My Little One Under Her Starry Mantle

Recently the enormity of some issues facing our country and our world were shown to me with such force that I knew I was called to help spread the message of life. In October, before the 2008 Presidential Elections, I received the following blog in an email message sent to me by a friend in Worcester, but written by a lady named Anne in Australia.

Under Her Starry Mantle

Months before receiving the message, my husband had accepted an invitation to attend a business conference in Phoenix, AZ and invited me to join him on the trip. Remembering the connection described by Anne between the Miraculous Medal, the McCain's and Mother Teresa, we both decided to travel with one of the medals to remind us to pray for the elections. Mother Teresa was known to hand out a Miraculous Medal to almost anyone she met and carried them in handfuls as a symbol of charity. The McCain's adopted daughter was an orphan in Mother Teresa's orphanage and they both carry Blessed Mother Teresa medal with them everywhere they go. They also carry a Miraculous Medal given to them by Eduardo Verastegui, a pro-life advocate and film director/actor, during the campaign.

Through no intentional planning of our own, our plane landed in Cleveland, OH on the day of then Senator Barack Obama's last rally which had taken place there. My husband lost his medal at the airport and we smiled thinking that somehow it was not an accident the medal stayed in that city with the most pro-abortion candidate to ever run for the US Presidency.

On Election Day we learned that Senator John McCain's election party was being held in Phoenix where we were also staying. Another surprise. I went to the nearest church to pray on Election Day, and was awed to see a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the chapel. At the end of Anne's blog she reminds us that during the 2004 elections, it was on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe that Mary provided her intercession:

"The election was not a clear cut win, it went to the courts and it because a protracted court battle until two decisive court wins went in George W Bush’s favour.

The first took place of the 8th of December – the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – the second, which gave Bush the presidency, took place on the 12th of December, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of America and patroness of the unborn. " -Anne

I realized with humility and gratitude that it was no accident we had been in the places we had been in during our trip and that we had received Anne's message from Australia just before it. I felt a connection with pro-life advocates around the world.

I read the pro-life websites and learned about the brutality of late term abortion, partial birth abortion, and infanticide in the case of an abortion gone awry. All abortion is wrong, but many do not realize the reality of it. Over 90% of Down's Syndrome children in the US are aborted by choice. Who are we to say that's not a life worth living? Who are we to say they are not more of a blessing to this world than a burden? Or any child?

Abortion is the choice to end a life. It has been argued that unwanted pregnancies are a social burden, but the worth of a life should not depend on how much another person 'wants' it. A healthy society can never be built on the assumption that we can begin and end human life at will. Women will never earn respect for themselves by declaring independence by climbing over the bodies of the smallest and most innocent of humans. Children are a gift. Motherhood is privilege. In the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers!"

To all parents, please remember the day you heard your baby's heart beat for the first time in your womb. Was that baby your child then? Do you remember when you had the first sonogram? Was that your child then? Anyone who has ever been pregnant knows that it is not a mass of tissue. It is a baby, even if they never held it in their arms. Life begins at conception. All the arguments against it fail to do one thing...to say when it does definitively begin then. If not at conception, then when? Who decides? If we aren't going to look to God, then who plays the role?

Sixteen years ago I had an abortion. I was a college student convinced by peers that it was the responsible choice to correct my irresponsible actions. I can attest to the slogan, "Abortion stops one heart and it breaks another." I spent the whole next decade trying to forget, down a spiral that led to as much self inflicted destruction to my body and soul as one can imagine. I honestly can say even today that I don't really want to be totally forgiven, and when I think about the enormity of what I did, I know I'll never be completely whole again...not until I am reunited in Heaven with a little angel I've named Ann, my middle name. Part of my own healing from the despair and pain of abortion is to turn my passion into action. I know this story from both sides and I know that however successful we are at changing policy and law, it's the changing of hearts that will ultimately end abortion.

Now my prayer is that I can help to stop this lie and, as Mary teaches us with her courage and obedience to give birth to our Lord Jesus Christ, that human life will become valued by all even when the beginning of a new one is unexpected and difficult to bear.

"Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!”