Abortion: What might have been
There is a youngster I know who is a beautiful human being. He’s getting taller with each passing day as he grows into a fine young man. Still in his early teens, he’s a good student and remarkably intelligent. A lover of sports, he can tell you about every team and their players, college and professional. He’s quite grounded for one so young, a small repository of wisdom. It’s a joy being around him, and I’m quite certain if he doesn’t stumble along the way, he’ll make a mark in life from which many will benefit.
This young fellow is the apple of his mother’s eye. She adores him. No one or nothing is comparable to him in her estimation. But I’m one of the few persons who know something about the boy that even he doesn’t know. His mother seriously considered aborting him before his birth. She was hardly more than a teen herself when she was pregnant with him, unmarried, unprepared, and terrified. Her friends urged to her to get rid of the problem. But providence arranged it so that I was able to have many opportunities to speak with her about that decision and urge her not to do it. She didn’t. And now with her handsome son at her side every day, she rues the thought of what she once seriously contemplated.
Think of all she might have missed.
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In his book, “Storm Warning,” the late Dr. Billy Graham wrote:
“Almost without exception, the media have staunchly defended a woman’s “right” to abortion. One of the few meaningful expressions of disapproval I have found in any newspaper is this prophetic cry against this specter of immorality and suffering raised after the Roe v. Wade decision by an editorial writer in the Orlando, Florida, Sentinel:
“‘The devaluation of morality induced by abortion could, and in all likelihood will have far-reaching effects. Among them are the promotion of promiscuity, depersonalization of the concept of life and activating the destruct button on the family unit as we know it….And what of a woman herself? Abortion by whim could have grave future consequences to her.
There is enough unavoidable pain in living without inflicting on oneself, in a period of extremity, the haunting memory of a child that might have been.’”
Everything that insightful editorialist feared would happen with the practice of abortion has now become a reality, and nothing is worse than the absence of all the loveliness, magnificence, and benefit that “might have been.”
Pro-Life activist, Randy Alcorn, notes an incredible story from “Reader’s Digest” about a young Italian woman named Catuzza, who lived in New York City. One day during the 1950s, Catuzza allowed an 11-year-old neighbor boy and his 3-year-old brother Joey touch her abdomen so that they could feel her unborn child kicking. Thirty-five years later Joey was dying until his life was saved by a skilled and dedicated physician. After recognizing the doctor’s last name, Joey’s older brother was able to put the pieces together. “Only then did the realization hit me,” he said. “The unborn baby that kicked inside Catuzza all those years before on Irving Street had grown up to be the outstanding doctor who saved my brother’s life.”
The classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” seen often during the Christmas season, marvelously depicts the principle in parabolic form.
Jimmy Stewart plays George Baily, whose life is suddenly turned so topsy-turvy that he believes it would have been better if he had never been born.
When an angel convincingly demonstrates to George the importance of his life and how impoverished the world would have been without him, the angel concludes: “Strange, isn’t it? Every man’s life touches so many other lives, and when he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole to fill, doesn’t he?... You see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?”
Last Sunday was Sanctity of Human Life Sunday in churches across our nation. Tuesday was the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court – the ruling that made abortion legal in America – the ruling that poked more than 60 million holes in our society.
It’s impossible to calculate what we’ve missed or lost.
Children supply us with our greatest joys. They are our greatest national resource.
May God hasten the dawn of a new anniversary – the anniversary of abortion’s end - when every mother who is able enjoys a beautiful son or a daughter at her side - when every Catuzza’s unborn child kicking in the womb can fulfill his purpose - when there are no more holes.
