Being a father at the March for Life

It is worthy of note that for all of man's incredible intellectual abilities, most of his life goes by forgotten not only by the outside world, but even by himself. Going about our day to day duties, it is often only the exceptional times in life that we remember with any lasting effect. There are many days on the calendar that I cannot tell you what I was doing, or what happened that day. I do not remember clearly October 22, 2011, or for that matter I do not remember exactly what I was doing on January 17, 2012. In order to remember what I was doing on either of these days I would need to go back in my calendar, or through my e-mails, to try to remind myself what was on my mind, who I was talking with, or what I was doing.

However, while the majority of my life flashes by in a blur of blessing and suffering, there are specific dates that stick out in mind. The days of April 23 and April 24, 2011 are both still with me, in vivid memory. Those two days stand out amongst the cloud of days before and after. April 23, Liz and I drove into the hospital in Winchester, arriving at a little before 9 o'clock in the morning. We had been to see the doctor on Wednesday, April 20 and Liz's blood pressure had been high, so they allowed us a few more days to see if she would go into labor naturally. Despite high volumes of walking and pineapple juice being consumed, she did not go into labor, so we drove to the hospital so that she could be induced.

For the next 24 hours I stood in awe of my wife as I could only try to help her through this experience. I could try to take her mind off the pain, and I could try to encourage her the best I could, but I could not take away the work she had to go through. Those 24 hours were marked by a series of highs a lows. She would progress in labor and then stall, progress and then stall. Despite hoping to have a natural labor, we had to make the tough decisions to put her on Pitocin, and then later on an epidural. However, neither of these helped her to progress any more, and towards the end we were finally ready for a C-Section.

However, right when we thought it would all be over, it turned out that Liz was ready to push. Just when we thought the work was done, it truly began. During the next hour, Liz showed strength that I could not imagine and that I unfortunately did not suspect she had. She gave everything she had in her. And, at about 9:45 in the morning, April 24, Easter Sunday 2011 Alan was born. For those of you who might not have experienced this blessing for yourselves, I can assure you there is no more joyful moment, no more powerful memory then the first time you see your child's face. For nine months you have waited to meet this person, wondering what they will look like and whose features they will possess. In an instant, you know. In an instant, you see the face of a baby you could not love more, the face of a human being who you will love until death takes one of you. At the moment, Liz and I wept tears of joy that we had never experienced before. We wept because God had entrusted us with another human life. He had given us an immense gift, one that requires sacrifice on our parts, but one that pays a thousand fold back in joy and laughter.

Going forward from that moment, calling myself "pro-life" took on a whole new meaning. There has never been a time in my life where I have not been pro-life. In high school, I attended the March for Life in Washington D.C. every year. During college I continued this practice, and since graduating I have always found myself in Washington D.C. around January 22 so as to witness to my beliefs. However, this year the March for Life took on a whole new meaning for me. Externally, the March was very similar to what it had been in the past couple of years. Many church groups were there, and the overwhelming majority of the tens of thousands of protesters were youth. The pro-choice protesters were also there, as were the graphic images of babies that had been aborted. 

Going through all this for the 9th year in a row, my mind couldn't help going back to the moment of my son's birth. The moment he was born, I knew him as my son. I saw him as a human being, alive and moving, his face in a little scowl from being taken from his nice warm home in his mother's womb. What was different from that baby I saw and those babies on the graphic billboards? Why was one a human, and the other not? Why did one deserve to live, and the other deserve to die? Why is it that our laws say that my son was a baby human being at 9:45 a.m, April 24, but not at 9:30 a.m., April 24?

The abortion of a human baby does not logically make sense. Science has not found a defining moment when a baby goes from being a "blob of tissue" to being a baby. Indeed, science is slowly starting to move toward recognizing that a baby always has the same identity from the moment of conception. It is always a living organism, not just a blob of tissue. 

But the reason there is any debate over this is because there are two persons primarily involved in the 9 month development of the baby (well four, including the God and the father). The pro-choice side is pro-choice largely because they emphasize the mother at the expense of the baby. They argue that women who do not want a baby for whatever reason (financial difficulties, emotional difficulties, or inconvenience) should not be forced to deliver this baby into the world. They should not be forced to go through the suffering of pregnancy, and thus abortion should be readily available so that they do not have to be forced to choose an unsafe back alley abortion. Their empathy is with the mother. They believe that a woman who for one reason or another is not ready to be a mother, shouldn't have to be.

However, because they have such a strong emphasis on what they perceive to be the well-being of the mother, they in turn believe that pro-lifers are just the opposite of them. Namely, they believe that pro-lifers have an over emphasis on the well-being of the baby at the expense of the mother. In truth, though, nothing could be further from the truth. There may be segments of the pro-life movement that care only for the well being of the baby, but by and large the pro-life movement wants both the mother and the baby to be happy. This is why so many pro-life organizations offer financial and emotional assistance to mothers in a crisis pregnancy. Many crisis pregnancy centers have strong ties with adoption agencies, so that if a mother is not ready to be a mother, she can give the baby to somebody who is. There are even houses that care for mothers in crisis pregnancies during the nine months they are carrying the baby, and up to a year afterwards so that they can help the women learn how to be mothers, find a job, and find an apartment for themselves and their new babies.

These organizations witness to what it means to be pro-life. To be pro-life is to genuinely want whats best for the mother and the baby. We do not want to see mothers forced into situations where they cannot support a child. The pro-life solution to this problem though is not to remove the child, its to remove the situation that is hostile to children. The solution is to help these women, so that each child has a moment of birth, as my son did.

During the March for Life this year, I was overwhelmed by what it means to be pro-life. Ultimately, it means that we must be a person who loves everyone. We must love the baby and the mother. We must teach others to love everyone. Recognizing the value of human life in our lives, we must love the value of human life in others'.