In my last blog, on talking to my adopted child about the birds and the bees (and the fish!) I promised to share the next big conversation that took place the week after.
Meg was perusing a Christian catalog which offered books, games, artwork, and clothing for both children and adults. She came upon a page of products for people in pro-life ministry, especially anti-abortion ministry. These were products such as “little feet” stamps and shirts, bumper stickers and prayer cards with various images and wording, etc.
With her newfound reading ability, she read a bumper sticker aloud: “Choose Life, Your Mom Did”. She asked me what it meant.
I hesitated for several minutes.
Then I told her.
It’s hard to explain my decision. My head was saying, “she’s too young”. She’s eight, and I remembered my ten-year-old’s shock when the topic of abortion came a couple of months ago.
I had managed to punt a few years ago when he’d heard someone say they were trying to “save babies” by saying that some people didn’t understand that babies were really people before they could see them, and our friends were working to help people understand that “so they will take care of the babies better”.
But no such luck this time. I believe my son had overheard some political talk among our relatives during which the abortion issue was mentioned. He asked me to explain, and since he’s shown some real maturity with some tragic situations and some ethical situations lately, I did.
“You mean there’s actually someone who wants to make that legal?” he asked.
His shock when I had to tell him it IS legal was painful for me to watch. (For another mother’s reaction to learning her children knew about abortion, click here.)
Despite every bit of my reason saying, “Don’t tell her,” I felt this strong impetus in my heart that I should tell her. I have always so admired her birthmother for not having an abortion in a place where I know there is enormous pressure to do so.
I took her out to the porch so her little sister couldn’t hear us, and cuddled her on the swing. I told her that sometimes people didn’t understand that a baby was really a person when they couldn’t see it. Sometimes a woman who didn’t think she could take care of a child would go to a doctor and the doctor could take everything out of the womb, which meant that the baby died because it was too little to live outside the mother.
“Do they bury the baby?” she asked. I thought of fetuses thrown away as medical waste, and my heart failed me. I said I didn’t know.
I told her that I was so, so grateful that her birthmother had taken care of her and loved her and brought her to a place where she could find a good home.
She said she was chilly and wanted to go inside. It was getting chilly as the sun set. I’m not sure if she was really cold or if it was, as my husband said, “too much information”.
My husband later said it hadn’t been wrong of me to tell her. The key was to tell her, as the bumper sticker had said, “Your mom DID [choose life]”.
This child was loved and cared for from before her birth, by God, by the nurses and social workers and caseworkers, by us who knew we wanted to adopt some day, and by her birthmother.
Praise God.
Please see these related blogs:
Abortion: A Pregnant Mom is Still a Mom