Most babies are welcomed into the world by loving parents, goofy grandparents, excited neighbors and friends, lots of hugs and gifts, and a newly decorated nursery with a beautiful crib and a state-of-the-art intercom system so mom and dad will always know their baby is safe.
I experienced none of this. I was born on January 12, 1948. But something was wrong. There was no mommy or daddy to hold me, no one to whisper in my ear that they loved me. There was no one to hold me to their heart and let the quiet rhythm of their heartbeat lull me to sleep.
When the day finally came for me to go home, there were no balloons, no family gathering to welcome me… no, a Social Worker simply carried me from the hospital to what would become my home for the next 9 months – the local Children’s Home. That morning, I became an orphan, abandoned by my mother and her family.
What’s in a Name? –
One of the most exciting parts of the 9-month wait for a baby’s arrival is choosing the right name. Sometimes the name is a generational family name. Other times, it is a biblical name that holds special significance for the parents. Whatever is chosen, a name gives the child identity and security. It assures them they belong; it provides a family name and a personal name. For the first nine months of my life, I had no name, no mommy to rock me or daddy to hold me, no one to whisper my name into my ear. I was simply “Baby Doe.”
I’m very grateful the convenience of abortion was not legal in 1948.
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Texas statute that forbade abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life. That day marked the beginning of millions of babies losing their lives before they even drew their first breath. Killing these babies became legal in the United States of America.
I suspect I was born to a young woman who discovered she was pregnant, and either my biological father or her parents (my grandparents), perhaps both, didn’t want her to have the baby because it would ruin the plans they had for her life. Had the Supreme Court decision been made 25 years earlier, that young woman would have simply gone to a local abortion clinic, and my life would have ended before it began.
In 1947, the year before my birth, the Hollywood movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” was released, in which George Bailey wished he had never been born. In the movie, he discovered how much his life had meant to so many and how others’ lives had been affected by his. Had abortion been legal in America in 1948, I might have been the real “George Bailey” – the future Bur Shilling who was never born.
The disaster of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision is that from 1973 to the 2022 decision sending the abortion issue back to the states, over 63 million babies were legally murdered in the United States. Sixty-three million lives were never allowed to affect even one other life. This is the real evil of abortion in our land.