Well Worth the Read

 

The Pro-Life Movement: A Family with Many Faces

 

By Jean Garton
Editor’s note. The latest in our year-long “Roe at 40” series is a wonderful essay by Jean Garton (author of the classic “Who Broke the Baby?”) that appeared in our January 1998, edition. It’s an amazing piece penned by one of the great writers in our Movement, which is why it being re-run as part of a collection of the best stories from National Right to Life News going all the way back to 1973.

Claire and Carissa

A national newspaper column once carried a letter from the mother of two young sons. It told of how, at a mall one day, a stranger observed that her boys didn’t look at all alike. Her six-year-old took it upon himself to explain the difference. “I’m adopted,” he said. “That’s when you have the same family but not the same face.”
Ours is a family like that–a family with different faces–and I notice the puzzled looks of passersby who wonder what my connection might be to the mix of kids who are my grandchildren.
THREE’S A CROWD
There are six of them–all belonging to my oldest daughter and her husband. The first three (biological children) came in a bunch–triplet boys: Joshua, Jonathan, and Jeremy. They are now 17 but when they were small, caring for them was like trying to organize grasshoppers.
There was lots of help after their birth. Not from corporations or community agencies but from pro-life people. Sixty of them in all–family and friends, Protestants and Catholics, women and men, teens and adults–signed up to be my daughter’s extra hands in the hectic first six months. (And not a single person who helped would have suggested “fetal reduction”!)
The triplets’ mother was the only one who could tell them apart. To the rest of us they all seemed to have the same face (like Winston Churchill, someone said) but time soon changed that.
A LONELY ONLY

Time also changed the “face” of that family with the addition of a girl, another biological child named Caitlin. She says, somewhat wistfully at times, that she is the only “ordinary” kid in the family. She was a single birth with no disabilities and a face as American as the Gerber baby.
“BELOVED” FROM TAIWAN

Not so with Carissa, grandchild #5. She was born prematurely with severe facial/cranial deformities: a cleft palate, no jaw, misshapen ears, and severe hearing and sight impairments.
We learned of her through the newsletter of a pro-life agency in Taiwan. She was in an orphanage with her tongue sewed to her inner lower lip, being fed through a nose tube, and with the continuation of her life threatened.
When she became part of our family at 18 months, she was given the name Carissa which means “beloved.” It fits her and also fits her date of birth–Valentine’s Day. She will be seven soon and is a healthy, active, bright but tiny little girl who only weighs 29 pounds. After much therapy and surgery she is learning to speak and recently joined other pro-lifers as a link in the Life Chain, holding a sign that read, Abortion Kills Children.
MISS KOREA

Abortion could have killed Claire, grandchild #6. Instead, it only took her right arm from the shoulder down. In Korea, where she was born, abortion is a common means of birth control, and she appears to be the victim of a botched abortion.
Claire joined our family when she was one and now, at 16 months, is babbling English words with a southern drawl. For Claire to pray means putting her hand over her heart instead of folding hands, and when there’s a reason to clap, a brother or sister will lend her one of their hands to make a pair.
THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT: A FAMILY WITH DIFFERENT FACES

Jimmy Durante, the comedian, was once asked to be part of a show for World War II veterans. He had another engagement and planned to just greet the veterans and leave, but when he went on stage he began to perform. The applause grew louder and he continued to perform. When he was asked why he changed his mind and stayed so long, he said, “Look at the front row and you’ll see the reason.” Seated there were two men. One had lost his right arm in the war and the other his left. Together, though, they were able to clap loudly and happily.
For 25 years the pro-life movement has been joining hands around the globe to accomplish together what we could not do alone. We are a movement with many faces and facets. We are people of different colors, shapes, sexes, and ages who engage in a variety of pro-life activities: political action, crisis pregnancy services, educational efforts, post-abortion outreach, and other work and witness.
Each one makes a contribution to the same message: that human life is sacred and ought to be cherished at every age and stage. That’s the kind of society I want for my grandchildren. Why doesn’t everyone?

Source: NRLC News