have been destroyed from 1970-2005. Many more have been added to this number in the five years since, but due to the growing belief in Pro-Choice, the law has sanctioned these killings. I don’t want to sound angry, or judgmental, but sorrowful. This is a severe tragedy that has affected a vast number of people throughout the last forty years, and it is continuing to do so.

I understand that when a pregnancy is called into question, and termination is discussed, sometimes it is because the mother will most likely die herself if she tries to carry the baby to full term. Also, there is the fact that some women become pregnant after they have been raped. For others it is because they do not want a baby, they are scared of the responsibility, of change, of being able to care for it. For others, the choice is made because they are too afraid of what people will think, what others will say, how they will be looked at and judged. And how sad is that. I cannot say that these feelings are wrong, or that it isn’t scary to consider raising a child. I think most people who have planned for children and end up getting pregnant at one point in time or another have a moment of panic. The questions of capability, affordability, suitability, all surface intermittently, or sometimes all together. Then there are those who don’t question or fear at all, and of those people even I am jealous.

If faced with the probability that my life would end if I attempted to carry a baby to full term, I honestly do not know what I would do. Would I consider aborting the pregnancy? If I am truly honest with myself, I would have to say yes. If I was ever raped and became pregnant I am fairly confident that I would not abort the child, but I am also pretty certain I wouldn’t know whether to raise the child myself or give the child up for adoption. Of those women, girls, gals, who get pregnant and fear others’ remarks, fear not being able to have the life they have planned out for themselves, fear the responsibility- I can relate to. Those fears generally are a result of getting pregnant before being married. I’ve been there, and I am not about to say that it is an easy place to be. When I found out I was pregnant I cried, and they were not tears of joy, but of remorse, regret, and lament. I felt dirty, I didn’t want to walk outside, I didn’t want to see anyone. And for one entire week my boyfriend and I seriously considered abortion. Our thought process was that we would be the only two people affected by it, our family wouldn’t have to suffer, our friends wouldn’t think any less of us, and we could graduate college as planned. Our lives would go on as they always had, and the only people who would have ever known about the baby would have been the two of us.

By some miracle I was able to look past my own dreams, goals, and plans for my future; and I allowed myself to imagine raising a child instead of attending classes. I allowed my dreams for the “now” time of my life to die a little, and I turned toward a vastness of possibilities. From the moment my now-husband and I held our son, we were grateful for the time we had taken to consider what it would be like to dream a different dream. And I will say this, our family and majority of our friends look at our son as a beautiful gift. I want to encourage the girls who I can relate to: Give yourself a chance to imagine your child’s smiles, your child’s laughs, your child’s first words, and even his or her first cries. Imagine holding an incredible innocent child who will smile for you when the world is against you, who will stretch out their arms wanting you to comfort them, who look to you and pursue you. Imagine a baby who calls you “Mommy,” and who looks at you like you are the greatest thing in the world. Imagine leaving a legacy. And imagine making an impact on a death toll that is steadily rising.

If you want to make a difference in the world, you can. But it isn’t about the right of a mother to make her own decisions, it’s about the right to life that for some reason the entire world feels they have, and yet so many believe that an unborn child doesn’t. If a child was murdered before they could speak, the person who ended the child’s life would be called a murderer. Give the child within the womb nine months before ending their life and they qualify as a “murdered” child instead of an “aborted” child. But, why do so many people want to end lives in the first place?

Right now, in Houston, TX, resides the largest abortion clinic in the world, (aside from the clinics in China). Not only does this clinic participate in first and second trimester abortions, (when the child, or “fetus,” is 0-3 months old and 3-6 months old respectively), but they also administer third trimester abortions, and there is an entire floor devoted to partial birth abortion. Partial birth abortion is when the baby has been partially born, and the doctor kills it before it is fully born. Astonishingly enough, even that act is not considered violent, or murder. Do the women who have this performed not understand that there are countless couples out there who cannot have children of their own and who would love nothing more than to adopt a baby? Tragedy, why have you befallen on this country?

The book Lamentations, written by the prophet Jeremiah, found in the Bible, contains the lamentations of Jeremiah. He weeps over the destruction of the people and the city. Mothers are described in this book as eating their own children. A little over 2500 years later, it seems like our world has taken that concept and multiplied it a billion times over.

This is the plea of my heart, that the way we view pro-life and pro-choice would no longer be a point of controversy. The idea that every individual should be given the right to be born, and that if the parent wants a choice they can choose to put their child up for adoption. Why does death have to be a choice?

My lamentation is this: that over 40 million innocent babies have been denied the right to life over the past forty years. They didn’t do anything wrong, if anyone is the victim here it is them, not the mother, but the child who cannot vocalize how much the chance at life would mean to him or her. Why is evil so prevalent? Why is innocence so destroyed?