The Sanctity of Life

Yesterday, I saw my baby for the first time. At my first doctor’s appointment we couldn’t hear the heartbeat (I cried). So she pulled in the ultrasound and checked to be sure. There on the grainy screen in amazing details for only 10 weeks along was a small face that I swear turned to face us at the screen (I cried again). He/she was hiccupping! We could clearly see the up and down rhythmic motion, and the tiny butterfly flutter of its heartbeat.
I’m probably going to step on someone’s toes but after thinking what a miraculous and beautiful sight it was, my second thought was, how is it possible that abortion exists? The face, the movement, the aliveness of that tiny form, there is no question but that it is active, breathing life. And a miracle—and utter and complete miracle.
What exactly have I done to make that baby develop so fully so far? Nothing. After the initial contribution, the body, in its incredible pre-programmed way to preserve life, goes about its daily business. All I have to do is eat right and make sure everyone pampers the gestating mother.
I read the following last week in a talk by President James E. Faust titled “The Sanctity of Life” and thought it profound.
“Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson recently revealed that he was among those who were militantly outspoken in favor of legalized abortion and joined in using every device available in political action to promote it. He helped set up and became director of the first and largest abortion clinic in the western world. After the center had performed some sixty thousand abortions, Dr. Nathanson resigned as director. He said, ‘I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths. There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy.’ (New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 291, no. 22, p. 1189.)”
President Faust stated, “Way back in the sixteenth century, Arantius showed that maternal and fetal circulations were separate, thus clearly demonstrating that there are two separate lives involved. The unborn babe is certainly alive, because it possesses the token of life which is the ability to reproduce dying cells. (Dr. Eugene F. Diamond, Illinois Medical Journal, May 1967.)”
I know this is a rather serious topic, varying from my usual type of thoughts. But I felt so strongly yesterday, looking at that screen, seeing that face almost seem to turn to me, that I was a witness of a modern-day miracle, no matter how many times that miracle is repeated.
How grateful, deeply grateful I am for the opportunity to be a mother. To create and nurture life, to be a partner with Deity in the sacred process of it, and to be afforded a firsthand view, on a screen, of the magnificent progression of that sacred experience.
Best,
Connie