The Future of Abortion in Canada

The year is 2012. 

This past week, i called Ephraim my, "Sugar baby, honey, honey..." and tickled and kissed him till he squealed.  He drooled all over me and waged war with his big brother to find a spot on my lap.  All seven of you kids crowded into my room and snuggled under blankets laughing and talking and making movie watching virtually impossible.  This is the scene in our home these days... a family, in varying degrees of maturity and growth.  We live in the prairie city of Calgary in the wide expanse of land that is the country of Canada. 

Abortion is legal and rampant here.  i understand there are 5000 little lives lost every year at the Kensington abortion clinic that isn't too far from our house.  There are no limits on abortion right now in this land... a baby can be aborted while it is half delivered from its mama's body... There is no protection for the unborn at any stage of pregnancy... Nor is there any protection for the mamas of these little ones (even minors, children themselves), who find themselves facing a crisis.  In a season of vulnerability - they are invited to make a choice that no mother has the right to make. 

Oh, little ones.  i sigh that this is my generation...

But...

For the first time, i see a kind of a light...

i think things are changing....

i do. 

i used to say things like, "Future generations will be shocked at what was legal and government funded in our day..."  Thinking that the day that abortion was no longer acceptable to the general public was far, far in the future...

But i'm starting to change my mind.  i don't think that the change is as far off as i had imagined.  Could it be that my daughters will never take their little ones to pray for an end to abortion outside of the local clinic because abortion will have become something that our nation has rejected?  Could it be that the children born to my grandchildren will be safe from genetic or sexual discrimination - and that there will be an acceptance and a sheltering for all human life - no matter the size, level of dependence or development?  Could it be that classrooms of children will cringe as they look at photos of the killing that took place in the year 2012, and will ask the adult teaching them..."But why didn't anyone stop them.  Weren't people shocked at the injustice?  Wasn't it obvious that it was human life being taken?"  & i wonder what the teacher will answer as they look together at the evidence, the photographic proof that is before them, just like my socials class asked our teacher those same questions while we watched Schindler's List in highschool... We were blind then to the double standard that condemned Hitler's killing spree... and condoned abortion in our own cities. 

Your auntie posted a video to facebook a couple of months ago... a tiny second long movie of her ultrasound... a glimpse of her unborn child around 9 weeks into her pregnancy.  Even i was shocked - mama of 7 and staunch prolifer - at this tiny niece or nephew... waving arms and legs and heart beating wildly in that moment that was captured.  A tiny masterpiece; the workmanship of God Himself.

Seeing life like that... makes me believe that change is inevitable. 

Honestly, little ones, maybe none of us will remember the night i'm writing this. i'm tired, i'm kind of grumpy... i started 3 or 4 blogposts & decided i was such a hopelessly bad writer that i should just quit blogging altogether.  (Dramatic much?) Daddy travels a lot & i miss him & i feel sometimes that there are too many areas of my life where i'm banging my head against a wall... i'm frustrated, a little miserable and kinda defeated - and very much afraid...

But tonight... instead of this current painful place, i'm lifting my chin just a smidge.... i'm fixing my gaze just a tiny bit into the future...

Maybe we will manage to educate you all...

Maybe ephraim will someday sleep in his own bed... (little honey, honey sugar baby...)

Maybe i will learn to make myself understood...

Maybe there will be reconciliation and peace...

One day...

& maybe one day...

One day not too far away - the tide will turn on abortion too...

i hope i get to see it.