On Being Pro Life

I took Big Girl to the March for Life this year. It was cold, though not as cold as it is today, praise God! Big Girl complained most of the time, but said later that she had fun.

But something interesting happened as we were stading on Constitution Avenue waiting for the beginning of the actual walking. We were standing near some seminarians (at least a dozen!), and Big Girl was tired of holding her sign from American Life League. She turned to one of the seminarians and asked, "Would you like my sign? I'm tired of holding it." He gladly took it, and commented to me that he is happy to see her and to see that she's Pro Life.

I answered, "Thank you, but you know that children are naturally so. It takes someone teaching them otherwise for them NOT to be Pro Life."

And that's really true. Show any child this picture:

...and he's bound to tell you it's a baby.

When Big Girl was with me while I planned and helped to coordinate a Pro Life ad for Mother's Day ("Thank you, Mom, for choosing life for me!"), she noticed the bumper stickers on my friend's car. Finally, she asked me what abortion was. When I was sure Little Girl could not hear (why expose her to that when she isn't ready?), I explained that abortion is when a woman does not want to have her baby, and so someone takes the baby out of her womb before it's ready to be born. (Have I mentioned lately how very much I hate that I will have to explain this to my children at some point?) This horrified - even revolted - her. She said that no one should do that. I agreed. It made her sad. It angered her. She just had a hard time believing that anyone could do such a thing.

Then I accidentally went farther than I meant to because I assumed she'd made a connection between that act and the result for the baby.

"That's why we pray to end abortion. Because it is so sad that all those babies die."

"THE BABIES DIE!!!???"

oops.

This information only confirmed it for her. She knew that abortion was wrong because Hubby and I said so and she trusted us. (This is, incidentally, where Little Girl is right now and why she can't go to the March yet.) But when she learned what it was, that abortion kills a baby before he is born, she truly understood why it's wrong.

When a child is told what abortion is no child takes that in and comes to the conclusion that it's just a woman's choice - that no one can or should intercede for the baby.

It's natural for children to be Pro Life. And nothing we do should try to convince them otherwise.