Dear Baby

The following is a letter to a friend's fetus. Tomorrow she is having an abortion. You might view this post as an editorial about my views on abortion. This is not my goal. This post is my reaction, my personal process of dealing with the death of a child and the ramifications of that action on the life of my friend.

Dear Baby,

Tomorrow you will die.

You know nothing but warmth and water. You are floating in a small, insulated home. Inside a woman who is probably awake when she should be resting. She is tired and anxious because she has made a decision that will impact your life and hers forever. I don't think that she knows yet the extent of this decision, how far or long it will affect her as a human being, as a woman, and perhaps, one day, as a mother. She is a mother because of you, yes. But she is giving that up, I think, because she believes that it will allow her to live. She is giving your life for her own.

Your mother, the woman who now holds you in her womb, believes that she cannot deal with this situation. She is young, younger than I was when I gave birth to my first child, and I too was young. She is alone in a place where she sees many relationships going on all around her. She is trying to make relationships of her own. She is trying to get somewhere in life, somewhere that many people around her have not gone. She is struggling, and you have made her tired. You take what you need, because that is what growing children do. Your little body soaks up her nutrients and her energy, and she feels less motivated and sick.

She knows that she could bear you. She could physically bear the pain of the labor, and the annoyance of the whining, and the years of working to support you. You would be hard work. And she has not even begun to get at a place called "stability." She is trying, I think. At least with as much heart as she knows how. She has been told that she is lazy, and in the same breath that she is talented. She has not experienced unconditional love from the people that she needed it from. At least I don't think so. And I don't know, I don't know if you came into being because she consented to sex, or because she was forced into it. I just don't know.

I don't pass judgment on her. I will not. People say that they don't, that God is the only judge. But they don't mean it. In their minds they are thinking, passing judgment. But I will not. She has made a decision. It is her choice.

Here is the rub, as we say. In my view, a choice is not only a right, but a responsibility. A choice implies that one is making a conscious decision between one thing and another. And if we defend our right to choose whether or not to terminate our pregnancies, than we also need to be making choices that will help protect us and our humanity. I don't think there is one pro-choice advocate in the world who does not view abortion as the termination of the early stages of life. There are different views about the spiritual significance of this action, the moral implication, the physical impact. But we can agree that the act of aborting a fetus ends a life that was beginning to develop. So, I don't think anyone enjoys it. It is not a process that we would volunteer for, it is rather our way of dealing with the development of unexpected, unwanted life.

That is you, my dear little one. Though I am saddened by this, by the fact that you mother has to make this decision, and by the fact that you will not live through this stage in your physical life, I do not view this as your end. I think, I hope, that the only pain you will ever feel is that of tomorrow. That beyond those few moments you will feel nothing but pure joy, in a stage of life that many of us will not see for many years. For this reason, I must make a request of you on behalf of your mother. You must guide her through this life. She is trying in the best ways that she knows, to become someone in this world. More than anyone else, she needs you. She does not realize that you would be a joy in her life. Or, if she does, it is not enough to outweigh the difficulties she believes you would bring. She is trying to better herself, to give herself the opportunity to grow in this world, by deleting you from it. I ask that you not abandon her in her time of need, when she needs you the most. It is my belief that in the world that lies beyond death, your work will be much greater that any we are doing here on earth. Like all of the good we can muster multiplied by a million. You will have power and love beyond measure, and I ask, in your mother's name, that you embrace her with your true self at all times.