With the abortion debate continuing to rage on in Texas, Real Clear Politics published a great piece by Katy French about how her mother gave up her older sibling for adoption.  She counterbalanced it with a piece from the New York Times, where Beth Matusoff Merfish extols her mother’s decision to abort her older sibling because the timing was all wrong for her mother and father to have a child.

This recalled to my mind another recent New York Times piece, written by former Seattle City Council member Judy Nicastro, who, when she discovered that one of the twins she was carrying had a genetic defect, had him aborted in the womb, claiming that it was the most loving and compassionate thing she could do for him.  His twin sister was spared a death sentence, as she was healthy and not genetically defective.

Contrast that with the current devastating situation that another politician is facing.  Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler and her husband were joyfully expecting their first child, when they received the horrible news that their unborn child was diagnosed with Potter’s Syndrome, a genetic disorder of the kidneys which leads to low amniotic fluid and atypical lung development for the baby.  If the baby does not die in utero before birth, the baby will die shortly after birth.  Representative Herrera Beutler and her husband courageously asked their supporters to pray for a miracle.

We have turned into a culture that values weakness over strength and cowardice over courage.  In a society that valued strength and courage, women who decided to kill their children because they were “defective” or “inconvenient” would be properly shunned.  Their decision to have an abortion is their admission that they are weak and cowardly.  They possess neither conviction nor strength of character to deal with the consequences of their actions, or to cope with the tragedies that life sometimes hands out.

So, here we have the stories of four children.  Two were murdered by their mothers.  One was murdered because he or she was “inconvenient.”  The child had done nothing; his or her existence was solely due to the parents’ actions.  And yet the parents decided that the child should die to let them continue their life as they saw fit, as in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.”  The other child, a little boy, was murdered because he was not “perfect” and he would have been a “burden.”  I wonder what his twin sister will feel about his death when she is old enough to understand that her parents had her brother “terminated” because he did not measure up to their standards.

The other two children have courageous mothers.  One loved her child enough to give him what she could not – a loving family who was ready and welcoming.  That took more bravery and courage than the average person can understand.  The other mother has courageously chosen to love her child for as long as God will let her keep her baby, knowing that it will most likely only be a few short hours after that child is born.

Character manifests itself in moments of crisis. We all admire leaders who rose to the occasion and faced terrible moments with moral strength and courage.  Which leads me to ask, why does this mob in Texas demanding their right to “choose” so insistent on celebrating their own cowardice?  What is there to admire in those who insist upon their right to kill their own children in the name of their own convenience?