September 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Even though I’ve been involved in the pro-life movement for almost five years now, I still find that sometimes it’s easy to forget exactly what you are fighting for. Who you are fighting for.
Even though I never forget that I fight to save the lives of the unborn and to prevent the emotional and physical harm that women experience as a result of abortion, I find that, on occasion, I can become desensitized to the reality of the issue. It’s easy to forget that lives are being ended every minute when your only visual demonstration of abortion’s existence is statistics on a screen.
All this was highlighted to me, not by a teacher, ethical scholar, or even a fellow pro-lifer. No, the boy who enabled me to see what I was lacking was an unborn child who I have only ever known as Baby Ben.
I first heard about Ben through a very radical group called Abolish Human Abortion. One of the “abolitionists” had been on duty at an abortion clinic that day and made a post about a couple with whom she had spoken. Abolish Human Abortion had shared that post and, “voila,” it entered my Facebook newsfeed. The original post went as follows:
“Baby Ben is 23 weeks gestation. His mommy has an appointment to begin the process of aborting him tomorrow morning. Please pray for Baby Ben's life to be spared…again. He was scheduled to be aborted last week, but his parents relented. I am asking you all to pray for another miracle. There is so much more to say, but I will simply ask you to pray to Jesus to pull out all His stops & rescue this little boy. -PS”
Suddenly, abortion became a real threat all over again. This wasn’t just one baby out of thousands that get aborted every day. No, this was 23-week-old Ben who would die the following morning if I didn’t do anything.
I did all I could: I shared the post of every Facebook page I knew, I got some prayer going, and I was even able to contact a family who wanted to adopt Ben. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to contact Ben’s parents directly and find out what was happening because Ben and his parents were in North Carolina and I live in Ontario.
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I was heartbroken when I found out that Ben was aborted on Thursday, August 1st, 2013. The knowledge that Ben had died because of abortion was even harder for me to grasp than the knowledge that the same thing happens to millions every year. I found that, because I knew something as simple as his name, Ben’s death had become much more realistic to me. He wasn’t just a statistic. Ben was a baby that I had fought for. A baby who deserved life. A baby who was wanted.
But Ben’s life will not be completely wasted if his death can accomplish two simple things, and it is my hope that it can. First, I hope that baby Ben’s death can remind those of us in the pro-life movement to never allow ourselves to become calloused and desensitized. We must remind ourselves daily why we fight this battle. We must keep those goals in the forefront of our minds. We can never allow ourselves to forget the often unheard weeping of parents who have lost their children and the silent cries of the unborn.
Second, I hope that baby Ben’s death will send a message to the pro-abortion community that every child is a wanted child. In 1988, all abortion laws in Canada were struck down in the Supreme Court decision for R. v. Morgentaler. Henry Morgentaler, who recently passed away at the age of 90, fought for the “rights of women,” and his famous slogan for the pro-abortion movement was that “every child should be a wanted one.” He was key in the decision to strike down all laws on abortion and helped usher in the belief that women should have the right to abortion-on-demand. But what he and the pro-abortion crowd who cheered on his efforts didn’t realize was that his slogan was bogus. As long as there is a godly remnant on the earth, an “unwanted” child will always be wanted by someone.
It was Mother Teresa who first brought attention to this fact. A doctor may declare a child to be severely handicapped and deformed. A father may attempt to throw off his fatherhood and refuse a child. A mother may not want to be pregnant. But there is never a situation where a child is truly unwanted.
“Wanted-ness” is always a relative term, but, when used to label a human, born or unborn, it becomes a very dangerous term. Mother Teresa was the first to say these words, but I’ll echo them here: If there is no one who wants the child, I’ll take it.